peds

Fact finding, or just for the joy of watching the flock? Simply poetic.

I don't want a groundie tugging me off, thanks.

Needs a prusik or tibloc or other for progress capture so your groundie doesn't drop the saw when they get distracted and wander off.

Big blue sky all day yesterday... all week, in fact. At 2105 I got a message from my mother, who has a history of travelling to The North (Norway, Iceland, Finland, Spitzbergen...) to see the Northern Lights, only to be greeted by a thick blanket of clouds wherever she goes... informing me of the strong likelihood of Aurora Borealis being visible in my locale overnight. By 2110... clouded over. The woman is cursed.

Interesting. Googling it a good bit just now, and there seems to be a mix of people selling it with 1.3mm and 1.1mm... same with the Stihl corded electric saws, a mix of the two. To further muddy the waters, I found @Macpherson's posts about his conversion and in one post with the parts listed provided the product code (3005 000 3909) leads to a ⅜ 1.1mm bar, but on another occasion (3005 000 4809) it leads to the 1.3mm. Maybe he can stop in and confirm what he went for. Something to be said for either approach... the 1.3mm will obviously eat battery quicker, but sticking with the 1.1mm is... still 1.1mm, just at ⅜ instead of ¼. Well, I suppose I'll just jump straight in to 1.3mm. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I had two expensive jackets for the mountain rescue team go missing in transit. Fancy waterproofs, team logo on them. No loss to us, the manufacturer sent them again. One of the missing jackets turned up on Ebay 2 years later. He was asking for retail price, 500 quid. Offered the guy what it would cost us, a little over half that, said it'd probably be the best offer he'd get, and certainly the most ethical. He declined and blocked me. So now there's one or two Walthers out there prancing around in our rescue team jackets. Maybe they removed the patches and logos. Who knows?

Pope-ulism.

Just my observations, so I'm happy to be corrected here. I'd say that's absolutely true for the likes of .325, going from 1.5mm to 1.3mm. The problem with the ¼" 1.1mm chain is it loses width quickly, too quickly, with every stroke of the file. With a brand new chain or just one or two sharpens in, you can bury the bar (12" on my msa200) in thick wood and it tears through it no problem. I've sectioned down and felled 18" timber with it. Once you are a few sharpens in though, it bogs down easier and easier, until it starts to cut out even on 6" to 8" timber. Not a problem on pruning jobs, but it means swapping to the 550 (in my case) a good bit sooner on a dismantle, which is annoying. While still not a big fat chain, I don't believe this problem is as pronounced on the ⅜ 1.1mm chain that the bigger electric/battery saws use. You get longer in the sweet spot and much more lifespan from the chain before they get bogged down... but, having never used one, I'm happy to be schooled on this front! So the plan is to have the MSA161t for pruning and lighter stuff, so unlikely to be burying the bar in anything thicker than 6", and able to sharpen the chain to extinction. And keep the 200 for dismantles (and a chipper saw afterwards...), with a longer-lived chain that doesn't mind being buried for more of its life. I happen to have a ¼ and a ⅜ 1.1mm here for comparison. Yuge difference.

Golf Course Living Linked To Higher Parkinson’s Risk? WWW.PSYCHIATRIST.COM Incidental exposure to pesticides can elevate the risk of Parkinson’s disease for anyone living near a golf course. People living within a mile of a golf course had more than twice the odds of Parkinson’s disease. The risk remained higher for people living up to three miles away but fades after that. Pesticides, including neurotoxins, used to keep fairways and greens well groomed, have been linked to Parkinson's. ------ I am shocked!

Just wondering how this story worked out in the end. Worth it, or not? Cheers

I've just decided: I'm not getting an Echo2511, as I've been tempted to do for a while, I'm getting the lightweight Stihl battery tophandle instead, the MSA161t. I already have the batteries and charger, so it'd be daft not to use them. Then... I'm swapping the bar on my much-loved MSA200 rear handle from the pokey little thing it comes with (same as on the 161) for something bigger, probably the same bar as the 220. I know a few people on here have done it... so I'm going to trawl through the same old threads I've read a dozen times before and get more of an idea of what bits to order (unless it crops up naturally in conversation here, which would be great). I'd like to do this because the 200 is great for dismantling, but I think I'd get more time on it before switching to a petrol saw with a beefier chain. It'd also make it a more capable chipper saw. Obviously this costs battery power, but with a 500 in it and a pair of 300 in backup, it really isn't a big deal. If necessary, I'd like the people with more time up trees than me to tell me why my plan is foolish. Thanks.

Robert Prevost becomes Pope Leo XIV as cardinals elect first US pontiff | The papacy | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Announcement prompts raucous celebration and delight among 50,000 pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s... Robert Prevost has become the first American to lead the Roman Catholic church, ending the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the idea of a pontiff from the United States. The 69-year-old from Chicago has taken the papal name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening. ‐--------- I'll be honest... I saw "first American pope" while skimming and my heart skipped a beat.

I keep meaning to switch to a munter hitch on a carabiner to descend at the end of the job, holding the zigzag open on full throttle... to minimise wear and tear on it and extend the lifespan... but I never do.

Did anything come of it?

In other news, Elmo (and Big Bird, and Oscar, and The Count... etc...) has been fired because we don't want kids from poor families being able to read.

(West Virginia: Trump 70%, Harris 28%)

JD Vance visiting of course. Don't you read the news? Or at least, view it through the lens of popular memes?

Would you? Hugely hypothetical situation, obviously, because I don’t think you are likely to move in the right kind of circles to bring you into the Trump White House... but if you were one of his sycophants, would you be the one to go up to him and say "Excuse me, sir [tears in your eyes], I'm sorry to tell you this, but today you look even more ridiculous than nearly every other day of your vainglorious existence..." You'd be buried under what used to be the rose garden before the day was done.

Todays makeup. That's up there in the top ten worst efforts ever.

Summary It’s 11.30am in Delhi and 11am in Islamabad. Here’s where things stand: India has conducted what it has described as “precision strikes” in neighbouring Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian side of the contested region that killed 26 people. Twenty-six people, including a child, were killed in the overnight missile strikes and 46 others have been injured, according to a Pakistani military spokesperson. The Indian government said in a statement that nine non-military targets had been hit in the strikes, in what it called “Operation Sindoor.” India said it struck nine Pakistani “terrorist infrastructure” sites, some of them linked to the attack by Islamist militants in Indian Kashmir last month. Pakistan has refuted this, saying none of the targets were militant camps. New Delhi said its actions had been “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”. It had displayed “considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution”, it added. The Indian army, in a video on X, said “justice is served.” Both countries also exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across much of their de facto border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, police and witnesses told Reuters. Indian police and medics have said at least seven civilians were killed and 30 others wounded by Pakistani firing and shelling overnight. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif said the “deceitful enemy has carried out cowardly attacks at five locations in Pakistan” and that his country would retaliate. “Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,” Sharif said. Sharif has convened a meeting of the National Security Committee for Wednesday morning. He said his country and its forces “know very well how to deal with the enemy. . … We will never let the enemy succeed in its nefarious objectives.” Pakistan says five Indian air force jets were shot down, a claim not confirmed by India. However, four local government sources in Indian Kashmir told Reuters that three fighter jets had crashed in separate areas of the region during the night. The United Nations has called for maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan. “The secretary-general [António Guterres] is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries,” the spokesperson said. “The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.” The development marks a dramatic escalation in the long-simmering conflict between the neighbouring nuclear powers. Bilateral ties between the two countries plummeted after gunmen killed 26 mainly Hindu civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir last month. Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday warned that water from India flowing into neighbouring countries including Pakistan would be stopped, days after suspending a key water treaty with Islamabad.

Two Indian jets just shot down, apparently. Per the Guardian live thread: "We reported earlier that Pakistan’s security sources said it shot down two Indian jets in retaliation for the Indian strikes on Pakistani-controlled territory. Samaa TV, citing Pakistan’s security sources, reports that a Rafale fighter jet belonging to the Indian air force was shot down near Ahmedpur East in Bahawalpur."

Where do you live, STEVEN?!

Well I had guessed The Rock with good old Sean Connery, but it turns out it was Escape From Alcatraz. Which does track better, I think. L'évadé d'Alcatraz (1979) - IMDb M.IMDB.COM 1h 52m | Tous publics Trump's domestic policy (and, I think his general worldview) is dictated by whatever he happened to have on the telly the night before.

Was that just a gopro stuck to a branch? Try a branch further back, with lens at a more oblique angle. You'll capture the subject in their environment, rather than just the subject.