Early Risers.

[monkeysarefun]

14 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

Yes, after all, the tyres are the only part of the vehicle in contact with the road. Or ploughed field, etc. 

 

 

After a spate of vehicles getting washed away in the recent floods here because the owners thought their big heavy 4WD would be able to ford  floods with ease without getting washed away , The Uni of NSW released this video.

 

https://www.wrl.unsw.edu.au/video/4wd-in-floodwater

Edited May 13, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Number hit shoulder or head high  by Behemoth SUVs who then drive over the top of them VS those hit by sedans etc at knee high  that absorb some of the impact and flick them onto the bonnet. (oops hood)

A large portion of fatalities are 'hit and run' but they will sometimes show the aftermath if the vehicle is still there - I've seen plenty of cratered windshields/windscreens on sedans on the news.

 

While they are common, not all vehicles here are trucks or SUVs. Marketshare numbers can mislead because they reflect new sales and do not reflect the existing vehicles on the road.

[Ozexpatriate]

Today set a record for the date in Portland of 89°F / 32°C.

 

In honour of the temperatures, red meat was seared over an open flame and I dined al fresco. 

 

Earlier, being fertilized a week or so ago, the grassy verge is growing rapidly and was mown in anticipation of the irrigation system for the garden being activated from its dormant winter state.

 

The (unseasonable) forecast for the next week is to exceed 29°C with no rain.

 

It is 24°C indoors this evening and I've not yet flipped the switch on the air conditioning. I hope it functions when called to do its duty sometime in the days to come.

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

6 hours ago, PupCam said:

I believe the error is usually 10% + a constant (generally 2mph) although this varies across counties.   The error spec on speedos is asymmetric  (+ Something  - Nothing)  so they must not display a value lower than the actual speed of the vehicle.

 

 Indeed, speedometers cannot read low, some can read noticeably high but most modern cars I have driven seem to have a slightly high error but not much if checking with things like sat-nav speed. 

 

One of my pet hates was always trucks tailgating in roadworks and having anger management issues because I was observing the 50 (or whatever it might have been) limit. Some of them seem to almost touch the rear bumper and can start flashing lights etc. The instrument provided to the driver to monitor their speed is the speedometer, if that was reading 50 in a 50 limit then as far as I knew I was driving at 50. Actually, it wasn't about that, based on other things if I was at 50 on the speedo in my last car I was at something like 48-49 which is a trivial difference (and there is no requirement to drive at the limit, a limit is a limit, not a requirement), what they were trying to do was bully other drivers to ignore the limit.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.   No Utes have been washed away around here, probably because decent size rivers are several miles away.   Anyway a good day was had yesterday.  Both Beth and daughter Rachel got better news from doctors so things are looking better.   Then a very pleasant afternoon was spent watching trains and putting the word to rights.

 

This morning we will have out usual video chat with Rachel, Laura and Emily.   That is always entertaining.  There are various things to do and then this evening an energetic 6 yr old is comi.ng for a sleepover.   I may have to read him a Thomas story.   

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Here its hard to find someone who doesn't know anyone with a Toyota pickup,  Its like 6 degrees of separation if you took 4 degrees away. The Hilux ute  has been the most popular " family car"  here by far ever since Ford and Holden packed up local manufacturing, helped mainly by generous subsidies on diesel utes intended to help Primary  industries but which all buyers benefit from.

 

Four of the highest selling cars last year were utes. Toyota HiLux was the nation’s top-selling car with 64,391 sales, closely followed by the new Ford Ranger (47,479 sales), Mitsubishi Triton (27,436 sales) and Isuzu Ute D-Max (24,336 sales).

 

 

https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/transport/cars/australian-new-car-sales-2022.html#:~:text=Toyota HiLux is Australia's top,Mitsubishi and Tesla sales jump&text=The HiLux muscled out the,Australia's top-selling car brand.

 

The Top Gear Team did this with a HiLux - and it still worked afterwards:

 

Not sure if it still is, but it used to be on display in the Toyota UK HQ (Foyer, maybe?)

 

Bear here.....

Not sure what today will bring - probably doing some architrave work methinks; the Met Person is predicting dry weather over Bear Towers for the next seven days so scope for working in the back garden is much improved.

 

In other news:

10/10 for trying it on:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/it-worker-on-sick-leave-for-15-years-sues-over-no-pay-rise/ar-AA1b7jP8?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=309981801dd64ad4a0d3b3dc0cc9c0fe&ei=18

 

BG

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, 

3.5 hours, 3 hours sleep, woke finally with hints both legs are on the dge of cramp. 

A stroll round the garden with Ben I'm surprised at you want out so early Collie. 

 

Early yep I'm off  to a deep market to watch parallel bits of metal in a variety of sizes. According to the gadget it's 88 miles but will take 2.5 hours... It's across country. Though I shall avoid paddling through rivers.

 

Got home last night and SWMBO was very unhappy , no TV to watch her soaps....

Some time later she says.. I've sorted out the cabinet below the TV....

Yep you've got the clue, crawling about down in the bottom, I found the aerial cable had been pulled out of the plug into the wall socket. Took 5 minute to reconnect.

 

Landrover lost out from the late 60s to the late 1980s, when  the profits were used to prop up British Leyland  while starving Landrover of investment . Getting the first range rover made was a miracle as the rest of BL fought against it.

 

Time to programme this gadget.. I have miles to do.

 

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

To kill a hilux.. Park in muddy hollow. Drive over it with a Challenger 2 .. 72 tons of vehicle sitting on the UTE does strange things to it!

 

I did drive a friends UTE while on holiday this year. Comfort levels.. low, cabin space.. small,turning circle.. poor. Petrol consumption... very high..not impressed.

 

Cricket umpiring to be done today and tomorrow..pah! But it does generate muddling tokens in return.

 

We have a house surrounded by scaffolding. The solar panel team turned up yesterday. All brackets were fitted. Back on Monday to fit the cables, panels, battery and control box then, hopefully we can start to have less impact on the national grid!

 

My mugatea awaits. 

 

TTFN!

 

Baz

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Barry O

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, roundhouse said:

If you were drinking the same as me, the Gypsy Hill Brewery craft beer which is dearer than the normal ales. £7.25 is about right for such a beer in London.

Good grief, that’s more than eine grosses in Zürich (and Zürich ain’t cheap). I think that I might be drinking something more mass produced than a craft beer next time.  my taste for expensive alcoholic beverages is definitely in whiskies and not for beer…

10 hours ago, polybear said:......

…After a quick check I realised they'd seemingly charged a certain Bear......£6.80 for a Lemonade & Blackcurrant.  That's a half by the way, not a Pint......😮

Bear, thinking that all is not well here, phoned them a few minutes ago to check if they'd charged correctly; it seems they'd incorrectly charged for a Pint and not a half - and some of the £6.80 is actually a service charge for the meal anyway (which is fair enough)….

After reading this, I cast my mind back to how much I paid and realised that I had been overcharged by £3 - although, to be fair, this could be a service charge (something which I think is rather unusual in a pub).  Unfortunately, I was so enjoying the company of the Brains Trust that I neglected to forensically examine the bill. turdycurses..

OK it was only a tiny percentage of a “boring teleconference”* - but still…

10 hours ago, polybear said:

…..Of course they may have been spiked by a certain scurrilous Doc and Bear could awake in the morning thinking Curly Fries, Oven Chips and Pizza are highly toxic....

I knew I’d forgotten something….

 

9 hours ago, PupCam said:

 

On a rather more distressing note.   She has tested the chocolate that I was clutching on my return for quality and acceptability.    Unfortunately she declared it to be of very high quality and most acceptable.     

 

Turdycurses!    That means I'm going to have to hide it!

Oh dear, had I known in advance of the potentiality of such a distressing outcome, I could’ve prepared a decoy chocolate bar. This would have been one of those oversized blocks of chocolate that are made by second tier chocolatiers for the tourist trade. By world standards, this would be considered a more than excellent chocolate bar, but for the Swiss such bars would be considered as barely adequate.
 

The idea would be that as Mrs puppers is struggling her way through the oversized second quality chocolate bar, this would allow you to enjoy the top tier mini Lindt chocolates at your leisure (and Lindt chocolates are definitely top tier).

 

* The “boring teleconference“‘s is iD’s currentl financial yardstick and refers to the number of hours of boring teleconference ID has to sit through to pay for something. The basic unit is a one hour boring teleconference.

[PhilJ W]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

After a spate of vehicles getting washed away in the recent floods here because the owners thought their big heavy 4WD would be able to ford  floods with ease without getting washed away , The Uni of NSW released this video.

 

https://www.wrl.unsw.edu.au/video/4wd-in-floodwater

I once had a Suzuki SJ, the precursor of the Jimney. I've taken it through flooded fords a couple of times without any problems. The problem with modern SUV's is like most modern vehicles is that they are air and watertight and will float like a boat. In the case of my Suzuki that wasn't a problem because of the rust holes in the floor. 

[iL Dottore]

Referring to @jjb1970 and @tigerburnie comments about the Korean and Japanese commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction, I think that cultural differences play a big part.
 

From the little I know from my modest reading about Southeast Asian cultures, it seems that providing service to others is considered something very honourable and is done to the highest possible standard – whether that is providing service in the form of being a shop assistant or delivering a brand new ship. Whereas in much of the western world, providing a service to others, is sometimes (often?) considered demeaning.

 

Another consideration is that, certainly in Japan, people know that good quality costs and are prepared to spend that money. A number of years ago I was in the Tenshodo model railway shop in Ginza in Tokyo. Their N gauge models were utterly, utterly superb in finish, materials technology, and construction and far beyond the quality of anything in N gauge being produced for the UK market at the time. Yes, they were expensive, but a cram-packed model shop suggested no shortage of customer willing to fork out lots…

And high quality model railways are not the only things the Japanese are willing to pay well for. Whether it is a cook’s knife, a superb bunch of grapes or a kimono (amongst many, many other things) the Japanese will pay for quality.

I think one of the curses of modern life in western democracies is the race to the bottom in terms of trying to get everything as cheap as possible. The cheaper something is sold for/provided for the less money can be made on the product or service, so “savings“ have to be made, which normally come in the form of lower quality materials, poor quality manufacture and low personnel costs (fewer staff, lower/stagnating wages). 
 

Then, as @polybear pointed out, once the middlemen have captured the market by selling cheap, they can jack up prices without paying any attention to increasing quality of material or manufacture or paying appropriate personnel and production costs.

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I once had a Suzuki SJ, the precursor of the Jimney. I've taken it through flooded fords a couple of times without any problems. The problem with modern SUV's is like most modern vehicles is that they are air and watertight and will float like a boat. In the case of my Suzuki that wasn't a problem because of the rust holes in the floor. 

 

And that's why the pedals on PROPER Landrovers were spaced for wellies. It wasn't just for the Welsh market, y'know!

 

(Don't know about Suzuki pedal spacing)

 

[PhilJ W]

26 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

And that's why the pedals on PROPER Landrovers were spaced for wellies. It wasn't just for the Welsh market, y'know!

 

(Don't know about Suzuki pedal spacing)

 

As I recall there was plenty of space for my size twelves in the Suzuki. No carpets or rubber mats even. The instruction book said it could wade up to 45 cms, about 18 inches, just below the fuel filler cap and the oil dipstick.

[Gwiwer]

Wide pedal spacing on a Landy is fine for those of use with larger than Size 8 feet.  I almost invested once upon a time until I looked more closely at speed-versus-distance and fuel consumption.  I'm not un-interested to this day on a horses for courses basis and the Hill of Strawberries is not the right course.  

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The sciatica hit first thing this morning and I could barely move without it being excruciatingly painful. However I did move and pills were taken and its now back in its box. A few complaints have been made on Newswatch this morning about the BBC's coverage of the Coronation, basically the same as what was said by myself about the same pictures and commentary being shown on both BBC channels. Eurovision today, another one to avoid.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Grey sky but it should brighten up later with plenty of sunshine this afternoon.  12°C now with 19°C on offer later.

Slow here again.  Late to bed and late up.

Much Aching in The Hip today so some moving around is called for.   A visit to The Shed is possible and I might risk firing up the soldering iron.  Talk about living dangerously.

Later on a rugby match will be watched but like Phil I will be avoiding the Eurovision thing.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[Hroth]

15 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The sciatica hit first thing this morning and I could barely move without it being excruciatingly painful. However I did move and pills were taken and its now back in its box. A few complaints have been made on Newswatch this morning about the BBC's coverage of the Coronation, basically the same as what was said by myself about the same pictures and commentary being shown on both BBC channels. Eurovision today, another one to avoid.

 

I thought the main reason for having the Coronation on BBC 1 and 2 was that the BBC 2 transmission was signed. Imagine the complaints if there was only one transmission and that was signed...

 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A beautiful sunny day here in England’s northwest corner. I shall shortly be heading off to collect Ava as she will, as usual, be spending the day here with us. Once back here, she and I will have a drink of tea and then we’ll make a batch of lime curd, this will then form the topping for the cheesecake I made yesterday and will be consumed after tea tonight. It won’t just be 3 here for tea tonight though, as Mike and Sarah will be joining us as well. So as a treat, we’re having an Indian take away as our favourite supplier has just reopened after a major refurbishment. 
 

Back later 

 

Brian

Edited May 13, 2023 by BSW01

[PhilJ W]

20 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I thought the main reason for having the Coronation on BBC 1 and 2 was that the BBC 2 transmission was signed. Imagine the complaints if there was only one transmission and that was signed...

 

They also have two more channels that normally are not open until seven in the evening. Why couldn't they be used?

[New Haven Neil]

How the *&^% do people not murder children more often?  I need ear plugs and a temper moderator, my tongue is getting bitten a lot.

 

As for Emley Moor mast, a mate used to be responsible for some interesting gear there.  When installing an upgrade, the riggers had put the new aerial up, and the super expensive lead.  JD went to connect it all up in the gubbins place and the lead was too short - the riggers had made an assumption about which was the correct equipment rack, wrongly.  You can't join this sort of cable....they had to do it all again. 330m high or something like that, oops.

[Hroth]

35 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

They also have two more channels that normally are not open until seven in the evening. Why couldn't they be used?

 

Dunno. Too expensive to transfer the feeds?  Or perhaps easier to tell people to go to a familiar channel for signing than to 9 for BBC 4 or whatever channel BBC 3 is on.

 

[jjb1970]

I have finally found a shop in Singapore that sells something useful, though I can't help thinking it is yet another sign of the deep malaise which has afflicted Britain that I have to come to SE Asia to get a BoJo doll.

 

 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Dunno. Too expensive to transfer the feeds?  Or perhaps easier to tell people to go to a familiar channel for signing than to 9 for BBC 4 or whatever channel BBC 3 is on.

 

Are the frequencies used for the start at 7pm programmes those used for CBBC or CBeebies in the daytime? Lots of changes recently were to allow regional BBC1 to have HD.  The BBC News channel lost its HD output on FreeView (but not FreeSat). 
Tony

[DaveF]

I'm not really having a late start today, i just had to go,out a bit earlier than usual on a Saturday and have found a problem on my laptop so the time I had got used up investigating.

 

It started dull, it is now a lovely sunny day but with a big bank of cloud a few miles offshore.

 

More later.

 

 

[Hroth]

46 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Are the frequencies used for the start at 7pm programmes those used for CBBC or CBeebies in the daytime? Lots of changes recently were to allow regional BBC1 to have HD.  The BBC News channel lost its HD output on FreeView (but not FreeSat). 
Tony

 

You may have something there regarding the shared channel frequencies. Imagine the uproar if the childrens channels suddenly sprouted non-stop Coronation coverage! And if the BBC had chosen just one to use, it would have always been the wrong one!

 

I've not a clue about the HD stuff*, I've never bothered with it!

 

Back to signing for a moment.

 

The model for signing that the BBC appears to use is to shrink the main image towards the top left hand corner of the screen so there's room for a reasonably large signer to appear towards the bottom right hand corner without obstructing the screen. This means that if you don't require signing, then the visible picture of the ongoings is irritatingly smaller.

 

The other option would have been the red button, but that apparently (I didn't investigate) was a commentary free option, with just natural environmental sounds. Typical Slow TV...

 

 

* Hi Def nostril hair.  Lovely!

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Hroth
Extra on signing, etc.