onetrack

Maggie Tabberer has died, just 5 days short of her 88th birthday. https://www.watoday.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/australia-s-first-supermodel-maggie-tabberer-dies-at-87-20241206-p5kwfq.html

You always wanted a dog that could compose music? That'd be nothing short of amazing!

We all have a part to play in training others, and handing on our gathered skills. It's when you get genuine appreciation for your effort that makes it all worthwhile. Hardly anyone stays in the same position for their entire life, we all feel the need to progress.

Yes, I did use geometry a lot when earthmoving. Used it to calculate cut to fill volumes, the amount of excavated dirt from a dam (the formula is the one for a truncated pyramid), calculate flood drainage levels and fall, volume of rainfall runoff for a given area, roadworks (slopes and grades). I recently pulled out some of my high school books and came across a pad full of my technical drawings and was surprised to see how good they were, and how comprehensive. Plans, elevations and perspective views, I did the lot! But I never did use it again after I left school, mores the pity. I need to drag out all that old schoolwork and books, now that I'm in the process of building a shed!

Peter, if it was your daughter regularly being grabbed on the pussy, would you still regard it as a minor offence, not worth following up? Sexual predators keep up their personal attacks, it's not usually just a one-off grab. Constant unwanted sexual advances can be very soul-destroying to many people who didn't ask for or insinuate they'd welcome sexual advances.

I was a bit surprised at the number of varieties of geckoes and skinks we have here in W.A. We often uncover the Marbled Gecko in the garden, they love hiding under leaf litter and fractures in tree bark. But the bloody crows make a regular effort to get the geckoes by sitting in our Jacaranda tree and ripping off chunks of bark to find the geckoes and eat them. SWMBO gets really annoyed about them doing this, she love the geckoes - the crows make a mess, too. We found we had to be careful setting jar-type traps for fruit flies in the citrus trees, especially the Mandarin tree. The geckoes love fruit flies and climb into the fruit fly jar traps, and can't get out, and drown in them. So we have to check the traps regularly and release any trapped geckoes. https://quollingaround.com/2018/06/11/dragons-and-devils-southwest-reptiles/

There's a reason why America is the Land of the Preppers - idiots who believe firmly in an Apocalypse that threatens human life on Earth. The bottom line is, nothing this planet has thrown at us in the last umpteen millenia has done anything to reduce the numbers of humans in the long term. There were short-term reductions in population, but we're the equivalent of the rats and cockroaches on this Earth. It's sad seeing the stupid lengths that idiotic preppers go to, to "survive the coming Apocalypse", when nothing like they envisage is going to happen. Here's a local explorers video, where he explores an underground survival bunker installed near Salmon Gums in W.A. It was built in the early 1980's by a South African fool, so Americans aren't alone in their prepper idiocy. Incredibly, he apparently built an identical setup in South Africa, no doubt in a remote region. At Salmon Gums, he also built a 10 bedroom house, which is now abandoned. The waste of millions of dollars is incredible - all for a non-event.

I like reading the ABC news, it's free, doesn't require a subscription that once you pay for, you find you're struggling to cancel it - and the bulk of their articles are newsworthy and reasonably accurate. Yes, they support minorities and other colours beside white, but I can live with that, and I can ignore the articles about minorities in which I have no interest. Meantimes, the privately owned media is full of ads, clickbait headlines, generally useless entertainment crap, and they want you to pay to look at it!! Never in a million years!!!

Big goannas are utterly fearless of humans. We once found a 2.2M goanna walking through our small orchard next to the house in the wheatbelt. Approaching him made him stand up on his legs to make himself look more fearsome - and if you walked behind him, he would swish his tail sideways at terrific speed, trying to knock you over and eat you. The brother finally grabbed him by his tail and held him up for a photo, and he swung himself back and latched onto his boot with a bite like a croc. Once we got the photo, he put him down - but he wouldn't run away, he just stood there huffing and hissing, and raised up on his legs, and he finally decided he'd walk away slowly in his own time. They're fearsomely fast when killing snakes.

No, no, no - BMW stands for "Bring Many Wrenches!"

It's alright Spacey, we all spend a fair bit of time on your posts, trying to figure out if you're making sense! 😄

You're going to have to be a transvestite, or transgender, or one of the Alphabet people, to buy a Jaguar in the future.

Ronald Reagan made all Americans feel more wealthy by borrowing to the hilt and increasing the U.S. Govt debt to astronomical levels, that no President since has ever been able to reduce. Donald Trump is going to do the same thing - wreck the U.S. economy for the next incoming President and the dozen Presidents after that - all the while bragging about the wondrous things he's done for the American people. If vastly increased tariffs, major job losses, mass deportations, and vastly increased prices for everything from fuel to food, means Making America Great Again, then yes, it will be great for the money lenders, financial products gamblers, and the stock market shorters.

We're all survivors, Nev. I've outlived a lot of people I knew, worked for, worked with, and associated with, that I thought would've lived a lot longer.

We should all chip in and get Spacey a T shirt that reads, "JAGOM" ("Just Another Grumpy Old Man").

The ABC News format is nowhere near as good as it was previously - but this is common with website "revamps", they're done by geeks who have little understanding of what makes a readable webpage.

You might all like to count up the number of outright criminals that Trump has pardoned - and will continue to pardon on an industrial scale, as long as they continue to support him - and compare that figure, with just ONE pardon that Joe Biden has issued for his wayward son. The scary part is, many of those convicted outright criminals pardoned by Trump will now serve in important positions in the incoming Trump presidency - unless they turned on him, of course, in which case, they'll probably be sent back to jail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kushner

It's the religion of gibberish - speaking in tongues. They claim it's a sign of spirituality, but if no-one else can understand your gibberish, what's the point of it? I think Pentecostals draw in a lot of people who like grandstanding and developing highly emotional states. Falling down, trances, and uttering gibberish can all be faked. It's not for me.

Jerry, a random orbital sander is totally inadequate for floor sanding - you need a commercial/industrial floor sander, a real sanding beast that has the ability to cover a big area relatively rapidly, and which can deal with hardwood floors. https://www.lagler.co.uk/lagler-machines/ https://www.hss.com/hire/p/floor-sander-240v In our family business, we developed a "project policy" long ago, that seemed to be appropriate. It was "double the number, and go to the next highest unit", when commencing projects. So ... a simple repair job, that looks like ten minutes work, usually develops into twenty hours of hard slog as the previously unseen problems develop. A job that should take two hours, often runs in to four days, when the snafus are allowed for. You get my drift? I'm helping a fencing associate at present. He gets a job installing handrails, on three sets of steps, at a new school. He says to me on Thursday, "I've got this job installing these handrails and posts at a school. They want it done pronto, and finished tomorrow (that was last Friday). Do you want to give me a hand for a quick grand? We can knock this over in a day, no worries!" So, like a mug, I agree - mostly because the school is only about 30kms from home, and an easy drive. I get to the school site early Friday morning - then spend three-quarters of an hour figuring out what goes where, in a complex assortment of pipes, posts, brackets, screws and rivets. Then we have to study the plans (marked Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 - but no information on how the step numbering was done. All the steps and railings are slightly different in dimensions, so we have to measure the steps to figure out the numbering system. Then we have to find water and power. But the power points are locked, and then we have to find who has the keys to the power points. Then, more work dragging in tools, hoses, power cables, and all the posts and railings. They're also, all bloody heavy! Then my mate pulls out his big core drill - and promptly realises, the diamond core drill he's got fitted to the drill is too big for the post holes, at 150mm diameter. He needs an 80mm core drill, so he races off to buy one. I go on with handrail assembly, plan reading and measuring and marking, until he gets back. We get fired up with the new core drill, and within minutes (he's drilling into terrazzo concrete!), he finds that this stuff is HARD as the hobs of Hell!! (we're using constant water feed, too). He's a solid build, my associate, but he takes over 45 minutes to drill just ONE post hole! - not helped by the fact that there's 6mm reinforcing bar in the concrete! We get 3 holes done by midday (there's 12 to be done in total), and next thing, the new core drill fractures, and two big chunks break off the teeth!! It's buggered!! He has to go back to the drill store, and buy another one - a higher cost, better quality core drill! - which he should've done in the first place! He gets back with a new drill after another hour, and on we go with drilling. Of course, by knock off time (3:30PM), we've only done 6 holes (half the total) and only got 4 posts grouted in!! It means we have to go back tomorrow to finish the job - and I reckon it will take all of Monday to finish the job - provided no other snafus raise their ugly heads!! So, gain some comfort from the fact you're not alone in the accumulating problems of construction and building jobs! (NOTE: - Re sanding sawdust - be aware that you should be wearing a good quality mask when sanding, as the fine sawdust from numerous wood types can be toxic, and potentially cause breathing and lung problems if ingested).

From my memories of talking to a lot of WW2 Veterans (a lot of my farmer clients in the 1960's and 1970's were Veterans, and many were front-line Middle East soldiers), they all told me the Italians never had a great deal of enthusiasm when it came to fighting. A few did, but the majority were pretty ambivalent about supporting Hitler and Il Duce - and when it came to deadly battle, many were quite prepared to raise the white flag, knowing full well they would be well treated by the Allies. Quite a few farmers told me how it wasn't unusual to see half a dozen Aussie soldiers in charge of a few hundred Italian POW's, they were easily controlled and posed little risk of launching an attack to get away from capture. Once captured, the farmers always mentioned how the "Eye-ties" were willing workers at even menial tasks, and numbers were happy to become cooks and labourers, thus making life easier for the Australians. However, feeding huge numbers of POW's in North Africa was a major problem for the Allies, and all the POW's were underfed. As a result, the decision was made to ship suitable POW's to Australia to assist with labour shortages. Sizeable numbers of Italian POW's were sent to W.A. to provide labour for farming and timber milling industries, and many enjoyed life in Western Australia - to the point that they returned after WW2 and settled here, with numbers of them becoming very wealthy in farming, and other business ventures. Nearly all the Italian POW's said they enjoyed often being treated as family members when working on farms - and they all said they couldn't believe the ready availability of food in Australia. Even in Italy, most of the Italian population starved during WW2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-10/pietro-verazzi-was-sent-to-mount-barker-as-a-prisoner-of-war/104220964

Definitely some real black humour in that last one, Clinton! 🙂

You'll be right, Jerry - Pete's place must be about 4 hrs drive from Hobart, over Tasmanian dog-leggy roads, and in dreadful weather! He'd probably have to turn back every second attempt to meet up!! 😄

My birth certificate only lists the suburb I was born in, which is some 7kms away from where my parents lived. My parents (English and Scottish) birth certificates only list the town or village they were born in. What I found amusing was my Mum and Dads marriage certificate lists Mums birthplace as Lahore - which is in Pakistan, in the Punjab. But she was actually born in a little Scottish village named Lochore - which got its name from a nearby Lake - "Loch Ore". However, the Scottish pronunciation of Lochore is "La-hore"! Obviously, the registrar didn't clarify the birthplace information!

And Meta care not one iota about scammers, because the owner is pretty much a scammer himself, stealing peoples data without telling them, and selling their personal information as well. I've lost count of the number of scams and scammers I've reported to FB moderators, and each time the answer comes back - "We've investigated your report and see no reason to remove this item or profile". Even though the scammer clearly has stolen photos and stupid prices on sought-after items, and photos that do not even represent the location where the item is supposed to be located. I had a ripper the other day, he had a 20 foot sea container for sale, for $1900, listed in Perth, W.A. The price is around $500 less than the going rate. I noted the photos background bore no resemblance to any Australian vegetation or buildings. But I messaged him anyway and asked for the address. Surprisingly, he came back with a local address. I'll wager he stole the details off a real estate site. I checked the address with Google Maps and Google Street View and got a good handle on the house and yard area - which wasn't anything like the sellers photos - and there was little room to store a container on the property, and even less room to get one in there. So I asked him how I could get the container out. Could I get a tilt tray in there, or would I need a crane? He came back with the answer, "You'll need a crane". But I knew it was impossible to get a crane in there, due to poor access and excessive levels of heavy vegetation. Next thing, I get a message, "I have a huge amount of interest in this container, so if you want it, you need to put down a deposit urgently!" Yeah, right, I bet you want money before anyone does an actual inspection!! I told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his scam behaviour, and reported him to FB. To my surprise, someone in FB was actually doing their job, as the ad and the scammer were promptly deleted - an all-time record for FB.