Cut a length of timber the width of the window frame (or slightly wider if necessary), run a router around the ends and top to make it look pretty, then sit it on top of the window frame and mount it to the studs. That’ll give you a nice solid point to attach the curtains to.

Edit: Going the whole hog with this idea and extending a box out from this mount to make a pelmet for the curtains is also an option, and one that will reduce energy loss too if you make it suitably resistant to air flow.

Zip disks ain’t that old!

That’s what I like to think as well, but I guess it has been a while. It’s like how I think 90s cars are still fairly recent until I see ones rolling around with historic rego…

One of the places I work at has a display cabinet showing historical media formats and devices, seeing things in it like the zip disc and the Sony camera that took floppies always makes me feel like Elrond:

Discord implemented age verification due to us and the UK moving towards such laws, a third party involved in this was breached and ~70k users had information leaked (though presumably not all of these included IDs). Approx 68k of these users turned out to be Australian.

It’s pretty depressing to see how many people in favour of this are prepared to make everyone suffer invasive demands for personal information in order to use a good portion of the internet. These laws haven’t even come into force yet and they’ve already caused harm in the form of tens of thousands of leaked IDs, to say nothing of the problems with further reducing anonymity of discussion in an increasingly authoritarian world.

The continuous output is where average people actually want more power though, one of the main points of ebikes is to reduce effort from climbing hills. Most people are not going to be at your level of fitness or investment in cycling (in both the physical and mental sense) and just want to get places without needing a shower afterwards. I can see why you want to keep a purer form of something you have an interest in (similarly I think there is limited need for automatic transmissions outside of disability) but there is a case for more power if you want more people to be riding over driving.

The 250w limit in EN15194 is overly low, NSW finally changed their laws to a more sensible 500w a few years back so this change will make it so you can’t import a whole variety of bikes you can legally ride. Even 750w isn’t a problem IMO, having ridden one (with throttle and all) I’d class it as definitely still on the bicycle end of things rather than an actual motorbike.

Looking on the bright side though import restrictions will hopefully induce more manufacturers to do ADR compliance for those of us who do actually want the motorbike end of ‘ebikes’, even for dirt bikes the ability to rego them makes them much more useful for non-track riding.

I’ve had some Jasper Myrtle chocolate before (albeit not that specific favour) and thought it nice, I think the chocolate’s a pretty safe bet. Haven’t tried the Redbrick coffee though but I have seen people say it’s good.

First thing that comes to mind is to replace it with a button head machine screw. A bit of work with a drill and tap will get you threads at the pivot point (if the original stub was not threaded, it might be) and then you can use a screw into those threads to act as a pivot. A good serve of loctite to hold the screw in place and ideally a nylon washer between moving parts (if clearance allows) and it should hold up well.

Another option which would be a bit more work to do well would be to remove both sections of the mechanism, clear a hole through the pivot point, insert a short length of steel rod, and peen over both ends. The hard part would be spreading the ends well while also maintaining easy movement - judicious use of the hammer would be required.

I guess someone’s been having a go at magnet fishing…

Yet again I have to mention how dumb it is that we have much safer cars than when our standard speed limits are set but all we ever get is decreases to these limits.

“People think ‘I can do 110 legally so therefore it’s OK to do it,’” he said.

So close to the problem but no we can’t focus on teaching people to drive to conditions because lower speed limits solve everything. Never mind that even 70km/h is going to be too fast in some conditions but 100km/h+ is fine in others - even on the same road.

Probably hard to justify legally, I expect the best we can hope for is just giving back the $3m they paid without counting in the massive land price rises since then. It’d be amusing to turn around and make it the new Ukrainian embassy site though…

It sounds a logical start point, the central coast and Newcastle have a large population base to work with and it’s not that far apart. The sheer amount of tunnel for that route compared to what one would expect with a corridor through more open country is a downside but you might as well start somewhere rather than talk about it for a few more decades.

Strange that the ACT doesn’t run under the same umbrella as NSW, I guess it just wanted to be different again. At least Victoria has a significant amount of its own power generation so being separate makes a little more sense - while the ACT does have a reasonable amount of solar power (solar farms as well as rooftop) it’s still dependent on the NSW grid for supply.

They’re most of the way there but fall a bit short of a real Tim Tam. I find the chocolate has a slight sourness to it compared to the original (as if they let an American pick the recipe) - not enough to stop me eating them but enough to reduce the normal Tim Tam desire to rip through a whole packet.

The Choceur chocolate blocks however tend to be a quite acceptable replacement for Cadbury and even Whittaker so not all hope is lost for more affordable chocolates.

I’ve somehow managed to never read or watch any of the versions of that, I know the general gist of the story due to cultural osmosis but not the details. Might have to get around to reading the book at least.

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and The Mysterious Island (this one is barely sci fi) both include messages in bottles but not at both start and end of the story, so at this point I think I’m out of ideas.

That just makes me think of the Count of Monte Cristo, and while that plot kicks off everything with a nautical message it wasn’t in a bottle.

Nothing comes to mind that matches that unfortunately.

I did initially think of Treasure Island for some reason and that definitely matches the latter criteria but I don’t recall any messages in a bottle actually appearing in the book.

Even with a theoretically ideal seal holding suitable humidity it depends a lot on what paper and where the bottle spent its time. I would expect a massively broad range of times - between a few years and thousands of years.

Paper with any significant acid content will last significantly less time than acid free paper, and paper made of cotton is likely to last noticeably better than paper made from wood. You also want the paper to be kept away from light and high temperatures as these will really cut into potential lifespan. If this bottle spent most of its time buried in a beach that would have at least kept it dark and relatively cool, probably why it lasted so well even with an imperfect seal.