@darren32359.bsky.social have you verified that what he's saying is true? A friend of mine used to go out to the railway siding outside Salt Lake City where they store all the cars that aren't being used to transport freight. If he saw it was getting full, he'd lighten up his stock portfolio.

I'm kind of dreading Christmas travel this year. We're going to Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava and Munich. Going to give Prague a miss, but I don't think it will help. Staying home in Belgium is not an option, however.

Yes, I remember. I'm finding that my EFRW works decently enough that I can make digital mode contacts all over Europe. I'm mainly on 20m and 40m, so perhaps I'll switch to an EFHW at some point. When I'm in the field doing SOTA, I use a linked EFHW or a quarter-wave vertical made using a 17 ft whip

I'm using a Digirig. There are many different ways you can interface a computer with a radio, but this seems to be the simplest method.

I'm using VaraC, which is a chat application using the Vara modem. It's mainly used on HF.

So the solution to the current problem, where the government is going broke trying to fund the existing system, is to have more people sucking on the teat of the State instead of investing to support themselves in retirement with things like rental properties. Right. I think I've read enough.

"Livable state pensions"? The government should spend more on this? When it's already allocating a quarter of its spending to social security? When government spending makes up 45% of GDP? Where will the tax revenue come from to fund all this? Increasing taxes will eventually kill the economy.

A lot of retirees live off income from rental properties they own. What are they going to do? Go on welfare? I can't see that solving the problem.

Increasing taxes on landlords is only going to make the plight of welfare recipent worse, as these people either get out of the rental market or pass the increased costs on to tenants. A money grab without consideration of consequences. As for those subsidies, that's just tinkering around the edges.

People are upset about Reeves hiking taxes. Two thirds of govt expenditure is on social services. One quarter on welfare. It's pretty clear what the alternative to hiking taxes is. There's no other area of expenditure that has the same capacity for savings. No stomach for it, so up go taxes.

What else would you expect from Nazi Barbie?

Maybe the solution is to shop at a local roasting company instead. Not as convenient but it benefits you to support them.

Yes, exactly. If you want absolute versimilitude, then get a digital camera with as many giga-pixels as you can afford and shoot HDR with focus stacking. If you want to create an image that makes people feel something or see things differently, you need other techniques.

There is a world of difference between shabby but in use versus simply decaying.

I think that the striking sky and the texture in the grass make this a spectacular photo. I love it. I'm just starting out in pinhole photography and this inspires me.

OK. I can see that. And the shadow on the side of the pot and the stuff to your lower right in the picture. It's pretty subtle.

I cannot discern any difference between the "box speed" and digitally pushed images. I would have expected a pushed version of the shot to have more contrast than a box speed shot. But it looks about the same.

Fuck this. I had to go into Moderation settings and turn off all adult content, just so I wouldn't get this photo of a dude sitting there holding his erect prick. FFS. Can I not just remove this with a simple regular expression filter that targets the hashtags that go with this stuff?

Kangaroo
Wombat
Echidna
Ibex
Moose

I could go on...