Shuff's General Chat Thread ... #73 - Talk about anything and everything...  

There is no other way to do the timing belt on a soobie unless you take a radiator off. I just did mine in my XT Fozza. DOHC Cam. Fun job, but got it done which was good

Group makes last-ditch effort to save 'Top Gun' carrier

In the climactic final battle in the 1986 movie "Top Gun," an officer tells Stinger, the battle commander, that the aircraft carrier's catapults are broken and it's unable to launch planes.

Stinger asks how long a fix will take.

"It'll take 10 minutes," the officer replies.

"Bull---- 10 minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it!" Stinger says.

Fast-forward to 2015, and the fate of the carrier in "Top Gun" is in similar peril.

The USS Ranger, decommissioned by the Navy in 1993, is scheduled to be towed from storage in Bremerton, Washington, to a wrecking yard in Texas in about a month. Coming in with a bid to save it is Top Gun Super Carrier of Long Beach, which hopes to stop the carrier's final journey in the California port city, with hopes to turn it into a tourist and business destination.

"Right now, we just want a stay of execution," Michael B. Shanahan, project manager for the Long Beach rescue effort, said in a statement on a Change.org petition to save the carrier. "This is our last chance to stop the loss of an irreplaceable cultural and historic asset."

That chance appears to be slim.

In December, the Navy paid International Shipbreaking of Brownsville, Texas, a penny to take the 56,000-ton warship off its hands. The shipbreaker makes its profit by selling the parts of the ship for scrap.

Although the Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, the Navy kept it around for possible reactivation until March 2004, when it was stricken from the Naval Register and made available for donation to a group that could preserve it. An attempt by the USS Ranger Foundation to turn the carrier into a museum in Oregon fell short financially, and it could not figure out a way to get the huge ship up the Columbia River to Fairview, Oregon, according to a Navy statement.

When it finalized the contract to scrap the Ranger in December, the Navy said it could not afford to maintain it indefinitely while waiting for a suitable organization to take it over.

Shanahan said the Top Gun group will cover all costs to keep the Ranger from the scrapyard.

"Sparing the ship now presents NO financial risk to the federal government," he said in a statement.

The group says it has secured $14 million in donations so far and will cover the $200,000 in annual maintenance costs until a permanent berth for the ship is found, according to a story in the Long Beach Post.

But Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, which was responsible for disposing of the carrier, told the Navy Times that the Top Gun plan wouldn't pass muster.

"We cannot take private funding for inherently military purposes, so it's not accurate when the group says it can raise funds to keep the ship on donation hold," the Navy Times quoted Johnson as saying.

So unless another plan comes together quickly, the Ranger is likely to follow two of its predecessors in the Forrestal class of carriers -- the Forrestal and the Saratoga -- to scrapyards in Brownsville.

Another carrier, the USS Constellation, part of the Kitty Hawk class, was towed to Brownsville late last year. Like the Ranger, the Constellation was stored in Washington and because of its size had to be towed all the way around the southern tip of South America, as it would not fit through the Panama Canal. The Ranger's final journey is expected to take four to five months, the Navy says.

The Ranger spent more than 35 years on active service, including missions off Vietnam and in support of Operation Desert Storm.

Last mission for storied class of warships

When the USS Kauffman steamed out of Norfolk Naval Station earlier this month, it marked the beginning of the end for an entire class of vessels in the U.S. Navy.

The Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate will be the last of more than four dozen such ships to put itself in harm's way.

"I am honored and humbled to have this opportunity to lead such a capable and proud group of sailors on this, the final deployment of an FFG-7 class ship, and to be the last in a great line of frigate commanding officers," the Kauffman's skipper, Cmdr. Michael Concannon, said in a Navy statement.

The final mission for the Kauffman and its crew of 250 will be to combat drug trafficking in the U.S. Southern Command's area of responsibility, the waters of the Caribbean and off the coasts of Central and South America.

"What a fitting mission for this great ship and crew to leave as its final legacy, keeping drugs off the streets of America by stopping them at the source," Concannon said.

After it returns from the drug trafficking mission, the Kauffman will have spent more than 28 years in the U.S. Navy. It will be decommissioned in September and possibly put up for sale to an allied navy.

The first of the Perry class, the USS Oliver Hazard Perry, was launched in 1976. The Navy once had 51 of the Perry-class ships, which were up to 453 feet long and displaced as much as 4,300 tons. They enjoyed a reputation for toughness, especially after two suffered battle damage in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s.

Perhaps the most famous of the Perry-class ships was the USS Stark, which survived a deadly attack in the Persian Gulf. Thirty-seven U.S. sailors were killed on May 17, 1987, when an Iraqi jet fired two Exocet missiles into the ship while it was on patrol during the Iran-Iraq war.

Less than a year later, another Perry-class frigate, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, was struck by an Iranian mine, wounding 10 of its crew, blowing a 15-foot hole in its hull and breaking the frigate's keel, damage that almost always sends a ship to the bottom. The crew of the Roberts, however, was able to save the vessel, in part by using heavy steel cables to tie cracked portions of the ship's superstructure together. The Roberts was then loaded onto another ship, the Mighty Servant 2, in Dubai and transported back to the U.S., ship on ship.

Both the Stark and the Roberts were eventually fully repaired and returned to the fleet. The Stark was scrapped in 2006. The Roberts completed what is expected to be its final mission in December, with its decommissioning planned for this year.

The Navy defines the primary missions of frigates as protecting shipping and anti-submarine warfare. Those duties will be taken up by the service's new littoral combat ships, 20 of which are either in the fleet, under construction or under contract.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced last week that the LCS will succeed the Perry-class frigates in more than mission.

"Somehow, in the 21st century, we started naming ships with strange acronyms ... instead of from our naval traditions ... so we are going to change the hull designation of the ‪#‎LCS‬‬ class ships to FF (frigate) ... appropriate and traditional name," Mabus said in a speech to the Surface Navy Association's annual symposium.

Those newly designated frigates will join the world's oldest active warship in the U.S. Navy's frigate fleet, the USS Constitution. Nicknamed "Old Ironsides," the Navy's historic tall-masted showpiece was commissioned in 1797 and sails from Boston Harbor to promote the service.

would love to get this.

Must have been getting too many hits,you can only watch it on You Tube now.

Here's how you get a small one of these,it's narrated in German,but you will get the gist of it

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Majority of UK women don't bathe or take a shower daily

The majority of women in the UK don’t bathe or take a shower each day because they are too tired, new research has revealed.

The survey also showed that as many as one in three women admitted that they had gone as long as three days without washing or wiping their face or body at all.

Some 57 per cent of women acknowledged the importance of hygiene, but said that they didn't have the time to shower or bathe before bed, and instead opted to freshen up with wipes.

The survey of over 2,000 females by skin care range Flint + Flint also showed that over 60 per cent of women did not remove their makeup before bed after a night out, with 35 per cent of those saying they were worried about getting enough sleep.

Asked whether they washed in the morning, only a fifth of women said they took a shower or bath every day, with over 30 percent revealing they did not wash for three days at time.

However, 92 per cent of participants said they understood the importance of a skin care regime and recognised that life-style factors such as lack of sleep and dehydration can impact the appearance of their skin.

Almost 90 per cent of women surveyed said they didn’t improve their hygiene because they were too tired in the morning or evening.

The NHS advises that to maintain a basic level of hygiene, a person must wash their face and brush their teeth daily; clean their hands after using the toilet; wash their genital and anal area each day; and fully bath or shower at least twice a week.

Flint + Flint owner Maxine Flint said the company was "alarmed" by the survey.

“We were alarmed to hear about the amount of women not looking after their skin by following basic skin care regimes. It is so important to clean your face daily and moisturise to slow down the ageing process.”

"It’s true that today’s pace of life is fast but surely as a nation we haven’t become too busy to wash!”

probably too close to being borderline racist etc, with the satire that it depicts that the boost links have been disabled by McLeod. donno, not worried, it's his site, it's his call. It came up in my Fb links and is on Youtube so it can't be too bad.

saw that clip that you posted a few days ago.

you smelly kunts.

boom tish boom.



http://www.msn.com/en-au/health/familyheal...aily/ar-BBhT5TO

Humble Aussie goon bag turns 50

Iconic Australian inventions

Tom Angove was thinking outside - or maybe inside - the box when he came up with the idea to store wine in something other than a bottle.

Perhaps the winemaker from Renmark, 250km northwest of Adelaide, had drunk a couple of glasses of red.

But 50 years on, boxed wine remains one of Australia's signature contributions to the wine industry.

There isn't a market in the world that doesn't now include some form of boxed wine.

"It's literally become a global phenomenon," says Mr Angove's son, John.

Now aged 68, John Angove can't remember the exact day his dad came home with the concept in 1963 or 1964.

But he does remember his own reaction.

"I said `dad, that's crazy'. People aren't going to buy wine in a plastic bag jammed into a cardboard box.

"But he didn't listen to me, of course."

Inspired by the ancient method of storing wine in goat skins, the elder Angove persevered and eventually got a prototype working.

In April 1965, he patented a design for a one-gallon polyethylene bladder in a corrugated cardboard case.

"The demand, the acceptance of it, was extraordinary," John Angove says.

Other inventors continued tinkering with the design, leading to the addition of the airtight plastic tap a few years later.

That remains a staple, and the Angove family has never made any money out of the original design.

The family now focuses on high-end bottles rather than cask wine, yet John Angove remains proud of his dad's ingenuity.

He's less pleased with the slang by which the invention is now known: goon bag.

"Terrible phrase," he says.

Personalised jetpacks to hit the market within a few years, New Zealand aviation company says

A New Zealand aviation company has raised $27 million on the Australian share market to further develop the first personalised jetpack that would have military, commercial and recreational uses.

Using 200-horsepower petrol engines, the Martin jetpack could fly as high as one kilometre, stay in the air for 30 minutes and carry a 120 kilogram payload - plus someone brave enough to strap it on, Martin Aircraft chief executive Peter Coker said.

After 30 years of development, the company is now commercialising the aircraft itself.

Mr Coker said orders were being taken for 2017, with a lot of interest coming from wealthy individuals in China.

The primary audience for Martin Aircraft are first responders: "fire, police, ambulance, border security, and search and rescue, including natural disaster recovery people" as well as commercial users, Mr Coker said.

"We do have a commercial market that looks at things like farming, agriculture, filming, mining, and just general uses like that, particularly when you're looking at some of the heavy lift load that we can provide," he said.

Personal jetpacks for recreational use are only a few years behind.

"This could be something like a motorbike in the sky in the future for third dimensional travel," Mr Coker said.

"We've been in discussion with a number of regulatory authorities and I don't think it's going to be too far before we actually see people flying around with a jetpack going to work."

Martin jetpacks are currently registered as micro-light aircraft with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, meaning the pilot needs to have a micro-light license to fly the aircraft.

Once a parachute is integrated into the craft in the next six months, the jetpack would probably be the safest aircraft in the world, Mr Coker said.

In terms of costs, a first responder jetpack would cost approximately $US200,000, with individual and recreational jetpacks eventually costing about $US150,000.

Mr Coker conceded the aircraft also had military capabilities but said the company was not actively pursuing that market.

"We're not really targeting the military at this particular stage because we believe saving human lives and the environment of the commercialisation environment we're operating at is probably going to be the key for us," he said.

/straya :bowrofl:

http://www.msn.com/en-au/foodanddrink/food...s-50/ar-BBhU6R8

Proud to be Australian.

Compulsory

accessory around these here parts,particularly if you fancy a morning/afternoon/well anytime really,social gathering in the park next to the Rotunda, and they're biodegradable so just leave the bladder,so the next party can blow it up for a pillow

and don't forget, they make a perfect flotation device for ya pool as well.

and Night at the Museum 3 Secret of the Tomb is available as a Web-Dl / itunes source.

THIS IS THE REASON THE M1 WAS CLOSED AT HOLLAND PARK
A MAN has set himself and his car alight in peak-hour traffic on the Pacific Motorway in Brisbanes inner south this evening.

The incident happened about 6.20pm at Holland Park, closing southbound lanes and causing several kilometres of gridlock past the City to Coronation Drive.

The man had stopped his vehicle and doused himself with petrol before setting himself and his vehicle alight.

Emergency services were quickly on the scene and extinguished the fire soon after it was lit.

The man was taken to Princess Alexandra Hospital, and was believed to have only suffered minor burns.

While the freeway had since reopened, there was still residual traffic and long delays, and police urged motorists to consider alternative routes.

source: The Courier Mail.

imagine if this was in Aus..
ACA would be all over it
"hoons hoons hoons"

this reporter sounds like he wants to say "fcuk yeah" lol
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only suffered minor burns... obviously didnt douse himself enough lol

3D printing: Australian researchers create jet engine, breakthrough captures attention of Airbus and Boeing

By environment and science reporter Jake Sturmer

Australian researchers have created the world's first 3D-printed jet engine in a manufacturing breakthrough that engineers expect will lead to cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets.

The partnership between Monash University and spin-out company Amaero Engineering has captured the attention of Airbus, Boeing and defence contractor Raytheon.

The breakthrough opens the door for engineers to make and test parts in days instead of months.

"[In the past you had to] melt, mould, carve and turn to get the final product," said Professor Ian Smith, Monash University's vice-provost for research.

"This way we can very quickly get a final product, so the advantages of this technology are, firstly, for rapid prototyping and making a large number of prototypes quickly.

"Secondly, for being able to make bespoke parts that you wouldn't be able to with classic engineering technologies."

Professor Smith said he believed Monash was well placed to take advantage of the technology because the university made the materials as well as printing the parts.

"We're the only centre [in the world] that's developed the materials that go into the printers, so we can make stuff of sufficient quality," he said.

"That's why the French aerospace industry and large companies like Safran, Microturbo and Airbus are wanting to work with Monash and work with Australian companies."

It all began two years ago with a challenge from French aerospace company Safran.

The company gave the Monash researchers one of their old engines and asked them to make a copy.

The engineers passed with flying colours and are now making top-secret prototype parts for Safran, Boeing and Airbus.

Professor Smith said the capabilities of the technology were only "scratching the tip of the iceberg".

"We've talked about how it can be useful in the aerospace industry, but we see enormous applications in the biomedical industry," he said.

"For example, if you're unfortunate enough to have one of those serious car accidents, you can be scanned in the scanner, that information can then be taken to a 3D printer, and while you're on the operating table we can print those precise body parts you might need."

Technically known as additive manufacturing, the machine uses a high-powered laser to fuse powdered nickel, titanium or aluminium into the shape of objects.

Professor Smith said the discovery could be an opportunity for the declining manufacturing industry.

"The real impact [of the car industry's decline] is the demise of the supply chain industry that supports the automotive sector," he said.

"We would like to think that revolutionary, disruptive technologies like this can take the place of some of the more traditional industries.

"We can build new industries or we can regenerate existing industries with these kinds of technologies."

The 3D-printed engine is on display at the Australian International Airshow in Avalon, Victoria.

The cutting edge of military technology and hardware is on show, but Amaero's tiny booth is gathering a large amount of attention.

Even the chief scientist of the US Air Force, Dr Mica Endsley, has taken an interest in the project.

"[Dr Endsley said it was] very interesting, it's an area they're looking at right now and they see great opportunity, much as we do in the same area," Amaero Engineering's Dr Robert Hobbs said.

Dr Hobbs said he hoped the technology would eventually create "spare parts on demand".

"Quite a lot of machinery in Australia is now getting older, particularly in the defence area," he said.

"Getting spare parts is not easy – it can take quite a lot of time. What we can do is turn these parts around very quickly."

The new R8 looks like it has had a facelift, not a completely new design

NHRA vs Street Outlaws: what should Mopar do?

by Daniel Bennett • Posted on February 18, 2015

On February 13th, the NHRA sent a now-controversial letter to most of the participants of the popular TV show Street Outlaws, which is shown on the Discovery Channel. In the letter, the NHRA states that it cannot condone street racing, which the show appears to depict, and then goes on to threaten the participants in the show with removal of their NHRA competition licenses, which would prevent those affected from competing in NHRA sanctioned events.

street-racing

In reality, the “racing” shown on the TV is done on the street, but with the full permission and presence of local law enforcement, and first aid staff on site in case of any accidents. The road is fully closed down, monitored, and accessible only by the participants and actors in the series.

So, has the NHRA gone too far? According to Dragzine, Street Outlaws has approximately 6 times (2.2 million vs 400,000) the number of weekly TV viewers that the NHRA does, some could say it is more a case of sour grapes than a valid complaint. Additionally, the rule the NHRA is using is techically only valid while at a NHRA member track or during a NHRA member event, so technically they are stretching the rule by attempting to use this as ammunition.

How does this affect Mopar? Well, Mopar has sunk almost all of its motorsports eggs into the NHRA basket. NHRA has proven to be a shrinking market, much as many of the other national series (NASCAR, etc), and Mopar has already fled the pricey NASCAR market. Is NHRA next? Will the big money teams such as Force and the Mopar sponsored Don Schumacher Racing be the death of the NHRA?

NHRA’s main participants are the grass roots stock, super stock, and even weekend racers that participate in Sportsman across the country. Top Fuel and Pro Stock are a big draw to the NHRA national events, but it is the grassroots guys that buy the tickets and go to those events.

Would it possibly benefit Mopar more to explore putting a Mopar of some sort on the Street Outlaw show? Not just placing a car in the show, but putting a competitive combination together for the show? That kind of street cred goes a long way — as the SRT4 Neon opened the floodgates to modern Mopar performance appeal and draw.

If the NHRA is turning its back on its roots in the grassroots racers, and if Street Outlaws is embracing and if anything encouraging that same grassroots efforts, it would appear that Mopar could be better off spending money in an area that not only reaches into the grassroots more, but also could weekly touch many more people through TV and online than the NHRA currently does.

Many of the participants on the show, and in other non-NHRA series throughout the country, do so because the NHRA rules and car classifications have not been updated to keep up with the advancement of car technology. However, NHRA has ignored exactly what makes Outlaw 10.5 and other “series” so popular. Many of these ultra fast “street” cars are not legal within the common NHRA competition classification.

It may all boil down to demographics. NHRA is followed by typically an older, more affluent group of people. People that have more disposable income, and people that do buy cars and trucks. Street Outlaws is followed mostly by younger folk, who may, for the most part, not be able to afford anything but the entry level of new cars. Taking this into account, it would seem that staying active in NHRA would be the correct thing to do, as it more directly connects Mopar and Dodge to their customers… although the Street Outlaw guys seem to be able and willing to throw seemingly unlimited amount of money at their cars.

Outlaw class racing via the ADRL and NMCA, and others, has been frowned upon by the NHRA for years. The NHRA has even gone so far as to threaten the removal of NHRA national events from certain tracks if they allow outlaw style series.

Time will tell which way is the correct way for Mopar to go, but drag racing is a mine field, and as of now, NHRA has not done itself any favors.

Written with the help of Mike Volkmann. Image courtesy of Mike Murillo.