Things that don't deserve their own thread

[Enzedder]

^ ^ ^

LOL. As soon as I saw the start, I knew he would do that.

Because I would have.

[Kiwias]

^ ^ ^

LOL. As soon as I saw the start, I knew he would do that.

Because I would have.

Until he turned to face the camera, I could have sworn that was you.

[Uncle fester]

Oh that was undignified.

[tabascoboy]

Well...

[Niegs]

[Guy Smiley]

[Random1]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/new-bri ... er-firing/

The Death Star is not quite fully operational.

Dragon breath is a cracking name for the system.

[Ymx]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/new-bri ... er-firing/

The Death Star is not quite fully operational.

Dragon breath is a cracking name for the system.

Yep, it rocks !

[Ymx]

[MungoMan]

I got a total knee replacement (left) on 20 December 2023. Aside from doing various exercises at home, I've also been seeing a physiotherapist.

Looking at the clinic's website a few minutes ago, I noticed one of their physios is named Sam Ballschmieter.

Sweet baby jesus! No.Fucken.Way. would I ever let that fella lay his hands on my lower body!

[Kiwias]

I got a total knee replacement (left) on 20 December 2023. Aside from doing various exercises at home, I've also been seeing a physiotherapist.

Looking at the clinic's website a few minutes ago, I noticed one of their physios is named Sam Ballschmieter.

Sweet baby jesus! No.Fucken.Way. would I ever let that fella lay his hands on my lower body!

Disappointed to find that 'schmieter' in German does not mean what I thought it did.

[Guy Smiley]

I got a total knee replacement (left) on 20 December 2023. Aside from doing various exercises at home, I've also been seeing a physiotherapist.

Looking at the clinic's website a few minutes ago, I noticed one of their physios is named Sam Ballschmieter.

Sweet baby jesus! No.Fucken.Way. would I ever let that fella lay his hands on my lower body!

That reminds me of the infamous Fanny Shmellar episode of The Chase.

[Gumboot]

Didn't want to start a separate thread about this as it would be pretty damn depressing.

It's quite a long read, sorry.

Former All Black Byron Kelleher’s decade of repeated drunken violence against women

The text message stopped Yuliana Desta in her tracks.

Four words that brought back the trauma she’d spent the past four years trying to suppress: “He’s done it again.”

Attached was a link to a news story about Desta’s ex-fiancée, former All Black Byron Kelleher, facing domestic violence charges in France. Soon, her phone would be flooded with messages linking to headlines from around the world.

According to the reports, which originated from French newspaper Le Parisien, Kelleher last week appeared before the 24th chamber of the Paris criminal court on charges allegedly committed against another former partner.

The police complaint details how Kelleher allegedly assaulted a 37-year-old woman during a violent altercation at their home in June last year, including the claim that he dragged his former partner down the hallway by her hair.

In the victim’s statement to police, she described how episodes of “verbal and physical violence” were a frequent occurrence in the relationship, recounting an incident in Mauritius in February 2023 in which local police were called, and another alleged assault in May last year on Prince Albert of Monaco’s boat.

Kelleher denies the allegations. While he acknowledges the couple argued, he claims he had “not touched her”.

The woman’s story felt all too familiar to Desta. The high-flying lifestyle. The parties. The glamorous events. The drinking. The violence.

The reports compelled Desta, who met Kelleher in Bali in September 2018, to speak out about her experiences....

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/in-dep ... inst-women

Sickening.

If even a fraction of this stuff is true, this prick should be in prison.

[Gumboot]

Reminds me of the Tony Veitch revelations.

Kicked his partner so hard he broke her back... allegedly.

He also ended up in Bali, iirc.

[Gumboot]

Just wondering, is "Bali" Indonesian for "prison"?

[Biffer]

This kind of thing just makes me want to bang my head of the wall. And slap a few people involved.

[Tichtheid]

The Lambo guy was hilarious, but in a nice way, laughing with him. It reminded me of this, you must have seen this?

[BnM]

[TB63]

[inactionman]

Didn't want to start a separate thread about this as it would be pretty damn depressing.

It's quite a long read, sorry.

Former All Black Byron Kelleher’s decade of repeated drunken violence against women

The text message stopped Yuliana Desta in her tracks.

Four words that brought back the trauma she’d spent the past four years trying to suppress: “He’s done it again.”

Attached was a link to a news story about Desta’s ex-fiancée, former All Black Byron Kelleher, facing domestic violence charges in France. Soon, her phone would be flooded with messages linking to headlines from around the world.

According to the reports, which originated from French newspaper Le Parisien, Kelleher last week appeared before the 24th chamber of the Paris criminal court on charges allegedly committed against another former partner.

The police complaint details how Kelleher allegedly assaulted a 37-year-old woman during a violent altercation at their home in June last year, including the claim that he dragged his former partner down the hallway by her hair.

In the victim’s statement to police, she described how episodes of “verbal and physical violence” were a frequent occurrence in the relationship, recounting an incident in Mauritius in February 2023 in which local police were called, and another alleged assault in May last year on Prince Albert of Monaco’s boat.

Kelleher denies the allegations. While he acknowledges the couple argued, he claims he had “not touched her”.

The woman’s story felt all too familiar to Desta. The high-flying lifestyle. The parties. The glamorous events. The drinking. The violence.

The reports compelled Desta, who met Kelleher in Bali in September 2018, to speak out about her experiences....

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/in-dep ... inst-women

Sickening.

If even a fraction of this stuff is true, this prick should be in prison.

He sounds like a man who should be kept well away from the booze.

If he can't drink without hitting someone, he can't drink. Surely he can see that.

[Gumboot]

How an army of big-headed ants saved zebras from hungry lions in Kenya

An army of invasive ants has been so disruptive to a Kenyan ecosystem that it has changed the hunting habits of a pride of lions.

The big-headed ant species, which originated on the island of Mauritius, is one of the most invasive insects in the world, with colonies found at 1,600 locations, from East Africa to states across the US south.

In warm climates, their arrival “spells almost certain doom” for native insects, where they use their disproportionately large heads to attack other ants and cut up prey, according to a 2014 study.

Research from the University of Wyoming, published on Thursday, reveals the impact of their arrival in Ol Pejeta, a wildlife conservation area in Kenya’s Laikipia County.

The big-headed ants disrupted the symbiotic relationship between the region’s native acacia ants and whistling-thorn trees.

The trees are the dominant species in much of East Africa, providing nectar and shelter for native ants. In turn, the ants defend the trees by emitting formic acid and biting herbivores who try to feast on them – a particularly effective strategy against elephants.

But when the big-headed ants move in, they not only kill off the native ants but also fail to protect the whistling thorns.

This allows elephants to overgraze on the trees, leaving them chewed up and broken “at five to seven times the rate in areas with invasive ants compared to areas without the invaders”.

Without the trees, the landscape is a lot more bare, leaving lions with few hiding places when stalking their preferred prey, zebras.

Ultimately, the study found that zebra kills by lions were nearly three times higher in areas that had not been invaded by big-headed ants...



https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c ... 85594.html

[Niegs]

[Ymx]

This is absolutely brilliant. Street fighter or similar

[Guy Smiley]

One aspect of living in Australia that I miss is a slightly surprising one... there are some good sports journalists plying their craft and I'd forgotten about it until I tripped over a comment about the cricket from one of them, Greg Baum. Here he is on the winner of the mens' Australian Open final, Jannik Sinner...

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/tennis/ ... 5f0ke.html

At Kooyong three weeks ago, Jannik Sinner said that this would be for him a hunting year. “We go into every tournament and we try our best,” he said, “and we see what we can catch.”

On Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night, he bagged the biggest game of all, clambering back from two sets down to beat Daniil Medvedev in five and so claim the first of what all expect to be many major championships. At 22, he’s the youngest Australian Open winner since Novak Djokovic won the first of his 10 in 2008.


Added to the scalp of the beast that was Djokovic in his lair in a semi-final, that’s quite a collection he will be lugging back to the south Tyrol. The Davis Cup already sits in his cabinet there.

The title might change his life, but it won’t change him. Impassive and expressionless throughout the tournament and the final, he was still contained when it was won. He lay on the court for a moment, hugged Medvedev, communed with his box and ran his fingers through his mop of red hair. Lean, sinewy and light on his feet, he looked like a hunter and his heart beat as slowly as one. And here were we, thinking he was Italian.

Medvedev had spent the tournament, if not exactly scrambling through the undergrowth on all fours, at least always on the run. He is a survivor, a wily old-ish bird. He’s played and won three previous five-setters in this tournament, two from two sets down.

He’d lost sets and recovered them the way some people do with car keys. When he led by two sets on Sunday, he looked to have somehow become the one that got away. But more than 24 hours out in the open became like 24 hours on the run. He’d had more court time than Donald Trump.


He looks like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and deals in sagas, but they don’t often have happy endings. Heartbreakingly, this was the second time he had lost an Australian Open final from two sets up, having succumbed to Rafael Nadal that way in 2022.

It leaves him with one title from six major finals; he is beginning to compile an Andy Murray-like CV. That said, Djokovic won only one of a stretch of six finals in the middle of his prolific career. Then they flowed like rakia. Major finals have their own micro-environment.

Of course, it’s pixelating to portray Medvedev merely as an animal. Tennis has had few smarter players – and sometimes smart alec – and it showed this night. Everyone, doubtlessly including Sinner, expected a version of his patent defensive game. Instead, he played him from inside the court. He read Sinner like a tea leaf, while his own game was as opaque as a tea bag. He’s a bit of a scruff, but so was Einstein.

Medvedev gave Sinner a comprehensive runaround for the first two sets, and was about to become for Sinner the one that got away. It wasn’t that Sinner had the jitters – no hunter can afford those – but that Medvedev was a shot and a thought ahead of him all the time.


Medvedev was beating Sinner at his game as well as his own. Having lost his serve just twice previously for the tournament, Sinner was broken four times in the first two sets. The stalker became the stalked. The last thing a hunter needs is an ambush.

It’s masterful to adapt your game to each new opponent as they come at this stage of the tournament, confounding all expectations. We’re not talking about backcourt mugs at the other end.

But Medvedev had run a marathon and as he began to fatigue, Sinner began to make the rallies longer, then win them. There is an evenness about his game that reflects his temperament, and it should serve him well for a long time. Winners emerged in Sinner’s game, errors crept into Medvedev’s. Sinner’s breaks were timely, one each at the end of the third and fourth sets were enough. Simply, he picked off his target.

Before the fifth, Medvedev incurred a time violation warning after a flying visit to the change room. It was to no avail. He was a spent man and Sinner was a grinner.


Jannik Sinner makes sure Daniil Medvedev sees him bouncing on his toes as the Russian gets back from his bathroom break.

Whether this is the start of the post-Djokovic era or merely a hiatus, it was at least a foretaste of the future, and tasty at that. In the penumbra of a superstar’s reign, sometimes significant developments are obscured.

Sinner has won his last two matches against each of Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas and his last four now against Medvedev, and as the new season began was the form player in the world. But he had not previously been to the final of a major, which is a different world. Now it’s his oyster.

Medvedev had been there, and toted in all that experience. He also had been somewhat overlooked. He was the only player to win more matches overall last year than Sinner. As Sinner had spent the off-season sharpening himself up physically, Medvedev had put time into his psychological make-up, redirecting his mental energies from the wasted outlet of confrontations with other players and antagonistic fans and into his own craft.


For the most part, it worked. Besides, he wasn’t Djokovic, which is not to slight Djokovic and his prodigious achievements here, but to welcome a new face. He’d trained hard to rid it of a previous smirk. It’s been a project, but Medvedev has won over the Melbourne crowd. It’s hard to turn your back on a player who is at once so clever and so resilient, and in this agonising moment so gracious.

But Sinner is the new model: unfussed in manner, poised beyond his years, graceful in victory or defeat, and one hell of a tennis player. It would be silly to say of a man from the south Tyrol that his horizon is as wide the oceans. But it’s true to say that there’s plenty more quarry where he comes from and plenty of time, too. This is the start of a collection.

You can follow him on @threads here...https://www.threads.net/@greg.baum

[Ymx]

No comment

[Enzedder]

GREAT SEA STORY (Trivia)
The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips, the result. The Warrimoo's position was LAT 0º 31' N and LONG 179 30' W. The date was 31 December 1899. "Know what this means?" First Mate Payton broke in, "We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line". Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve the navigational freak of a lifetime.
He called his navigators to the bridge to check & double check the ship's position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.
The calm weather & clear night worked in his favor. At midnight the SS Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line! The consequences of this bizarre position were many:
The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.
The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.
The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.
In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.
This ship was therefore not only in:
Two different days,
Two different months,
Two different years,
Two different seasons
But in two different centuries - all at the same time!

[Kiwias]

GREAT SEA STORY (Trivia)
The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips, the result. The Warrimoo's position was LAT 0º 31' N and LONG 179 30' W. The date was 31 December 1899. "Know what this means?" First Mate Payton broke in, "We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line". Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve the navigational freak of a lifetime.
He called his navigators to the bridge to check & double check the ship's position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.
The calm weather & clear night worked in his favor. At midnight the SS Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line! The consequences of this bizarre position were many:
The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.
The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.
The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.
In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.
This ship was therefore not only in:
Two different days,
Two different months,
Two different years,
Two different seasons
But in two different centuries - all at the same time!

[Gumboot]

GREAT SEA STORY (Trivia)
The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia. The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips, the result. The Warrimoo's position was LAT 0º 31' N and LONG 179 30' W. The date was 31 December 1899. "Know what this means?" First Mate Payton broke in, "We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line". Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to achieve the navigational freak of a lifetime.
He called his navigators to the bridge to check & double check the ship's position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.
The calm weather & clear night worked in his favor. At midnight the SS Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line! The consequences of this bizarre position were many:
The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.
The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.
The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.
In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.
This ship was therefore not only in:
Two different days,
Two different months,
Two different years,
Two different seasons
But in two different centuries - all at the same time!

That's great.

[GuLi]

Spoiler

Show

20th century started on Jan 1st 1901

[Gumboot]

Spoiler

Show

20th century started on Jan 1st 1901

Well done, but is that it or are you bringing more to the table?

[TB63]

[Blackmac]

There is not a medieval punishment cruel enough for that sick fuck who threw a corrosive liquid on the mother and two young kids in London. I'd happily skin the cunt alive

[inactionman]

There is not a medieval punishment cruel enough for that sick fuck who threw a corrosive liquid on the mother and two young kids in London. I'd happily skin the cunt alive

It ticks every box in the 'justification for kicking their bollocks out their nostrils' checklist:
gutless
vicious
causes endless suffering - hoping to God she's not blinded, but still huge physical and mental damage.
kids involved
mother with kids

I've no idea if he was related to them, which would meet the conditions for 'spending another hour kicking his bollocks up his nostrils and out his ears' . Doing that to people you're supposed to love, cherish and protect.

Just so utterly callous.

[fishfoodie]

There is not a medieval punishment cruel enough for that sick fuck who threw a corrosive liquid on the mother and two young kids in London. I'd happily skin the cunt alive

It ticks every box in the 'justification for kicking their bollocks out their nostrils' checklist:
gutless
vicious
causes endless suffering - hoping to God she's not blinded, but still huge physical and mental damage.
kids involved
mother with kids

I've no idea if he was related to them, which would meet the conditions for 'spending another hour kicking his bollocks up his nostrils and out his ears' . Doing that to people you're supposed to love, cherish and protect.

Just so utterly callous.

Just take the remainder of the caustic soda & soak his meat & two veg in it for a few hours.

[dpedin]

There is not a medieval punishment cruel enough for that sick fuck who threw a corrosive liquid on the mother and two young kids in London. I'd happily skin the cunt alive

It ticks every box in the 'justification for kicking their bollocks out their nostrils' checklist:
gutless
vicious
causes endless suffering - hoping to God she's not blinded, but still huge physical and mental damage.
kids involved
mother with kids

I've no idea if he was related to them, which would meet the conditions for 'spending another hour kicking his bollocks up his nostrils and out his ears' . Doing that to people you're supposed to love, cherish and protect.

Just so utterly callous.

Just take the remainder of the caustic soda & soak his meat & two veg in it for a few hours.

TBH we have a punishment - it is being slapped up in a high security prison alongside a bunch of nutters who will regard his actions as deplorable and the lowest of the low and who will make his long, long prison stay an absolute misery. He will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

[Uncle fester]

News report mentioned that the victims were known to the perp.
Awful case.

[Blackmac]

News report mentioned that the victims were known to the perp.
Awful case.

Always expected that.

[Tichtheid]

I was just about to post that

[inactionman]

Spain are looking to trial a hydrogen powered train

https://www.imeche.org/news/news-articl ... ogen-train

The thrust is to have two fuel cells generating electricity in places where there's no overhead line, so there's no need to have diesel powered generators to power the electric motors. I'm not sure if the units themselves can/feasibly could generate and store hydrogen when used on catenary but I'd expect not.

I can definitely see the logic - allow it to use catenaries where available and switch to fuel cells where required. I lived in Bath when they made the shift to electrification of the whole Great Western line into London, and it was excruciating to have to drop to rail bed height through Box Tunnel to allow for overhead lines. This might have been an option. Maybe also be an option for rural or spur lines.

I shall avoid mentioning HS2.

[Ymx]