MOV 00037 2 clip0

movie 20090720220052

Well, on the subject of vechicles today, I was doing some digging for facts, although it may be a bit off, the intelligence is there in writing. So, on average at the car factory it takes around 30 hours to make the car using robots, basically. Then, the last report I saw said annual vehicle output was around 50 million units per year. Then the fatality report I saw, says up to 35 million people is injured in car crashes per year and up to 1.5 million killed annually on the roads. This data does not comprise information from low motorised countries, so the figures could be slightly higher. Given the price of fuel, and vehicle cost/upkeep nowadays, the financial cost of death is amazing. It's such a lottery.

I've seen a lot of car radios in my time, and I ain't never came across one with Teletext built in. Never even crossed my mind that such an invention existed, but there you go...

It seems over here in Aus, that near all vechicles are automatic boxes. These are ok, I suppose easier to maintain, with the fact that auto boxes can be filled by a small bottle under the hood usually. Manual ones, need you to get right into the guts underneath and undo a plug, then pump in fresh oil using a hand pump usually... Anyways, i'm used to manual boxes. When driving in snow or ice, i'd prefer a manual definatly. It's a small known fact, if the weather comes down, as in snow, in a manual, you should go into a higher gear, as in, if you are in 2nd gear doing 20mph on a slippy road, best go into 3rd gear and just go hell slow, as less torque to the wheels in the higher gear, saved my life countless occasions in the ice. Aus. doesn't really have this problem, so the driving style is different, very coast along, usually pretty good.

Today, I heard that one of the local doctors had done an injury to her neck, resulting in a syndrome known as pain... Now, something I learned a lot of years ago, and at one time, personally was advised I may not walk again myself, but that's another story, and since, I have made a full recovery. A simple but effective exercise to quickly alleviating pain, with regards to muscular pain in particular is this one... If you grasp your neck (no, really) then pull the cranium upwards slowly, to a level that is tight, but not exactly pain level. Then, keep your spine completely straight and let your left arm down, slowly, slow as bro. Now, raise your left arm slowly, slow as bro. Next, perform the same action on your right arm, but keep your spine as straight as possible. Again, pull the cranium upwards and repeat this simple exercise, of head pulling and arm dropping for maybe 5 minutes or less, but make sure to take plenty of time and relax between intervals. Slowness is the key to getting this right here, otherwise, it won't work. When all said and done, relax and lie down for a while, if you can, sleep. Sometimes, you will find the pain is all but gone within 30 minutes, or at least to a level where it is not causing severe discomfort. This tip was handed down from a pro. physio that was handed to me by a trusted source. It appears to work on some back and neck pain quite well, and is the first thing I would try if ever presented with muscular backache/pulled neck, but that's just me.

If anyone recalls the story of the little dutch boy, the Hero of Harlem who stuck his fingers into a leaking dyke to prevent the town flooding, if only he was around today... Last I heard that pipe in the US is still open.

Right. Today was looking into getting fillings done. It was going to be a few dollars, maybe 100, 150. So, came across some good information and decided to give it a go. The filling I had, fell out the other day while demolishing a wall for someone. There was no pain and the hole was clean, so this was worth a shot. It seems if you get Zinc Oxide powder, and Oil of cloves (100%, called Eugine oil/Euginol - extract from the bud, not leaf) you can basically have the ingredients to make a good temporary filling that may last up to 2 years, but more likely 6 months. Anyways, dentists use the same stuff. What you do is make 1 Teaspoon of the Zinc Oxide powder, and then pour about 5 or 6 drops of the clove oil into the powder and then mash it up good. The compound I made was a bit like putty, and then you just push it into the hole area. Now, saliva actually makes the filling harden, but in the initial few hours after applied, obviously be a bit careful that it won't dislodge. So far it is perfectly fine, and would easily suffice, until a better filling can be done at some point. Very impressed with this, wish I knew this years ago, but there you go. The Zinc Oxide powder can be had from beauty shops and some chemists, and is also a rash inhibitor better than talcum powder. It cost me $4 for the dust and $8 for the oil, so £12 total which is fair enough, and will last for a lifetimes worth of fillings.

Something which is becoming apparent to me, is a little known fact, called privacy. It may seem strange, but this shouldn't be something that you have to ask for, like a small child. I recall a few years ago, in fact, probably 10, going to a local pub (if you can call it that). Inside the bar, there were 3 seats and a pooltable, huge sitting space and a roaring open fire. One night, a few teenage lads came in for a pint, which was extremely strange, as they were definatly not local to the area. Now, this may sound like a joke, but I can assure you it is not. The barkeeper sent them a letter to their house after they left, telling them never to return. They had done nothing "wrong" as such, and consumed minimal alcohol, but something rubbed the barman up badly of their prescence. Now, that's service :) ...

View from Marine Centre, Townsville. 12/06/2010

Until recently, stumbled upon this cute vehicle by mistake really. It is an electric car named the Nido EV and is built by Italian company called Pinifaria. Unfortunatly Andreas Pinifaria was killed in an accident in late 2008 riding a Vespa scooter near his home by an old man driving a Ford Focus, but don't let that detract from the fact, this car is tight.

Drew this today in 10 minutes filling in time, using free paint soft called "gimp".

I don't seem to be getting the required time at the moment to get anywhere near a driving range, but modern commercial golf is a bit of a sidestep to the original masters of the game. If you play golf and haven't heard of Tom Morris, you don't know jack.

The following text is a blatant copy & paste from a blog over at treehugger, but I thought it put bluntly pretty much what I have been thinking the last few years. Some of the driving I have seen over the last few years especially have really stained my thinking, in particular, Auckland has to have been the most hardcore situation of urban traffic accidents I have ever seen :(
Make no mistake though, everywhere you go, you see it all the time and cars claim more lives than we might think...

"In one year, it is estimated that 1.2 million people are killed in auto-related accidents around the globe. That equates to slightly more than 3200 traffic deaths EVERY DAY. These mostly preventable deaths, in casualties alone, exponentially surpasses the number of casualties from higher profile, more newsworthy, less common tragedies. Yet, the horrific daily toll receives little attention by political leaders and the media .

Here are several scary but true comparisons, measuring daily global auto deaths against higher profile tragedies which have been embedded into our collective consciousness:

1) Every day more people are killed in auto related deaths than in the 9/11 attacks on America.
2) Every day, about 3 times more woman, children, and men are killed in auto related deaths than in the recent Gaza conflict.
3) Every day, more than twice as many people perish in auto deaths than in Hurricane Katrina.
4) The daily toll from traffic accidents is equivalent to 15 plane crashes, each with 200 passengers aboard."

Now, when you look at it this way, it seems that vehicles are more of a curse than a solution to travel. Honestly, I hate cars unless you have a total open place to drive and an electric one at that.

Recently, I am getting used to Orbiter, space software and wondered about junk in space. Upon inspection it appears that there is somewhere between 13000 & 18000 disused pieces of space equipment up there. There is around 900 operational satellites at the moment. Your guess is as good as mine as per the safety of the situation, but I wouldn't like to take the Pepsi challenge about this...

Down at the local Woolworths, picked up a bag of porridge only to find this nasty-looking beastie nesting inside the bag... I think it is a wasp, or maybe a locust. Whoever packed that stuff, sack 'em.

This is the first page of a 10+ page document for the patent of an Antimatter storage device registered in 2003. If you do some research, it seems this "substance" is worth a lot in pecuniary measure. Since I used to work with dangerous goods, I made a generic shipping note below, in case it ever becomes available in mass quantities. Currently, as far as I know, it is miniscule quantities available, perhaps grams.

Tellya, an exciting career in the UK anyways is that of an Ambulance driver according to The Sun newspaper. It seems there were 339 crashes by badly driven ambulances in the UK in 09. This racked up quarter of a million gbp in damadges. There are cases of Ambulances hitting cop cars, all sort of stuff. Makes ya wonder, no? I'm guessing these drivers are not 100% UK born and bred but I may be wrong. The reason I say this, is because personally, my driving is adapted to ice/snow conditions that are par for the course in that part of the world. Any British person knows to calm the berries when getting behind the wheel.

On the TV last week was a report on an aircraft crash. Pitot tubes are what registers the airspeed on modern planes. It seems that they were clogged with "supercooled water" which created a world of hurt for the crew and unfortunatly the entire electrical system failed, causing the plane to crash. Basically this water is below 0.deg centigrade, but doesn't turn to ice. Took a bit of working out for the investigator...

Maybe you saw the Auckland pigeon I posted a while back, well, this is the Townsville equivalent. Found it on the main street, near an Aboriginal sleeping on the bench.

By way of visual reference to a demanding conversation regarding British inventions once upon a time, I decided to loosely categorise these into the photos above. Obviously this is a tiny portion of some of the technical heritage that goes with the territory, not to mention all the other stuff like the games (golf, football, rugby, etc) It would be futile to try and do this within a blog page with regards to time constraints of being a normal young human.