onetrack

Happy Jesus' birthday, to all you crabby, cynical old atheists, agnostics, and unbelievers! Oh, and here's wishing you a Happy & Prosperous New Year, too! 

From the CSIRO Wikipedia page.......

"In August 2015 the CSIRO discontinued its annual July and August survey, conducted over the previous five years, polling to create a long-term view of how Australians viewed global warming and their support for action. In the previous 2013 poll, 86 per cent agreed with the statement that climate change was occurring, and only 7.6 per cent disagreed.

On 11 February 2016, Dr Larry Marshall – a former venture capitalist with Southern Cross Venture Holdings, who had been appointed CEO of the CSIRO on 1 January 2015, caused an international outcry after describing Australia’s national climate change discussion as "more like religion than science," a week after announcing hundreds of job cuts to the organisation that will reduce the effectiveness of its climate research team.

In "an open letter to the Australian Government and CSIRO", 2,800 of the leading climate scientists from 60 countries say the announcement of cuts to the CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere research program has alarmed the global climate research community. They say the decision shows a lack of insight and a misunderstanding of the importance of the depth and significance of Australian contributions to global and regional climate research."

To me, the CSIRO has now become an ill-defined organisation that doesn't appear to be doing a great deal, as regards developing important inventions. They seem to now do a lot of research without producing anything.

In the past, the important inventions record of the CSIRO was outstanding. By far the greatest invention by the CSIRO, in my mind, is the Atomic Absorption Spectrometer - a device that has produced spectacular cost-savings to mining and industry, world-wide - and which device still brings in royalties to Australia.

The last invention of note, and of world importance, by the CSIRO was WLAN - and that was in the 1990's. The Ultrabattery is probably the last CSIRO invention, but it is not exactly making waves in the world battery scene.

Kogan do the Supa-Peg, made of polycarbonate. 50% longer than the Whites peg, and nearly 2.5 times the price. I don't reckon the polycarbonate or polymer pegs would be as durable as a metal peg.

https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/autoelec-1x-300mm-x-15mm-supa-peg-screw-tent-peg-polycarbonate-heavy-duty-annex-yellow-sstppcy300x1/

Petercoota - prwoods screw in peg is called a Whites Spiral Tent Peg, 200mm long. Made of a "lightweight polymer", reputed to be "strong and easy to carry", they're available from Bunnings, $6.55 each here in the West.

https://www.google.com.au/shopping/product/4874596711661481

prwood - How do these Whites Spiral Tent Pegs go, in really hard clay soil,  or rocky ground?

No, the battery change will be straightforward, and need no skills or paperwork. But if the authorities see this in your electric rig, I reckon you could be deep manure! 

........at least tuck in your shirt, the plumbers crack is absolutely driving everyone to distraction!"

But the problems were solved, when they brought in a local tribe, and told them there'd be free cask wine and a new Toyota Landcruiser for each one of them, as a bonus, once production reached 50 a week.

At that news, the production of Drifters absolutely exploded, they had to build a bigger carpark than Boeings in Seattle, to store them. They started to look like fields of parked 737MAX's.

Meantimes, there were a few problems starting to appear in the production models. It was found there were numerous components missing on finished aircraft - particularly control columns.

After some inquiries and research, it was found the control columns were being removed and used as nulla-nullas, to settle the regular domestic disputes, and tribal inter-rivalry, aggravated by cask wine.

It was determined that a fix had to be found. The RAA was consulted and the RAA deferred the questions to a committee, that decided to send out a member survey to see if anyone had any answers to the vexing problem.

After all, trying to sell a Drifter without a control column - let alone trying to fly one - was difficult, to say the least.

The RAA committee had to wait 6 weeks for all the forms to be returned, and when they were, the committee were appalled to find that.......

Does anyone remember the famous scientists forecast, and associated book - "The Jupiter Effect". No? Well, I do. I was one of the unknowing plebs sucked into the prediction, and who believed the "experts", and who spread the story far and wide.

To recap, two "highly respected" astrophysicists, no less, wrote a highly detailed prediction, based on their advanced, superior scientific knowledge and calculations, that a lineup of the planets in 1982 was going to result in massively increased, combined-planetary-gravitational pull, on long-suffering Planet Earth, and the result would be a massively increased number of earthquakes, culminating with a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, resulting in massive, life-as-we-know-it-on-Earth, destruction and desecration.

I became very alarmed after reading this book - because these two blokes were Cambridge graduates, specialists in every exotic facet of astroscience and quantum physics, and one was the Editor of the prestigious science magazine, Nature.

But 1982 came and went and the planets aligned and nothing happened.

Then these two "scientific experts" wrote another book, "The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered", explaining that all their calculations were wrong, but not to worry, it was just a few little errors on their behalf.

Is it any wonder, then, that today, I have zero faith in "scientists (exotic and far-reaching) calculations"??

So many of these people are just plain BS-artists, intent on making a name for themselves by showing us plebs that they're so highly educated, we should treat them as Gods. 

As I've stated before, I defy any scientists to produce a climatic calculation, forward-prediction result, that is deadly accurate, due to the mind-boggling amount of calculations needed, and the variables that affect weather and the climate - even more so, when those scientists are saying they can accurately predict 50 years into the future, whether the world temperature will rise 0.8° or 1.2°, or 1.5°.

These forward predictions fall into the range of pure speculation, and the climate-change "believers" are caught up in what is basically a climate change cult, that borders on religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jupiter_Effect

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-notable-apocalypses-that-obviously-didnt-happen-9126331/

....this led to Little Cappy getting nicknamed Little Happy - because he thought he could satisfy any groupie with ease, and he wore a Chesire Cat grin permanently as a result.

However, one night, he scored a groupie named Mandy - mostly because she homed in on him like a cruise missile, right after the last race. The problem was Mandy was what is generally known "in the trade" as a BBW.

Well, she maybe wasn't quite so beautiful (being known as a 'two-bagger' - one for her head, and one for yours, in case hers comes off) - but BIG she was.

She grabbed Little Cappy and squeezed him so hard he could hardly breathe. But the worst was yet to come. That was when she pushed him back, and laid on top of him!

Little Cappy started gasping for breath, feeling his life force being squeezed out of him. Mandy mistook the sounds he was making, for the sounds of a man in the throes of sexual ecstasy.

She started panting too, becoming excited at how easily this young man could be aroused. But all Little Cappy could do was gasp, "Turbs!! Help! Help! Help!!"

But Turbs was nowhere to be seen, he had business to attend to with the racing committee, and they had.......

Well, I've learnt something new today, about something I never knew existed - Lunar and Solar Air Tides.

I wonder if the climate change scientists calculating our future temperatures and climate, took these weather drivers into the equation?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-moon-have-a-tida/

I don't know what you can do about overbreeding, Skippy - particularly amongst the 3rd worlders. I'm hazarding a guess that eventually, a plague, or pestilence, or famine, or war, will tend to correct the problem.

There have been mega-droughts and raised climatic temperature variations in many past centuries. The civilisations that failed to adapt to the warmer temperatures collapsed or died out.

I say it's far better to adapt to warmer temperatures and a drier rainfall pattern, than trying to reverse the climate in a short period of time, by cutting out the use immediately, of our primary energy sources.

I believe we are probably far better off in the long-term, to wind down the use of coal and oil - mostly because of the immediate personal high cost of those products. I hate financing gold-plated Ferraris in Saudi Arabia every time I fill up.

Then we have to understand that the current major beneficiaries of mining coal, and extracting oil, are the major manufacturing and service companies, and the oil companies themselves. Think Caterpillar, Schlumberger, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron. 

As individual Australians, we get a very poor share of our resources that are being extracted. Gina Hancock gets an outrageous share of our resources.

The Weeks Petroleum Royalty still provides massive wealth to many already wealthy investors, let alone Kermit Weeks with his unearned multiple billions, that allows him to play with hundreds of collectable aircraft (Fantasy of Flight museum).

But by not going down the road of knee-jerk decisions of the climate change activists, and trying to hold back the waves, we're far better advised to carry out incremental adjustments to reduce our anthropogenic impact on our environment, along with adjustments to our styles of living and farming, to cope with the climatic variations that have been with us since the dawn of time.

https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/15330/past-megadroughts-what-s

A fair bit of crap in the article in the Australian, from Flannery and the other alarmists, who believe that shutting coal-fired power stations today, will reverse the currently-dry seasons, almost immediately.

I had to laugh at his opinion (which is all it is, it's not backed by any study or studies), that "Perth will become the first Australian Ghost capital, based on its scarce water".

He obviously knows SFA about W.A.'s water supplies - which are carefully managed, and extensive (with numerous untapped large aquifers), and all backed by two very large and capable natural gas-fired desalination plants, that have been in operation for several years.

There has never been any study or studies provided by anyone - let alone Flannery - that shutting down all the coal-burning operations in the world, is going to reverse rising temperatures and the current low rainfall in Australia - that's if the activists could shut down the majority of coal-burning operations. Remember, there are thousands of coal-burning operations worldwide, and many countries have no intention of shutting them down overnight.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/tim-flannery-climate-group-funding-exfire-chiefs-going-it-alone/news-story/fd55e5bd69cc54288e071d07808438c9

.....belief that a good spanking led to even better landings. As such, he planned to ask Brigitte to give him a good spanking every time he took off, fully believing his landings got better, as a result.

But as soon as Brigitte landed in her personal Concorde, Cappy turned into a dribbling, incoherent mess as soon as she greeted him. In the flesh, she was absolutely stunning, and with a ruler in her hand, even more so.

Cappy gibbered, "I ... uhhh .... errr.... oooohh.... Bonjour, Madame Macron!". "Bonjour, Monsieur Cappy, I hear lots of goood theengs about you - mostly about your love of schoolink! (because Brigitte spoke reasonable English, with a cute Froggie accent, of course - that made Cappy go weak at the knees).

Cappy, dribbling, replied, "I .... uhhhh...... errrr...... ummmm.......

....... of his educational schoolbooks, to show her, he really had attended a proper school, and had attempted to graduate, despite only reaching Grade 5 by age 13.

The cunning old Rat knew Brigitte had been a former schoolteacher, and he really wanted to impress her.

What was more important, Cappy wanted to wear his best pressed school shorts and school tie in her presence, and get her to spank him.

Not many people knew, but Cappy enjoyed a regular good spanking by women dressed as teachers, and particularly, older women teachers.

This was apart from spanking himself regularly - which wasn't as much fun as looking forward to getting dressed up his school uniform, and getting spanked by Brigitte.

Cappy was so eager to start a spanking session with Brigitte, he.........

The current fire situation map in NSW. Not looking good for an early reduction in the number of fires. 

Maybe something good will come out of the bushfires. Maybe the fires in the Barrington Tops NP area will finally uncover the wreckage of VH-MDX. 

http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=2168b5162d61432c8b3499818a2d60df&extent=150.1575,-33.9201,150.5125,-33.7738

.....while you're at it, don't ride around 1st class in trains, and try to make it look like you're riding on the roof of an Indian train". 

"How dare you say that!", yelled Greta. "Don't you know that that train was being pedalled by climate activists, to avoid the use of coal-fired electricity!".

Meantimes, an investigation was being launched as to how Albo got into the fireline in his creased suit, let alone a firesuit.

"We need to see if this constitutes a severe infringement of OHS standards in fire zones", said a NSW Fire Service mouthpiece, who declined to offer her name, as she was speaking "off the record".

"I mean to say, a creased suit just isn't on, when you're in a fire zone. We need to maintain standards, and this politician is currently lowering those standards, not raising them!"

"Politicians offer pretty low standards at the best of times", Cappy was heard to mutter in the background. "Who said that??", interjected Albos media representative.

"I demand that person present themselves right now!"

"Not bluddy likely", muttered Cappy again. "The last time I presented.......

EDIT - I mentioned above, that the Thuraya satellite system was advised to me, to be the satellite system Spot used.

Further investigation has revealed that Spot primarily uses the Globalstar satellite system, although it may also utilise the Thuraya satellite system, in addition to Globalstar.

As Spot LLC is a subsidiary company of Globalstar, it makes sense to me, that Spot would use the Globalstar satellite system, primarily.

Also, Thuraya owns only 2 satellites, Globalstar owns dozens of satellites.

I don't have any GPS tracking/messaging devices (I guess I just like relying on my own resources) - but numerous remote-location-loving 4WD-er friends are right into the trackers, convinced they are the ultimate fallback device.

There are numerous trackers available, and the plans are four times as numerous. And it's the available plans that often provide the greatest level of input into the decision-making.

4WD'ers close to me insist the Garmin InReach Explorer + is the pick of the bunch, due to two main reasons - flexibility in plans, with the ability to pause your subscription if you need to, when you don't require the device to be operational - and the fact the Garmin utilises the latest Iridium Saga satellites, which provide 4 times the coverage of the Thuraya satellite system, as used by the Spot devices.

The Spot Gen3 does have the advantage of a considerably longer battery life, but that should not be a major consideration, if proper forward planning is carried out. 

The major factor in favour of the Garmin over the Spot, is the 2-way messaging ability - even though that comes at increased cost. This feature played a big part in a number of friends decisions to go with the Garmin.

This is an American-based comparison review, below - but the largest majority of the information supplied, is also applicable to Australia.

https://www.rei.com/blog/news/which-satellite-messenger-should-you-get

......do, because we need more firefighters!" Meanwhile, the Queenslanders wrote to complain about the amount of trees left standing in Qld, that only provided more fuel for more fires - and how if Joh Bjelke-Petersen was still alive, he'd have used his 50 bulldozers in his business to flatten every tree in Qld, and thereby remove any possible chance of bushfire - and make JBP extremely wealthy at the same time.

They'd write that if NSW was being run by JBP, instead of that miserable-looking excuse of a woman politician, the Blue Mountains would have been chained and clear-felled by now, thus affording a wonderful view of all those Great Dividing Range valleys, and increasing the tourist potential exponentially, because the Blue Mountains would now resemble Monument Valley in AZ - where you'll notice, the threat of bushfire is totally non-existent, thanks to the early widespread use of bulldozers with clearing chains.

Meantimes, Scott, back from his shortchanged holiday break, decided he'd like to get airborne again, so he could continue to look down on his voters, and also to imagine that he was still flying away on holidays.

Accordingly, he thought it would be a great idea to ride along on the Coulson 737 air tanker.

He worked out, he could get also great media coverage by being seen to be at the firefront with the real firefighters - the pilots of the 737 - and he reckoned he could probably wangle to be videoed pressing the button to empty the retardant tank, thus showing the voters he was actually doing his bit to stop the fires.

"That's a brilliant idea, Scott", said Turboplanner, who had seen great opportunity in the bushfires himself, and who'd wangled himself a media consultancy position within Cabinet. "But if you like, I could present an even better opportunity by..........

If liquid anaerobic polymer (which is what Loctite is), is deprived of air, in contact with metal, it sets to a plastic state. Loctite can cope with gaps up to about 0.050" (1.27mm) and it will still set, if it's between metal surfaces.

The best part about Loctite is, it's available in a wide range of strengths and designed uses (get a Loctite application/product chart off your distributor, if you can).

I've seen the high strength Loctite used on retaining nuts on driveshaft yokes on heavy equipment - and 1 inch drive rattle guns couldn't get the nuts undone, we had to use heat on the nut.

https://www.henkel-adhesives.com/au/en/products/industrial-adhesives/anaerobic-adhesives.html

".... bald pate, of which I'm rightly proud. I don't get referred to regularly as 'Kojak' for nothing. In fact, it's so shiny, Wu Fat had to don welding glasses against the glare - without them, he could see nothing".

"Well, that explains a lot of recent piloting accidents and incidents, then", said Turbopong. "It's obvious the glare was blinding pilots on final, and they either failed to flare properly, or nosedived into the runway, or did a perfect 3 pointer, 15 feet above the runway!".

"I had nothing to do with any of those recent accidents and incidents", said Hi-Ho. "It was more likely the pong putting pilots off their game - you know what it's like, it's the same as hauling dead roos with a load of Indigenes!"

"Well, I don't know about dead roos on board", said Turbopong, "But I can say this much .....

OME - the idea is sound, but I believe the bearings on the crank arms need pressurised lubrication, for long-term durability and substantial power output.

My 1977 Engel portable fridge/freezer is still running well after 42 years of fairly steady work - and it's powered by a solenoid motor (Sawafuji Swing Motor).

But the Sawafuji has no crank arms, no rotating parts, and only one moving part - the piston.

Maybe multiple Sawafuji motors could be combined to produce compressed air, which could then be used to propel the aircraft?

It's working good Ian, the change seems to have improved the forum speed. 

I can't speak for the Eastern States, because I have no knowledge of those States funding arrangements - but in W.A., we have the Emergency Services Levy, which is a charge applied along with the local Govt rates, to every landowner in W.A.

The ESL is set to raise $406M this year, which funding goes towards volunteer and career, fire, rescue and marine rescue groups. When the ESL was first applied in 2003, it brought in $73M.

Unfortunately, as with all systems, it still has its flaws, whereby the country volunteer fire brigades still claim they're being shortchanged, as compared to the citys services.

https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/emergencyserviceslevy/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-15/volunteer-firefighters-want-more-emergency-services-levy-funding/11513688

Peter & Skippy - Thanks for the appreciation, I try to provide useful information, as well as an opinion, when a subject is being "kicked around".

I've found the refuelling suppliers are generally very good - in W.A., we have PAMS, and they are very reasonable as regards pricing, as well.

Arron - I believe the oil companies fear as regards phones is that a user might drop their phone, and thereby create a spark if it suffers damage. Still a long shot, by any measure.

Here's three service station videos of static fires - the first one supposedly caused by using the phone whilst refuelling.

As one commentator pointed out, the action of sliding a hand into a pocket in synthetic clothing, then sliding the phone out, was more likely where the large level of static electricity built up.

Once he touched the refuelling nozzle, it released the static buildup on his body, caused by the sliding actions, in and out of his pocket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_gAsmWYe44