Thanks, very interesting.

I guess the RNZ article was simply saying that turning off, or down, outside lights will prevent insects from being attracted to them and harmed.

In summer with windows open, we pull curtains before turning inside lights on. Not seen insects on the open window side of the curtain even with a low level through glow visible.

I’m not sure about the moonlight theory. As they will head towards a bright artificial light, why aren’t there clouds of insects heading out into space every bright full-moon?

Here’s another article, this from Scientific American.

Seems there are several hypotheses on why insects are attracted to light, but no one really knows the actual reasons.

Given the current ease for anyone to post YouTube or social media content these days, and gaining attention, the quote, originally from around the 1970’s, was quite forward looking to how things have now become.

"15 Minutes of Fame"

Andy Warhol once said, everyone will eventually get their "15 Minutes of Fame".

Still waiting for mine …

I bet you could hear them sh*ting themselves !!

No need to repost it, thanks. There’s something seriously amiss in their operating procedures and their ground crew management imo. How could even un-specialised contractors think it ok to remove more than a few nuts at a time?

I’d guess the contractors were not properly instructed. This brings a point, who were the contractors working on this? Did they have any relevant experience, or were they simply casual labour?

I’d expect all procedures to be fully documented and importantly regimented into crews. But seemingly not in this case, how the hell could this happen?

Occam’s Razor strikes again.

There are, I guess, 4 tower feet, they are very big structures. So my guess is that the "workers" were told remove the leg bolts, sand-blast the foot, then renew the bolts.

"Now guys, I’m off for a smoko, have it done before I’m back". "OK guv".

Instead of doing it one foot at a time, the obvious method, the "workers" then rush off, "Hey Mick, you do leg one, Jim you do leg 2, Manuel you do leg 3, Franco you do leg 4". "OK let’s go".

In 10 minutes all the bolts are removed, the wind picks up, the lateral force on the cables increases and bang, down she goes.

We’ve got a huge power outage up here in the Far North, seems there’s a Transpower problem cutting off power to the whole of the Far North.

Luckily we have a UPS for Internet until the battery runs down.

Edit: It’s still off after 2 hours. Apparently a transmission pylon tower collapsed, no further info, but oh boy, this will likely take a while to fix I suspect.

Edit2: Power came back on after around 5 hours.

I had my flu/covid booster on 11 April this year. It’s only appeared on MMH very recently. I have to say MMH, both the web based and app, isn’t that good imo, especially the iPad app.

I can see those vaccination records were added by a nurse at our GP, even though they were done at a vacc centre.

I have an app/web link to Manage My Health. All of my medical things, like prescriptions, vaccinations, blood test results, and doctor visit reports are logged, and are available on-line. I can see when each of my Covid vaccines were given.

I may be wrongly assuming everyone in NZ has online access to their medical info, idk.

How many Covid jabs have you had? I’ve had 6 and I see there’s a 7’th available now

Glad to see you got the fan working. Well done 👍

Happy Birthday, and thanks Dave for your untiring efforts in keeping it going 👍👍

OK, that’s unlikely to be a high tech circuit board. Try simply resoldering the connector pins, I’m guessing there are 4, but that is a guess. Apply the clean iron tip to each pad in turn, and run a little fresh solder to them.

It could be that the problem with the socket are the plated through holes in the PCB. The socket gets regular plugs/unplugs and that’ll move the socket and could break one or more of connections to the PCB. The connections to the socket are potentially on inner layers of the PCB, that might be tough to fix.

Bulk assembly of PCB’s is fully automated these days, the components are machine fitted and the whole board is then flow soldered.

The damp sponge will wipe away any burnt on resin from the bit. If you use thinner solder, say 0.8mm, you’ll need to use a smaller iron bit.

The key to good soldered joints is cleanliness, both the iron tip and the wires/terminals you are soldering.

The iron tip needs to be kept clean, typically by wiping the tip on a slightly damp sponge. Most iron stands include a sponge. Use multicore solder, this has the flux built-in. Once the iron has heated up clean the tip with fine emery paper, and tin the tip with a small touch of solder. Wipe the tip on the sponge.

Never carry molten solder on the tip of the iron, use the iron to heat the wire/connector and apply the solder to the joint. Remove a short length of the wire insulation, if it’s multi strand, twist and tin the end before assembling the joint.

The size of the iron depends on the size of the items you are soldering. Bigger connectors and wires will need a bigger iron.

Remember keep everything clean!!! A fibre-glass pencil works great for doing that.

The audiologist said that if after a while I felt my voice echo was unacceptably intrusive, they could adjust the aids settings. It’s early days for me with the aids, but I’m pleased to say they do seem to be working well.