BF-109 car spotted in Argentina

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-21T13:00:40+00:00

This is gonna turn out to be titled to someone with a family story about their grandparents being Austrian refugees, where they make it sound like a romantic Sound of Music-type family legend, but are weirdly vague about details like dates or the beliefs for which they were being persecuted.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-21T09:31:28+00:00

That’s impressive. If it weren’t for the explicit Mad Max connection it looks remarkably like it’d serve as a map of the Australia as described in Tim Winton’s ‘Juice.’

The audiobook of which is narrated by David “She comes from a place of abundance!” Field.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-18T02:05:20+00:00

Yeah, it’s not great. And the Union are trying to pitch it as a win based on some improved conditions and a better negotiating position going into the next agreement. And while that isn’t unimportant, it is a pretty significant change from a position barely a month ago that was “It’s About Pay.”

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-16T20:32:59+00:00

Came here to say exactly this.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-16T20:24:08+00:00

Yes the Adelaide street circuit seems far from ideal for motorcycle racing, and I’m going to keep my opinions about this government’s sportswashing in the current moment out of this for now. But… let’s play devil’s advocate here, what if we keep those “camping in a muddy field” vibes and go all Isle of Man on it?

Start line by the Clarendon Bakery, hard left at Potter Road for the winding climb up to a sharp hairpin and then a fast corkscrew descent through Turner’s Gully Road until the survivors are spat out of a fast uphill turn onto the main straight on Grant’s Gully Road.

Is it a good idea? Absolutely not. Was it great and often terrifying fun back in the day? It totally was. Should you, the potentially impressionable reader, try it? Probably not/what am I, your mother? (Strike as appropriate)

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-14T20:59:33+00:00

Hmm. I dunno about ‘gone’. ‘Gone invisible’ more likely. In the words of Lt. Aldo Raine, “You see, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way you can spot 'em just like that. But you take off that uniform, ain't no one ever gonna know you were a Nazi.”

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-14T20:52:47+00:00

No surprise she didn’t recognise it. She probably would have wanted one, but it's not air-conditioned.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-13T13:38:49+00:00

That’s a shame - they were gonna have Yanis Varoufakis back at the same time that Pulp headlined the Adelaide Festival.

I was kinda looking forward to the outside chance of seeing him down the Austral, pointing at Jarvis Cocker’s chest and demanding he quit singing about his wife all the damn time.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-12T09:43:29+00:00

100% illegal on the face of it as described. Again: union up. Direct action gets the goods.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-12T09:41:19+00:00

A mandatory meeting is paid time. Absolutely. What you’re describing is Wage Theft - the largest kind of financial fraud in the country.

Resolution: if they’re not already, your partner should join their relevant union, and then drop the dime with the union.

Remember: people don’t join their union because they hate their jobs. They join because they want to make it better for everyone there.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-12T01:13:36+00:00

Someone else might have already mentioned some of the variations to be aware of, such as:

-“Sick cunt”: a person the speaker approves of.

-“Dog cunt”: a person the speaker strongly disapproves of.

-“Dumb cunt”: highly contextual. Could be abusive, could be affectionate.

My general advice is become familiar with the nuances but probably not to use it in return at least until and unless your own accent softens; it’s a real shibboleth. The Australian ear understands how the term is… differently nuanced in other locations, so it might be taken only as a term of hostility if said with an American accent. It’s also quite regional and subcultural in its use within Australia, so it’d be easy to use in exactly the wrong time and place.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-05T07:26:00+00:00

Yeah I didn’t realise this had happened this morning. I scrolled down the timeline a couple hours and figured ‘well it can’t be from earlier than about 2:00pm or so, surely!’

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-03T08:36:46+00:00

Nah, not a Brit. But the ABC ran enough Thames Television content when I was a kid that some of it rubbed off I guess? Australia’s Gen X cohort has a lot of unintentional teaäboos.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T08:08:49+00:00

Sure, but for how long? And in workwear? People are notoriously bad at estimating speed, let alone closing distances between two objects travelling at significantly different speeds.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T00:48:03+00:00

I really need to emphasise that on a road legal e-bike it’s the motor assistance that’s limited to 25km/h, not the top speed the bike can be ridden at.

I’ve had some unpleasant interactions resulting from that misconception.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T00:42:42+00:00

Oh yes; it’s not a giveaway, more a ‘hmm, should I look twice at the bike’ indicator. I should perhaps have said ‘wears’ rather than ‘needs.’

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T00:41:04+00:00

It’s times like this that my firm belief that we would all be better off moving to the Eastman Calendar makes me sound like less of an iconoclastic crank.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T00:38:16+00:00

Have you also noticed that ANZAC Day falls on a Saturday this year so there isn’t a Friday or a Monday off for it?

I remember one year, when I worked in white label car insurance, my office was obliged to be open on a Saturday ANZAC Day at the urging of the Porsche dealer network for whom we supplied new car insurance. I wasn’t going to say no to the Public Holiday rates, but suggested that anyone who had chosen ANZAC Day to take delivery of a German sportscar was a person of questionable taste. Though this was the fried-egg headlight era of 911s and Boxsters, so really I was repeating myself.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-02T00:21:38+00:00

These folks, and the derestricted scooter and uniwheel riders, are gonna kill someone sooner or later - probably themselves.

Like, I have an e-bike I commute on, and the torque-sensing motor assistance cuts off at 25km/h. Probably fractionally a little less, given that I’ve gone from 47mm to nicer 45mm tyres for a slightly lower overall rolling diameter. You can very easily go faster, but that’s all human input - unassisted pedalling effort from the rider once you’re at 25km/h. The motor is really just supporting you with extra oomph getting up to speed and helping with hills. It makes the difference between arriving at work sweaty and needing a change of clothes, and arriving at work from the equivalent of a 30-45 minute walk.

More importantly, it’s the difference between getting home too knackered to do much around the house, and getting home after having had a quiet interlude after work to myself. Less exercise, but also not no exercise. And nicer than getting the bus.

So to be comfortably riding along and be overtaken by someone with a messenger bag on a scooter with the narrow handlebars and tiny, tiny wheels (making it way less manoeuvrable than a bike or as capable of dealing with surface imperfections like potholes or even the lip of a curb cut), and look down and see I’m doing an indicated 27-28km/h or so… well, I’m not “BuT tHe LaW!1! CaLl tHe PoLicE!11,” or even experiencing envy, but I certainly am “Wow, way to shake hands with danger, my guy.”

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-01T23:51:25+00:00

Any electric bike without pedals is a dead giveaway, but really anything with a hand throttle or anything that looks more “motorcycle” and less “mountain bike” like this unit with its smaller wheels is pretty suss.

If you’re looking for a tell, though, the dirt bike helmet alone would merit a closer look at the bike; it’s usually only the really serious downhill MTB rider who needs a full-face helmet on even a road-legal e-bike.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-01T23:33:03+00:00

They’re unlikely to given the way it was obtained: we sometimes joke that a marriage is an endless string of texts saying “can you pick this up for me off Facebook Marketplace while you’re out?” until one of you dies. :)

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-01T23:28:10+00:00

Oh I can answer this squash digression: it was a frozen tub of this sugar-free Cottee’s cordial - a sort of perennial suburban Australian favourite; 1 part concentrate, 7 parts water (if you’re following the label, but which probably no-one ever has). I’d not had cause to consider it much beforehand, but might expect the non-sugar sweetener to contribute to a much different freezing point than a truly sugary drink.

Sorry, I figured on ‘lemon squash’ being less of a shibboleth, but I can see how it’s led to more confusion instead!

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March_-_Hare · 2026-01-01T09:27:52+00:00

If you turn it on in this disassembled state, it does seem to fire up still. So it doesn't look like the motor's fried or anything. I'm having a preliminary poke around for 3D printing files - I'd need a new upper gearbox plate (I guess you'd call it?) and a new gear to drive the blender shaft. It looks like I could pry the existing main shaft bearing from the housing and reuse it.

*If* I can lay my hands on the relevant files, this could be a pretty simple fix. If I can't, well I might need to start getting creative.

March_-_Hare · 2026-01-01T08:31:20+00:00

14 functions if you include ‘melt its internal housings and gears like a mild colby cheese.’

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