Lacessit

Analysis is telling me Dolf has made a total of 85 posts since becoming a member, and 75 of them are on this thread alone. IMO that shrieks Trump troll, a waste of time even responding to him.

I notice we both got two sad icons, what's the bet on who they are from?

I don't care about what membership ranking I have. With my background, I do care about ridiculous anomalies. How's the guitar going?

I'm interested in the confused icons I occasionally get, I like to think my posts are cogent. Trumpers are like shooting fish in a barrel. I doubt any of them got to a tertiary education.

I have to lie flat to get relief from back pain. Chronic osteoarthritis of the lower spine, caused by years of hauling and chainsawing firewood. I sleep lying on either side, can't sleep when lying flat on my back. I occasionally nod off if I am getting a massage in that position. Spare a thought for the people who shear sheep. The warm jacket or pullover you wear came at the cost of their backs. It's the most crippling of any profession in that respect. Pretty good odds they lie flat as much as they can.

Correct. I have to suffer scientific illiteracy in ASEAN on a regular basis. Another common mistake of journalists is confusing nitrate with nitrite, when the two have entirely different chemistry.

I recently noticed what I think is an anomaly in membership rankings. There are Star Members, Ruby Members, etc. How these rankings are allocated is shrouded in mystery. I am an Advanced Member. Over the years, I have made more than 23,000 posts. The positive responses to those posts are about 14,000 above that. There is another Advanced Member. I can only describe him/her/it as the village idiot. They have made 673 posts, mostly trolling garbage. Not that I care. However, excuse me for thinking the membership ranking system is ridiculous.

I have to lie flat to get relief from back pain. Chronic osteoarthritis of the lower spine, caused by years of hauling and chainsawing firewood. I sleep lying on either side, can't sleep when lying flat on my back. I occasionally nod off if I am getting a massage in that position. Spare a thought for the people who shear sheep. The warm jacket or pullover you wear came at the cost of their backs. It's the most crippling of any profession in that respect. Pretty good odds they lie flat as much as they can.

The purpose of converting hydrogen to ammonia is to enable transport in bulk. Shipping hydrogen would either require high pressure cylinders, or tonnes of metal hydrides, neither of which are practical. Burning ammonia in an ICE sounds to me like a recipe for jumping from the frying pan into the fire environmentally, due to NOx emissions. A fuel leak could gas the occupants of a sedan, I sure as hell would not be buying one. I don't know how releasing nitrogen into the atmosphere leads to more ammonia and ozone production, given our atmosphere is already 78% nitrogen.

During COVID, Trump held rallies. He also avoided masks because they spoiled his makeup. He downplayed the pandemic, take a look at the Woodward interview. He sidelined Fauci, an acknowledged expert in the field. All these circumstances facilitated the spread of COVID. You think it's an accident the red states had a higher death rate from COVID than the blue states during the pandemic? Given your post, I can only conclude injecting bleach has killed off the few brain cells you may have had.

Apparently there are membrane technologies at pilot plant stage for conversion of hydrogen to ammonia, and subsequent reformation to hydrogen and nitrogen. The Haber process may be on the way out. Most of the research is being done by CSIRO in Australia. The strategy is to manufacture hydrogen from seawater in Australia, which is one of the best sites for renewable energy. Solar, wind and tidal power are all in the mix. Convert to ammonia, ship to China, reconstitute as hydrogen. Understandably, the Chinese are very interested. It remains to be seen how much capital goes into development. Ammonia is non-flammable, which is more than can be said for refined petroleum products which are shipped all over the world. It's also less toxic than liquid chlorine, phenol and formaldehyde, which humans have been transporting in bulk for decades. AFAIK stainless steel tankers can handle ammonia quite comfortably. OTOH, it chews through copper and its alloys quite rapidly.

First Trump has to post cash or a bond for $355 million ( or more ) before he can even appeal. Engoron's 92-page judgment is meticulous in dissecting the frauds Trump and his associates committed. And explaining how he has assessed the fine/disgorgement required. O'Leary is a successful businessman. There is no evidence he has any legal training, neither do you.

I don't know if you are aware of it, but your statement is a good expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Personally, I think there is room for both EV's and hydrogen-fuelled cars, with wealthier people buying EV's, and poorer people having to buy the alternative as fossil-fuelled vehicles are phased out by mandate. That process could take 30 years. It reminds me of when I was one of the first people to put solar panels on my house in Australia. A modest addition, six panels, but they reduced my electricity bill to nearly zero with the feed-in tariff. I was a member of a golf club which had some very wealthy people. After they realized the payback and cost savings of solar, it developed into competition between them to see how many solar panels they could cram onto the roofs of their houses. Tough luck for people who can't afford solar panels. Their mains supplier has to increase the cost of electricity, to compensate for a shrinking market.

There is nothing like scientific training to keep one focused on facts, evidence, and objective measurement. Unfortunately, it is not a well paid profession. We pay lawyers, accountants and politicians very well indeed, considering what they do. As a proportion of the world population, scientists are 0.5% of the workforce. The South Koreans lead the field with 1.7%. The percentage has grown from 1% in 2010. It shows in how Korean products have replaced the Japanese in terms of cost and quality. OTOH, American trust in science has been declining for years, and took a big hit during COVID. Human nature being what it is, we gleefully accept the miracles of modern technology, but shoot the messenger if it is facts we don't like. Make no mistake, Trump is anti-science. It directly contradicts the message he is trying to sell. Which probably cost 100K -200K Americans their lives on his watch, during COVID.

You'd use less gas if you stopped attending his rallies. Also, you would have more money to send him.

I agree. But where are you getting the X3 BEV's from? The reading I am doing is saying at best, only 20-30% of ICE's can be replaced by BEV's. There just aren't enough raw materials. If you have contrary information, please post it. AFAIK coal-fired power stations are not purpose-built to produce hydrogen. Cracking methane is an entirely different process. You may be referring to producer gas, which uses coal, and is a fairly lethal mix. If you are referring to using the electricity generated by a fossil fuel station to electrolyze water, that would be as big a farce as carbon capture and storage.

What are we as pensioners? To the politicians, we are a bloody nuisance. A drain on the public purse, and a fairly powerful lobby group. As some have found out to their cost at the ballot box. To Centrelink, we are a precedent. Every Australian approaching pension age is expecting the same benefits as we are getting now. To the ATO, we are an afterthought. Most of the tax juice was wrung out of us when we were in the PAYE system, or running our own companies. What's left really is not worth bothering about. One of the under-appreciated features of Thailand is its cash economy. I don't see much point in tying myself into knots about what may or may not happen. I've put strategies in place to address them if they occur. I recommend others do the same. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Using methane to produce hydrogen is really going around in circles as far as global CO2 emissions are concerned. The production process has carbon monoxide as one of the results, which is nasty stuff to have around. The main advantage of a hydrogen-fuelled car is carmakers can make them with their existing production lines, all they need as a bit of tweaking, like they do with LPG and CNG. It burns hotter than LPG, so hardened valves and seats would probably be needed. There is no argument EV's are cheaper to run, and are environmentally friendly IF they are refueled using renewable energy. However, I really doubt there is enough of the raw materials needed for them to completely replace ICE's.

Why would I say hello to a complete stranger? If I saw someone a few times in the same location, I might say hello. If they ignored me, I would ignore them from then on.

Apparently Trump's latest venture into retail, gold sneakers for $399, has sold out. Which IMO shows (a) some people have more money than sense (b) their taste is in their @rse. Which is quite fitting, given Trump's own problems in that region.

After Robodebt, IMO Centrelink will be very wary of enforcing anything.

DTA, my mistake. My Australian bank does not deduct tax from any interest on deposits, as they have my TFN. The ATO has not contacted me since I put in a non-lodgment advice a couple of years ago. I can't quote any sections, I am explaining my individual circumstances. I guess I could say I am flying under the radar. IMO there are a lot of people that do.

It's a conundrum, because under the DFT someone who is deemed to be tax resident in Thailand can't be taxed by the ATO. Hypothetically, suppose I earn $2000 in interest on a savings deposit in an Australian account. Until I move that $2000 from Australia to Thailand, the authorities there don't know the money exists.

Agreed. The question then becomes whether a tax number is required to satisfy visa extension criteria.

The ATO has my Australian address. My TFN has been quoted to my bank in Australia. I have not given my overseas address to the ATO, nor do I intend to. My principle is to tell bureaucrats the bare minimum. I put in a non-lodgment advice several years ago, and have not heard from the ATO since. When I worked in north-west Australia, I knew a guy who worked as a surveyor. Moved around a lot, earned good money. He had not put in a tax return for 20 years. I don't know if the ATO ever caught up with him.