Richard 1234

1 hour ago, Big J said:

 

You raise many valid points, but I really like being in communication with the outside world. Machine operating on a headset gives me much more time to sit and waffle my way through conversations with family and friends, near and far. I find telephoning without a physical distraction (like operating a forwarder, or driving a car) challenging sometimes. My compartmentalises tasks fairly well, and I can do a couple of things simultaneously without either task being affected. I sometimes get to the end of a story with the kids and have no recollection of what I've just read as I've been daydreaming!

 

We also sometimes do get sites with absolutely no signal. Had one in August/September and the best you could hope for is a few messages might come through at the top of the site. That was it though.

I miss bedtime stories🥲

edit reading them not listening 😂

4 hours ago, Big J said:

I live my life on a headset. It means that when people need to get in contact with me, they can. 

 

Also, when I'm machine operating it means I have access to the world of podcasts, Youtube and Radio 4. I'd get very bored indeed without the phone.

 

The headset in question is a Peltor WS Alert XP. Also very highly recommended - I think mine is now getting on for 5 years old and works as well as the day I got it. They are expensive (£250-350, depending on how lucky you are on eBay), but well worth it.

On a serious note download a podcast and some music and put phone on aeroplane mode.

It will feel good to ignore the world for a bit. Work calls can wait they know you are working and if they don’t like waiting a few hours you really don’t need them in your life. Life has got too fast. Buy today get delivery tomorrow on anything you want! Do we really need to be rushing life so much? 
I know I’m a kind of outsider as I gave up work to look after my boys when the first one came, maybe you neeed a big change like that to take a different look at life?

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

Is that the strait 6 or V 8 ?

3.5l straight 6. old engine but still pulls. That truck is brilliant fun. Sold now but still was fun to drive. In the process of putting an ls14 (when it arrives 🤬) 702 bhp. Cannot wait to try that. It’s going in a 110.

1 hour ago, Big J said:

I live my life on a headset. It means that when people need to get in contact with me, they can. 

 

Also, when I'm machine operating it means I have access to the world of podcasts, Youtube and Radio 4. I'd get very bored indeed without the phone.

 

The headset in question is a Peltor WS Alert XP. Also very highly recommended - I think mine is now getting on for 5 years old and works as well as the day I got it. They are expensive (£250-350, depending on how lucky you are on eBay), but well worth it.

That’s fair enough. I used to be the same. I have the same headset. Not used it for months now. I’ve grown to like being off grid so to speak. Each to their own.

 Put one of these in. Great fun!

2 hours ago, Big J said:

Regardless of which phone you go for, I really recommend something with a massive battery. I've had mine 4 or 5 months now and haven't once had to charge it whilst out and about. It's like having an electric car with a 1000 mile range. That anxiety is totally absent.

Do you really get phone battery  anxiety ? I’ve learnt to leave mine at home. It’s incredibly freeing. I get the thing about kids and needing to be available in case of a problem, but there is two of us so I can leave mine alone as my wife has this phone anxiety problem too😂 just try switching off for a couple of hours, it feels good to not be a anyone else’s beck and call

3 hours ago, Woodworks said:

Do you think school teachers are of no value? 

He’s not a school teacher though is he?

25 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Fine by me as long as they keep them off the footways.

Yes bike paths or roads would be fine

On 12/11/2021 at 10:19, sime42 said:

More bad news, not much of a surprise though; all that rubber wearing off has got to go somewhere.
Another reason to reduce the number of cars on the road, rather than just switching them all to electric, IMO.
 

They could start with an easy one by taking the ban off electric scooters. To me they seem perfect for all these short journeys and could take loads of cars off the road. I’d buy one tomorrow if I wasn’t worried about being made a criminal for using it. My car would hardly move most days if I could use one.

4 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

One significant change would be if governments around the world simply committed to stop subsidising polluting activities.  For example energy production is often subsidised.  If aviation fuel were taxed to the extent it should be (i.e. to pay for the damage it causes) flying would be more expensive so we would fly less. 

 

Same with petrol and diesel.  Why is car ownership so wide and why are so many cars so large and powerful?  Because so many people can afford them.  I have no problem with fancy cars but a heavily polluting car should be made to pay the full price of the pollution.  The principle is simple - polluter pays.

 

Even more clear with meat.  Beef production is very heavily subsidised,  Remove the subsidy and tax beef to reflect the damage beef farming causes and it becomes a nice luxury not an everyday staple.  If we ate beef no more than once a week there would be a vast reduction in greenhouse gas emissions according to the scientists.

 

For various reasons we have developed complex systems of subsidy and support for many very harmful practices.  What we need to do is rapidly change this so we subsidise sound practises.

That won’t happen it’s political suicide.

too add to it the UK is producing very little these days in comparison to the rest of the world.

China isn’t going to stop India isn’t going to stop.

we go carbon zero is like using a pipette to stop a house burning down

40 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I worry about the unintended consequences of geo engineering which is why I'm keen on biochar as a means of encouraging photosynthetic activity to gradually solve the excess CO2, of course it won't work until net carbon zero is reached and the places where it is used are rewarded.

Reading some of that article the guy suggesting it wanted to try and find out what the consequences would be. 
if it’s a bad as we are led to believe it’s got to be worth looking into if nothing else.

I think stopping burning trees on a massive scale to produce electricity has to stop. To me it’s beyond stupid. We need more trees standing not less. And if they are to be chopped down they should be kept as timber to build stuff it would make room for new trees and keep the carbon locked away.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/02/08/84239/a-cheap-and-easy-plan-to-stop-global-warming/

I knew I’d read about this idea years ago. Science fiction?

an alternative way of dealing/helping with climate change maybe?

2 minutes ago, Cuttup said:

10 years till the apocolype? You're probably correct, it's not the most likely scenario, but interestingly, around 40 years ago even the scientists of Shell and Exxon (sticking with the oil company theme) warned that CO2 emissions were a problem and would become an even greater problem. 

 

Amongst climate scientists there is an overwhelming majority who have carried out peer-reviewed work, research and modelling , and they are all coming to the same conclusion.

 

What there seems to be less sureity about is not if it will hapen but when it will happen, with some concerned about a kind of domino effect once certain limits are breeched. I am not a scientist, but I think we ignore this science and the potential for long-term and serious impact on the planet and our lives at our peril.

That’s very different to claiming that 2 and 4 year olds now here in the uk aren’t likely to live past 30 due to climate change.

Anyway we might have an enormous volcano explode or mr Kim might detonate a nuke or two and save us the worry about getting too hot.

On 05/11/2021 at 19:02, peds said:

Well, you had my sympathies until that last part, because the short term economic sting necessary to effect significant change will inevitably hurt us little people more than the fabulously wealthy who can, of course, easily afford it. But I'm afraid the consequences of the ongoing ecological collapse and the ever-worsening climate catastrophe aren't just a problem to faced by brown people from the future in places with exciting food. Scientific consensus is that thanks to the knock-on effects of climate change on its current trajectory, anyone on Earth born after 1970 has had their life expectancy cut short somewhere between slightly and dramatically; the most common causes of death for people of my own generation (circa 1986) are going to be starvation and suicide; and my own children of 3 and 4 are statistically unlikely to make it past their 30th birthdays. 

I'm not sure what O-Level science textbook you are getting your ideas from, but the kick-off date for "global warming" isn't an agreeably-distant 2100 any more, for us here in the civilised western hemisphere we can't expect our pampered and luxurious lifestyles to extend much beyond the year 2030.

 

To boil it down into simply economic terms as you are keen to do, we can either take a bit of a sting now and maybe stand a chance of not having global society collapse around us, or we can most definitely suffer the same economic sting a few years down the line and immediately watch everyone we know and love starve to death.

 

The most frustrating thing is patiently explaining this to people like yourself as the clock slowly runs out. 

It’s scaremongering like this that make people ignore it.

scientists have been crying apocalypse for 40 years and not much of what they have said has come true.

im not a climate change denier but also I don’t believe that the world will fry itself in the next ten years.

Get the rough cut ones unless you are doing really tight topiary.

the trim ones move too fast and miss bits if you move even a bit too fast.

they won’t cut thick stuff

the rough cut will do both if you use them properly.

ive got both a hs82t and r version they t has hardly been used

8 minutes ago, Khriss said:

This just reminded me of sisters other half. Who has quite new single axle caravan, who lent it to another of his realatives for a weekend... Who brought it back ( certainly not mentioning that he had driven it many miles behind his big 4x4 with trailer brake on..) that sister and other half took out the next weekend, to find no trailer brake, or brakeshoes left.. Said relative did get the 600 quid bill for new brakes, drums etc. Trailer training? Yup, could have been a lot worse too.  K

Do you know how many trailer accidents are sub750 on either licence? Would be interesting to see how many of those there are. Those little camping trailers you can get from the likes of Halfords look dangerous (to me at least) when brand new

12 minutes ago, woody paul said:

When have you seen a driving instructor using a big 4x4 as there learner car. All ways cheap to run car and basic, so if teaching someone to tow a trailer why have top of the range.

I’m talking about going from learning in a micra then buying a Range Rover as you suggested. Insurance would kill that idea for nearly everyone. I’m not saying learn in one

2 hours ago, Justme said:

Whatever trailer you use people complain its not like the one they will use. Single axle trailers tend to be much smaller/ lighter. Caravans have more overhang, flatbeds the list goes on. However the skills taught should transfer to them all IF you choose the right course. The max size is 7m but you cant expect to be trained using one. If you have a special need find a trainer that will do it for you.

That completely ignores my first point about driver error being the cause of nearly all accidents. How many are caused by people who are actually paying attention? Can’t be many

2 hours ago, woody paul said:

Bit look passing driving test in mini and next day driving a range rover. 

True but with that you have got ridiculous insurance premiums that would in most cases prevent it.

2 hours ago, Justme said:

20 years out of a driving life time of around 50 years is nothing.

The bulk of people towing (and driving) today are still pre 97 licence holders.

The youngest would be about 41 now. The oldest I guess 100+.

So 60+ years of drivers passing the test compared to the 24 years of post 97 test passes.

 

Whilst the law changed in 97 its only been in the last 5-8 years that enforcement has really happened & that people taking the test has increased dramatically.  The first big data gathering exercise re trailers was for the 2018 report. That showed without doubt that driver error & lack of training was the cause of most trailer accidents.

I’m sure driver error is without doubt the biggest cause of all accidents on the roads. Mechanical failures will be some of them but the rest is people not paying attention to what they are doing. What bugs me about the training is that around here at least the trailer they are towing is an 8x4 or a 10x 6 at most. After passing you can go get. A 16 foot trailer and do as you like with it. They all seem to have twin axles making reversing easier

2 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

Is it me, or does it just seem wrong? Unelected folk being brought into the fold to fill spaces.

 

The local school are looking for co-opted governors. I've a feeling that means you can become a govener if your face fits, or have I got it wrong?

It might well be they can’t find anyone else to do the job. Parish councils work this way to when no one wants to join.

I think your right though it just leads to a room of people with the same ideas with no one to tell them they are being bonkers!

1 minute ago, Rough Hewn said:

Wanker
Liar
Frontier gibberish
Bullshitter
Fundamental snowflake.

There’s your reasons.
And mine for giving up on arbtalk.

I know very little about chainsaws however I have to think that for a chain to shrink enough to bend a crankshaft it would have to be so tight to get so hot to do that that it would break something else first. Like the crappy screw tensioner or snap itself. The crank you saw probably bent due to knackered bearings.

31 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Its only stupid if you dont understand the reasoning behind it. They do, we dont. They're in that line of business, we're not. They'll be saving money in doing it, its as simple as that.

 

In my main line of work we have Tools machined in Arbroath (Scotland) Then shipped to either Houston or Singapore for Assembly then back to either Scotland or Norway to be ran into the a new Well. Where every penny is scrutinized and accounted for this is still the cheaper option for the Company. 

 

We need lengths of Control line thats between 2000-6000m long that we need for each new Well. We used to get them for a very good supplier in Scotland, its now cheaper to get the Control line produced and shipped over from Brazil. These lines can be over 3t each. 

I understand more for the specialised stuff that you use. But for chopped peaches or whatever they are I’m not so sure. It obviously is cheaper or they wouldn’t do it. It just seems outrageous that they do it.

8 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

The Bean Counters? It always boils down to money, if they can save money doing this then they will. Cheap food, cheap fuel and cheap labour. 

 

I think Scottish, (or was it Norwegian Salmon?) that is/was shipped to China for processing then shipped back again ready for the shelves. 

Still it’s stupid for the example you posted. It’s travelling half the world from one cheap labour economy to another and virtually back again.

1 minute ago, muttley9050 said:

Crazy world. Could never figure that out.
I read somewhere a few years ago that we manufacture enough toilet roll to be self sufficient. We then export 50% of it and import it from somewhere else.

I seem to remember that’s changed now and we are a net exporter. Last year the problem was getting it onto shelves not lack of it, very much like this fuel non crisis