onetrack

It's called the U.S. Military End-User List. It's a massive legal agreement you must sign whenever you purchase ANY U.S. military equipment - new or USED. I've got copies of it, I've had to sign it for the purchase of used, ex-U.S. military equipment (forklifts and diesel engines) that are really only civilian-use equipment - but the U.S. military still deems it all as military support equipment. It is a frighteningly comprehensive agreement that means if you disobey it, the black helicopters will appear over your house, and you'll disappear to some place like Guantanamo. The document even states you must notify the U.S. military of the details of new owners, when you on-sell the used equipment! However, I did on-sell some of the equipment and the black helicopters haven't appeared over my house yet. I guess that was because they know it hasn't left Australia. https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-parties-of-concern/1770

Who is this new Marty prophet, who speaketh like an atheist??

A postbox always has more letters in it, than a single envelope!

The items being packaged are all neat shapes and have no projections or areas that need extra protection. I'd like to see the machinery operate with some awkward shaped items with sections that can be easily damaged. You need extra padding protection for sharp edges and delicate sections of goods. I've been selling on eBay for nearly 25 years and I know I spend a heap of time figuring out the best way to pack and protect items so they can arrive undamaged after long trips where they've been used as footballs by the rock apes in the parcel handling industry. One of my greatest efforts involved sending a Komatsu front end loader air conditioning condensor to an American buyer, from Perth to the Turks and Caicos Islands! You all probably realise just how delicate A/C condensors are - but the condensor arrived in perfect condition, thanks to my careful packaging. What I found amazing was the route the condensor took! It went Perth-Singapore-Shenzhen-Anchorage, Alaska - Kansas City - Miami - Turks & Caicos!

Unfortunately, there is one simple, over-riding fact, weighing on American voters at present. Joe is "past it", it's that simple. He's become decrepit, and it's time for him to pull the pin. But, as with so many leaders, they fail to understand when their time is over, and continue to hold on to the power they love to exert. What is worse, in Joes case, he picked a VP that is unelectable, a disliked and incompetent VP who has little leadership ability, who was only picked because she fitted the "coloured" mold. It's time for the Democrats to make a major U-turn and recognise that they're on the path to major vote losses, and ditch Joe, and bring in someone like Gretchen Wittmer, who really has shown true leadership ability. But the namby-pamby power brokers running the Democrats are all dead scared of being the one that pulls out the revolver, and gives Joe a merciful shot, and puts him down - for his own sake, the sake of his family, the sake of his Party, and for the sake of America. Trump is going to walk in the Presidency at the rate things are going, and that's not a scenario that the majority of the world wants to see. The next Trump Presidency will see a rise in vicious, abusive retaliation from Trump, as he ignores democratic principles and establishes himself as a truly evil Fascist, with every one of his decisions designed to be twisted, centralised, self serving decisions, helped by appointed lackeys in all the critical Governmental areas.

I can recall purchasing a Lotto numbers scheme in the early 1990's from a bloke in Qld, who obviously genuinely believed he'd calculated a system that worked to improve your chances of winning. Sadly, despite paying for his "foolproof" system for quite some time (I STR it was over 12 mths), I never really made any decent lotto gains with it, and gave it up for random ticket purchases. I must say I'm quite amazed at the number of people who have had multiple sizeable Lotto wins. Either they purchase a LOT of tickets, or they're just plain lucky. I've been buying Lotto tickets for around 40 years, usually at least 3 times a week, and the biggest wins I've had, was one win of $120 in 1991, and one win of $350 in 2009. I did win $1000 worth of new steel from a steel supplier, in a steel fabrication competition in 2013, where you had to provide photos of something you'd fabricated from steel. I built a neat mobile steel bench out of RHS offcuts, and my offering was the prizewinner! And in 2005, I won a new bicycle in a local street carnival raffle. The bike was valued at $275. But I hadn't long bought a new bike, so SWMBO became the beneficiary of the win!

My late stepfather used to wisecrack about his family tree - "I paid $2000 to uncover my family tree! Then I had to pay $10,000 to cover it up!!"

I often wonder if someone is going to start using AI to predict wins on lotteries. I remember a story about an American woman with a Stanford PhD who gamed the TX State lottery. She won the TX State lottery 4 times, then someone started to question why she was winning consistently. It turned out she had recognised a pattern in the numbers being drawn, and had calculated the winning numbers successfully the 4 times. https://www.inc-aus.com/bill-murphy-jr/this-stanford-phd-reportedly-figured-out-texas-lottery-won-20-million-playing-over-over-for-years.html#:~:text=Her name is Joan Ginther,of dollars' worth of tickets.

You talking about our loveable, harmless Skippy? Nahh, you must have the psycho 'roos at your place.

Need a side-by-side photo comparison. Jay Leno has a very distinctive facial structure, with a huge prominent jaw. The condition is known medically as mandibular prognathism. He is also dyslexic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno#:~:text=Leno is known for his,Leno is dyslexic.

Tornados seem to be a bit of threat to wind turbines. It's just amazing watching them get ripped apart in this storm chasers video. https://x.com/ReedTimmerUSA/status/1804690861768233102

Let's see him do it again - without the marker stone!

Collgar Wind Farm has never had a wind turbine fire in 13 years of operation, and it comprises a total of 111 massive wind turbines. I think Vestas has enough experience now to be able to understand the conditions that lead to a wind turbine fire. Close monitoring of rotating components on a constant basis would be important.

Amazingly, I only sighted 2 'roos during the entire trip from Echuca to Calingiri - and they were in the middle of Berri in the vineyard area, just before dusk!! They were hopping from one vineyard on the left of the highway, to the one on the right of the highway - obviously sampling the local vintage!

The Saudis production costs for oil is $3 a barrel. Be assured, that as soon as EV's look like being a real threat to the fossil fuel suppliers, the oil price will be adjusted downwards to ensure it cuts the ground out from under the feet of EV and battery manufacturers. There'll be a war, alright, it will become a winner for consumers. The problem may end up an economic problem if a pile of EV manufacturers and battery manufacturers incur massive losses, and go to the wall, possibly even bringing on a recession or even another Depression.

That might change shortly as Joes drive to subsidise battery manufacturing in the U.S. is resulting in some monstrous new battery factories being built in the U.S. https://insideevs.com/news/556697/us-over10-new-battery-plants/ The end result is probably going to be a win-win for consumers as battery prices are bound to tank with the coming "battery wars".

I needed both lanes, to juggle holding the phone for the photo, and to steer!

I've heard that the FBI are still hunting for that dangerous Arab terrorist, Al-Gebra.

This is America. The Presidents in the U.S. have been provided by the biggest levels of corporate funding that money can buy. This is also sometimes known as "corporate governance".

"Puttin' on the Ritz"!

I made the mistake of going over to Iinet for one month last year, for my mobile, when Boost ramped up the 12 mth recharge cost - because Iinet always used Telstra. However, I wasn't aware that when TPG bought up Iinet, they changed over to Vodaphone for mobile services. Iinet offered a great deal - but when I drove out of town, the phone service virtually vanished! Vodaphone only service highly populated areas. I couldn't get back to Boost fast enough. As it was, I engineered a major discount on Boost when I renewed with them, because they were offering discounts for new customers - but not for current ones! Just the move to Iinet for a month, meant I was a new Boost customer again, and I scored the discount deal for a 12 mth plan!

I'm with Boost. They use the Telstra network. Never had any problem with them in over 2 years, but that means I also have no idea what their customer service is like, when things go wrong. They're much cheaper than Telstra.

I keep saying it, and few manufacturers at this point support it - but swappable batteries with a quick-change arrangement are going to be the only successful answer to all the EV gripes. An EV with swappable batteries makes perfect sense, and I will not be going EV until I can purchase one. The benefits are enormous. 1. You will be able to buy the car with no battery - hence, much lower purchase cost. 2. You only rent the battery size you need for the job at hand. You only want to run around the city? - you rent a modest-sized battery. You want to do a long trip? - you rent the biggest battery available. 3. Removing the cost of battery ownership from the EV owner and spreading the cost over the entire system relieves EV owners of the dreaded day when their EV requires a complete new battery at horrendous cost. That day comes way too early for mine. An IC engine lasts for 25 years easily - no battery in any EV has met this lifespan yet. 4. Battery swappable EV's lend themselves to improved battery technology, as it becomes available. No longer will you be stuck with obsolete battery technology once new improved batteries appear. No-one in their right mind buys their own BBQ gas bottles today. It's easier, simpler and cheaper, to swap them. Batteries for EV's will go down exactly the same path. The people pushing electric prime mover trucks (Janus) are using swappable batteries, and there is no way any electric truck could be competitive, unless it uses swappable batteries. Nio in China has reached a milestone of over 3000 battery-swap stations installed in the country and Nio is still rolling out the battery-swap stations at a staggering rate. They will eventually make the fixed-battery EV look like a Model T Ford.

We've had a very large wind farm at a place called Collgar, just S.E. of Merredin in W.A.'s Eastern wheatbelt in operation since 2011 - so, it's 13 years into its projected 30-year lifespan. This wind farm can supply enough energy to power around 150,000 homes (at rated output), but of course, it doesn't produce the makers full nameplate power all that often. However, it does provide a sizeable percentage of power for Southern Western Australia, and it has been very reliable. The Collgar wind farm cost around AU$750M and the calculations on payback were calculated on 30% of the makers nameplate output. It has been a success by anyones measure and despite a few gripes from aviators in the early days, due to the height of the turbines, no-one has hit a turbine yet with an aircraft - and the farmers who rented the land for the turbines are quite happy with their lease money returns, and they can still farm underneath the turbines, and no-one has complained about turbine hums or tones or noise levels. Plus, I think the local birds have adjusted to the turbines existence, as no-one has produced any evidence of an excessive number of bird deaths due to the turbines blades. https://www.collgar.com.au/_files/ugd/5b2fe6_1bbfa037cbfc4d82b259ae838e9c8fa4.pdf

I went onto Amazon and put an item in my basket. They kept asking me to join Amazon Prime. I declined. When I got to the checkout, I found I'd been signed up for Amazon Prime at $9.99 a month - bloody scammers! I cancelled the order and deleted my Amazon account. Then, the next day, I got an email thanking me for joining Amazon Prime!! I keep watching my CC for any payment to Amazon that shouldn't be there. That Jeff Bezos is a bigger scheming arsehole than that scumbag Mark Zuckerberg.