[PlaneMan]

Amazon are now running a lot of Prime liveried fully electric vans around my way.  Mercs. From what I could find out the WLTP range is 90 odd miles, more like 70 in the real world but they can charge to 80% in 30 minutes on the right charger.

They must have another depot closer to Cardiff than the behemoths in Avonmouth and Swansea.

[PlaneMan]

Thanks yet again Dave.

 

Ed P wrote:

+1 to all the thoughts for both Bob and Richard.

What Ed said.

[PlaneMan]

Vehicles are pretty crap at turning energy into momentum. EV’s are better than ICE vehicles by a LONG way. And I love petrol engines.

Yes the battery components are sourced from places that have terrible human rights issues, cobalt being a big one, kids being forced underground to mine it.

Simple fact, over the whole life of a vehicle, a pure electric vehicle will be more efficient, better to the environment, cheaper to run and the battery can be recycled when the range drops too low. Unless you generate electricity by burning things, which the UK doesn’t do much of anymore.

 

[PlaneMan]

Just had another letter, this time from the hip surgeon following my recent x-rays.

I have to have a MRI of my right hip (the worst one) but he thinks hip salvage surgery is probably the way forward. Due to my relatively young age  he wants to avoid a hip replacement if possible. Apparently the problem is ‘Cam impingement occurs when the femoral head is not perfectly round and cannot rotate smoothly inside the acetabulum. It often results from a bump formed from excess bone growth at the end of the femur. During movement, the bump grinds the cartilage inside the acetabulum.’ That would explain why it hurts so f***ing much. :negative:

Just have to wait for the MRI appointment and then one with the surgeon.

Dave, hope your x-ray is a good result. :good:

[PlaneMan]

Thanks Ed, appreciated.

[PlaneMan]

Hips and shoulders x-rayed on the 13th, still not had the result.

Got a letter in the post today saying I have an appointment on December the 4th for XR Humerus Lt.  I see the rheumatolgy consultant on the 10th.

Letter had a franking mark of Monday so the hospital has processed my x-rays but they are not on the system the surgery uses yet.  There must be a strong suspicion of something wrong for x-rays to be arranged before I see the consultant. :wacko: :unsure:

[PlaneMan]

Dave, I wish you well.

If you haven’t already done it get the P.I.P and blue badge forms done ASAP.

Was supposed to get my x-ray results today, the surgery told me maybe Friday, maybe Friday next week. No idea in other words. :wacko:

[PlaneMan]

Dave Rice wrote:

I have a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis (arthritis related, my lower spine is fusing itself together amongst other things)

That’s rough Dave. Is it related to your motorbike crash or just bad luck, like me? I had x-rays just over a week ago on my pelvis and both shoulders as they are increasingly giving me trouble. I’m seeing the consultant early next month and the surgeons whenever that’s going to be possible.

The job sounds like a great one. :good:

 

[PlaneMan]

Ed, I saw that this morning, half asleep.

Forgot about it until you just mentioned it.

The facts are simple, the treasury makes a shit load of motorists. They will claw that back after 20 30, one way or another.

I don’t object to paying for journeys I don’t need to do, as long as it’s a sensible, affordable, amount. And I pay once per journey.

As a knackered person who increasingly will need to do more journeys for my mum and her fella, how the hell will they tell the difference between necessary and fun?

Roll a ten sided die probably, more likely outsource it to Capita or someone similar, they don’t have any history of causing death or massive hardship to people who have been denied PIP because their staff are incompetent. 😢

 

[PlaneMan]

Ed, the local Tesco has had 4 chargers foe a while,they are within a reasonable distance of the shop but too far for me. They are only 7KW ones as well, the same power as a home wall box. So about 8 hours for a e 208. They are free though.

JCD, not long ago in France it was possible to get a brand new Renault Zoe for 10 euros a month due to a massive lump of cash to get people into EV’s. Who wouldn’t do that? The sensible car for boring day to day stuff, which is most of it, and the fun car for longer journeys and for the sake of it, even if it’s a hire car.

[PlaneMan]

That’s great.

Thanks again Dave.

When possible please give him my best wishes.

[PlaneMan]

The Pfizer vaccine, as I understand it, will not be suitable for certain vulnerable people, ones with a lower than normal immune system for example. So that’s probably me.

As for who to vaccinate first, I have no idea what the best way to go about it is.

As for the vaccine itself, as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has ‘donated’ money to Pfizer in the past will we have a vaccine 1.0, 2.0 3.0 and so on every 18 months-2 years?

[PlaneMan]

Happy birthday both.

[PlaneMan]

Thanks for that Dave.

Please wish him my best.

WOF, I’ve had really bad reactions to certain medication over the years.

I blacked out, bounced of a wall, tumbled down some concrete steps and aggressively fought the ambulance crew who came to take me for a checkup.

So I’m told. No idea at all. Lost 48 hours due to one dose of ‘safe’ medication.

I came around, restrained to a hospital bed with a copper either side of me. :negative:

Not my best few days…

[PlaneMan]

I honestly think Trump is insane.

The shite he’s been spouting is unbelievable.

His ‘supporters’ turning up armed outside the places where they are counting the votes is another level of lunacy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were hired thugs.

[PlaneMan]

Ed, it’s fine.

Trump has said many times that COVID-19 is not a problem………

It’s not like he’s a complete rsole or anything. :scratch:

[PlaneMan]

How anyone serves on a sub is beyond me.

I went on one some 35 years ago when it docked in Barry for supplies. Claustrophobic doesn’t do it justice, the lack of space anywhere was a real shock to a lanky, skinny kid. How adults lived on that thing I’ll never understand.

[PlaneMan]

After a few days of messing around I’ve come to some conclusions.

OpenShot does animated titles brilliantly, thanks to Blender. There are some available, maybe 15, and you can tweak them a bit.

KdenLive is more stable and I’m getting my head around how it works. So for now I’m using OpenShot for the titles, rendering them to the resolution I’m going to use on the final video and importing  that   to KdenLive.

I think I’m doing OK but I’m also aware that my autistic traits are creeping in, 4 hours today before I moved. Ignored the pain from all over my body and was focused on getting a 30 second clip just right. Which maybe 0.005 % of the worlds population would notice. :negative:

At some stage I’d like to get my head around Blender so I can make custom titles and animations, can’t cope with that right now.

When I have some spare £ (E2Save owe my a ton, getting it is like trying to get blood out of gravel) I may well invest in some proper Chromakey backgrounds, been messing about with it today and everything need to be so smooth.

 

[PlaneMan]

Thanks for that Ed.

 

[PlaneMan]

Spent most of the afternoon trying to gigure out what’s going on with video rendering, kdenlive was showing 5 hours to render the clip.  :negative:

OpenShot wouldn’t use anything apart from Ogg. :wacko:

Got fed up and re-installed Mint and started from scratch. Kdenlive rendered it using the 4K H265 preset in 30.64. Considering the file size (less than an eighth of the original, 8GB to 965MB) I’m happy with that.

OpenShot can’t use any hardware acceleration so is SLOW and runs the rig full pelt all the time. It gets toasty.

If I can’t get OpenShot to use hardware acceleration then I’m going to have to wrap my head around kdenlive,it seems to be more powerful than OpenShot but also more confusing, for me anyway.

Geekbench scores were still all over the place.

Head hurts now. 🙁

[Author]

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