GRIPES

[spacesailor]

Just the same as Spain has at the moment. 

Over 200 deceased & still lots more missing .

We as individuals are helpless,  in those situations. 

spacesailor

[nomadpete]

My point is  that in the face of the above, the Spanish floods are similar, similarly tragic,  but no less so.

 

Further, the Spanish weather event was not unprecedented, and was the result of a known weather process, and should have been  better prepared for.

 

Is the Spanish tragedy more related to too many heads in the sand?

 

 

Edited November 3 by nomadpete
one wrong letter in the wrong place can change everything

[facthunter]

It was an UNUSUAL process and these things can be quite localised in the way they  happen.. Some parts of Spain are very poor  and the infrastructure hundreds of years old.so effective flood prevention/ mitigation works are not likely or possible. Nev

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

It was an UNUSUAL process

More "not usual" than "unusual". The "not usual" idea comes from the fact that  what happened in Spain was something that the current population has never experienced. Remember that maps are produced that show the expected areas of flooding from 100 year and 500 year floods. No one alive today has a personal memory of what happened 100 years ago. There are people who are centenarians, but they would have been toddlers at best 100 years ago.

 

The Sydney Basin is a good example of history either being forgotten, or other factors influencing flooding. Floods along the Hawkesbury River, which forms the western boundary of the Basin, have been recorded from the earliest days of European settlement. Steps have been taken to use the knowledge of those historical floods to minimise damage. However, the nature of the land use has changed dramatically. Over the past 40 years, and more specifically in the past 10 to 15 years, vast areas of that Basin have been converted from pasture/forest/bushland to residential occupation. That has resulted in a high percentage of that land, which was able to absorb heavy rainfall, and slow the flow of what could not be absorbed, in become impervious to water, resulting in rapid drainage into the natural watercourses which quickly overflow and start to make the water back up and flow well away across floodplains where housing and industry have been built without proper assessment of the effects of making those areas impervious.

 

[old man emu]

A gripe.

 

A bloke was replacing a batten light fitting with an oyster light fitting in the boot room this morning. Things were going along reasonably smoothing, including the usual stuff ups and accessibility difficulties, but finally the fitting was in place and all that was needed to do was insert the three wires into the terminal block in the light fitting. 

 

How many of you can quickly put your hand on a #0 Phillips Head screwdriver? That is what was needed to secure those wires into the terminal block. Luckily the bloke had one, but I'm sure that they put those weird sized screws in to prevent your average mug from playing with electricity.

 

Another thing I noticed was that the terminal block had the input holes marked for Active, Neutral and Earth. With an incandescent light, it doesn't matter which side of the fitting the Active and Neutral are connected to, however, the fitting is for LED lights. An LED has two pins – anode (positive or incoming) and cathode (negative or outgoing). I found out that it only works when its anode is connected to the Active wire. I figured that if the Active and Neutral were not connected as indicated, the LED wouldn't work. Here's a  diagram of an LED circuit. 

 

 

[red750]

Why does everything have to be hot and spicy? I thought spices were introduced to hide the bad taste of meat going rancid. Bought some chicken tenders at Aldi yesterday, didn't notice the small print "Buffalo style". 

[pmccarthy]

What has Buffalo got to do with it? That has confused me for a while.

[red750]

Buffalo wings, etc., are strongly spiced. You need something cold, like a glass of milk to cool the mouth.

[old man emu]

Buffalo wings and Budweiser

[facthunter]

Salt and spices hide the taste of Rotting. .   Nev

[onetrack]

The name comes from Buffalo, N.Y., where the spice-infused chicken wings originated.

[onetrack]

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.