Early Risers.

[southern42]

' evening all from red dragon land.

I recollect it was sunny this morning, turning to rain when Mr Suvvern went to collect the C&C groceries this afternoon.

 

Yesterday afternoon, we went for a mugadecaf down at the beach pavilion cafe, upstairs at the table by the window in Llanfairfechan to check out their *C* decorations. I spent awhile gazing out at the tide creeping its way in, then out at the turn of the tide. I am always amazed at how fast those waves come in.

 

Looking West down the Menai Strait, Ynys Môn (Isle of Anglesey) in the distance. The kitchen is now in the extension below the window.

 

About face towards the East. It was quite full downstairs being lunchtime. Views out of the windows to the horizon (left) and towards the mountains (right) can be seen from the high tables. These days we usually sit outside!

 

A day of getting things ready for posting tomorrow so early to bed tonight.

Take care. Be good. Find time to enjoy something.

Polly

 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[45568]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Hmmmmmm, the EV brigade here are big on saying that range isn't an  impediment in stopping you from  going bush  and they  love to  Instagram photos of their EV parked outside Uluru (Ayers Rock) etc but gloss over the actual details of what is involved.

 

 

 

This story puts a similar positive spin on it all but just  ends up reminding  me of the horse and buggy days when you'd need decent length breaks in your trip to rest and feed your horses.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/16/best-ev-electric-vehicles-road-trip-distance

 

Some critiquing if I may - 

 

I'm sure remote road houses, cattle stations, workshops  and caravan parks love the idea of hordes of EV owners knocking on their door at all hours asking to plug their cars in overnight as suggested, though he does make it clear that he "offers to pay for the electricity" at least.

 

And the suggestion that you sit on 70kmh to increase range.... doing the 3900km or so Sydney to Perth along the Nullabor, or any of the other major outback roads,  at 70kmh -  you'd be the most loved driver west of the Harbour Bridge, and probably just end up as an  imprint in the tar after one too many road train drivers got sick of spending 3 hours (or however long your charge lasts) sitting behind your smug "Look at me  saving the planet!"  ar5e.

 

Still not convincing me, try harder.

Excellent critique MAF! One can imagine little townships springing up around the livery stables  charging points in the desert, a saloon, hardware, barbers and hotels where all the Akubra stetson-wearing Evboys relax whilst their steeds are refreshed and groomed. But is there a threat to this idyllic existence? A mighty iron EV that generates its own electricity and runs on rails, capable of pulling several covered wagons of people and freight, that needs only to pause to set down and pick up goods and passengers for a few minutes and halves the time it takes to get back o' Bourke. What shall we call this thing? Is the age of the Evboy over before it really starts? Only time will tell.

Incidentally, my own personal opinion after watching the driving habits of EV pilots is that I am seeing Darwinian evolution in action, as the owners/drivers of the slow white Toyota Corolla/Camry pass through the partial adaptive phase of the slower silver hybrid Prius to the full EV ultra slow white Corolla/Camry, maintaining the rage of those other road users who just want to get on with it!

Scary times!!!

From WestOz, the land of the slow white Toyota,

Peter C.

[Coombe Barton]

2 minutes ago, 45568 said:

driving habits of EV pilots is that I am seeing Darwinian evolution in action

I see your Toyota and raise the multitude of Teslas that habitually occupy the Tyburn Road in Birmingham. I just hope that their Darwinian objectives miss me.

[monkeysarefun]

45 minutes ago, 45568 said:

Excellent critique MAF! One can imagine little townships springing up around the livery stables  charging points in the desert, a saloon, hardware, barbers and hotels where all the Akubra stetson-wearing Evboys relax whilst their steeds are refreshed and groomed. But is there a threat to this idyllic existence? A mighty iron EV that generates its own electricity and runs on rails, capable of pulling several covered wagons of people and freight, that needs only to pause to set down and pick up goods and passengers for a few minutes and halves the time it takes to get back o' Bourke. What shall we call this thing? Is the age of the Evboy over before it really starts? Only time will tell.

Incidentally, my own personal opinion after watching the driving habits of EV pilots is that I am seeing Darwinian evolution in action, as the owners/drivers of the slow white Toyota Corolla/Camry pass through the partial adaptive phase of the slower silver hybrid Prius to the full EV ultra slow white Corolla/Camry, maintaining the rage of those other road users who just want to get on with it!

Scary times!!!

From WestOz, the land of the slow white Toyota,

Peter C.

In theory, the outback is the perfect location for EV charging stations, using the over-abundance of solar that is available.  I assume there would be nothing else at these locations though, (apart from maybe a toilet and a bbq?)  no shop and so on to while away however many hours it takes to charge your car up. I picture a line of EV drivers waiting their turn while they gradually collapse one by one  from the heat due to being too scared  to use their air-conditioners.

[zarniwhoop]

20 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

In theory, the outback is the perfect location for EV charging stations, using the over-abundance of solar that is available.  I assume there would be nothing else at these locations though, (apart from maybe a toilet and a bbq?)  no shop and so on to while away however many hours it takes to charge your car up. I picture a line of EV drivers waiting their turn while they gradually collapse one by one  from the heat due to being too scared  to use their air-conditioners.

Any chance we could persuade our own EV fans to sample the delights of all that available solar power ? 

[Ozexpatriate]

18 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

read up on how long apples can be stored for before sale, quite illuminating

Yes. The local supermarket has been selling 'local' apples for at least a year after they were picked. I keep looking for fresh ones from this season but everything I've seen is quite evidently 'stored' (cold, but not freezing in Nitrogen* as I understand it). 

 

* (Haven't looked it up.)

 

It's not hard to tell the difference when freshly picked apples are available.

[Ozexpatriate]

18 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Measured more in food-yards.

Not fractional chains Rick? 😉

 

After Australia went metric in 1974 Queensland Railways took years to remove the mile/chain marker posts. For many years randomly persisting mile/chain posts coexisted with metric distance markers along the line.

[jjb1970]

5 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Having worked with teams in the UK, France and Germany, it has been interesting to observe the differences in  the way that teams work.

Given a typical problem that the team are asked to find solutions to:

 

The UK team would get on with the task.  Difficult issues would be brought to me for adjudication or a group get together to try and resolve.

The French team would go away and work with the problem but would request regular meetings where progress would be discussed as well as ways forward.

The German teams would frequently ask first off if there was a work instruction.

 

Having rules and following them seems top be deeply embedded i n the psyche.  Not an excuse for what happened but perhaps an explanation.

 

 

 

I think most cultures have characteristics (the reason stereotypes take hold is because people see at least a kernel of truth in them, otherwise they'd wither and die), and German's do seem to be have a respect for rules.

 

However, marching someone into a forest and then shooting them goes far beyond normal behaviours, especially when the choice was there not to do it. The inherent tension it created in the men is reflected in the increasing outsourcing of killing to Ukrainians and people from the Baltic states, the Police units found that stress levels were reduced enormously if men just rounded up Jews and let someone else do the killing. 

 

Germany had the same Christian tradition as other European countries, put aside the arguments about religion and whether that is right or wrong, people had a similar background in terms of ethical values and injunctions about not killing etc. Younger Germans of the era grew up in the corrupting influence of national socialist ideology but the men of the reserve Police battalions were middle aged men who grew up in Wilhelmine Germany. Wilhelmine Germany was in some ways more progressive than other European countries (though more conservative in others) and if we look at WW1 while the German army committed atrocities they were trivial compared with what happened in WW2 and weren't especially unusual for war. Many of them were working class men from Hamburg with left leaning political views. It's something that has never really been explained in my view, most explanations are of the sort which explain everything and so explain nothing and circular arguments (the type logic that says the n*zis were evil because they killed the Jews, and they killed the Jews because they were evil).

 

As others have said, peer pressure, conformance to authority and the need to fit in explain a lot, but ultimately the fact that at least in Reserve Police Battalion 101 the men were given an explicit offer not to kill and were protected from sanctions if they took that offer is profoundly challenging.

 

The frightening aspect is there is nothing unique about the Holocaust nor German actions in the Holocaust. Denmark was very much an exception in the occupied territories, most occupied countries co-operated willingly to round up their Jews and send them off to the camps. The Romanian army behaved so barbarically in the USSR in 1941 that even hard core German n*zis were disgusted. Genocide is not especially unusual in history (and not just old history, there are much more recent examples). The famous Zimbardo experiment (the Stanford prison experiment) raised profoundly disturbing questions. 

 

The best book (or rather books, it is a three volume work) in my opinion on the Holocaust is the seminal work by Raul Hilberg, 'The Destruction of the European Jews', Hilberg explained the 'what' and 'how' of the Holocaust, but he never managed to explain the 'why'. He was very interested in Gavin Langmuir's works on religiosity, I read Langmuir's works and they are indeed excellent but they still don't explain the 'why'.

[Ozexpatriate]

18 hours ago, Hroth said:

Flemish Giant rabbit

Better than Caerbannog. 😉

 

... for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth!

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[BachelorBoy]

1 minute ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Not fractional chains Rick? 😉

 

After Australia went metric in 1974 Queensland Railways took years to remove the mile/chain marker posts. For many years randomly persisting mile/chain posts coexisted with metric distance markers along the line.

 

Nice contract if you could get it to remove all the mile/chain posts on and replace them with km posts on the Nullabor plain

 

 

[jjb1970]

I'm a big advocate of EVs, but even as an EV liking tree hugger I can find some of the proselytising by the true believers annoying. The reason I'd love a car like a Tesla 3 isn't to save the world (if it's about saving the world travel less, walk, use public transport, buy a bicycle) but because it urinates all over petrol powered cars performance wise until you reach hideously expensive exotica (and even then the power/torque characteristic of an electric motor is better than an ICE in my view) and does it while being extremely practical, comfortable and is remarkably good value given what you are getting. However, EVs are still not a universal solution for everyone and we shouldn't pretend they are. 

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

The latest things  that are popping up everywhere here  are  "Splash Parks" which are basically play grounds but with    water facilities for kids like pools, fountains, misters and so on  instead of swings etc. Our local council alone has three of them. 

Glad the antipodes has finally caught up with global trends in recreational opportunities for youngsters. Such things are very common here - and they are only remotely useful for about six months out of the year.

 

The same effect can be achieved for much of the remaining time, simply by going outdoors.

 

"Southbank" in Brisbane built a very nice artificial beach with a fabulous city skyline view decades ago. The area - once an industrial area with a steam-powered branch line was razed for Expo-88 then redeveloped as a recreation area. It was nicely done.

[Ozexpatriate]

15 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

there is one hidden danger

Caddyshack - Baby Ruth

 

I know it's crass. But time and place. And the "Jaws" theme helps, as does Bill Murray.

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The first was that those who carried out the Holocaust for the most part were not hate filled ideological n*zis but just 'ordinary men'.

Of course they were. This is the dark side of humanity and how easily otherwise 'good' people are susceptible to the need for belonging.

 

"Gott mit uns"*

 

* Embossed on Wehrmacht belt buckles and other accoutrements.

 

Never again.

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

11 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

THEN - I started Tuesday at 6pm to prep for my camera-up-the-arse procedure Wednesday morning. The prep for these things is nothing short of diabolical <ugh>!!

I have one of those forthcoming as a result of a recent milestone birthday. My 'prep' day is Boxing Day.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Having rules and following them seems top be deeply embedded i n the psyche.  Not an excuse for what happened but perhaps an explanation.

No, that's a cultural trap in my opinion. Despite our stereotypes  prejudices*, humans are much the same everywhere.

 

* Observations like this:

Quote

Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss

 

Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.

I will say that no group is as punctual as the Finns.

 

The explanation (in my opinion) is tribal and the need to belong. (It is hard-wired primate behaviour.) The stereotypes reinforce imagined differences. What everyone really wants is to belong. This is where we are the most vulnerable to manipulation - no matter where we are from.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

the EV brigade here are big on saying that range isn't an  impediment in stopping you from  going bush

Two car families can easily have an EV for urban commuting and a hybrid for long distance driving (when if needed). 

 

I can count on one hand the number of journeys I have taken that were longer than 150 miles (250 km) on my 20-year-old V6, fuel-injected, petrol-powered motor car.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

I just hope that their Darwinian objectives miss me.

Are they evolving USB appendages?

[Ozexpatriate]

50 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

As others have said, peer pressure, conformance to authority and the need to fit in explain a lot

It's not just "fitting in" and mateship peer pressure, though that is part of it. "Belonging" to an "in group" has a mirror - "Despising" an "out group".

 

The 'brotherhood' of combat soldiers is instructive. "Nice" American boys came back from Indo-Chine branded as "baby killers". Some were*. War does that.

 

* My Lai

 

If propaganda can successfully define the "in group" and (more importantly) the "out group" and everyone knows where they belong, then the results are quite inevitable. It doesn't usually happen organically - some reinforcing messaging is usually required to define the demarcation.

 

Compare with: Goldstein and the "two-minute hate" and learning to love Big Brother. Orwell's little story is an insightful take on how such manipulation is done. It might seem fanciful insofar as people see it as exaggeration (which of course it was), but "the big lie", Herr Goebbels, the "rallies" of the 1930s and even "rallies" of the 20-teens and 2020s have much in common.

[Erichill16]

On 26/11/2023 at 15:35, Mike Bellamy said:

 

Thanks - after reading the Wikipedia entry, I'll look out for them when next in Yorkshire, and make sure I'm not in the caravan parking area just in case they turn up again. Interesting to see that they are a properly constituted Limited Company. Their entry on the Companies House Register says the nature of their business is  "Other amusement and recreation activities not elsewhere classified "

 

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

 

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05045235

.

Very late to te the conversation but when a student I used to drink regularly in a pub frequented the the Shipley chapter. Either they were very poor motor cyclists or the were always in trouble as often members would turn up on crouches or with other impediments.

 

[BachelorBoy]

This book is worth reading.

 

 

Philip Zimbardo was the man behind the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment, which suggested it is quite easy to turn people bad. He was also an expert witness in inquiries into the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I'm a big advocate of EVs, but even as an EV liking tree hugger I can find some of the proselytising by the true believers annoying. The reason I'd love a car like a Tesla 3 isn't to save the world (if it's about saving the world travel less, walk, use public transport, buy a bicycle) but because it urinates all over petrol powered cars performance wise until you reach hideously expensive exotica (and even then the power/torque characteristic of an electric motor is better than an ICE in my view) and does it while being extremely practical, comfortable and is remarkably good value given what you are getting. However, EVs are still not a universal solution for everyone and we shouldn't pretend they are. 

 

 

Yeah you'd be feeling all King Of The Road etc until you run over a stick or whatever and your car explodes into a ball of flame and all the cars you just left at the lights drive past you pointing and laughing.

 

https://www.drive.com.au/news/video-tesla-model-3-catches-fire-after-debris-punctures-electric-cars-battery/

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier this year, Australian research firm EV FireSafe – which records electric-car battery fires across the globe – found at least 375 electric vehicle fires were reported globally between 2010 and 30 April 2023, with an additional 87 incidents being investigated or unverified.

 

Meantime, Fire Extinguisher Online – citing NSW Department of Fire and Emergency Services data – reported there were 2942 vehicle fires (including those powered by petrol, diesel or electricity) in New South Wales alone between July 2020 to June 2021.

 

 

Work it out as a percentage of total EV cars on the road compared to total petrol cars and get back to me.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[polybear]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

In theory, the outback is the perfect location for EV charging stations, using the over-abundance of solar that is available.  I assume there would be nothing else at these locations though, (apart from maybe a toilet and a bbq?)  no shop and so on to while away however many hours it takes to charge your car up. I picture a line of EV drivers waiting their turn while they gradually collapse one by one  from the heat due to being too scared  to use their air-conditioners.

 

.....whilst the Purveyors of such services charge ten times the going rate for the leccy cos' those using it have no choice.

 

Bear here.......

 

Hello Pop Pickers fellow up-at-sillyo'clockers......

04.40.  Turdycurses.

 

Today's fun sees Bear visiting the Post Box, which might as well be combined with the liberation of Milk from the Co-op whilst I'm there.  Oh, what fun.

After that the day is all Bear's to do with as he pleases - which will no doubt involve a significant amount of 'plottin yet again.

 

ION......

 

The dreaded G & E Bill dropped thru' the letterbox arrived in the Inbox earlier; seems a Certain Bear scoffed an extra 1/3rd of a Deltic last month, mainly thru' exploits carried out in the muddlin' room.  Beary Conclusion?  Shivverin' has a lot going for it....

 

BG