onetrack

It's good to see Jerry back and posting. It's that darned AI that has been keeping him away from the forum.

Have you seen the size of the foundations in high rise buildings, and done any rough calculations on the tonnage in those foundations? They are huge. The primary aim of high rise foundation calculations is determining the soil type and stability. Any unstable soils require lengthy pilings. The Chinese have made some serious errors in soil stability calculations for a number of their high rise buildings.

From MSN news - QUOTE: "Something unsettling is happening with AI robot dogs - and experts are worried. Scientists and engineers developing AI-powered robot dogs are creating machines that appear increasingly autonomous, adaptive, and unpredictable. The deeper researchers push artificial intelligence into robotic systems, the more unsettling the technology begins to feel. Advanced movement, decision-making systems, and environmental awareness are allowing robot dogs to operate in ways that once seemed impossible. Some experts are now questioning how far autonomous robotics should evolve before the risks become difficult to control. And the rapid advancement of AI robot dogs is beginning to raise serious concerns about the future of intelligent machines....." (the video is 33 mins, so you may prefer to watch it when you have that available time) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/something-unsettling-is-happening-with-ai-robot-dogs-and-experts-are-worried

It's standard U.S. armed forces and police techniques to let loose with multiple magazines just in the general direction of the threat, with the hope that something hits the offender. It's not helped by the fact that most short-barrelled pistols and revolvers aren't particularly accurate after about 25 to 30 metres - and even more so if you're moving, trying to find cover.

I notice Jerry hasn't posted in over a month, with a sudden end to his postings a few days before Anzac Day. I also see he looks in every day, but doesn't post anything. What has happened to our normally voluble contributor? Has he been threatened with zero computer access, if he continues to spend too much time on this forum? Did his managers find some of his posts and warn him his postings may soon result in job termination? Even worse, did Trumps active MAGA gorillas track him down, and threaten him with extradition to the U.S., with added corporal punishment? Or was it Hamas operatives that found his pro-Israel postings, and put out a Fatwa on him?? Or is it just a self-imposed computer-and-forum-time restriction, that keeps him from adding his regular 2 cents daily?? Inquiring minds need to know - and we especially need to know if he's not running in fear, looking over his shoulder, since he noticed the surveillance and tracking! 😄

Larrikinism was rife amongst the Diggers, in both WW1 and WW2. The WW2 army magazine, "Salt" provides a good insight into the WW2 outlook and vernacular - but it never published unacceptable swear words. Everything in it was sanitised and censored for "general use". I think I've got every copy of the Salt magazine, it provides some interesting reading.

The line was related to me in 1970 in South Vietnam, by a fellow soldier. He told me it was a story retold to him by a WW2 POW veteran. The Japanese camp commandant had lined up all the Aussies and was berating them in his best Japinglish. He was told by the POW that the commandant came out with, "You Ostalians think Japanese stupid. You think Japanese know f**k-nothing! We soon show you, that Japanese know f**k-all!!" Of course, the Australian POW's apparently broke out in fits of laughter, which only made the little Jap officer go apoplectic, and scream more abuse at them, and told guards to hand out beatings. So the basic line goes back a long way, but I wouldn't imagine much more before WW2, as the F-word wasn't used a great deal back then, and it was regarded as a particularly vile word in the 1920's and 1930's. This article on the origins of the F-word is quite interesting. The word has been in use for centuries, but almost never in publications, as it was deemed obscene when in print. https://bigthink.com/the-past/history-of-the-f-word/

An old Slav prospector I knew used to say "I'm doubt", whenever he should have said, "I doubt it".

I still don't understand why wind turbines only last 20 years when turbine power stations last 50 or 60 years. There must be some way to extend their life. Each wind turbine is a massive investment and the foundations are huge and costly, but it's all scrapped in 20 years? This is idiocy to me.

Keating spent years talking up the sale of the CBA, it was his baby, all the way. The champagne glasses are still clinking in the boardrooms of the private banks over their "coup" in getting rid of the CBA - the only bastion still in place to stop private banks from making excessive profits. I have seen an article about how much this banking greed cost all everyday Australians.

Batchelor party.

I tawt I taw a puddy tat.

Sorry Nev, your memory is faulty today. It was Paul Keating who sold off the Commonwealth Bank - largely to the other big Australian private banks. QUOTE: The Commonwealth Bank was privatised in stages under the Labor government of Prime Minister Paul Keating. The sell-off process occurred in three tranches: 1991: The Keating government floated the initial 30% of the bank's shares to the public. 1993: The government sold another tranche, reducing its stake to just over 50%. 1996: The remaining government shareholding was fully sold off to investors, completing the privatisation.

And the ticky-tacky little boxes have come about via property investor greed that has pushed house prices up 700% in 3 decades. That's unsustainable, and is setting the country up for a majpr recession, perhaps even a Depression. House prices go up 3% annually over the long-term, normally. Only in the last 3 decades has this outlandish property pricing occurred - so we need to look at what has driven that - and it's the taxation system generously favouring property investors. So Labor is now trying to address that major imbalance.

"Two all-beef patties". The first line of the original MacDonalds advertising jingle for their Big Mac. The whole line is, "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun". Just makes you wonder what the other choice was, besides an "all beef" pattie? An "All roadkill pattie"? A pattie with only 5% beef and the remainder, all mystery ingredients? I reckon I've eaten a few pies that met the last description.