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  • jeggaJ Offline
    jeggaJ Offline
    jegga
    replied to Machpants on last edited by
    #446

    @Machpants said in Interesting reads:

    Yeah, flying training hours were very situation dependant in WW2. At the worst in BoB RAF pilots could have as little a 50, Soviets post invasion a dozen!

    ![0_1545530405706_c41a286b-f7c0-415e-afd8-c7448f52f6d1-image.png](Uploading 100%)

    Most soviet flying was done at lower altitudes too, so less margin for error. The upside was they were able to use p40s and p39s too their strengths which the allies struggled to do .

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  • canefanC Offline
    canefanC Offline
    canefan
    replied to Snowy on last edited by
    #447

    @Snowy said in Interesting reads:

    @jegga Quite a storied life indeed.

    Still amazes me how they trained guys in tiger moths, said "right, you are now a pilot" and then strapped them into a spitfire. Its like teaching someone to drive in a mini then pointing at an F1 car and saying "right now go and drive that, oh, and other people in F1 cars are are going to be chasing you, oh, and shooting at you".

    He had 146 operational hours when he got his DFC, not even enough for a commercial licence. I'm not too far shy of 20,000 hours (depending on how you log them in various countries) and I still don't feel like I know much.

    No OSH back then either!

    SnowyS 1 Reply Last reply
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  • SnowyS Offline
    SnowyS Offline
    Snowy
    replied to canefan on last edited by
    #448

    @canefan No, but wars kind of trump OSH anywyay.

    On the topic of OSH - this was the opening of a recent CAA newsletter:

    What is the most dangerous occupation in NZ – in terms of worker fatality rate? No, it’s not forestry, or construction, or agriculture. Sadly, civil aviation can claim the title and the correct answer is ‘commercial helicopter pilot’. Based upon 2011 to 2017 figures, the fatality rate for commercial helicopter pilots (per 1000 workers on an annual basis) is 75 times the national average for all workplaces – compared with 44 times the average for forestry, which is the next worst workplace.

    Small sample size, and it really shouldn't be like that anymore, quite interesting though.

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  • dogmeatD Offline
    dogmeatD Offline
    dogmeat
    replied to jegga on last edited by
    #449

    @jegga that was one clever otter - and he could also slam dunk

    SnowyS 1 Reply Last reply
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  • SnowyS Offline
    SnowyS Offline
    Snowy
    replied to dogmeat on last edited by
    #450

    @dogmeat said in Interesting reads:

    @jegga that was one clever otter - and he could also slam dunk

    Yeah, like a few other basketball players, a bit of a piston wristed gibbon too.

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  • TimT Away
    TimT Away
    Tim
    wrote on last edited by
    #451

    Some interesting discussion of the Sydney Opal Tower crack and evacuation:

    Sydney Opal Tower: Thousands evacuated after 'crack' | Hacker News

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/a91wit/opal_tower_structural_damage_sydney_olympic_park/ecg3tpz/

    antipodeanA 1 Reply Last reply
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  • jeggaJ Offline
    jeggaJ Offline
    jegga
    wrote on last edited by
    #452
    Dylan Cleaver, Carolyne Meng-Yee, Mike Scott

    His way: The Pat Vincent story

    His  way: The Pat Vincent story

    He was an All Black captain, a jazz crooner and an inspiration to generations of young Americans. He was also probably gay - and until now his full story has never been told.

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  • antipodeanA Online
    antipodeanA Online
    antipodean
    replied to Tim on last edited by
    #453

    @Tim said in Interesting reads:

    Some interesting discussion of the Sydney Opal Tower crack and evacuation:

    Sydney Opal Tower: Thousands evacuated after 'crack' | Hacker News

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/a91wit/opal_tower_structural_damage_sydney_olympic_park/ecg3tpz/

    The pre-cast concrete has apparently been ruled out which leaves 'how it was installed or problems in the design or construction of the building.'

    Having lived for a year in a building constructed by the same builder, Icon, I can't say the issues at Opal Tower surprise me in the slightest.

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  • CatograndeC Offline
    CatograndeC Offline
    Catogrande
    replied to canefan on last edited by
    #454

    @canefan said in Interesting reads:

    @jc said in Interesting reads:

    @tim said in Interesting reads:

    I guess that's a legacy of the Pal's Battalion. Middlebrook's "The First Day on the Somme" has a piece on the Grimsby Chums, who were one of the first units in action, sent in to the Lochnagar Crater.

    https://lochnagarcrater.org/learn/first-day-of-somme/

    "In eight successive waves the infantrymen of the 34th Division stood up from their trenches, and in straight lines prescribed, officers in front as ordered, set off at a walk to attack the German front line trenches. One mile behind the British front line the four battalions of the Tyneside Irish Brigade climbed from their trenches, on the Usna and Tara ridges, and started down the hillside. In a matter of minutes this Brigade had sustained heavy casualties from enfilading machine gun fire.

    During the intensive bombardment of the previous days the Germans had sheltered in their deep bunkers, tormented by the incessant concussions as they were battered by the British artillery fire. But they had survived and so had most of their barbed wire. The silence of the barrage lifting was the signal for them to come up from their deep dugouts, hauling their machine guns with them, and taking their positions in the line. Through the smoke and the haze of gunfire the German defenders peered out on an astounding site, successive waves of British soldiers marching steadily toward them as if on parade. The enemy were offering themselves as perfect targets.

    The slaughter was immense, the machine guns cut down the British infantry like a farmer’s scythe cuts hay. Within minutes German artillery was raining down on the attacking survivors, the regimental rows of British soldiers had disappeared.

    Parade ground order was now forgotten, small groups of survivors continued forward taking cover in shell holes. Some of the survivors gained the sanctuary of the Lochnagar Crater, and by the early evening were able to make contact with elements of the 21st and 22nd northumberland Fusiliers, who held a position in the German second line between Lochnagar Crater and the village of La Boisselle.

    On the right of the Divisional attack small parties of the 15th and 16th Royal Scots and elements of the 11th Suffolks and 10th Lincolns were to advance 700 yards into the German lines and occupy a position in Wood Alley which guarded the left flank of the advance of the British 21st Division. From information obtained later, and those present at the taking of Contalmaison, it is amply proved that men of the Tyneside Irish Brigade did actually reach this village on the 1st July, but none lived to tell the tale."

    The Grimsby Chums were part of the 10th Lincolns. What a fucking tragedy.

    I went to the Somme, stood in the field where the battle that inspired the Warhorse film was "fought". They say the bodies were stacked so high you could barely walk on the ground that day, after the horses charged the field straight into the waiting German machine guns. Senseless mechanized slaughter on a scale that dwarfed Gallipoli

    The battle lasted about 15 months all in all and around 420,000 British men were killed. Reports of Allied casualties on the first day (some reports say first morning) were around 60,000. The worst reported casualties though were in a battalion from the island of Newfoundland, Canada that lost 2,000 men or 90% of its deployment on the opening day of the battle. This was the equivalent of one in five men in the entire Dominion. 20% of the mature male population in one day.

    Eat your heart out Private Ryan.

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  • jeggaJ Offline
    jeggaJ Offline
    jegga
    wrote on last edited by
    #455
    Redirect Notice
    antipodeanA 1 Reply Last reply
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  • antipodeanA Online
    antipodeanA Online
    antipodean
    replied to jegga on last edited by
    #456

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    Redirect Notice

    If you've the stomach for it, check out live leak for examples of how high the Chinese venerate life. They're a different species. If you haven't been there, let me offer you one golden piece of advice; traffic laws mean nothing and a pedestrian crossing is an opportunity for you to play Russian roulette.

    mariner4lifeM 1 Reply Last reply
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  • jeggaJ Offline
    jeggaJ Offline
    jegga
    wrote on last edited by
    #457
    Jun 21, 2018  /  Runners’ Stories

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Think you know the story of Zola Budd? Think again. Even if you remember how the barefoot prodigy broke world records, became a symbol of South Africa's oppression, and was blamed for Mary Decker's Olympic nightmare, her story has more heartbreak, more hard-fought redemption, and considerably more...

    antipodeanA 1 Reply Last reply
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  • antipodeanA Online
    antipodeanA Online
    antipodean
    replied to jegga on last edited by
    #458

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    Jun 21, 2018  /  Runners’ Stories

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Think you know the story of Zola Budd? Think again. Even if you remember how the barefoot prodigy broke world records, became a symbol of South Africa's oppression, and was blamed for Mary Decker's Olympic nightmare, her story has more heartbreak, more hard-fought redemption, and considerably more...

    I remember that and the seppo media blaming the leader for tripping the girl behind her. Lunatics.

    jeggaJ 1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • jeggaJ Offline
    jeggaJ Offline
    jegga
    replied to antipodean on last edited by
    #459

    @antipodean said in Interesting reads:

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    Jun 21, 2018  /  Runners’ Stories

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Think you know the story of Zola Budd? Think again. Even if you remember how the barefoot prodigy broke world records, became a symbol of South Africa's oppression, and was blamed for Mary Decker's Olympic nightmare, her story has more heartbreak, more hard-fought redemption, and considerably more...

    I remember that and the seppo media blaming the leader for tripping the girl behind her. Lunatics.

    There was an upset with a boxing match involving a Korean too which they got payback with in Seoul on Roy Jones jr

    ESPN Video
    antipodeanA 1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • antipodeanA Online
    antipodeanA Online
    antipodean
    replied to jegga on last edited by
    #460

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    @antipodean said in Interesting reads:

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    Jun 21, 2018  /  Runners’ Stories

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Zola Budd: After The Fall

    Think you know the story of Zola Budd? Think again. Even if you remember how the barefoot prodigy broke world records, became a symbol of South Africa's oppression, and was blamed for Mary Decker's Olympic nightmare, her story has more heartbreak, more hard-fought redemption, and considerably more...

    I remember that and the seppo media blaming the leader for tripping the girl behind her. Lunatics.

    There was an upset with a boxing match involving a Korean too which they got payback with in Seoul on Roy Jones jr

    ESPN Video

    I always felt sorry for Roy Jones Jr but he handled himself with a grace that was surprising.

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4life
    replied to antipodean on last edited by
    #461

    @antipodean said in Interesting reads:

    @jegga said in Interesting reads:

    Redirect Notice

    If you've the stomach for it, check out live leak for examples of how high the Chinese venerate life. They're a different species. If you haven't been there, let me offer you one golden piece of advice; traffic laws mean nothing and a pedestrian crossing is an opportunity for you to play Russian roulette.

    I crossed a couple of big ones just for the excitement, fucking carnage. Cars, trucks, buses and scooters coming at you from all angles no matter where on the road you are.

    Just set a steady pace and keep walking

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    0
  • gt12G Offline
    gt12G Offline
    gt12
    wrote on last edited by
    #462

    Faustian deal? Via longform:

    Jan 15, 2019

    Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism | Los Angeles Review of Books

    Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism | Los Angeles Review of Books

    Whatever its imperfections, Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" is an original and brilliant work, and it arrives at a crucial moment.

    !

    mariner4lifeM 1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4life
    replied to gt12 on last edited by
    #463

    @gt12 I'll be reading that book I think. Enjoying a few books looking critically at modern capitalism. Currently reading on about how accountants broke it.

    gt12G 1 Reply Last reply
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  • gt12G Offline
    gt12G Offline
    gt12
    replied to mariner4life on last edited by
    #464

    @mariner4life

    Me too, ironically, it'll go on the Kindle list 🙂

    That book sounds interesting, what's the title?

    mariner4lifeM 1 Reply Last reply
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  • mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4lifeM Offline
    mariner4life
    replied to gt12 on last edited by
    #465

    @gt12 Bean Counters: The triumph of the accountants and how they broke capitalism. By Richard Brooks

    It's okay, I'm only a 3rd of the way through, still in the history lesson stage. I'm interested to see his conclusions (although I can already guess)

    Next on the list is Utopia for Realists. Pretty sure I'm not going to agree with many of that authors views, but I'm reading to broaden my understanding of the other side of my economic beliefs.

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