onetrack

"Could" is not "will". Future projections are highly variable at the best of times.

When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie....... (it's Amore!) Our local rural AM radio station in the 1960's and early 1970's (6NA) only had this one Dean Martin single, and they played it, ad infinitum, until it was seared into my brain, forever. I reckon they played it at least 100 times a day!

Personally, I think we've only just started in that journey of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. There will be lots more developments as regards battery chemistry, leading to a wide range of newer and better and longer-lasting batteries - and the methods of renewable power generation can only increase, especially when AI is put to work to find where improvements can be made and where new sources of renewable energy can be acquired.

So, does this mean the Great Gilgandra Drought is over? I thought you said previously, you didn't have a rain gauge? Did you go out and buy one? Here on the Left coast, we are due for steady rain from Wednesday afternoon right through to Monday. A strong cold front is coming through the lower part of the State on Wednesday night, and it will be followed by a decent rain-bearing depression with another sizeable cold front, on Sunday.

Hiding in plain sight.

Or the disturbed footings caused the embankment landslip? There must be a lot of steel in that building framework, for it to lay there relatively intact, with big bends in it.

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.

Please come to Boston for the Springtime. First line of a Dave Loggins song. Probably not well enough known here.

Investors buy homes, then keep them empty so they don't have any hassles caused by tenants, nor any decrease in house condition because of tenant wear and tear. There are thousands of empty houses in Australia, all owned by investors who are gloating on the capital increase in value of those homes. Better than money in the bank and all the outgoings are a good old tax deduction. Something has to change, or there will be a revolution - and Labor know it. The other parties think they can keep handing out benefits on a plate to housing investors. And what about the family home being exempt from any taxing at all? Buy a multi-million dollar house, spend more millions making it twice the size (and three times the selling value), stay in it for a year or two, call it your home - sell up and make millions tax-free. There should be a value limit on the family home, and the time living in it needs to be extended. There are dozens of houses around where I live that have all been extended to 7 or 8 bedrooms and 2 stories, and they hold 2-4 people - and the owners are sitting on multi-million dollar capital gains, totally free of virtually any kind of tax. That stinks.

Peter Hollingworth, retired former Anglican archbishop and former Governor General, has passed away, aged 91. Hollingworths later career was dogged by accusations he did nothing to prevent pedophiles from operating within the Anglican Church. He admitted that he was poorly prepared to deal with the problem, and thus did nothing about it. He was personally picked for the G.G. job by John Howard in 2001 - which smacks of a "job for a mate" to me - but Hollingworth resigned from the G.G. position in 2003 as the protests about his lack of dealing with the Anglican Church pedophiles, became louder and louder. He only resigned his Anglican priest status in 2023, officially to "end distress" for Anglican church abuse survivors. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-19/former-governor-general-peter-hollingworth-dies/106554086

So ... OME, did you get that drought-breaking rain? I see where Coonabrabran got 43mm, Dubbo got 30mm, and Nyngan got 50mm, so you must have had a decent downpour, at the very least?