Pics that make you smile

[country_hick]

 

[StrayCam]

Diet is only part of it... don't forget to exercise!

 

[kamkar]

Soon a Dane will be the first ever not American to pilot a American spaceship ( crew Dragon ) on a trip to the ISS and from it 6 months later.
We appreciate the trust.

 

[country_hick]

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbi...YEILhFfyPAFlp8KMCbTxFBpCvdGWwcz&__tn__=EH-y-R
Who wants this firepit?

 

[kamkar]

That is pretty neat, and something i would copy if i had a little shop where i could do metal fabrication.
This i assume require stainless which i have rarely welded in, but that would not stop me.

PS. i might have mine rigged with a propane nozzle in the head and a spark thing, sp i could just have it spew flames, maybe aided by a PIR sensor to know when to do that.

 

[StrayCam]

 

[kamkar]

My friend live at xxxxx street #45

Here is his new house number.

 

[country_hick]

https://www.facebook.com/mainewhole...gjwCHxgN__ohF5q2PkI9wS5awYg7IvA&__tn__=EH-y-R
https://www.facebook.com/mainewhole...gjwCHxgN__ohF5q2PkI9wS5awYg7IvA&__tn__=EH-y-R

https://www.facebook.com/mainewhole...ksiqNJ5H2pkmwSeVPI5fccmyX_eREAe&__tn__=EH-y-R
https://www.facebook.com/mainewhole...ksiqNJ5H2pkmwSeVPI5fccmyX_eREAe&__tn__=EH-y-R

 

[kamkar]

Hehe i can see the predicament there, clearly roads are not a priority,,,,,,,,, perhaps someone should enlighten them one of the major reasons why the Roman society was so successful back in the day,,,,, hint,,,,, roads,,,,, good roads.

BTW look at the blue garbage in the pic i posted above, it is free local newspapers my friend are not able to get out of receiving, but luckily they throw them there, which is not on his property, also they was supposed to be put in the mail box,,,,, but that have never happened.
Thats Denmark a world leader in environmental wokeness / awareness,,,,,,, or so they say, personally i am not impressed at all.

Personally i judge a society on a few things.

1: how they treat their elderly.
2: how they treat the sick.
3: how they treat animals not least pets.
4: the state of their roads.
5: the state of their nature.

 

[Dashmellow]

Hehe i can see the predicament there, clearly roads are not a priority,,,,,,,,, perhaps someone should enlighten them one of the major reasons why the Roman society was so successful back in the day,,,,, hint,,,,, roads,,,,, good roads.

BTW look at the blue garbage in the pic i posted above, it is free local newspapers my friend are not able to get out of receiving, but luckily they throw them there, which is not on his property, also they was supposed to be put in the mail box,,,,, but that have never happened.
Thats Denmark a world leader in environmental wokeness / awareness,,,,,,, or so they say, personally i am not impressed at all.

Personally i judge a society on a few things.

1: how they treat their elderly.
2: how they treat the sick.
3: how they treat animals not least pets.
4: the state of their roads.
5: the state of their nature.

Here in New England it's not generally a political issue, it's an environmental one. Winter potholes are a chronic problem on asphalt roads in northern New England. During the usual freeze and thaw cycle, asphalt on top warms up in the sunshine but the next layer down doesn’t. The top layer cracks, water gets in, it freezes at night and multi-ton vehicles pound over it. Then where there’s ice under the pavement, when it melts, it doesn’t have anywhere to go, creating waves, bumps, frost heaves and more cracks. Once the cracks allow water to get to the lower layers of the road surface and freeze it starts to break up the lower layers and they begin to deteriorate and you get worse and worse potholes.

Typically, road crews are out during the winter doing temporary repairs filling potholes with hot mix but it's hard to keep up with it in some places. Some roads get priority and some don't. Finally, when Spring comes the roads generally get proper attention and repair. Some towns do a better job with this than others and some have better budgets for the repair work. Every few years they do a major repair and completely resurface the roads with fresh asphalt. Then everybody is happy again, but the cycle begins again until the roads get really bad again with new potholes. Another thing they do is seal new cracks that have formed in the road during the summer months with hot liquid asphalt and this can give years of extra life to a road.

Here in New England transportation engineers use a different type of asphalt that is more flexible than used in warmer or hotter parts of the country like Arizona or South Carolina so that it can respond better to our temperature extremes. In a hot climate, flexible asphalt would create ruts when heavy vehicle tires drive over the road surface.

Some years the potholes are worse and some years the potholes are better but this happens every year in Northern New England and it's been like that since forever. There was an article in our local newspaper about how climate change appears to be making the yearly pothole problem worse.

 

[kamkar]

Same here, though i must admit that this patching up i dident really notice much in the older days.
Okay i am pretty sure this practice are on the back burner id there are any "better" things they can use the money they have stolen from us ( what people some times call tax )
factoring in winters here are far from what the used to be, at least in regard to cold temperatures and precipitation in the form of snow, then i do feel the problem are bigger now. but it could also just be me getting more grumpy with age,,,,, that i know for sure is a fact as most of my life i have been the most mellow person you could ever meet.

But no doubt road surfacing and maintenance are sort of a science most people are oblivious to.

 

[Dashmellow]

Well, @kamkar, nobody likes to pay taxes but that is how we as citizens of a modern society all benefit from the infrastructure and public services we enjoy. To be sure, it's not perfect and there is often much waste and other problems in government but without taxes we would all be living in chaos.

I don't know about Denmark but here in New England we still experience pretty severe winters. Even now that Spring has started the temperature went down to 12º Fahrenheit last night (-11.111º C) and I'm still cleaning up downed tree limbs on my property from the last ice storm.

 

[kamkar]

we had a good week of + degrees day and night, but the next week have sub 0 temperatures again.
This month is actually the most sunny March here ever, and that was days ago they came out with that news, but ! sunny is not meaning warm weather as such, not least with all the wind.

 

[country_hick]

A few decades ago they paved the roads more often. To save money the time for repaving was reduced by 3 to 5 years. Since the roads stopped being paved as often potholes have greatly increased. I have even seen a state (not town) owned road with its edges losing the asphalt based on this planned neglect.

 

[Kremmen]

They reckon, as far heavier EV cars take over, the problem will get worse.

 

[Raptor1956]

Well, @kamkar, nobody likes to pay taxes but that is how we as citizens of a modern society all benefit from the infrastructure and public services we enjoy. To be sure, it's not perfect and there is often much waste and other problems in government but without taxes we would all be living in chaos.

I don't know about Denmark but here in New England we still experience pretty severe winters. Even now that Spring has started the temperature went down to 12º Fahrenheit last night (-11.111º C) and I'm still cleaning up downed tree limbs on my property from the last ice storm.

I remember seeing some time ago a report that indicated the worst areas for potholes was not the northern most places, even though they were generally the coldest, but somewhat further south where temps went through the freezing point more frequently. Further north it stays freezing and further south it freezes less so it's the place in between that goes through the freezing point more frequently that tend to be the worst.

Brian

 

[Dashmellow]

I remember seeing some time ago a report that indicated the worst areas for potholes was not the northern most places, even though they were generally the coldest, but somewhat further south where temps went through the freezing point more frequently. Further north it stays freezing and further south it freezes less so it's the place in between that goes through the freezing point more frequently that tend to be the worst.

Brian

It's apparently not a North or South thing. There do seem to be many factors, including traffic loads such as trucking routes, population and car volumes, as well as weather. You'll find many lists on the internet and they differ to some extent. Parts of the Northeast, California and Hawaii seem to be the worst.

These states have the worst potholes, according to Google​

 

[country_hick]

Twitter complaints are not a good measure. Many people do not use twitter.

 

[Dashmellow]

Twitter complaints are not a good measure. Many people do not use twitter.

As I mentioned, "You'll find many lists on the internet". The link provided mentions Google. Indeed Google fields 3.3 billion searches per day. The article in the link cited "QuoteWizard" who did use Twitter though, along with other online sources - "QuoteWizard who analyzed search data for pothole-related complaints and repairs for each state going back to 2004,"

As for Twitter, there are currently 396.5 million users on the platform, certainly more than enough for a statically significant sampling. The chart was created by "The Clunker Junker" using a statistical methodology where they extrapolated Twitter pothole complaints / per 1000 kilometers of road. They didn't simply count the number of pothole mentions on Twitter. As I often suggest to you @country_hick, do your homework and use critical thinking. It's your friend.

 

[Borg]

The authors have gone to some lengths to get accuracy out their analysis. I don't have time for an in-depth review but some of the things that I would consider (if the data were available) are these types of questions:

1. If you have a bad, 1 mile long road next to 10 buildings containing 1000 people like New York, how was that contrasted with places like Montana with thousands of miles of road and far fewer people? Note how the big, sparsely populated states tend to have fewer complaints.

2. Lots of people do searches and tweets from their work. Where I work, my internet activity is routed through corporate servers that Google sees as being in completely different states. Most of the time, Google thinks that I'm from California when I'm working in Virginia.

This isn't to say that the methodology is completely flawed and has no value - only that there's always room for improvement. BTW, I don't find the use of Twitter to be too troubling. For the most part, it's like looking at the percentage of people with blue cars who complain about potholes. You wouldn't expect that to differ significantly from the percentage of people with red cars who complain. Or would you? Sports cars tend to be flashier colors and lower to the ground so who knows? Hmmm. Like I said, there's always room for improvement when it comes to data analysis.