Fah Kiew Tu

There's a difference between 'can't handle' and can't be bothered'. Same reason I ignore Tendentious Tom when he tries to suck me into some idiotic gun discussion. FKT

Not really - the question would be where to start, and there's already a pretty comprehensive thread on that build. I think the guy it an utter idiot and hopefully his 'boat' will never see the ocean. He gives home builders a really bad rep. FWIW I built and launched a 12m steel sailboat, splashed her in December 2018 and we've clocked up a fair few miles & hours since. First haulout is approaching (this coronavirus has fucked over my plans) and I've a bunch of little things to add/change but nothing major. Anyway, point is that I have a few clues, been there done that. But I bought a design I knew would work and concentrated on the build. A yacht designer, I am not. FKT

This. He was told early on about how origami wouldn't scale up to that size/displacement hull but - Doug knows better. As for the proa man, good luck with it. I admire someone who gets in & has a go, provided they display some common sense WRT structural elements. Unlike SV Rusty Junk. FKT

That's why some of us have machine shops. I look at it this way - I can pay someone else, and if I'm lucky I'll get a professional job done in return for money I'll never see again. Keeping in mind the 'good, cheap, fast' rule. Or I can buy the tooling to do it myself, usually totally fuck it up once or twice WRT raw materials, get it done, break even on the 'pro' cost and still have all the tooling for the next job. Plus I'm richer for the experience. A lot of my friends simply don't get that mode of thinking. That's OK, we're all different. Nice job. As you say, now you know how it all goes together and can fix anything you have to fix in the future. FKT

Yep, so did I. Fuck him for an attention-seeking whore. FKT

Mikey rarely makes sense to anyone. Mikey meltdown alert - my neighbours are back to killing feral cats. They define a cat as being feral if it's on their property. Also Tassie Devils have been spotted on the wildlife cams. I've had an Eastern quoll hunting outside the loungeroom window. Funny how these animals become more obvious when you put cats under severe hunting/trapping pressure. FKT

Absolutely superb day. Went out to the boat to re-stock the diesel & water and wash off the cormorant shit. Chatted with some other people kayaking by. Dropped by the Canuck boat on one of my other moorings for a safe chat from my dinghy, arranged to fix bits on their autopilot next week then back home on the falling tide. A walk along the foreshore, met a couple of the other neighbours as they were out on their walk. Bit of work in the machine shop then checking out the firewood supply. A trip to the post office but my new book hasn't arrived yet, alas, but new plasma cutter tips had so another thing off the list. All in all a typical day really, this is how life is most of the time. FKT

Yeah, because no testing - no problem! If you don't know you're carrying the bug, there's no reason not to go shopping, play golf and have dinner parties. So don't get tested and it's all good. Those Victorians are seriously up themselves. FKT

True. But the Brits could no longer execute our troops or subject them to punishment. From our POV that was a distinct improvement. I remember visiting my paternal grandfather in a repatriation hospital in the late 1950's. He'd been there a long time slowly dying from WW1 inflicted injuries. Didn't last much longer. My other one was luckier, he was in Palestine. FKT

So, you use linux, then? Because Windoze would decide that everyone needed to have a 90 deg grind, force feed it out and then lock things so you couldn't change it, all the while sending every bit of personal information off home. Do any of you guys run outbound port monitoring/blocking software? If not, you'd be *amazed* at just how much information leaks from your computer. I run Little Snitch on all my Macbooks to stop this crap. I don't think there is an equivalent for Windoze and I'm not sure if you can block o/s level supervisor stuff from tattling anyway (short of an external router with port blocking). Whatever - it's a tool, you use the one that feels best. I have 2 metal lathes of approx the same work envelope, 1 gets used maybe 10X the other because I like the ergonomics better. I keep them both because one is metric and the other is in antique units useful for making bits for obsolete things (such as the majority of my machine tools). FKT

You don't have to judge the jurors - they got the verdict *wrong* and the DNA evidence showed that. Now you can argue that they got it wrong because of defects in the prosecution leading evidence or the defence not demolishing the evidence led, but really, you can't dispute that in those cases the jury was wrong. If you want to argue that a jury verdict must stand regardless - good luck with that. FKT

That, in a nutshell, is why I have a Macbook. I go to a secure lab in a Govt building, With correct authorisation keys, on the network in seconds, connect to databases and get to work. Shift to a different lab in a different city, different Govt, do it again. Go back 12 months later, my computer still knows all the settings - might have to update the password or something. Windows used to be a NIGHTMARE. Linux regularly forgot my network & video settings. Apple's OS X is basically unix under the GUI so I can shell out to a CLI any time I want, use ssh or sftp or other unix level tools to get stuff done if the GUI is getting in my way. I can set up my laptop to be a sftp server or allow remote access via ssh or similar, not just something like remote desktop. I started programming on mainframes, in FORTRAN, using punched cards. Computers are *tools* as far as I'm concerned. The Windows o/s is a major productivity killer, not enhancer. Apple hardware is pretty nice but my GF has a pretty old Toshiba 13" laptop with early SSD and that thing is bulletproof - and has more ports than my new Macbook. I wish she'd buy a new computer just so I can have her Toshiba to put a linux distro and OpenCPN on. FKT

Just on that point - there are a hell of a lot of people in the USA whose convictions have been overturned since the advent of DNA testing. The jury was clearly wrong in those cases. FKT

In nearly all cases I'd agree with you. This one struck me as highly unreasonable given the information I'd read. If Pell could be convicted on that basis, anyone could. Surely the judge should have instructed the jury on reasonable doubt - if different people give conflicting evidence and neither's evidence can be destroyed by cross examination, what else exists except reasonable doubt? I liked the old Scots option for things like this - not proven. FKT

Piss-poor & weak consumer laws. Unit pricing in standard units is a fact of life here. I don't belong to any loyalty programs - in a past part of my life I made quite good money working on data merge software. Given the slightest opportunity I lie like a rug to every merchant or Govt body that wants data. Big trap - mobile phone number collection. Bit hard to get around this one; it makes a great key for data matching though. If they don't really need it, give them a fake one or the number of someone you don't like. FKT

The Boer War was the last time Aussie troops were under British command, IIRC. There were a lot of cases in WW1 where the Aussie troops were somewhat less than respectful to the British officers. Demands that the troops be disciplined went nowhere. We left fr too many dead troops in foreign fields thanks to incompetent leadership at high levels. The Kiwis weren't as fortunate. On at least one occasion the Aussies broke some Kiwis out of British punishment detail - apparently the Kiwis had declined to follow a *particularly* stupid order. FKT

So what *does* produce doubt, in your opinion? I am very uncomfortable in criminal convictions coming from a single complainant where there is no corroborating evidence at all, regardless of how convincing that person is. Especially when there are other people who say that such an event simply could not have occurred in the place, manner and time that the person states happened. Am I the only person to remember the scandals about false memories and court cases ruining lives resulting from them? FKT

Exactly my position on the matter. FKT

Funny because I've a 10+ year old white Macbook running in the back room ATM. Typing this on an early 2013 Macbook Pro. Interesting you mention Vista - that was the absolute last straw for me & Windoze operating systems. A computer is a tool to get work done as far as I'm concerned. If it doesn't facilitate my work, it's garbage. Prior to OS X I wouldn't touch an Apple computer with a barge pole. Since then the o/s has been *way* superior to any & all Windoze offerings. Though the way they're going I foresee another crack at running a Linux distro in my future - every time I've done this I eventually give up because there are enough buggy things that drive me nuts. Though I currently have LinuxCNC running on one machine in the workshop. FKT

Shrug. I've no brief for Pell, or love for the Church (any church) hierarchy. I just think that his conviction was unjustifiable under law. Now the High Court, 7-0, has confirmed my opinion. If they find something else that has more evidence than the unsupported word of a person, however convincing they may be, fine. Convict him & put him back in prison. FKT

Pell got his conviction overturned. 7-0 so no dissents. I have NFI what if anything he did or knew, but in this case I did think that the jury was wrong. It was just so inherently improbable that he had the opportunity to do what was claimed he did, in the time, place and manner claimed. I couldn't see how anyone could convict on the 'beyond reasonable doubt' bit. If this conviction had stood then a single witness, if sufficiently convincing and determined, could get someone sent to jail regardless of the surrounding circumstances. Yes, it's going to make historic abuse convictions more difficult to obtain. But the principle was supposed to be 'better 10 guilty go free than one innocent be falsely convicted'. FKT

Yeah, this. I don't do it myself because a) I'm bone idle and avoid repetitive tasks like coronavirus and b) my GF is a truly excellent gardener, she loves doing that stuff. I build & break things, it's called playing to your strengths. My contribution is the 1.8m high fencing to keep the wildlife out and digging the holes for the fruit trees. Plus the ocasional well directed bullet to the head for those animals that can't take the hint. But coming back, I completely disagree with what BJ is claiming, that in essence the poor eat crap because they have no other choices. That's rubbish. They eat crap because it's EASIER not because it's cheaper. If they spend a single dollar on soft drink, alcohol, snack foods et al instead of decent food, that's a lifestyle choice not poverty. True poverty is not being able to buy the basics you need. A pressure cooker is a great way to do one pot meals using cheap meat cuts and get the cooking done in reasonable time. Let's not get started on the quality (or lack thereof) of fruit/vegetables in US supermarkets. I still have horror memories of buying stuff in Fry's Tucson and it being totally flavourless. Nectarines that went from rock-hard and tasteless to inedible mush without ever being ripe, flavoursome and juicy. Thank God I found Trader Joe's - could even buy reasonable Aussie wine (well, Rosemont Estate) for a decent price. FKT

I didn't say that, I said those things were luxuries you bought *after* you bought decent food. We cooked a pot of osso buco the other night, total cost maybe $20 being generous. So far it's provided 4 decent sized dinners and with some rice & more vegetables, 2 more. Tasty & simple one pot - pressure cooker to speed up cooking time. 6 meals at say $24, that's $4 a serving. Cheaper than 'eating' at Maccas. It's not actually hard if even I can do it. FKT

Funny you ask this, just got a request from a stranded Canuck if I'll do some work on his autopilot setup. Mostly I work on my own stuff, or friends' projects. I'm pretty much retired, don't need any extra money, just blow it on buying more tools and I certainly don't need encouragement to do that. I'll generally help someone out if they're stuck though, or about to get *seriously* ripped off. Occasionally this turns a bit sour when people don't even pay for materials and sail off. I figure karma will catch up with them eventually. FKT

If you live in an inner city high rise then maybe you have an argument. Anywhere else, I call bullshit too. I've seen how my very frugal GF shops for food and how much she spends. We eat very well and it costs little, way less than I hear people bitching that they can't manage on. But we buy *food*. Not soft drink, beer, other alcohol, recreational drugs including tobacco. Those things are luxuries that you buy after you buy food. FKT