onetrack

Their website is a convoluted shambles, and I find their whole operation runs along the same lines. For a company that has been in business as long as they have, it seems like they've appointed amateurs to run their Australian division.

You have to keep logging into their site, re-identify yourself every time, agree to their T's&C's again every time you re-enter, then re-enter the auction, then re-enter the "timed auction" again - it's simply bloody painful.

Then the items are scattered like confetti through the system, with adjoining items having widely varying lot numbers. Their mobile app is even worse, you can virtually only track items you've bid on.

I've bought a few things off them and got some bargains - but I'm sure that was because no other potential buyer could find the items, or keep track of the bidding on them.

Even when you do buy something, their people in their yards have no idea where it is, or can identify it. You're likely to be asked if it's the Lear jet you bought, and can you point it out?, when you go to pick up the Cirrus!

Of course, you must all realise, mustn't you, that the final selling price of the Cirrus could be highly dependent on whether the fuel tanks are full or empty? Full tanks could see an additional $20,000 in the bid prices, on current fuel prices! 

But Cappys erection frightened Bill so much, he ran away, having heard what happens in jail cells. This disappointed Cappy greatly, as he was looking forward to......

Quote

 In the old days, it was quite common to rebuild worn battery posts by fitting a steel collar of the correct size & taper (+ and - were different) over the worn/damaged post and use an oxy torch to melt the lead and rebuilt the post.

And if you did that job, you had to be exceptionally careful with regard to ensuring that any gassing electrolyte fumes (hydrogen) didn't come into contact with the oxy flame, or you'd be buying a new battery! (BOOM!!). 

I used to use a convenient-size socket for a rebuild collar, then rasp the new pole to shape accordingly.

You did what you had to do in those "good ol' days", with minimal cost, and with minimal equipment, and with restricted supplies of new items!

.....local bottle-o's, who weren't really concerned about their credit ratings, as they always dealt in cash, anyway. But the cook was unfairly recorded as having named the Islands after himself, when all he was doing, was naming them after his boss, because it was his turn that day, to name something.

"The name, 'Cook Islands' sounds like a perfectly good name to me, for a place which holds the major tax haven status in the Pacific", said Turbo.

"After all, they regularly use terms today such as 'cooking the books', and we all know that's just a common term for Cook Islands tax haven investments. In fact, it was that fine upstanding corporate leader in the shape of Alan Bond, who put me onto this lur....errr....strategy, of utilising the Cook Islands for all my banking, and just look at what that did for.........

......they were found to be the most efficient slaves, as regards power, food economy, and low emissions (Cook Islanders rarely fart with exertion, a little-known interesting health fact).

The powerful build of the Cook Islanders was a major factor in the choice of slaves by the Turbinians - but there was also another important factor involved in the Turbinians utilising Cook Islanders - and that factor was - easy access to a well-known tax haven, with lax banking regulations.

This was a very important consideration for the Turbinians, as they had massive wealth and tax problems, that they needed to solve. So it was a simple enough exercise for them to fill the empty returning slave ships with excess Turbinian gold, and store that gold in the Cook Islands banks, where it immediately became tax-free. This system worked wonderfully, until the day that......

Ahh - but your explanation is considered to be only half true - and it originates from an AFL-CIO post on Facebook in April 2020, that has been widely disseminated as the entire truth about USPS's financial position.

Yes, the prepayment of USPS pensions has placed a major burden on the USPS. But it's not the only reason the USPS is bleeding red ink on a major scale. There are other reasons as well.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/widespread-facebook-post-blames-2006-law-us-postal/

Some of the other reasons are USPS does not have a satisfactory business model, because of Federal interference in its operations. Basic postal delivery costs for the U.S. are kept flat by Federal laws.

As with Australia Post, letter delivery is a costly burden to both agencies, and it's a rapidly declining source of funds, thanks to electronic communications.

But both agencies still have Federal laws that mean they have the right to, and must deliver letters, no matter what the cost.

But that arrangement is a guaranteed money loser, particularly seeing as sending letters has dropped to very low levels.

In the case of the USPS, they are obliged to supply a daily mail service - even when there's no mail. At least AP was allowed to reduce mail delivery days.

Australia Post had better business opportunities given to it overall, and it has successfully ramped up parcel deliveries, and turned post offices into retail stores. They engineered agreements with LPO's that were good.

AP was even allowed to buy into Startrack, a commercial operation - something that USPS is not allowed to do.

But the biggest problem with USPS has been the poor decision-making by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, particularly with regard to mail sorting machines. The USPS has been removing mailboxes and mail sorting machines for years, due to declining mail volumes - but the 2020 election ramped up the mail volumes, reversing the previous trend, as people preferred to vote via mail during the time of the pandemic.

This brought about a massive outcry as the USPS buckled under the weight of postal vote mail - and DeJoys decisions were seen as a political move designed to cripple the USPS. DeJoy has no previous mail or parcel experience.

The end result has been major incriminations that USPS was involved in voter fraud by not processing the mailed-in votes, and of course, massive backlogs of both parcels and mail, as USPS buckled under the additional burden of missing employees as they called in sick with COVID.

The whole USPS operation is simply a mess, with excessive political and legal interference, poor management, no long-term business plan - and both Republicans and Democrats can share the blame for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_Postal_Service_crisis

There are plenty of businesses in the U.S. (and based in Australia) that do parcel and mail transhipment/forwarding. Unfortunately, most rort you on pricing as well.

It doesn't help that the ATO is out to nail every company doing shipping to Australia, so they get their GST added to it. Even $2.00 items from China through AliExpress now have GST added.  

There's no such thing as cheap global parcel express any more. International flight numbers are one-third of what they used to be, and USPS has a massive inherited cost structure from years gone by, such as massive pension entitlements, due to overpaying employees.

It used to be that if USPS hired someone, they were obliged to pay them at the pay scale of their training and education levels - not what they were actually doing.

So they had mail sorters with Masters degrees getting US$100,000 a year - for just sorting mail.    Then when those people retired, they were entitled to massive pensions based on their massive pay rates.  

Cherk - The Aust Post transhipping organisation was called "ShopMate" and was based in Portland Oregon. AP was supposed to close ShopMate on 25th February 2022, but the date was extended to 15th March 2022, with final deliveries having to be done by 31st March 2022.

I just got a ShopMate delivery from Wisconsin (my last ever), but Shopmate was never cheap or fast, and they stuffed plenty of people around over the years.

I once had 2 small hydraulic motors sent from Florida to ShopMate to be transhipped to me. ShopMate complained to me the hyd motors were leaking oil, and couldn't be transhipped.

They wanted to dump them (at $600 each!!). I checked with the seller, who assured me they had no oil in them.

I organised for the motors to be sent to an engineering mate in Granite Oregon, for checking for leakage and repackaging. He reported the packages were dry, and showed no signs of leakage.

But he repackaged them anyway, and sent them back to ShopMate for transhipment to me - who transhipped them without a problem. However, all this cost me an extra US$63 - all for nothing!

One of the main problems with moisture is electronic connections. As electronics work on low voltages and milliamp currents, any corrosion from submersion will result in electronic faults.

And you always get corrosion from submersion, and it is extremely difficult to hose out all the chemicals that float in with floodwaters. If you have non-critical equipment, you can probably cope with intermittent faults.

But if you have critical electronic components, you can write the item off. This is why, under the National standard for Damage Assessment Criteria for the Classification of Statutory Write-Offs, as applied to on-road vehicles, any submersion of an on-road vehicle whereby the floorpan is covered by more than 150mm in depth of floodwaters, is sufficient to classify the vehicle as a Statutory Write-Off. 

This is simply because many safety-critical electronic components are mounted under seats, or low in the footwells behind kick panels, and if these components become submerged, corrosion is guaranteed, and therefore they may not operate when needed, or operate intermittently, possibly causing severe safety issues (airbags, ABS, even engine stoppage at critical times).

You need to be very careful buying used vehicle electronic components, and make sure they haven't come from a submerged vehicle.

I don't use bushels much now, I actually prefer kennings and pecks. And everyone should know that 2 pecks makes a kenning.

Have you looked at Planet Express?

The biggest single problem with the reasoning behind a lot of these decisions, it is usually done to distance the country from former "colonial" masters - not because of any valid and carefully-studied reasons. Or the colonial masters made the decision for the other country, and it then becomes too hard to reverse it.

The Americans will never go metric because their hatred of anything of French origin is tangible.

.....Kamikaze attack - which he always pulls out of at the last minute, because Nob was always a poor supporter of Kamikaze attacks, thanks to his basically cowardly nature, and his well-hidden dislike of the Emperor.

However, in the Ukraine, the Emperor didn't matter, and the Kamikaze approach worked every time, as the Rooskies scattered like frightened rabbits, and Nob pulled out of his Kamikaze dive, right at the last second, laughing in maniacal glee at the........

Kevin, the Coriolis effect is what affects artillery shell travel over long distances. Not so important over short distances, but the effect is noticeable at long range. The 105mm Howitzer has a range of 11.7kms.

The M198 155mm Howitzer has a range of 18kms with standard shells, and up to 30kms with armour-piercing shells.

https://www.military.com/equipment/m198-howitzer#:~:text=The howitzer's maximum range is,WWII era M114 155mm howitzer.

https://socratic.org/questions/does-the-rotation-of-the-earth-have-any-effect-upon-artillery-fire

The problem lies with poorly-trained artillery troops who cannot accurately position their shells on targets. However, many a time in war, artillery is simply fired in a general direction to provide a terror effect.

Howitzers are the actual weapon used for lobbing artillery shells over long distances.

Placing artillery fire accurately is a highly defined skill brought up to a high level by intensive training. Artillerymen are chosen for their maths skills as firing artillery accurately involves extremely complex maths calculations to be able to land shells on enemy positions, without landing them on your own troops, when close-quarter fighting is involved.

An initial ranging shot is usually fired about 100M further away from the requested artillery fire position, to ensure initial "rough" accuracy.

Howitzer barrel angles are then repositioned to bring the fire closer to the target, and good artillery pieces can lob shells within a 50M range over 10km or more.

Artillerymen even have to take into account the movement of the Earth as it rotates when they fire, as the shell spends quite a bit of time in travel through the air before it lands, and the Earth has moved in the meantime.

.....who obtained his flying lessons from Cappys Great Great Great Great Grandfather, Capt Aloysuis Broderick Claiborne Cook, RFC, DFC and Bar - a distinguished fighter pilot from 1916 to 1918, with a tally of no less than 14 enemy aircraft kills.

Of course, Capt A. B. C. Cook was extremely old when he taught Ras, but age didn't bother him - no, sirreee! - he just kept up the training syllabus regardless, even though his hearing was shot, his eyesight was extremely poor - and he needed to be helped in and out of the cockpit.

Of course, the hearing loss and poor eyesight of Capt A.B.C. Cook did lead to a number of confusing flying lessons for Ras - particularly when Capt A.B.C. Cook forgot what lesson they were supposed to be on, and what the call sign of the aircraft was, and he sometimes even forgot who Ras was.

But regardless, Ras coped with the Captains infirmities with good grace and patience, and the day came when the Captain agreed he was finally ready to go solo.

Ras climbed into the Sopwith, but as he went to.............

The Gloucester Gladiator and Lysander both utilised a very cleverly designed internally-sprung suspension unit by Dowty - and it only cost £103 in 1945! 

https://www.dowtyheritage.org.uk/content/dowty-group/dowty-equipment/costs-of-lysander-and-gladiator-internal-sprung-wheels

(expand the video to full-screen size, to see the Dowty suspension in action, in the first 20 seconds of the video)

Funnily enough, America built vehicles in RHD and drove on the right in the period between the late 1800's and 1908. Some manufacturers were still building RHD vehicles in the U.S., as late as 1915.

It was Henry Ford who changed all his vehicles to LHD, and encouraged other manufacturers to do so, stating that there were obvious safety considerations in doing so - seeing as the early colonies in America had passed laws to drive on the right as early as 1792.

The driving positions and sides of direction of travel are a huge mish-mash, worldwide - and it's not confined to roads and road vehicles, it also applies to railway networks.

If you travel from Spain to France on the train, there's a special border section of rail, where the trains swap sides.

https://www.worldstandards.eu/cars/driving-on-the-left/

There's often a cry for Australia to go LHD and drive on the right. The change is simply not justifiable at any level, it's only due to some people wanting to import exotic LHD cars.

https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/what-would-change-if-australia-made-the-move-to-lhd/

It always amuses me to hear dyed-in-the-wool Americans who have never left their country, saying, "I could never shift gears with my left hand!"

Funnily enough, I'm 100% right-handed, yet I've had no trouble operating large numbers of machines and equipment where the seating and controls follow no order - and most Caterpillar machines from the 1960's onwards, have the gearshift on the left!

There's not only another dis-assembled PC-9 up for auction, there's 90 additional items for auction, comprising parts and numerous tools - some of which may have general aviation applications.

Be aware that a lot of the items on offer are incomplete, they get sold "as found", because auction employees aren't given the time to sort out what belongs where, or what is missing.

So you often find, say a tool kit, is spread over 2 or more lots, and often tools are lumped in with unrelated items.

General Goods auction - https://www.pickles.com.au/trucks/item/search/-/listing/listSaleItems/44001414#!/search-result?q=ProductType.General Goods.&sort=Product_Type_Sequence&startPage=1&scrollPosition=0

PC-9 auction - https://www.pickles.com.au/trucks/item/-/details/01-06-1989-Pilatus-Aircraft-Ltd--Hawker-De-Havilland-PC-9-License--Model--PC-9-A-Turboprop-Serial-No--515/1090056230

The PC-9 comes secured to its own, model-specific cradle, which is very handy. That cradle probably cost more to purchase, than the average kitbuild aircraft!

....as he became a little animated, and started to describe the various sizes of TI steak knives that he would make available. "There'll be miniature ones for the collectors to go with the Coles Little Shop mini's!", he exclaimed.

"Then there'll be the smaller sizes for those with delicate appetites. Then, we'll move right through the range, to sizes that will be a match for any giant Texan steak! Finally, we'll have the top-of-the-wozza steak knife, guaranteed to put the fear of God into any machete-wielding thug, and make them .......

(And here, dear NES readers, we have Turbo's girlfriend wielding a top-of-the-wozza TI knife, and showing machete-wielding thugs, just what she's carrying!)

.....sheets, because the stains on them were becoming too large, and more frequent. But Turbo wasn't concentrating on mundane things like when the sheets needed to be changed, he was preoccupied with producing a substantially more attractive steak knife, after he'd seen the massive demand for the cheap Chinese steak knives offered during the scam sessions.

"Can you imagine what it would be like, to produce a new design of steak knife that everyone just clamoured to own?", he said to OT. "You would become a global sensation, and a multi-multi-billionaire overnight! We could even start supplying steak knives to the Chinese! Imagine that? A country where you hardly ever see a steak, yet they all want a Turbine Industries steak knife!"

"These TI steak knives will outsell Victorinox Swiss Army Knives! You'll be able to use them to open cans, smash windows to escape burning wrecks (including aircraft!) - (long-overdue avref), cut through steel panels and partitions with ease, extract splinters with them, and even surgeons will be chasing after them, for surgical procedures! They will never go blunt, the warranty will be a lifetime warranty, and they'll ......

.....then Turbo came up with the idea of inserting into the scam callers speil, "But Wait! There's an offer of FREE steak knives, if you listen to what I say!"

The response was enormous, and because Turbo was basically honest underneath all the surface character flaws, he actually supplied a free knife set to every Vict.... errrr, client.

Naturally, the steak knives were only miniatures, but the beauty of this system was the scam callers got the Vict....errr, clients address, and therefore a complete information file could be built for every Vict.... errr, client.

Then came the day when Cappy got a scam caller offering steak knives. He was immediately suspicious, no-one gives anything away without a catch, and this had all the hallmarks of a Turbine Industries.....

An even better idea instead of using steel drums would be using the 200L polyethylene Mauser drums. Or several inflatable PVC exhaust jacks.

You can often find these used (and quite often, virtually unused) for sale on Gumtree, for a much cheaper price than buying new. They're tough, and will shape themselves to the panels they're up against.

.....pyscho intent on confusing and frustrating as many computer users as he could, worldwide. This meant, that even in the countries where the Queens English is not the their first language (and typically, this means Tasmania), the locals became even more confused and frustrated as ever, as their computers wouldn't do what they actually wanted them to do, and the local language conversions to English, then to Windows-speak, left them speechless with rage, as they were barely able to make others understand what they'd written.

This of course, led to the Great African Scam Emails of the early 21st century, where Africans in crowded Internet cafes not only got crap coffee, and even worse food - they also got worn-out computers with broken keys, and no spell check - along with Windows Vista, which led to scam emails being sent, which even Bill Gates had trouble deciphering.

Of course, it's not well known on the Australian Mainland that Tasmanians such as bull learnt to use computers in the African Scam Email Age, and did their online computer speed typing courses using African Scammer emails as learning material. This of course, led to bull mistaking.......

It certainly looks like you'd need to de-home a fair number of spiders and wasps, to get it airworthy again. 

Toll roads have to be the classic example of where privatisation is the worst example of Govt double-taxing motorists. W.A. is implacaby opposed to toll roads, there is not a single toll road in W.A. and there never will be, in the foreseeable future. If any future Govt tries to bring in toll roads in the West, there will be riots in the streets.

There are numerous areas where Govt should never cede control to private interests, as public benefit immediately goes out the window in favour of massive, competition-free, private profits.

It's interesting that in virtually every case of Govt asset privatisation, the purchaser always demands and gets, a long period of guarantee, that there will be no competition from any Govt activity.