onetrack

I think OME meant to write "sycophantic".

"Cockpit" is too gender specific, and totally alpha male-oriented. I'd suggest, in this enlightened gender fluidity age, we need to develop a far more inclusive word for the driving position. However, I'm struggling to find the most acceptable word. "LGBTQIAPIT" doesn't seem to quite fit the requirement.

The biggest problem with Trump being re-elected, is that it enable a whole bunch of rabid right wing fundamentalists to get promoted into positions of power, merely by licking Trumps arse and getting his approval. I can see the U.S. Courts becoming clogged with cases examining the true meaning and breadth of the word "official" when it comes to Trumps orders. As he will hold absolute power when re-elected, he will claim anything he chooses to do or order is an "official" act.

Just an error correction above - the project is called Sun Cable, not Sun Power.

Mike Cannon Brookes and his company Grok Ventures, are backing the Sun Power solar generation and power cable project to deliver major electrical power to Darwin and then to Singapore via Indonesia, from a huge solar farm in the upper NT. However, I think he's dreaming, if he thinks he can shove huge power levels through a 4,300km long cable to Singapore. He's relying on new and improved technology to provide a better power transmission rate, but you can't get around physics laws - and also the problems of running a massive electrical cable through the massively unstable Ring of Fire geographic zone. Twiggy Forrest has already baled out of the project, so if even the greatest corporate optimist and general corporate BS-artist can't see a way ahead with the project, then I'd consider it's a dead loss. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/07/sun-cable-mike-cannon-brookes-takes-charge-of-world-changing-solar-project

Never heard of any rodent damage in any aircraft in my limited experience - but I have had numerous experiences with rodent damage in parked vehicles. The machine usually needs to be parked for some time before rodents move in - although I've heard the Outback Qld rats will move in overnight, looking for warmth. Aircraft parked in an open area would be low risk, rodents like some cover to move around. Hangars that are not sealed would be a potential rodent risk, and baits and traps are necessary in all rural buildings. Back to the EV dilemmas. If you feel you need to "try before you buy", then an entrepreneurial bloke has started up an EV rental business, where you can hire an EV for a minimum of a month, to see if it fits your transport requirements, and to find out any hidden drawbacks that EV's have, that might make you regret lashing out and purchasing one. The plummeting resale value of EV's is one reason I wouldn't buy one at present, but I guess that is going to become a stabilising factor eventually, as the resale values bottom out and buyers become willing to risk an investment in a used EV. The coming flood of Chinese EV's is going to reset the EV market in a big way, and potentially increase the % of EV's on our roads as many purchasers go for the cheap Chinese offerings - as they always do, when the Chinese products flood into any particular market. Carly - hire an EV - https://www.carly.co/evtrial

Stepdaughters Subaru Forester has an electric handbrake, and it's a PIA. Most electric handbrakes have special instructions on how to use them for emergency stopping. Some of them, you have to hold the button in at speed to keep them actuated for emergency braking. Others have specific model instructions. Electronic park brakes have advanced substantially in design, just in the last 15 years - most park brake designs today have electric motors operating the park brake system directly. Of course, because CANBUS networks now totally rule all the vehicles electrics and electronics, the park brake has now become integrated into the CANBUS network, and all the designated electronic parameters have be in place, before they work! You now need an OBD reader (On-Board Diagnostics) to find the DTC's (Diagnostic Trouble Codes) for the handbrake! https://www.vehicleservicepros.com/service-repair/the-garage/article/21177205/unlock-the-secrets-of-electronic-parking-brakes https://www.vehicleservicepros.com/service-repair/undercar/article/21290213/push-button-parking-electronic-parking-brake-operation-and-diagnosis

There are way too many sensors and "driver aids" on todays cars, and it's "dumbing down" the average driver, with many people today not even having enough driving skills to know whether their headlights are on at night, or not. The number of drivers I see who have no idea what lights they have on (or don't have on), at night time, in urban areas, is astounding.

The NBN itself was an excellent investment and has proved very reliable where it was properly installed (Fibre to the Premises - FTTP, or Fibre to the Curb - FTTC). But a lot of the NBN installation effort was half-arsed, with the "Fibre to the Node" (FTTN) decision by the Liberals. This ensured that the benefits of fibre were lost, as a large chunk of the signal transmission was retained on an aging copper network, between homes and the Nodes. I'm on FTTC and the optic fibre cable runs along the footpath past my house, and I only have copper between the house and the footpath. I'd really like to go FTTP, but it's not a priority for me at present, as my FTTC service is excellent, and has provided 99.9999% reliability for the 4 or 5 years it's been in.

There is an increasing clamour for the return of knobs and switches to cars, instead of "touch screen everything" controls. There's two reasons for this clamour. Familiar knob and switch placement is in our collective driving memory skills. Having to look for a spot on a screen to tap to operate a certain car function (lights, wipers, heating and cooling, etc, etc) is a distracting and time-consuming and dangerous nuisance. And when your screen goes blank with an electronic failure, what do you do then, for vehicle controls? - and what kind of huge cost are you going to be up for, for a whole new screen assembly and installation? This kind of electronic crap has about half the lifespan of normal switches and buttons and controls, so it's a valid argument, IMO.

The sign left out pork bellies, pork chops, pork spare ribs, ham, pork sausages, bacon, crackling, pork fat flavoured products .....

The statement that "all men are born equal" is a crock of sh**. What it should be, is, "all men should have equal opportunity" (to better themselves, or to become leaders). Many people fail to progress to the heights they could reach because of their family financial position, skin colour, religion, or other "looked down on" attributes. No-one is equal to anyone else at birth, we all have different natures, attributes, inborn skills, and education/skills potential - all it takes, is being positioned to take advantage of education and training to progress. You only have to see what some downtrodden people have achieved, when they fall under the protective umbrella of someone rich and well-connected. And the fact that highly ambitious people become our leaders is a constant failing of our societies. Some of our best leaders only fell into leadership positions by chance, and they were often reluctant to take up those positions - but when they did, they excelled.

I was under the impression that drilling to the great depths required to access the hot rocks is currently very difficult and costly, due to the drilling equipment not being capable enough, as regards heat resistance, and I also guess, the torque levels required. To that end, some clever Americans are experimenting with using what essentially amounts to miniature microwaves on drill heads to vaporise the rock at extreme depths, so they can get substantially deeper into the Earths crust, and access the rock that is at high temperature, for geo-thermal power. They seem convinced they can make it work and turn it into a commercial reality. The process has great potential to reduce drilling costs to low levels, as compared to current rotary bit drilling technology. I must say I'm surprised that places with major volcanic activity, and lava flows close to the surface, aren't investing in more geo-thermal power. https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/quaise-geothermal-energy-drilling-gyrotron/

A Hybrid is not properly classed as an EV, because it still relies largely on fossil fuel for power. Hybrid batteries are relatively small, they've only got a few kms range without running the petrol engine - and if you want to do highway speeds, you're running primarily on the petrol engine. The manufacturers push Hybrids because they can claim unrealistically low fuel consumption figures, all based on low speed city operation. If you do any amount of driving on freeways or rural highways, you won't notice much reduction in fuel use with a Hybrid.

MS is standardising low-energy settings into its software. I recently advanced to MS Windows 11 and I was surprised to find how quickly W11 shuts down my screen and turns the computer into sleep mode, within minutes of me leaving the desktop running, while I go do some other task. I actually find it quite annoying, because it takes an excessive amount of time to get the computer screen back, and then I find I have to log in again.

The move to use molten salts (there are several varieties being tried - lithium, sodium and fluorine salts) means that reactors can operate at much higher temperatures than water-cooled reactors, and the additional heat carried by the salt can produce a larger level of useable heat energy to produce power. In addition, molten salt reactors are experimenting with different radioactive fuel types to try and improve performance and safety, and to lower construction costs. I'm a fence sitter as regards nuclear power systems, but the problem as regards renewables is that they will likely never be able to make up 100% of our power generation base, so having affordable nuclear as part of the grid, with rapid response ability to suddenly changing loads, is certainly a promising idea. The major drawback is much of this new nuclear technology is still in the testing phases and it could be a decade before we see any advances in nuclear power plant technology. I personally feel geothermal power should be pursued as an additional energy source. We're sitting on trillions of tonnes of molten and liquid rock, we only need to find the way to drill down and harness that massive energy source. The simple block to more geothermal power is the major cost of it. But once harnessed, geothermal power is free and non-polluting forever, the same as solar energy. https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/17/1086736/how-hot-salt-could-transform-nuclear-power/

The blue background on the Toyota vehicle emblems indicates a Hybrid Toyota.

Hitchin is a land-bound market town - Gateshead, Whitby and Sidmouth are all coastal towns.

10 kms!

I personally think Jerry should preface his postings with warnings, the way that news articles do - you know, "5 minute read". In Jerrys case, one never knows whether it's going to be a "25 minute read", or a ".05 second" read.

I actually got a personal call from my GP at 5:20PM yesterday afternoon! I did a blood test earlier in the week, and the sample was split as I had 3 referrals, two from my GP and one from my urologist. The GP wanted a general blood test to check on how I'm going in the areas of circulatory health, and the urologist wanted a test for PSA, as I have an appointment with him in a month. The GP called me because he'd sighted all the test results and my PSA has gone up substantially since the last test, last year. He was checking to see if I was seeing my urologist soon! I advised him that was the case, and no doubt I'll find out a lot more when I visit the urologist. I reckon he's itching to take to my prostate with his fancy snipping devices - he told me last time I have a benign tumour that we need to watch, but it appears it might be starting to really act up.

Has anyone ever thought to warn firefighters approaching a car on fire, that every IC-engine car is a massive bomb just waiting to explode? I read once where the energy contained in a tankful of petrol vapour is enough to flatten a building!

A man of few words.

"Cheap" can never be used in the same sentence as "military purchases", as all military purchases are open slather for military-industrial complex suppliers. I can recall one little Scottish bloke who was in my employment for some time, telling me about when he worked for an aviation instrument supplier (in a lowly position), he was stunned to find that gauges that cost the company "around 14 quid" were sold to the likes of the Indian Air Force for a thousand pounds! The U.S. military end user list is comprehensive and states precisely what can be, and what cannot be disposed of, in what manner, and to whom. The Americans don't even want potential "bad actors" to be able to pick up a piece of Hornet scrap metal, and be able to analyse the constituents of that particular alloy - so even scrapping the Hornets and sending them off to Simsmetal is off the radar, in case some NK engineer working in a scrapyard in China spots a piece of a Hornet, and ensures it goes home to be analysed.

Bill Gates has a company called Terrapower, and they are in Joint Venture with a range of powerful and experienced companies such as GE, Hitachi and Bechtel to build a new style of nuclear reactor they've named the Natrium Reactor. The Natrium Reactor is Terrapowers answer in the Small Modular Reactor design - and it uses molten salt for cooling, rather than water. Terrapower is building a demonstration Natrium Reactor in Wyoming, and hope to make it into a fully-functional power plant after its built and tested. They claim the Natrium Reactor can be built in 3 years, only uses 1/3rd of the construction material of a Light Water Reactor, is 1/3rd the cost of an LWR, and it's good for an 80 year lifespan. Terrapower are not the only ones racing to build viable SMR's, there are many operators around the world vying for a moderate-cost, safe, and effective SMR. Terrapower claim their system separates the components into a nuclear stand-alone section, and a heat-and-energy generating, stand-alone section - and that the reactor is a rapid-response energy arrangement, that is eminently suitable to operate in conjunction with renewable energy sources. The design is reported to be safer as it is not pressurised like a LWR, and the separation of the nuclear section from the heat and energy section, substantially increases the safety angle. https://www.constructionbriefing.com/news/bill-gates-energy-company-breaks-ground-on-next-generation-nuclear-plant-in-wyoming/8037679.article https://www.terrapower.com/natrium/ https://www.terrapower.com/downloads/Natrium_Technology.pdf