onetrack

A ghost train.

Todays gripe: I'm thoroughly sick of trying to buy new jeans and pants, and finding the zips are about 75mm long! - and they only reach halfway to the crotch of the strides! What is it about these clothes designers? Do they all think our dicks are located near our navel? Or are they making all mens pants zips the same as womens pants zips? As it is with these jeans and pants, you have to loosen your belt, undo your waist band and drop your strides several cm, to be able to get your old fella out for a wee! The only pants and jeans I've found that have decent 150mm length zips are from Rivers and Country Road - and now it looks like Rivers are going belly-up soon, so I'm going to be stuck with Country Road, which are normally pretty expensive, upmarket strides for good wear. I notice that even Levis and Gazman and Jag are adopting the short zips, so I don't know where all this change in basic good design is going to end up. I reckon the Chinese clothes designers have "dumbed down" a lot of our fashion and clothing now anyway, with good styling in clothes going out the window. Everywhere you look now, you see people dressed sloppily in puffer jackets, trakkie daks, shapeless elastic waist garments galore, and T-shirts now seem like a national icon. Even the collars on shirts today are rubbish, no doubt due to cheap Chinese design. Even good Italian clothes are starting to become a rarity - talk to any Italian, and they moan about how their Italian clothes manufacturing has been taken over by the Chinese in Italy, and dumbed down.

It's a loose cannon.

The day any Musk product is in my possession - or even worse - controlling everything in my house - is the day that will never happen.

Trump admires Musk because he has the MOST money of any person in the world - and he recognises the POWER that comes with that wealth - and he's currently in awe of it. But there'll come a time, probably not too far off, when he starts to see Musk becoming a real threat to HIS power, and then Musk will be cast out of the LOYAL followers.

They'd get really curious and examine everything in detail with puzzled looks, and provide entertainment to the observers. Cats and mirrors are the most comical, especially kittens.

The older engines only need fuel additives if they're working long and hard, full throttle, full load. Most of them on display are only loafing along.

Caught red-handed.

I've always known the saying to be the plural. You wouldn't have just one seat as the best, it's always a group of seats, such as a balcony, or a section of a row of seats.

Best seats in the house?

You're not wrong there, Nev. Never come across a place so cold. What is it about the town that makes it so cold? Alpine winds? The altitude?

I was quite surprised to see "Ballaarat" written multiple times on the Salter Bros website. I've never seen this spelling before, but apparently it was the original spelling of Ballarat, and used right up until recent times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Ballaarat

The original drummer for the Bee Gees, Colin "Smiley" Peterson, has died, aged 78. There's only one of the Gibb brothers left alive now - Barry - he's the last surviving member of the Bee Gees. Colin Petersen was drumming at public performances, as recently as last Saturday. He gained the nickname "Smiley", because he was the child actor of that name in the 1956 film, which also starred Chips Rafferty. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-19/bee-gees-drummer-colin-smiley-petersen-dead-at-78/104618874 Amazingly, Dennis Bryon, who was also a Bee Gees drummer after Petersen left, also died just five days ago, on the 14th November 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/arts/music/bee-gees-drummers-dead.html

A recipe for success.

I never knew that Villiers set up in Ballarat, either - but the website below gives us the entire history of the operation. Villiers moved into Ballarat because the Australian Govt placed tariffs on imported engines to protect local manufacturers. So Frank Farrer, the head of Villiers, decided it was viable to set up in Australia and not only meet the sizeable Australian demand for their products, but to export their products to NZ, the Pacific, and SE Asia. Interestingly, "New Australians" (European refugees from the devastation of WW2) made up a sizeable proportion of the Ballarat workforce. https://salterbros.com.au/villiers-australia/ Stationary engines appear to be their mainstay in the 1950's, it looks like motorbikes were a secondary product. I love the photo of the old semi with 1300 Villiers engines on board, being pulled by the Dodge Power Giant - get a look at the 44 gallon drum for a fuel tank! The old Dodge petrol V8's weren't exactly fuel misers! I owned a '62 Inter R190, it was powered by the (Red Diamond) RD-406 engine. Despite being only a 6 cyl, it did 2mpg empty, and 1mpg loaded, pulling my low-loader and Cat D6C's around! Most trucks of this era had a fuel drum tray behind the cabin - you always carried 2 or 3 drums of super petrol with you! I think the original IH fuel tank was 20 gallons, what were IH engineers thinking?

I'd love to see Ukraine bomb a NK ship. Hopefully, one with 10,000 NK troops on board. There wouldn't be any reprisals.

I've got a keyboard where about a third of the keys have the letters worn off them! That makes for interesting typing!! Yes, I definitely need a new keyboard!

Can't beat a good dose of rain to freshen everything up. But I guess the mozzies will be building up again, soon?

I have found Tagtik to be a pro-Russian news site. Treat their information with a diligent approach. They are very obtuse as to their ownership.

Of course you expect others to work for nothing when you're worth $300B. That's part of how he got so rich - as well as rorting people with his corporate charges. I like this comment I saw on Bluesky - "Free speech is a beautiful thing, but when a billionaire thinks his voice is more valuable than yours, and steps on your opinion using their vast wealth, it creates an inequality that we really need to address."

This is possibly news to all the East Coasters, and other forumites overseas - but a HK based consortium is proposing the worlds largest Green Energy Hub on the Nullarbor Plain. The project is located NW of Eucla. The projected planning is for 25,000,000 solar panels and 3000 massive wind turbines generating at least 50 gigawatts and potentially 70 gigawatts. The electricity will be used to produce green hydrogen and ammonia. The company is reportedly going to outlay $100M, but the EPA is yet to approve the project, and it looks like it's still got a way to go - although they're forecasting it will be in production next year. "In your dreams" is my opinion. The major driver of the project is a gent who appears to be a British whizz kid who operates out of HK, running a company called Intercontinental Energy. He has other partners in the project as well. He's got Chinese money on board, as well as Singapore Govt funding and Middle Eastern money from Oman. He seems to be able to pull in the big money. South Korea is lined up to take the majority of the hydrogen and ammonia. Nowhere do I see any logistics or plans on how to get the ammonia and hydrogen out of what is a remote region. They talk of "offshore shiploading", but the coastal region is a Marine Park of global importance, on a par with the Barrier Reef. Good luck as regards getting any infrastructure built along the Great Australian Bight! Another interesting angle is the Indigenes have climbed on board (with company insistence) and the Indigenous Corporation is getting a 10% free-carried share in the project. They can either sell their 10% share, or have to find $$$'s to contribute. I can well imagine what their choice will be, when it comes to selling free shares and getting a whole pile of $$$'s!! https://www.ecoticias.com/en/the-western-green-energy-hub/8555/ https://wgeh.com.au/ https://intercontinentalenergy.com/ https://wgeh.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Project-Information-Update-July-2024.pdf https://www.firstnationscleanenergy.org.au/western_green_energy_hub

Well, we tried to get them to have a drink with us, but it seems there's multiple barriers. Language difficulties, a lack of ability to hold a can, and a known disposition to avoid drinking anything at all, for extremely long periods, seemed to doom our attempts to get them to be more sociable. https://differentville.com/john-forrest-tavern-kangaroo-pub-perth/

Below is a good outline of what could happen under Trump's chaotic and self-serving economic policies, in the next 4 years. What staggers me, is the Republicans rage on about the level of U.S. Govt debt, but it will only get worse under Trumps leadership. It's a real elephant in the room, that will have to be addressed before it creates havoc with the U.S. economy - and a lower standard of living for all Americans. https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/rampant-us-dollar-sends-a-threatening-message-to-the-rest-of-the-world-20241114-p5kqi2.html https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock#:~:text=The %2435 trillion gross federal,to measure our national debt.

Didn't anyone miss the irony, that Kangaroos can't drink beer?

The new BMW iX3 EV prototype is on show, it's coming in 2025. It looks pretty sharp, as one would expect from BMW. But the lack of switches buttons and controls in the dashboard area, is one complaint area, that is being raised regularly by new car owners. They want the familiarity of switches and buttons, not to have to take ones eyes off the road, to look for a screen icon to touch. The interesting part is BMW is partnering with the Chinese for battery technology, is using cylindrical battery technology, not prismatic cells, and has developed a dedicated, stand-alone EV vehicle platform, (BMW call it "Neue Classe"), which platform is not shared with any other BMW IC-engined vehicle. The new iX3 EV will use batteries from CATL, Eve, and Envision AESC, runs an 800V architecture, and has a reported range of 600kms. Article - https://uk.motor1.com/news/741208/bmw-ix3-2025-patent-photos-leaked/ Photos - https://uk.motor1.com/photos/879224/bmw-vision-neue-klasse-x-2024/#7702468_bmw-vision-new-class-x-2024