Early Risers.

[Sidecar Racer]

5 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

I was wrong when I thought he was hammering in an earth spike ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 That certainly looks like a good H&S fail .     😬

[iL Dottore]

Captain Cynical is getting really p.o.’d about what most of humanity is up to. Not only that, but his trusted advisors Throat Ripper (Lucy) and The Emasculator (Schotty) have pointed out that when people get all “human” with each other (which is much, much, worse than being “beastly” to each other) it’s innocent dogs, cats, rabbits, bears, monkeys and other fauna that get stuck between a rock and a hard place.

CC heeds their dismay and will be taking action in the near future

CCI GmbH’s innocuously named Department of Interesting Biology (Behavioural Genetic Neurobiology Section) has been applying the lessons learned from CoVID-19 to their research and their work has earned the approval of both Throat Ripper and The Emasculator.

 

Captain Cynical  has approved the full scale roll-out.

 

The forthcoming targeted Zombie Apocalypse is gonna be AWESOME!

[Sidecar Racer]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

 

At a time when forest fires are causing so many problems it's surprising to me that it's being pensioned off, even if it is expensive to fly; there doesn't seem to be any mention of the aircraft being out of airframe hours etc. which would of course force their hand.

 

 

 It has not seen active fire fighting work work since 2015 . And Canada has 64 Canadair CL-415's dotted

around the Country  to call on .  The history of Mars is here .  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_JRM_Mars

Edited August 5 by Sidecar Racer

[iL Dottore]

I may be joking in my post above, but it does pose an interesting ethical and legal dilemma: if a gene that causes individuals to be criminally violent is identified with 100% reliability about it causing violent criminal acts and if a quickly fatal virus is developed that only infects and kills those with that gene alone. Should that virus be used?
 

This isn’t as far fetched as you may imagine: we already have targeted therapies, like those which specifically target certain cancers but leave healthy cells untouched and we also have preliminary data linking certain genetic defects with certain neurological disease (I understand there’s a lot of research along these lines for Alzheimer’s Disease).

 

If we could do so, would we? Should we? (i can think of a number of limitations/problems in using such a virus)
 

A world without criminal violence would be incredibly interesting, but at what cost to get there?

[BoD]

5 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

A world without criminal violence would be incredibly interesting, but at what cost to get there?

What cost not to go there?

 

Just hypothesising too, it must be said.

[polybear]

44 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 

 

Does this mean that Puppers Towers is receiving free leccy at the moment?

 

27 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Captain Cynical is getting really p.o.’d about what most of humanity is up to. Not only that, but his trusted advisors Throat Ripper (Lucy) and The Emasculator (Schotty) have pointed out that when people get all “human” with each other (which is much, much, worse than being “beastly” to each other) it’s innocent dogs, cats, rabbits, bears, monkeys and other fauna that get stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

BBC News has reported that Plod Doggies and Gee Gee's were being attacked with rocks, bricks, fence posts and bottles during the protests in the UK 🤬

 

25 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 It has not seen active fire fighting work work since 2015 . And Canada has 64 Canadair CL-415's dotted around the Country  to call on .  

 

Which is obviously still not enough - and the US seem to be struggling as well.

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

Only one - and to get that out means taking a fence panel out and going thru' next-door's back garden.....

 

 

 

So Born To Be Wild wasnt written about you then!

 

Get your motor runnin',

then go and find your hammer,

but take the fence down  quietly,

the neighbour works from home today

 

Hey missus can you move your birdbath?

Got to get my bike out fast

Oh ok then I'll get an Uber

the carbies blocked anyway.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5 by monkeysarefun

[Sidecar Racer]

13 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Which is obviously still not enough - and the US seem to be struggling as well.

 

 They only have 10 Canadair's but a large fleet of other aircraft .

 

 https://www.nifc.gov/resources/aircraft

[Hroth]

 

Too warm, not even a breeze and so humid that I felt like a goldfish when I went out earlier.  I HATE summer!

 

As for the rioting scum, treat 'em like pitbulls and XL Bullies.  Round them up while they're rioting (no need to be nice about it) and deal with them appropriately.

 

Oh god, I'm starting to sound like an Express/Mail reader...

 

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Too warm, not even a breeze and so humid that I felt like a goldfish when I went out earlier.  I HATE summer!

 

As for the rioting scum, treat 'em like pitbulls and XL Bullies.  Round them up while they're rioting (no need to be nice about it) and deal with them appropriately.

 

Oh god, I'm starting to sound like an Express/Mail reader...

 

More worryingly your starting to sound like PB.

 

Yours A Friend.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, polybear said:

At a time when forest fires are causing so many problems it's surprising to me that it's being pensioned off, even if it is expensive to fly; there doesn't seem to be any mention of the aircraft being out of airframe hours etc. which would of course force their hand.

Hawaii Mars II is a museum piece. It was delivered to the USN in 1946.

 

Compared with regular airliners converted for fire-fighting, flying boat operations are complicated and the aircraft is expensive to maintain. Firefighting flight operations are dangerous and there is a additional risk with a big heavy aircraft like the Mars. Marianas Mars crashed while fire-fighting on Vancouver Island in 1961.

 

The owners of Hawaii Mars (Coulson Aviation) bought a C-130 and converted it for firefighting - which is much better suited to their flight operations.

[jjb1970]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I may be joking in my post above, but it does pose an interesting ethical and legal dilemma: if a gene that causes individuals to be criminally violent is identified with 100% reliability about it causing violent criminal acts and if a quickly fatal virus is developed that only infects and kills those with that gene alone. Should that virus be used?
 

This isn’t as far fetched as you may imagine: we already have targeted therapies, like those which specifically target certain cancers but leave healthy cells untouched and we also have preliminary data linking certain genetic defects with certain neurological disease (I understand there’s a lot of research along these lines for Alzheimer’s Disease).

 

If we could do so, would we? Should we? (i can think of a number of limitations/problems in using such a virus)
 

A world without criminal violence would be incredibly interesting, but at what cost to get there?

 

Would this virus also work against people with the gene that causes them to watch Eastenders or read the Express? Just asking for a friend.

[Hroth]

18 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

More worryingly your starting to sound like PB.

 

Yours A Friend.

 

I know, but at least I didn't label the scum as "scrotes"!

 

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Would this virus also work against people with the gene that causes them to watch Eastenders or read the Express? Just asking for a friend.

Captain Cynical informed me that he can do bespoke....

 

 

Edited August 5 by iL Dottore
Improved wording

[DaveF]

It's warmer here, it reached 26°C in the garden just after lunch.  The cleaning was done but Amanda wasn't concentrating as much as usual - they had been away for the weekend and last night the family had gone out for a meal to celebrate their wedding anniversary.  I don't think she was fully awake!  As it was hot I decided to stay at home this afternoon.

 

After she had gone I decided to do some paintwork cleaning and then tackled the bathroom tiles, they are now ready for a few small pieces of old grout to be replaced.  Now why I did I decide to do it on such a hot day?

 

I have done a bit more garden tidying and have found new boxes for spare glazing clips and other items as the old ones had cracked.  They will live in the garage in future.  Various other things went in the bin along with the old boxes.

 

I spent some time finding out as much as I could about the paperweights I bought recently, but cannot find an accurate date, they are all sometime in the 90s which will have to do.  They are not valuable anyway so it isn't important.

 

I think it is now time to sit down and stop for the day.

 

David

Edited August 5 by DaveF

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Nowadays, there seems to be a deliberate policy on the part of many manufacturers – especially in consumer electronics – of making items with a deliberately short functional life due to software operating system limitations (Apple being one of the prime offenders). So you pay a number of sound Deltics to buy an Apple gizmo (to be fair which are very well designed and made) only to find in about three or four years you can no longer use the gizmo, because although there is nothing wrong with it electronically and mechanically, Apple no longer supports the software for it.

 

The other deliberate policy used by manufacturers to cause people to buy things unnecessarily is to make the items unrepairable. Either parts to repair the item are not available or the item is constructed in such a way that in order to get it working again you have to replace a good chunk of it (the internal gubbins being composed of blocks of integrated units rather than multiple individual components) making it cheaper to throw the nonworking item away and buy new than to repair it.

People make a lot of assumptions that the non-reparability is intentional - as opposed to an unintended consequence that is happily convenient for manufacturers. Rather than planned obsolescence it's almost accidental obsolescence.

 

With the geometries involved, modern electronics will not have a long operational life. With aging effects (in which I would include electromigration) the semiconductor material will 'wear out' without any moving parts - except for the electrons.  A Silicon atom is 0.2nm in diameter. While most electronics is manufactured at a larger 'node', the state of the art in semiconductor manufacturing processes use critical dimensions as small as 3nm - this is only 15 Silicon atoms wide.

 

The form factor of devices like telephones lend themselves to 'press fit' applications which are notoriously difficult to take apart. Consumers don't want their telephones breaking into bits when dropped, so the press-fit is tight. Were they designed for reparability they would have screws and metal frames. They would be substantially larger and substantially heavier - which is undesirable to customers.

 

Where the likes of Apple don't do themselves any favours is in refusing to supply parts - like processors and screens, but keeping a supply chain of spares for consumers to life-extend products the manufacturer would rather see replaced is very expensive and a big conflict of interest. Doing so would inevitably make the product more expensive.

 

We see the same issues with the spares supply chain for items as diverse as model railway items and the cost of military hardware - a huge part of which is the contractual requirement to supply spares for a 50-year anticipated lifespan.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

... if a gene that causes individuals to be criminally violent is identified with 100% reliability about it causing violent criminal acts and if a quickly fatal virus is developed that only infects and kills those with that gene alone.

Stipulating a genetic mutation with a disposition to commit crime (which I find a bit far-fetched) then it can't be eradicated - the mutation will keep appearing anyway.

 

Fewer people would carry the gene but it would reappear naturally.

 

I don't buy into the concept that the child of a criminal would have a genetic bias to criminal behaviour. The 'nature versus nurture' debate is more likely 'nurture' in this example.

[TheQ]

Afternoon awl,

6 hours in the garden clearing the jungle, the mowing isn't finished because there were frequent interruptions to cut back brambles, and.. The mowers almost out of fuel having used the gallon in the tank and a further 10 liters from the cans. A couple of bushes that were falling over have been staked as well.

The above mowing was at its highest cut level and it's slowest forward progression due to the depth of jungle. So there's maybe an hours more jungle mowing required, before going over the main grass run at a slower cut.

 

Muddling, not a lot done to the bridge, but it does look a lot better for it.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

Which is obviously still not enough - and the US seem to be struggling as well.

I don't think you comprehend the scope of the wildfires. 

 

This is the current wildfire tracker provided by the local newspaper.

 

It only shows fires larger than 50 acres in size. Firefighting aircraft don't extinguish the fire. They protect property and lay down retardant ahead of the fire-line to contain it. The fires burn themselves out - eventually - in the winter when it rains. Some fires keep smoldering underneath snowfall.

 

OPB: More than 1 million acres burned across Oregon, firefighters making some progress

 

EDIT:

1 million aces (1,562 square miles) is larger than Kent or Sussex, but not quite as large as Somerset (1,610 square miles).  Of course the acres burned are not contiguous.

 

Edited August 5 by Ozexpatriate

[pH]

5 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

… Canada has 64 Canadair CL-415's dotted around the Country  to call on …

 

4 hours ago, polybear said:

… Which is obviously still not enough - and the US seem to be struggling as well.

The single Canadian province of British Columbia currently has 375 active wildfires. There are 10 Canadian provinces and three territories. There is no way that all fires in BC, let alone the country, can be fought at the same time, so there’s no point in trying to equip to do that.

 

The various responsible authorities have to “triage” fires as they happen, concentrating on those likely to cause casualties and/or serious damage. (And obviously, as in the recent tragic case of Jasper, their best efforts may not be sufficient.) Some fires, far away from habitation, are just left to burn and only die out in late fall or even into winter.

 

While there’s nothing now in service that’s as big as the Mars, there are still some pretty big air tankers flying:

 

https://youtu.be/idwUaJadn_M?feature=shared

(Edit - I see Ozexpatriate has said most of this while I was typing.)

Edited August 5 by pH

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

A pretty mediocre day really - the Co-op dash was completed without incident; whilst there I did spy a much-reduced LDC on the bakery clearance shelf 😁 - but as LDC is currently on Bear's "naughty list" (bluddy D-word n' all that) it stayed on the shelf.....😭  Poo.

 

Mickey was given a check over - all four tyres were somewhat over-pressure; I suspect that when Mickey's H&R damage was repaired they checked & inflated the tyres to the wrong pressures.  T0ssers.

(I know my own pressure gauge is accurate cos' I got the Calibration Dept. Guys at the House of Fun to check it for me when I bought it).

 

Ironing done, din dins scoffed, more sorting of muddlin' bits carried out (when I had planned to do some more brass wranglin'.....).  I guess that's a Tick and an Oops at the same time, then.....

 

ION.....

 

Bear's 2nd slice of Birthday Cake from NNNND is conspicuous by it's absence 😢  Turdycurses.

 

BG

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Feeling a bit tired as I didn't get much sleep last night and just finished a trip to Tess Coes for some bread and milk. Time for some eyelid inspection, be back later.

[Hroth]

In an effort to escape the Lympics, I'm watching an old Taskmaster on E4 Extra.  In the commercial breaks a "reality" programme, "Celebs Go Dating" is being advertised.  The participating "celebs" were briefly illustrated and I must say that I didn't recognise ANY of them... 🤣

 

Is that the sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped? 🤔

 

 

[polybear]

Bear here....

 

A Nephew of The Orange One was on Radio 2 earlier, being interviewed by that Jeremy(?) bloke I think.  It seems the Nephew has a son that has serious health problems, yet *apparently* the Orange One freely said that such people should be left to die as they were a financial drain on Society.  He also allegedly also tried to fix a family Will (his Father IIRC) because one of his businesses had gone seriously t*ts up - to the point where The Orange One was "receiving an allowance" because he was so skint.

Nice Guy.

[polybear]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

In an effort to escape the Lympics, I'm watching an old Taskmaster on E4 Extra.  In the commercial breaks a "reality" programme, "Celebs Go Dating" is being advertised.  The participating "celebs" were briefly illustrated and I must say that I didn't recognise ANY of them... 🤣

 

Is that the sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped? 🤔

 

 

 

You probably won't have heard of any of them either; I reckon they're from carp like "The Only Way is Essex" and similar, deep, meaningful classics....