onetrack

H. The letter relates to the number, in words. The letter equates to its position in the word for the number. Very cunning.

The problem with rare-earth elements is the dreadfully toxic and extensive processes involved in extracting those elements. They consume huge amounts of energy in the extraction processes, utilise multiple toxic chemicals in the process, and produce multiple levels of toxins and pollution when doing so. Plus, a by-product of the rare earths extraction treatment is radioactive compounds. All this, to get the necessary elements to produce "green" end products?

That's the problem with very large houses, the sheer cost of trying to keep them warm inside. I hate to think what it must be like, to live in an English castle in Winter.

Oh Yes! - It must be great, being able to sit on a steady 80 knots! - in your 60 foot cruiser!! Just need a few oil wells on the home farm, and a following fuel tanker, to keep them fed!!

There's a lot of angry people out there, spouting foamy-mouthed visceral hatred. The disease starts with extreme right-wingers and Nazis, and goes right through to "Aboriginal activists", to radical Muslims spouting anti-semitism. I trust the new legislation captures them all, not just the anti-semitism promoters. "Aboriginal activists" are amongst some of the worst spouters of racist, foamy-mouthed, visceral hatred.

I didn't realise for years, how there was a corporate term, "captive customer". It means they sell you something that contains components or contents that are only available from their company, so you have no option but to keep going back to that company for parts, service or support.

The article about Chinese robots, in the link below is interesting, and the comments, which are mostly from Americans, are just as interesting. https://electrek.co/2026/01/21/humanoid-robots-build-a-new-excavator-every-6-minutes-right-now/

It would be good to have a public expose (a Royal Commission?) into the modus operandi, techniques and motivation behind the global tech giants design of their sites. Virtually all of their designs and operating principles rely greatly on subtle psychology and human behaviour patterns, to constantly feed their need to capture permanent "clients" for their advertisers. They rely on making people feel "wanted" and "attractive", and to want to belong to an important ruling group, with whom they can identify. And their power is highly addictive.

Large parts of America were founded by Puritans - and the definition of a Puritan is someone who believes, that someone else, somewhere, is having fun, and that must be stopped.

It's impossible to separate Americans from Money and God, in that order. They will make out they worship an omnipotent God, but the Almighty Dollar is what they really worship - along with The Gun, of course. And they believe God gave them both to the Americans, so Americans could be the dominant culture in the world, subjugating any nation they decide they want under their control. Then they regularly espouse the American "Freedom" mantra - which of course, means, to have American Freedom, you have to worship Money, Guns, and God, in that order. Of course, lawyers receive a great deal of worship and adulation in the American System, too. Especially when they transfer mind-boggling sums of American dollars to the plaintiffs.

Slovakia has been a major manufacturing centre for many years, from the early 2000's. The Slovak Govt introduced tax incentives for businesses to relocate there. The country has a simplified flat rate tax system. The Slovak people are good workers. The country has a major steel industry, that was inherited from the Communist era. The Danube forms the Western third of their border with Hungary, and is a substantial transportation route - and it also brings lots of tourists to the country, which is very scenic. The Slovak rail system is modernised, and links with the rest of Europe. The country is well placed in amongst many other European nations with whom it trades, and it is part of the EU. All in all, it is a very favourable place to manufacture. Meantimes, Australia is placed in the most isolated and Southerly part of the globe, well away from any potential trade neighbours. Our tax system is complex and fragmented. Our rail system is poor. Our highway system is fairly good, but trucking is expensive as compared to rail, even with the use of road trains. Our workforce declines to work in factories, so trying to find lowly factory workers is difficult. Every Australian aspires to be a major property investor, and to find highly-paid managerial-style jobs. We are last on a long list of requirements to be a major manufacturing economy. We dig up lots of valuable minerals, and sell them to the rest of the world, that is our forte. We also bring in a serious level of money via the education system, which, while not as strong as it was pre-pandemic, still carries out a major level of quality education to the nations in Asia and the Subcontinent.

The Chinese have invested hundreds of billions into solar panel manufacturing, just to ensure they control the solar panel market. The word is, few Chinese solar panel manufacturers are profitable, they are only existing on Chinese Govt support. I don't know where they go from here, the only real solution is an increase in solar panel prices - or refining manufacturing techniques to try and reduce costs. https://www.pv-tech.org/chinas-top-four-solar-manufacturers-suffer-1-54-billion-losses-h1-2025/

Clint Walker aged exceptionally well, and many people commented on how handsome he still looked in his 80's. This is a photo of him in his late 80's. He died at age 90.

I still stand by my opinion, it's not Clint Walker, nor any other famous actor. It's an AI-modified face, designed to suck people into those dozens and dozens of crappy YouTube videos, that all start with, "He hated XXXXXX, and now you know why!!!" The problem is, the "hate" is all fabricated, and much of those videos is fabricated information, all designed to get clicks and likes and subscriptions, so they can make a fortune peddling largely untruthful rubbish.

It must be a grumpy old man thing.