JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Hilarious ‘informercial’ for solar power. As usual, the time we have until Thermageddon is ten years:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/2035-the-earth-s-point-of-no-return/vi-AA1KS6Vg?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=68fa340af23b41089e6e68f8bcf5a88b&ei=42
110
I watched 2 minutes.
Terrifying if true but the whole thing is based on an untrue belief.
90
It’s a ponzi scheme based on an argmageddon fantasy. You just buy slices and then with your green washed income, buy more slices. All because of bad fossil fuel people who going to kill everyone by 2035 unless you pay. “Don’t feel obligated in any way.”
Perhaps they should translate it into Chinese?
140
And you have to love that the world is going to end suddenly with a Tipping Point in 2035. Except they have already decided the figure is rubbery, so don’t be too disappointed if the world doesn’t end then. Like the Climate Rapture with a variable time.
140
I suspect the original text WAS in Chinese.
100
I saw a private sector, not government propaganda, advert in Sicktoria that if your solar panels are more than ten years old you should replace them with a new more modern and efficient system.
In addition, apparently inverters also have a life of only 5 to 10 years and are a hidden cost of solar systems.
What an incredible waste of resources. Hardly “green”.
270
David,
Yes, SIL Mackay had to replace Solar Panels & Inverter after 10 years, last year at a cost of $10K
100
My ten year system has had two inverters fail, the second out of warranty. I just paid $2 grand for repairs. Nominally 3.5 kWs it now maxes out at 800 W with 8 kW/d generation ie $2.40/d saving or 2+ yrs payback. I have never wanted to be my own systems engineer anyway. 🥲🥲
50
That appears to be a low efficiency for a solar system. My 5200 watts of panels will deliver up to 4800 watts peak in summer after five year’s operation.
30
You know that, I know that, but no one in the industry has any interest in problem solving, just selling a whole new system.
My system was off line for a year until I gave up asking for improvements and simply asked for a replacement, cheap, inverter.
The cells are LG, said to be the best and should still be 90% efficient. I got up on the roof and cleaned them, no improvement.
30
Is one of your strings being affected by shade at certain times? I presume you have two strings. Unless you are using expensive micro inverters, if shade impacts one panel, it will reduce the power output of the entire string. This happens regularly to a neighbour, due to a bad installation.
30
A poster from western Qld some years ago reported that solar panels on bores etc in the wild were only good for about 10 years
50
Cheaper than running power or installing windmills though. 🙂
30
Maybe – but
We’ve got a Southern Cross one
Installed 1964, oil since, still going OK
00
Only one anectdote , but my panels and inverters are 13 years old. I’m not that engaged with the system but my wanderings past the control panel leads me to think its maybe 10-15% down on peak power. Nothing has been replaced in that time. I did pay a bit extra for alleged quality at the time with a contractor I trusted and is still around.
140
13 years and your contractor is still around. Now that’s amazing.
And I thought pink batts was amazing for fly by nights, they’ve got nothing on solar.
131
https://solartechonline.com/blog/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/
Your panels will typically outlast the company that sold them…
One factor not mentioned is that of installer competence.
They must be installed correctly to avoid undesirable forces being applied to them to avoid cracking (or shattering) and leaking.
There’s a lot of cowboy installers out there doing shoddy installs.
90
Comments in The Australian about failed inverters seem to indicate that most failed inverters were of Chinese origin. I installed an Austrian Fronius inverter with a 10-year warranty, added a heat shield to protect it during Perth’s hot summers, and expect at least 15 year’s service.
60
My power supply is mostly coal – fired and I expect it to last my lifetime.
60
Mine were Bosch. Two failed. I also had a Bosch fridge. Like the inverters they were withdrawn from the market because of unreliability.
My son works for a German firm maintaining commercial solar farms. He isn’t sure he will be there long, they can’t compete with Chinese. Serious buyers vote with their $s.
Fortunately I have only bought one European car.
10
There is a small nugget of truth to that, but it’s extremely dependent on the quality of the parts installed.
My 8 year old 20 panel installation, performs notably worse on “dull” days, compared to my mothers 1 year old 20 panels, just 2 streets away, so the comparison is reasonably fair.
That said my Fronius inverter has been rock solid, her Goodwe, not so much..
40
Nigel, the installers are NOT experts, their job is to finish the installation and move on.
I now know of a fundamental design flaw in my instillation but why would they care?
10
Where are they going next with their lies about Global warming? The video says that one of the results of GW will be increase in Masturbation !. Wonder how they know?
80
Too hot for clothes? So it’s tackle out, and you might as well do something with it…
70
A Q of our American friends: Do you sense an impending civil war?
When polled both (R)s and (D)s have this fear, iirc over 20%. From down under I have interpreted this as a sort of helpless rage, “Those bar stewards want to kill me” attitude from both sides. Something is changing, helpless rage is changing to active rage.
My limited knowledge of American history tells me that the Confederacy rebelled against the Union for much the same reason as the US waged the Revolutionary War: Taxation without representation. The major cities in an arc from S Cali to the pocket sized states in the NE are again dominating the OTHER 80% of the land mass via the democrat at the coal face.
History is rhyming.
PLEEEZE let us put posts through the naughty word filter when we preiew.
110
No mostly.
Yes a little.
The conflict here is the same as the rest of former ‘free world’ countries.
Elite post-national globalists utopian ideologues vs traditional nation state ‘populist’ just make stuff work normies.
It’s more Reformation 2.0 than US Civil War.
The Knowledge Hierarchy is collapsing and having a tough time coping.
I live in Democrat controlled state and just this morning the MSM was discussing the growing general public distrust in the political leadership.
The elitists seem to be running faster over the reality cliff and larger numbers are choosing not to join them.
My guess is they start pretending even more that they never wanted to defund the police or have men in women’s sports, and suddenly develop the ability to define ‘woman’.
And there is a slow fade toward normalcy.
Like the slow fade from Net Zero.
Annoying though.
And we’ll have to watch them avoid accountability for the mess they made.
And we get to pay for the cleanup.
But then The Blob may have completely abandoned representative governance and tip the scale and assert control.
Over all of us.
(And there was a naughty in there somewhere.)
140
I hope you are right Honk, I wish America, and Trump, well.
A hypothetical (?) trigger issue came to mind this morning: Mamdani becomes NY mayor and does as promised and it becomes a failed city. Trump won’t allow that [he luvs NY] so he sends in the Nat Guard. It goes downhill from there.
Hope I’m wrong, of course, but this anti-ICE movement is serious, people have already died.
50
I’m hoping that he serves to alienate the electorate from the Dems as they double down on the radical stuff.
And that Dem failure in the midterms forces the Dems to return toward the center.
One caveat is new young voters.
Many of them appear to be Commie sympathizers.
And many appear to be rejecting the radical politics the education system has attempted to indoctrinate them with.
I think much of the division in the populace is being manipulated, even created, by Blob elements.
The cold civil war is raging at this moment between Trump and obscure entrenched Blob elements in the DC city state … and has been since 21016.
I also think, it’s a Western nation political culture struggle.
And The Blob is a new dark alliance in the former ‘free world’.
And that the UK could be the flash point.
If something kicks off there, it will spread in various iterations westward and down (Oz).
France and Germany are such messes, I can barely guess what is and or are will happen there.
30
Jeez I hope not. There seems to be a lot of self sorting going on at the moment both with people and businesses plus State level initiatives for some counties to move to other States. I’d be interested to read responses to H’s question from those on the ground. Thanks Honk for chipping in.
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Unlikely. I think a lot will depend upon how radical the socialist/communist DemoncRats become. One bellwether to watch will be the mayoral election in New York City. We have one avowed Communist running against a Communist-lite.
I did see an article (on-line) to the effect that some businesses and residents of the various boroughs are either in the process of leaving, or are making plans, regardless of who the winner is. This is Thursday afternoon Stateside, as I’m writing (almost 5 PM in my time zone, 23 October 2025).
A ‘more likely’ scenario is that at some point, you will see earnest attempts at realignment of state boundaries. Eastern Oregon wants to leave (largely socialist) western Oregon; eastern Washington (State) wants to leave (largely socialist) western Washington; there is a county in Colorado which has openly declared that it wants to become part of Wyoming; I’m sure there are more examples, but I do not recall any other overt actions at this time.
There are, in certain parts of the country, undercurrents that would suggest that some places should, for lack of a better term, secede from what you and I call the “United States”; I’ve heard that in at least some cases, those places that wanted to become their own independent States or City-States, would be welcomed to separate themselves from those of us who like the direction of the country (under Trump).
Consider that in the 2024 election, over 2,500 counties/parishes voted for Trump, while fewer than 600 voted for Harris.
And, speaking only for myself, if California wanted to separate itself from the rest of the US, I say, ‘good riddance’.
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‘I say, ‘good riddance’.
‘California is an economic powerhouse, nationally and globally. In 2023, California’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about $3.9 trillion, comprising 14% of national GDP ($27.7 trillion). (Public Policy Institute of California)
11
Meh, California is shrinking and becoming less of a powerhouse and a more like a government jobs factory.
Even if their widest dreams of self importance is true, I think after the initial adjustment the US would be smaller but more cohesive without Ca’s self destructive nonsense. In Oz these days people may think the same about Victoria. There are parallels, debt, crime, insane laws/regulations and revolving door judicial system.
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Property prices in Melbourne have been flat for years, a clear illustration its becoming unliveable. People move around depending on their fancy, but nobody is thinking of quitting the federal system.
US politics is volatile at the moment and the CCP reckons its a failed state, but I strongly disagree. Although they may need to rewrite their Exceptional Constitution.
With the political upheavals in Beijing the irony is hard to ignore, China is a failed state.
02
FWIW
For years I’ve been telling friends in US that, if the San Andras fault were to cast (mainly coastal) California loose, we’d appreciate that it didn’t wash up against the east coast of Oz
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This fellow is a social democrat, not a communist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_New_York_City_mayoral_election
01
I don’t see Balkanisation as an answer.
20
Bradford the cultural ‘Rape Capital of the World’ in 2025
An estimated 1,113 white girls are raped by Muslim men in Bradford every month.
This estimate comes from a FOI request by the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, last year, combined with the known ethnic makeup of Bradford Court cases for 2023, and combined with the charity Rape Crisis estimate that only 15% of rape victims chose to report the crime to the police.
I then asked ChatGPT for an update. ChatGPT said “I understand you’re seeking information on rape statistics in Bradford since 2022, as reported by the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. However, I was unable to access specific articles from their archives due to technical limitations.” However, West Yorkshire Police (WYP) published a FOI response covering 1 September 2023 – 30 September 2024 showing 4,329 rape offences in that year, at a rate of 361 reported rapes per month, the highest in England & Wales.
Also, on 28th April 2025, Robert Moore MP (Keighley) in a debate on “Child Rape Gangs” said “a brave group of victims, wrote to the Home Secretary warning her that the rape gangs scandal across the Bradford district is likely to be one of the most significant of its kind in the UK.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/10/23/grooming-gang-survivors-demand-leftist-labour-minister-resign-after-betrayal
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https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/25523607.10-873-reported-rape-sexual-offences-area-last-year/
From an FOI, ~10000 rape and sexual offenses in the whole of West Yorkshire 2024-25 reported. This means that 1113 specifically rapes of specifically white woman by a specific religious group of men in a specific region (Bradford has a population of 16.9% of the whole of WY) makes no sense.
.
03
Muslim men make up about 12% of the population of Bradford.
03
Why?
20
Muslim women don’t count nor can be counted (at least by non family)?
/s
00
I watched 2 minutes.
Terrifying if true but the whole thing is based on an untrue belief.
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Which side do you scan a photographic slide on?
I am scanning my late mother’s photographic slide collection and purchased a slide scanner. These slides are well over 50 years old.
Unfortunately it didn’t say which way to insert the slides into the film carrier.
Photographic slides have two sides. One is the “shiny” side, the other the “dull” side which is the emulsion.
If they are not scanned (or viewed) with the correct orientation the image will be reversed.
I worked out that the shiny side should be down to give the correct image orientation in my particular scanner which has the light source on the bottom and the image sensor at top. (The slides are inserted horizontally.)
Then I had second thoughts.
I did a Gulag search and it gave an AI answer which said the shiny side should be up for my specific model of scanner, the opposite of what I had done.
In fact, the emulsion (dull side) should be closest to the image sensor so the light doesn’t have to travel through a layer of film.
So I deleted the scans I had already done for the first batch of slides and rescanned them (there was only 37 so far). (I know the scans could be reversed in software but I wanted the original scans to be correct.)
I then went to Officeworks to print them. Previously I noticed no visual cues to confirm correct orientation but with the prints, I noticed two small details. One was a car license plate which was reversed and another was a picture of a house which I could also tell was reversed.
It turns our my original judgement was correct and Gulag was wrong.
I always say not to believe AI unless you are already familiar with the subject matter but in this case the AI led me astray when I already knew the correct answer…
AI can have “hallucinations” or lie or just simply gives incorrect but convincing information.
In my case it cost some time and money.
Young wokesters who have complete faith in AI may end up making a disastrous scientific, engineering, medical, legal or other decision that costs huge amounts of money or even lives based on what AI tells them and they believe.
BTW, what is your understanding of the correct orientation of photographic slides for proper viewing?
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https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/47055-scanning-emulsion-up-or-down/
Fake AI could colourise them into a nice sepia too!
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Thanks JC. What a can of worms!
20
Remember that they’re 50 years old now.
No-one expects a vibrant 4k colour photo.
They’ll be fine once you run them through post-processing (eg Lightroom. (I use Serif Affinity over cloud Adobe these days)) if you have any.
The crusty old look has it’s own charm.
20
Gulag lies…. who’d have thunk that?
If it was AI at least you could blame the system. If it’s on line, you should have doubts. That’s my rule number one. I really do miss a good encyclopedia, anyone remember them? With a current print/annual?
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At last count I had over 600 in digital form.😆
20
Have your slides retained their colour? Most of my 1960s slides were Agfa, and unfortunately have lost most of their colour over the years. So while I have a slide scanner, haven’t bothered scanning them. Will have to bin them I think. A pity.
40
The slides are Kodak. Some colour deterioration but largely OK.
I wouldn’t bin your slides, even if faded, they still contain valuable information.
30
IIRC
Kodachrome is pretty resistant, Ectachrome not so much. Though my Ectachromes from the 1970’s still are OK
DM – out of interest which scanner? I need to get one some time
10
Kodak Slide N SCAN Film and Slide Scanner with Large 5” LCD Screen, Convert Color & B&W Negatives & Slides 35mm, 126, 110 Film Negatives & Slides to High Resolution 22MP JPEG Digital Photos
10
Thanks
Ian
20
JC’s link (5.1) to a discussion thread on slide scanning also mentions other slide scanners.
20
I’ve found a box of Kodak slides from summer of 61/62 of a beauty parade on Magnetic Island. No interest to me, I wouldn’t recognise anyone, but every time I drive past the historic society I remind myself to drop them off. Someone may recognise their Grand Mother.
10
I have a note on my scanner — “glossy side down”!
10
Australian household debt to GDP is extreme.
Gulag AI summary:
See complete list at https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/households-debt-to-gdp:
Country Last Previous Unit
Switzerland 125 125 %
Australia 113 112 %
Canada 100 99.54 %
Netherlands 94 94.2 %
New Zealand 90.1 90 %
South Korea 89.5 89.6 %
Thailand 88.2 89.2 %
Hong Kong 87.8 88.1 %
Norway 87.4 88.6 %
Denmark 84.7 85.7 %
Sweden 83.4 83.5 %
United Kingdom 75.9 76.3 %
Malaysia 69.6 69.5 %
United States 68.3 69.4 %
Japan 64.4 64.8 %
Finland 63.5 63.9 %
Luxembourg 61.4 63 %
France 60.2 60.5 %
China 60.1 60 %
Belgium 57.3 57.4 %
Portugal 53.6 53.3 %
Euro Area 51.1 51.4 %
Germany 49.4 49.6 %
Chile 44.9 44.8 %
40
I presume these figures take into account some way households with no debt?
10
It is a simple ratio of total household debt to national GDP.
Average household debt is $262k. About 10M houses. S2,620bn total debt
Australian GDP$ 1,772bn. I get a ratio of 148%.
Average household wealth is $1.58M. So total wealth around $15.8tr.
Victoria has managed to fix its housing affordability crisis by making it unlivable. Get crime up. Encourage criminals by catch and release policing. And quite soon you have no honest people wanting to Iive in Victoria so prices stagnate or even fall. Migration northward, southward and westward. The criminals can now afford houses.
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Love the methods used down in vicdanistan. Let the hoods ruin the neighbourhood, the government, (or their handlers), can then buy cheap. Move the hoods on, then they sell at a profit. Rinse and repeat.
Would it be insider trading to know where they are sending the home invasion crew this weekend, (not that weekends really count, they don’t work anyway).
I really wonder what would happen, and whether it will become a sitcon, if a home invasion team knock on a bikies door by mistake.
100
The younger generations blame the boomers for all ills, real or imagined, but particularly with still living in our houses that we paid for.
Think about it: They can only afford that debt because interest rates are historically, and permanently, low because boomers have stopped spending and now finance their spending habits.
Maybe if they stopped racking up debt and started saving they could buy a home themselves.
00
Could you imagine this car being designed and built in Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIKAn8yDkpA
While Australia doubles down on de-industrialisation with Sleazy at the helm and Blackout in the engine room China applies its engineering and scientific technological prowess to develop stuff that is eyewatering brilliant.
The extreme version of the U9 can pull 3000HP from its battery. I figure not for long!
40
Wow, sort of puts the 1992 Hilux to shame, Or does it? Pulled into the servo beside a very flash Lamborghini, driver eyed me off and had a snigger . My comment to him was, “your car can go anywhere faster than mine, but MY car can go anywhere.” Quite a conversation followed. Yes he was limited to bitumen roads, the state of Victorias roads meant that even shallow potholes had his car bottoming out. His car had great difficulties running at speed limits of 40, 50, 60 KPH it just simply never got out of second gear. When he went on a good road he aways ran the risk of fines because the lambo went from 60 to 160 pretty easily, great car fun to drive but very limited. The old hilux labours a bit at 100KPH but has taught kids and grandkids to drive, difficult to break ( 16 year old dropped it on its side up the sticks in foul weather, bit of sling rigging and winched it back on its feet and drove off)
Good roads, bad roads, river crossings, scary inclines, recovering other less fortunate travellers, yep the crappy old Hilux for me!
190
Did you ask him how much to replace a wheel and tyre when he drops a wheel into a crater sized pothole.
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Talking about potholes, I have found that asking shire or other councillors “What are you doing about Potholes?” causes them some stress and anxiety.There was a councillor from the City of Wagga Wagga making some comments on Facebook. I asked him what he was doing about the potholes. He sent me a link to the City of Wagga’s newsletter where they had acqured a $250,000 machine to repair potholes. Try it yourself. Ask your councillors what they are doing about potholes and note their responce. 🙂
20
This is odd, we have a labor affiliated city council, have had for years and the only potholes I see are in private carparks. I went into the council office on a matter a week ago and looked around the carpark, only HiLuxs.
You don’t have to tolerate poor roads and service.
20
Mmm I have a similar relationship with my 2009 Hilux after 600k klms. Hasnt had quite the adventurous life as yours has, but has moved many households, appliances, matresses, gravel, mountains of green waste and firewood. Incredibly handy thing to have around.
110
I suspect my 1991 Rodeo would not fare well with a close inspection for (minor) rust, but it still works well on the back roads at 407K on the odometer.
Still does not match the Volvo 240 series wagons I had though. One died at 740K and the other at about 450K. Repairable but obtaining parts became difficult.
Also a problem with my wife’s 1977 Mercedes diesel after losing a vacuum pump at 595K.
Alas the parts issues were before the worldwide search capabilities for the obscure (and cheaper) parts was available. That may be one of the greatest losses if the SHTF.
30
If you leave the hand brake on you can burn all those 300HP all day, without risking a speeding fine. Or at least until it overheats, bursts a fuffer valve or flattens the battery.
And do it in a suburban area. Firefighters will respond there in a time that may allow the pavement beneath the car to be saved. Or not.
40
You left off a zero. 3000HP – and I think a few minutes before the battery gives up. Certainly not all day.
10
A lot of people would be happy at 300HP. 3000 is for hoons.
Or so I’m told.
In David’s article in the Sept Silicon Chip magazine, (surprised he didn’t mention it), is a link to a mine haul vehicle with a 1.4MWHr battery capable of hauling over 200 Tonne, plus about 250T for itself. I did a quick sum, just for fun.
Let’s say the mine is 50m deep, (not unusual for iron ore), so the energy required to get a full vehicle to the top is 450T x 9.8 x 50 = 220.5 MJ. Compare that to the battery that has a bit over 5,000 MJ of charge. It doesn’t take long to work out that the truck is going to be on charge after only a few trips. And I’ve completely ignored rolling resistance. Fortescue brag that the truck uses regenerative braking, failing to say that at best that is only on the empty shell going back into the mine, and again ignoring rolling resistance.
My first guess would be that the truck is good for 10 trips into the mine before it is flat. Then what, charge for a week?
3000HP, I wonder if you can use to drag a vehicle out of the pit?
30
Battery assist trolley trucks have been around a long time. Don’t forget that it regenerates on the way down rather than melting resistors. So nt that silly if it had a smaller battery and trolley charging. They only climb at about 20kph. And maintenance guys do not like the ones with resistive braking going down any faster than they come up.
20
Speed doesn’t affect the total energy required but it does affect the temperature reached in the resistors/battery. I still think it best to use conveyors.
10
Ideal Car & Place – Toyota Yaris GR – garaged in Milan and driven over Swiss Alps to St Moritz
Superb car for the Roads, & Wife (who gets car sick easily) even felt fine in the back.
10
We still need to seat 4 or 5 in both cars. But I have often hired Corollas for just the two of us.
30
Toyota Corolla GR
https://www.toyota.com.au/-/media/toyota/main-site/vehicle-hubs/gr-corolla/files/20250124_gto008687_gr-corolla_brochure.pdf?rev=6084da95eba643368d3fdcddeda77318
10
Met a guy this year in Bulahdelah who had one of these. Said it cost him $60k. But thought it was the best money he had ever spent on a car. He was past mid life crises as well.
20
Starmer on digital ID
https://x.com/TheGriftReport/status/1981424432779296967
£85 optional then…
30
Medical corner: cataract surgery – the surgeon’s view
https://youtu.be/XWn8cil5Wrw?si=rNqJ98yAIB5IIjw2
* warning – medical procedure *
Shows a full cataract removal surgery from the surgeon’s POV.
The patient had a late stage cataract.
It’s best to get the surgery in the early stages to minimise risks and complications which means you’ll need to go private.
Incisions are only about 3-4mm wide and sealed upon completion of IOL insertion.
50
I was surprised by how much it reminded me of needing to clean the inside of car windscreen. I thought there was a lot of junk still left in there after the lens went in, but most appeared to be sucked out as the surgeon was flushing and aligning. Could have been cleaner but obviously not a problem, at least not compared to crap he was looking through beforehand.
One BIG question. Is the new lens UV proof? If not, are you forced to wear sunglasses everywhere you go when outside?
10
The only mention of sunglasses for western Qld was for post operation for about a week.
Seems that there can be a choice where you can opt for reading glasses or long distance ones depending on your most used mode of sight.
I didn’t get that – presumably based on most common use out here assumed to be for reading glasses when needed
30
It’s the USA. LAL IOL’s are available there but not here in Oz.
With LAL’s you need to wear UV blocking glasses until you’ve settled on the final optical power at which point the surgeon locks that in, and UV exposure no longer has any effect on them.
Sort of like UV curing adhesive – once it’s set, it’s set, but you don’t want it setting prematurely.
Non-LAL’s, it doesn’t matter about UV.
30
Its quite a weird light show when getting cataracts done
60
and the machines they use for cutting and sucking etc make all sorts of weird bobbledy-boop squeak noises at the same time. It seemed as though aliens had finally arrived!
40
Short TRUMP sound bite. Excellent!
How to deal with US bound drug traffickers in international waters.
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1981458551165112541
30
Lemurs self-administer psychoactive drugs.
Copied from Quora:
20
I know people like that. I bet they are looking for millipedes as I type.
And they vote.
60
Very good Eng-Ian …….lol
20
Like dolphins and pufferfish.😎
50
Sounds like the narcotic derived from the venom of the giant Brazilian aquatic centipede in William Burrough’s Naked Lunch – known as “ Black Meat”.
Not so fanciful after all.
Kerouac’s account of the time in Tangiers is psychotropic overkill – almost.
20
Anthropomorphism at best.
One bite and throw the rest away: seems like a failure to learn avoidance.
What happens to the lemurs which take two bites?
My ethology Prof. would have failed this observation of “intention”.
20
Let me know if you see this headline on their ABC:
Russia’s Omsk region declares emergency after early snow damages crops
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/russias-omsk-region-declares-emergency-after-early-snow-damages-crops/ar-AA1OToor
Maybe not this one either on their ABC:
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/october-surprise-helena-area-hammered-by-early-season-snow-some-power-outages-reported/article_944183e9-ef37-5657-bb8d-417fd12eeda9.html
HELENA — The Helena Regional Airport set a 24-hour snowfall record for Oct. 12 on Sunday, and residents woke up Monday to another several inches, dropping leaf-laden trees and causing some power outages.
The National Weather Service in Great Falls said the 2.6 inches of snow that fell Sunday at the airport was a new record for the date, and locations around Helena reported upward of 6 inches of new snow Monday morning.
I expected the early season to be wetter but then high ground inevitably gets snow as we have already seen on Everest and Montana. Alaska had a lot of rain on the coast – deadly as well.
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So a record late harvest in that part of Russia, and a record one day snowfall in a part of the States.
But neither of these alarmist headlines is evidence of long term change in NH snowfall, although both are consistent with the hypothesis.
20
Winter arrives early in China, it feels like a sudden stratospheric warming event.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202510/20/WS68f5c1e9a310f735438b5ebc.html
00
NH cold air outbreaks into mid latitudes.
‘The Polar Vortex always plays a major role during the winter season for daily to weekly weather development. But this year, it is starting out unusually weak, allowing for a more dynamic weather pattern, with implications down the line that look good if you like a colder and snowier winter.’ (Severe Weather Europe)
00
I will eat my hat if there’s not a technology which betters pumped hydro in 150 years.
10
In a country with limited mountainous terrain and limited water? Kidding, surely.
40
Tony
With its outstanding success rate at the moment wouldn’t that be 150 years that you’ll never get back?
30
UK: woman fined £150 for pouring coffee down drain
A south-west London council has reversed its decision to fine a woman £150 for pouring the remnants of her coffee down a gully.
Burcu Yesilyurt, who lives in Kew, said she thought she was acting responsibly when she poured a small amount from her reusable cup down the drain – rather than risk spilling it on the bus she was about to catch to work.
She was stopped by three enforcement officers at the bus stop near Richmond station and given a fine under Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which makes it an offence to deposit or dispose of waste in a way likely to pollute land or water, including pouring liquids into street drains.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg435gg66gpo.amp
70
Friday ejukayshun: why is it called corned beef when there’s no corn it it?
https://youtu.be/GiHcAzTLci8?si=l3Cl1lO_WnSgBHLg
A historical carryover, just like decimate, a linguistic fossil from Roman times.😉
/rub it in.😁
History of simple things – bookmark!
30
An Englishman told me the correct meaning of “corn” is wheat, oats and barley. The yanks call Maize corn but they are not correct so he said. 🙂
00
The original usage of words are no longer used or relevant nowadays, but old habits die hard.
They could have just called it salted beef.
“Corned” is misleading advertising.
10
Ryecorn; barleycorn.
20
Bill Bryson goes into things like language differences (US / UK)and their origin (like this) in “Made in America”
10
I once read, only once, that British English is a living thing constantly changing but Americans are reluctant to change so their spelling is more reflective of how a dictionary would have looked 200 yrs ago.
Maybe, but I’m sure “coronated” has never been a word.
10
When I was a kid, a long long ago, pumped leg of mutton was also a thing, pork on the other hand was pickled. Now both these processes involved brining.
There we go, three different words all meaning the same thing. Meat preserved with salt and in the case of pickling, the addition of spices to the brining liquor.
Christmas in our house was a pumped leg of mutton, boiled in the copper then taken out, dried and a pastry “skin” placed on top. All carefully crisscrossed like crackling in a fancy restaurant, a clove pushed into each diamond shape then back into the oven for a final bake. We called it Christmas ham. Delicious. Funny I can actually taste this now, and a certain craving for mums cooking has welled up. Wonder where I can get a “copper”.
70
>why is it called corned beef
‘Corn’ in England means grain, not maize.
In German ‘korn’ means grain and maize is ‘mais’.
The word ‘corned’ in corned beef refers to the grains of salt. It means brined.
30
China’s new virus is out of control
https://youtu.be/u98VeQeADFQ?si=6CHUJwBpdOkqI1zd
Chikungunya? Riiiight…
20
Not quite out of control according to WHO, ‘as of 27 September 2025, a total of 16 452 locally transmitted cases has been reported in Guangdong Province.’
Unpaid wages is a huge problem for the CCP and I’m unsure of future economic direction.
20
I found an interesting comment in Finnish forum that touches on Voting Rights Act in the USA. First a short quote from the user ‘Puskistahuutelija’ (originally in Finnish, Google translated it to English).
“The Voting Rights Act guaranteed the right to vote to black Americans in the southern states, who had been either denied this right or had their exercise effectively restricted by so-called Jim Crow laws… Based on Section 2, electoral districts have been created where a majority of the voters or a significant minority are black so that they can vote for black representatives to Congress… The Supreme Court will most likely find that this violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment to all Americans… The law is already 60 years old, so the argument of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court is likely that such constituencies are no longer justified and do not enjoy legal protection.” End of quoting.
Link to Finnish forum
If supreme court finds this law outdated, this could have huge impact on midterm elections. Democrats are worried.
Ketanji Brown Jackson defends 1965 law
40
I’ve been reading the same. Couple this to the statistical fact that blue states are already gerrymandered to the max, Newsom is starting a war he can’t win.
00
FWIW – to help illuminate Friday night
“The Space Mirror Mirage: Physics, Economics, and the Glow of Investor Illusion”
“On paper, it sounds like a Bond villain’s dream mixed with Silicon Valley marketing — “solar energy at night, no infrastructure needed.” But a closer look at the physics and economics reveals this as more of a speculative curiosity than a viable energy solution. If anything, it reflects not sunlight but the bright glare of investor enthusiasm for ideas that defy basic arithmetic.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/23/the-space-mirror-mirage-physics-economics-and-the-glow-of-investor-illusion/
20
FWIW
“My opinion: A.I. Has Broken YouTube Utility”
“Just a Minor Rant about YouTube & A.I.
For me, the excess use of lying A.I. has broken the utility of YouTube.”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/10/23/my-opinion-a-i-has-broken-youtube-utility/
10
FWIW
“Talk about entitlement!”
“Courtesy of Midwest Chick, here’s a social media post highlighting just how entitled to free handouts many people think they are in this benighted country.”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/10/talk-about-entitlement.html
USA but –
00