old man emu

It really was only when Ford started tuning out Model Ts at a price that was within the reach of a large portion of the population that motor vehicles started replacing the horse. I'm surmising that the early adopters were the more well-to-do MIddle Classes and transport businesses which found the motor vehicle more economical that the horse. One sales to that group had been established, then the unit price started coming down to within reach of the factory worker. The motor vehicle massively altered the cultures where it was commonplace as well as creating whole new human environments and commercial and recreational activities. EV are just another species of motor vehicle. As their price comes down and the necessary alterations are made to the infrastructure required to supply their energy source, then I suppose the ICE vehicle will lose its dominance. Not saying that there will be a total extinction of ICEs. They'll be needed for some tasks.

The King' Birthday Long Weekend isn't a time for putting your feet up and taking it easy. No way, Jose! It used to be the weekend you spent firmly ensconced in your favourite TV watching chair watching the Bathurst 1000. But alas, that's moved to next weekend, so SWMBO will rescind your TV watching privileges this weekend, with the chance of parole next weekend for you to watch the Big Race if you complete the work to be done! In NSW the Bushfire Danger Period commenced on the first of October. This is the first weekend you'll have off to get around your place and minimise fire risks and review your bushfire disaster plan, as well as gathering your post-fire survival kit. If you don't have a "home amongst the gum trees", and your "vision splendid" is of solar panelled rooves extended, then this is the weekend to replace the battery in any smoke detector alarms you have about the place. (I wonder how much power remains in a 9V battery after six months on standby.) And before you settle in the well-deserve repose tonight, don't forget that in some places, the populous will begin to "enjoy" more daylight after the normal close of business due to an alteration in the display of the hours and minutes on clocks. So make sure that if such a thing happens where you live, advance the time display on your timepieces by one hour.

You have more chance of stumbling onto Lasseter's Reef than finding a decent mixed grill anywhere in a country town now.

Taiwan has been in the news due to being affected by a typhoon. Got me wondering how an island nation with such a big manufacturing base generated its electricity. Total Electricity generation of Taipower system in 2023 was 245.5TWh. Thermal power accounted for 81.8% of all; renewable energy, 9.9% (including wind, PV, hydro, methane and waste-fed power); pumped storage power, 1.2%; and nuclear power, 7.0%. Now I know.

I'm feeling good so far today. I've just finished sealing down the joint between the two lengths of vinyl on the boot room floor. (More reno stuff in the other thread tonight.) I was really apprehensive about doing that job as one mistake and the appearance is ruined, and I don't have any more vinyl to do the job over. But it's come out spot on. Considering that two years ago I knew three parts of nine tenths of F-all about all the little jobs involved in a reno, I just had to say to myself, "FIGJAM", and myself said to me, 'Yeah, but ... You haven't finished yet. There's many a slip twixt cup and lip". So I told myself to get stuffed. I reckon "I" deserves to pat "I" on the back sometimes.

The problem with the owners of the IT industry is that while they do a lot of work improving their operating systems, and from those improvements come the products to utilise the new operating systems, they have forgotten the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Let me say that I am happy with my current Pentium-powered computer with its Core 15 CPU, and which originally had Windows & installed, but now runs Window 10. It does the simple tasks that I want - Internet surfing, word processing, a couple of Excel spreadsheets and Paint. If I had the time I'd play with Inkscape and maybe even get into so 3D printing G-code. What I'm not happy with is the urging by Microsoft to upgrade to Windows 11. For what I need computing ability to do, W-11 offers not advantages. I'm afraid I haven't had the medical procedure to have a mobile device surgically inserted into my fundamental orifice. Even the updates to W-10 leave me wondering where things have been moved to after the installation. One of these days, when I am not so occupied with rearranging the design of the hovel, I might pull out the stuff I need to reassemble my CNC machine. It runs operates on W-7, which is sufficient for the CNC software and the "Arrh, me hearties" copy of Rhino 4.

But Japan already had a strong manufacturing sector before WWII. All that was needed was for the factories to be rebuilt. By 1952 Japan had regained its prewar industrial output. Similarly, in Europe, the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II by rebuilding the manufacturing base that had been destroyed by the war. Just because Australia is raw material rich does not mean that there is the money for turning those raw materials into goods. Just think of all the Australian manufacturers who existed in the 1950s/60s but which don't now. Simply because money from overseas has bought the businesses and then closed them down and established manufacturing in countries where regulations are virtually non-existent and wages are a fraction of what is paid in Australia.

I reckon that leaving stubble to rot, while it might initially reduce soil nutrients during decomposition, it is a means of putting carbon into our poor soils. Also, while the microbes breaking down the stubble might draw on nutrients in the plant material, individual microbes eventually die and return nutrients to the soil. As for baling stubble, have you seen how short the stems of modern wheat plants are? I've seen longer stems in a suburban lawn.

Old English bera "a bear," from Proto-Germanic *bero, literally "the brown (one)", usually said to be from Proto-Indo-European root *bher-. the "h" is formed by exhaling breath, so you get the sound you have described. Beard: Old English beard "beard," from Proto-Germanic *bard (source also of Old Frisian berd, Middle Dutch baert,. The "rd" at the end is a hard sound.

Well! I'll be a horse's .....

Looks like a filled croissant. The bastard child of a Parisian street walker and an Yankee GI.

Craven A???

Therein lies the rub. No one is offering him a flight. He's complained about that for ages.

Then how come it only takes two to fill a theatrical horse costume?

That's true about the non-urban areas, and in a different way in urban areas. However, after coming back to grain growing region after 40-odd years, I can see that the late Generation X and the Millennial farmers are taking up procedures that can either halt the degradation of the land they farm, or even better restore some of the damage. Maybe even while engaging in broadacre monoculture the crops they are growing may be doing something to restore or improve the soils. I notice that stubble burning is not so common. Maybe it's gone out of fashion, or maybe it's simply because of stricter controls over the use of fire. Ye, the family farm in broadacre farming is gone. That is simply the result of economies of scale. Bigger machinery lets one person farm more country, so that person needs more land, so buys out the aging Baby Boomer and early Generation X farmers and rips out the boundary fences. As for damage in urban areas, well every person pollutes, so the more you gather people together, the bigger the pile of pollution. How much does each of us contribute to solid waste? I have a recycling bag of about 60 litre capacity which I seem to fill every week with packaging, tin cans etc., even the white paper that my fresh deli meats are wrapped in goes into the bag. This morning as I tossed an empty 65 ml Yakult bottle into the bag I wondered if it would go to landfill or actually be recycled.

If you bought two single shower chairs and a two-seater, would it be a Nutcracker Suite?

It's not that we went wrong, it is quite simply that we have never had the population size that develops an economy that can produce the money for investment in the production of goods. It is said that no money is made unless something is purchased by the consumer. If you don't have a large number of consumers, you don't make sales and therefore don't make money.

There isn't a pennyworth amongst them.

The Fire Brigade is the designated rescue service in most States.

Of course it is. The Jews wanted to get back their pre-Roman era traditional lands. The Zionist movement of the late 19th Century promoted that desire, but the politics of the First World War provided them with the support of Britain, France during the war, and the USA afterwards, since the Zionist movement was strongest in the USA. Then the Holocaust and the destruction of Europe in WWII generated multitudes of displaced persons, including Jews. So the Jews flooded into Palestine where there was already a sizable Jewish population from the inter-war arrivals. The new arrivals took over the lesser quality land and applied the science and technology of Western Civilisation to make it agricultural productive. With the income from that production, they developed secondary industry. That gave them wealth, and with wealth comes power. Their religion really has nothing to do with the causes of the ongoing conflict. I bet there are more secular Jews than practising ones as there are amongst the Arabs and the Christians.

I was being a smartarse.

If all the nickel goes into making batteries for EVs, how are we going to power our mobile phones?

While it is important that Australia has a good reputation on the world stage, I think that there are many more important things impacting domestic politics than some insoluble neighbour dispute far, far away, and in which we really have no reason to involve ourselves, apart from decrying the death, injury and destruction. What a great leader would ay to Australian is this, "If you are a citizen of Australia, then your first concern should be what matters in Australia. Part of your philosophy might relate to the practise of a particular religion, but that is not 100% of you. Live by the tenets of your religion by all means, but Australia needs you to apply yourself to your secular life more than your spiritual life."

Religion can be one involved, but religion is, for some, just one form of fanaticism. Look at Hitler's, or Stalin's or Kim Jung Un's. I suppose I should have mentioned the three Abrahamic religions of the area. I don't really think that Islam -v- Judaism is the root of the problem. I think it is the arrival of so many displaced Jews after WWII and the differences in the economic cultures of the two groups. Just look at the swing to the extreme Right that is occuring in Europe due to the massive influx of non-Europeans whose cultures are so different from the Europeans. The Arabs were screwed by the British and French between the Wars. Promises of independence were broken, and the Arabs were not included in the promises made by Britain and France to international Jewry. There's more to the Arab/Israeli conflict than simply religion. But, as usual, Western Media doesn't provide us with a knowledgeable explanation of the history of the region.

I know it would be a great thing to be aware of factors that might cause one issues, but to me it puts it in the same category as finding out the sex of a baby in the first trimester. Sort of takes the expectancy out of an expectant birth. I didn't know the sex of my kids until I got the first hold of them. I think that getting that information after going through the months of the pregnancy was one of the most emotional experiences of my life. On the conspiratorial side of things, I think that having that information available for perusal by others reeks of Orwell's 1984. I know there would be privacy controls, but who trusts those nowadays?