Samuel's Blog

This blog has moved

2005-08-24T14:10:00.000+10:00

This blog has now moved to it's new home over at samuelgordonstewart.com

You can still see the archives from this site by clicking on the relevant month on the right.

All existing and future posts are now over at the new site.

Samuel

Moving...

2005-08-24T12:36:00.000+10:00

I'm going to start moving this blog over to samuelgordonstewart.com now, I will keep the archives here, but there may be some temporary downtime in the process.

Samuel

SBS presents Yes Or No...Or Maybe

2005-08-23T21:39:00.000+10:00

I don't know how many of you watch the SBS program, World Sport, but I do on occasion, and I was doing so tonight. They had a story about doping allegations and cyclist Lance Armstrong, apparently it has been semi-proven that he is a drug cheat. SBS then followed that story with their nightly "World Sport SMS Poll". I don't remember the exact question, but it was something along these lines:
"Were you surprised by the doping allegations against Lance Armstrong or have they proven your suspicions?"
After this, viewers are invited to send an SMS containing "Yes" or "No" to some phone number that I don't remember.

But hang on a moment, can you repeat the question?
"Were you surprised by the doping allegations against Lance Armstrong or have they proven your suspicions?"
Errr, isn't that actually two questions? Which one do you want an answer to? I could quite happily say "No" the allegations didn't surprise me, and "Yes" they have proven my suspicions...but I can't send "No Yes" and expect my vote to be counted.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but World Sport recently changed their wallpaper to a rather eye-exploding "semi-return to the mid 80's tango redish orange desert pattern safari", looks worse when they show the set from a distance too, it looks like a few cans of paint exploded.

Is it just me, or are SBS trying to dumb down their usage of the English language in an attempt to avoid alienating the mainstream commercial television audience?
For example, they have introduced a new name for an existing show, which to me at least, appears to be an oxymoron.
"World News Australia"
Excuse me? Whatever happened to "World News" & "World News Tonight"? Why has our multicultural broadcaster suddenly decided that all news in the world revolves around Australia? Perhaps it is half of a badly edited statement:
"Good evening and welcome to the world news, Australia."
Perhaps SBS think that more people want to watch a news that has the word "Australia" in the title. (Well, check the ratings, people seem to like it if it says "Seven" or "Nine").
Maybe SBS think the world is too big for one half hour.
Or maybe, just maybe, SBS have gone mad.

Whatever the reason is, SBS do seem to be going downhill.
I blame it all (mostly) on the fact that they are cost cutting. They cut those fantastic movie intros from their (then) movie buffs David & Margaret. SBS had themes for each night of the week, and a different presenter for that night's movie, somebody who specialised in that particular genre of movie. It wasn't just David & Margaret either, they had a rather talented bunch. I will always remember those Saturday night cult movies, they were often pretty bad sci-fi/fantasy combinations, but they did have a certain charm to them after an intro from the cult movie presenter. One of the many movie series' I will remember is Gamera, the Japanese lizard dragon monster thing (possibly a copy of Godzilla) which could never seem to make up it's mind whether it was helping or destroying the humans, but it always had a small boy as a friend and always seemed to encounter a "Toy monster Vs Model boat" scene.

I also remember a time when SBS was the central repository for the cream of international (mainly European) primetime entertainment, buying the rights to many varied and interesting TV shows. It would be common place to get strange looks for talking about that "fantastic Norwegian show that aired every week" but everybody, it seemed, had a guilty pleasure in watching at least one of those shows.

Those days are gone however, and now SBS try to style themselves on the ABC "Tonight, lots of documentaries" and the generic SBS "Let's throw in some more soccer, inane shows with explosions (ooooh, ratings) and adult programming from sweeden".

It is unfortunate to see SBS degenerate to such forms of entertainment, and I fear they are producing further cost cutting by buying the rights to the cricket. Seven could have continued the cricket, they did a good job (apart from Tony Squires), or the ABC, but not SBS. The shoestring budget has been stretched, and I fear SBS are going to continue to show programs filled with lunatics blowing stuff up just to prove they can't do what you saw in that movie, more of those drastic wallpaper changes on the local shows, more documentaries that nobody is really interested in seeing, and more of those Swedish/German/somewhere late night adult programs.

I say bring back the gold old SBS that we had years ago...and scrap The Movie Show, the idiots on there now wouldn't know a film from a canary.

Anyway, to get back to the main topic of discussion, I will be making sure that I record World Sport tomorrow night to see two things:
1. Will they reword the question and make a nonsense of the answers between now and then?
2. What will the ultimate confused outcome of this ludicrous poll be?
After recording I will take a screenshot and post it here for you all to admire!

Samuel

New Domain Name

2005-08-23T10:50:00.000+10:00

It would appear that I will be moving this blog soon as I have just bought the domain name samuelgordonstewart.com

There isn't anything there yet, but there will be soon. I must say though, the hosting company have an interesting statement about custom error pages in their online manual:
Custom error pages that are smaller than 10k in size will not display properly in Internet Explorer. Insert a large amount of text into a comment to create the required size.

Oh thankyou great code monkeys at Microsoft, if I want my error pages to work in your "browser" I have to perform a file bloat....well thankyou sooo much.

Samuel

Samuel's Musician Of The Week

2005-08-21T21:04:00.000+10:00

This week my musician of the week award goes to Neil Diamond, and the feature song that he sung is Kentucky Woman, which I think suits him...hopefully you know what I mean, as that last sentence a far too many incorrect meanings. Basically I think that Kentucky Woman is a song which suits his singing style and shows him as a great performer, and so it should, he wrote it after all.

Kentucky Woman
She shines with her own kind of light
She look at you once in a day
That's all wrong looks all right
And I love her
God knows I love her

Kentucky Woman
If she get to know you
She goin’ to own you
Kentucky Woman

Well, she ain't the kind
Make heads turn at the drop of her name
But something inside
That she's got turns you on just the same
And She loves me
God knows She loves me

Kentucky Woman
If she get to know you
She goin’ to own you
Kentucky Woman

I don't want much
The good Lord's earth beneath my feet
A gentle touch
From that one girl and life is
Sweet and good
There ain't no doubt
I'm talking about

Kentucky Woman
If she get to know you
She goin' to own you
Kentucky Woman

I don't want much
The good Lord's earth beneath my feet
A gentle touch
From that one girl and life is
Sweet and good
There ain't no doubt
Hey, I'm talking about

Kentucky Woman
If she get to know you
She goin' to own you
Kentucky Woman

Kentucky Woman
Kentucky Woman

Samuel

Schnappi slips to 8th

2005-08-21T20:27:00.000+10:00

Unfortunately, Schnappi has slipped two positions to be 8th on the ARIA singles chart this week. It is unfortunate in my mind because it is the only thing on there that I like.

Samuel

Samuel on Australian Independent Radio News

2005-08-21T19:13:00.000+10:00

I am now working with Australian Independent Radio News (AIR News), presenting news bulletins on Saturdays. I presented my first three bulletins yesterday (11am-1pm) and will now be presenting the 11am-5pm bulletins on Saturdays.
I'm not going to put any of my bulletins online at the momentbecause
A) I haven't got anywhere to put a file at the moment
B) A isn't exactly true, I could fill up servers I'm not supposed to fill, but I won't
C) Copyright issues are funny little tricky things to work with
D) I don't want to be unfair on AIR News member stations who have paid for these bulletins
I will put ONE bulletin online eventually, but it will be at least a week after it airs, and will be after I have bought some webspace. If you want to hear one of my bulletins before then, tune in to one of the member stations, or, if you are out of their coverage area, email me.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it. It is an interesting and valuable experience, and I hope to be doing it for some time to come.

While I'm at it, if you know of any Australian community or blackspot commercial radio stations that could use a reliable and cost-effective hourly news service, then let them know about AIR News, it has, in at least one circumstance, prompted people to join as members of the radio stations. AIR News offers a free trial so there really isn't anything to lose.

You could call this shameless self promotion, but that is not my motive. I'm just trying to spread the word about a quality service.

Also while I'm at it, a very big thankyou to Artie Stevens, manager of AIR News, is in order, as he has provided me with this fantastic opportunity, thanks Artie!

Samuel

Congratulations Kelly Underwood

2005-08-21T19:05:00.000+10:00

Radio 3AW's Kelly Underwood became the first female footbal caller in the country today after co-commentating the last quarter of the Essendon V Carlton AFL match this afternoon. It wasn't exactly an exciting match, with Essendon beating Carlton 28.14.182 to 11.17.83 (If you're not Australian that probably doesn't mean much to you, but it is a huge win), but Kelly still did a fantastic job and deserves her place in history.

Well done Kelly!

3AW's AFL coverage can be heard on the web from their website, in Melbourne on 3AW (1278 AM), in Canberra on 2CA (1053 AM), and a bunch of other stations right around Australia.

Samuel

Rewilding The American Elephant

2005-08-20T23:12:00.000+10:00

If you have ever been sitting in a New York hotel room and wish you had gone to Africa instead, then you visited New York to early.
It would appear that scientists want to "rewild" animals such as Cheetahs, Lions and Elephants by releasing them in america. They argue that it would help to prevent them from becoming extinct in Africa, they also claim that the long lost semi-blood ancestors of many of these animals once roamed the North American continent.

Now, it might just be me, but an encounter with a Lion at a busy intersection isn't my idea of fun...and I'm sure that the Americans don't want an elephant stampede to run across the freeway in peak hour.

If you think about it, there have been lengthy debates about saving native American species, and some previous attempts at relocating various species have been dismal failures.

I'm not saying don't save the Elephant, Cheetah, Lion, etc. I'm just saying, don't make a whole new species. The world doesn't need an American elephant, and the freeways don't need lions.

It's not quite the same thing, but I suspect somebody has watched the fiirst half-hour of Jurassic Park a few too many times....to that person, watch the rest of the movie and see what happens, you should also watch Jumanji which will give you a pretty good insight into the workings of wild animals in urban areas, no matter what your doctorate tells you, they won't be playing cards and smoking cigars. I can guarantee that you'll rethink your insane idea...unless your brain isn't useful, which could very well be the case with an idea like that.

American Elephant? Nah, I'll pass...

Samuel

This planet is interesting at times.

2005-08-19T20:17:00.000+10:00

In case you are looking for a job, Tree Of Life in the Canberra Centre are advertising for an "Acting Assistant Manager", yes, you read it correctly, an "Acting Assistant Manager".

Now, to my mind, somebody who is acting in a role is simply filling the role of somebody who has retired or gone on leave...acting is an internal pseudo-promotion, not an actual job.....I suppose that Tree Of Life could be preparing to produce a film...are they going to pay the "Acting Customers"???

I've just found the feedback form on their website, I might ask them what they think an "Acting Assistant Manager" is. Interestingly, none of the other jobs are "acting" positions.

Whilst we are talking about the civic area, tonight a woman was standing outside Supabarn and took a photo of the checkout...a minute later she took a photo of Baker Delight, causing much hysterical laughter amongst the staff there...don't ask me what the photos were in aid of, it just seemed rather odd to me...and the surrounding people.

In a nearby apartment block, somebody has somehow managed to put a shopping basket on top of a lightpost...I don't know and I don't want to know how they did it (well, maybe I'm a little curious), but I would like to know why they did it....maybe they'll build a shop around it....who knows...

All these things serve one purpose....keep the planet interesting!

Samuel

Welcome 2CC Listeners

2005-08-19T09:43:00.000+10:00

Welcome fellow 2CC listeners, you will find various comments, drawings and photos from myself and others here. Most of it belongs to me, some of the comments belong to others. And my crocodile writings are below.

In case you were listening to my conversation with Mike Jeffreys this morning and you are wondering what this "riot act" thing is that Mike mentioned, clicking here will take you there.

Enjoy!

Samuel

Somebody likes Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-17T22:00:00.000+10:00

Well, I've always liked it, and I know some other people that do to, but now I have official confirmation that Jim Goar from Can Of Corn likes Samuel In Dolgnwot, describing it as "high grade cartoons".

I must say I'm flattered, I never really thought my drawings were "high grade", I always liked them, but I never thought an outsider (somebody who isn't me) would like them that much.

With the support I am receiving for the Samuel In Dolgnwot series, I might just have to draw another series, maybe.

Samuel

Does shooting a crocodile brings it's dinner back to life?

2005-08-17T18:41:00.000+10:00

I don't think so, and seeing as Barry Jeffries, the latest croc victim, isn't alive I think it is proven.

So then, why do Queensland Parks & Wildlife insist on shooting a crocodile that is suspected of being the one that ate Mr Jeffries? I think it might be a propogranda campaign...perhaps they think that by shooting a croc, the rest of them will become terrified of humans and won't try and eat them again...maybe...haven't seen any proof of it working though.

To be fair though, the water hole that Mr. Jeffries was canoeing in was croc infested, and if a croc is hungry and sees "Floating human in a container" at the top of it's territory, what do you expect it to do...call the local takeaway?

I just don't see the point in shooting this crocodile, they have no proof that it is the right croc, and it's not going to prove anything (excepct perhaps that QLD P&W are gun mad lunatics who need to shoot stuff), apart from which, surely it is the croc's territory, not ours, and when we enter the territory of hungry wild animals we are taking our lives in our own hands.

Just imagine for one moment, it is 4pm and you are in a bank, their was a robbery at this bank at 10am and they have since reopened, the police arrive and arrest you for being the bank robber and their only proof is that you are in the bank at a later time, you wouldn't be very happy would you?

QLD P&W have done the same thing, they have shot a croc which was in the same waterhole at a later time, yet, just like a bank which is "human infested", the water hole is "croc infested" by QLD P&W's own admission...the more I think about this the more I think QLD P&W are gun mad lunatics who feel a need to shoot stuff....I have one sentence of advice for those planning a Queensland holiday....don't take the crocodile suit!

Samuel

Is City News The Worst Newspaper In The Country?

2005-08-15T19:15:00.000+10:00

Quite possibly the answer is yes.
Without a doubt, City News is the worst newspaper in Canberra. In fact, it is hardly fair on the newspaper industry to call City News a newspaper, in truth it is a glorified freely-distributed glossy advertorial nonsense device.

Lets take a look at a typical City News edition. It is divided into three sections, City News, Canberra Review and City Property.

The news section is really just a bunch of press releases and ads that are presented as news stories. It often features an unimportant story about a beauty competition, the colour of the City Hill flagpole or some other related nonsense, which is almost always derived from a press release. The only semi-substantial component of the news section is the editorial by some anonymous person calling themselves "The Whip", who "Doesn't necessarily represent the views of the paper" and generally provides a fairly generic semi-relevant rubbishing of the news.

The second section, "The Canberra Review" is a fairly bland commentary on the upcoming artistic events of the week. It is filled with press releases and reviews by people who really don't seem to know what they are talking about.

The third section is an upside down (literally) section about Canberra real estate. It contains stories about whatever expensive properties are up for sale in Red Hill and surrounds (which seem to be written by the real estate agents), and a bunch of real estate ads. In this case, "bunch" means multiple pages of nothing but real estate ads.

Over time, City News has had a range of dismal columns by exceptionally boring people on topics that don't matter or don't appear to interest the writer, they all seem to have failed, possibly because the writer bored themselves, or City News sold the space to advertisers. Either way, it was dismal.

In fairness, the competition aren't exactly brilliant either. The Canberra Times has gone downhill since Rural Press bought them. Editor Jack Waterford has tried to maintain some credibility, but has ultimately failed. The Canberra Times has really lost the plot, it's local news is fairly poor, and it's coverage of national and international news...well...buy The Australian...you won't find much of use in The Canberra Times.

For a broadsheet, The Canberra Times is fairly disappointing...so much paper, so little content, what a pity.

The Chronicle is the local tabloid weekly and a subsiduary of The Canberra Times, it is distributed to homes all over Canberra and surrounds for free, and is very good at covering major local stories in detail. Unfortunately, it only covers a handful of newsworthy stories, preferring snippets and "Who won gardener of the week!" type stories. The Chronicle manages to fill most pages with ads, gardening tips, and recipes. Good reading when you are bored, not very good for news though.

I can't honestly think of a worse newspaper than City News, it doesn't seem to have any particular purpose. For local news you have The Chronicle, for national and international news you could buy The Canberra Times, but you would be better off with The Australian. If you want to waste time, well, City News is good for that!

City News is without a doubt the worst newspaper in Canberra, and probably the nation.

Now, somebody is surely going to ask me "If you think all these newspapers are bad, then where do you get your news from?"
I'm glad you asked, I generally have the radio tuned to Talk Radio 2CC at various times throughout the day, which provides me with most of my news, I also get some news from The RiotACT, ABC Online and Google News.

Perhaps one day these newspapers will get better, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Samuel

Schnappi continues to climb

2005-08-14T20:18:00.000+10:00

The latest ARIA singles chart has been released, and Schnappi has climbed another three places to be 6th.

During the week I heard a group of people walking along singing Schnappi!

Samuel

Samuel's Musicians Of The Week

2005-08-14T19:33:00.000+10:00

This week's award goes to Credence Clearwater Revival.

I can remember quite clearly a few nights when I was listening to Radio 2CA when they went off air and the backup tape kicked in with "Bad Moon Rising", but it often got cut off after a few seconds and started from the beginning all over again (blasted computer noise), this happened on quite a few nights, and hearing the first few bars, followed by silence, followed by the first few bars, more silence, half the song, silence, the first few bars and more silence and then the whole song and half the next song, followed by silence and then this song again did get quite irritating.

Suprisingly though, it has become one of my favourite songs, and so I have chosen it to be the featured song for this week's Musicians Of The Week, Credence Clearwater Revival.

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

All right!
Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-14T19:15:00.000+10:00

Well, we have reached the double image finale of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
With the gold supply in Dolgnwot having run out, Samuel decides it is time to return to his home in Canberra in his futuristic truck.

Here, for the first time, we see his truck in it's entirety. At the front (left) is the driver's cabin, followed by the gold storage container, the gold digging and sorting machine, the living quarters and the horses living quarters. The horse is of course visible in the first and second episodes of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

The second image shows the teacher (Mrs. Brophy) left a tick on the accompanying page, which is a very good way to end the series.

Clicking on the pictures will show a larger version, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel's Artwork will take a short break now and will return in a few days with new and exciting pictures.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-13T17:42:00.000+10:00

Today we have the second last episode in the Samuel In Dolgnwot series

In recent days, the amount of gold that people were able to find was getting smaller and smaller, and today the newspaper reports that there is no gold left. Naturally Samuel isn't terribly pleased about this, but he spends some time deciding what to do.

Tommorow we have a special double image finale to the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-12T20:36:00.000+10:00

Alrighty then, another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot
Today sees the return of the working pens, yep no more pencils, as I recall the black pen ran out of ink, and it took me a few days to get some more pens.

On this particular day, Samuel visits the assay office with the masses of gold he has collected, and just happens to find a rather high gold-to-money conversion rate. A little bit later on, his mum drops by to congratulate him.

It looks like Samuel left his arms at home today.

We are now 2 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No

2005-08-11T23:15:00.000+10:00

The title explains the answers.
When I plugged in my flash drive a few moments ago, I had Windows Media Player minimised, and as soon as I plugged it in, Media Player decided it had to ask me if I wanted to scan it for media files ten times.

My answers, well, I'll read the title of this post to you:
"No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No"

Thankyou to the lovely loony monkeys typing code for Microsoft, you have made my life so much easier...now, what did I plug in my flash drive for in the first place?....Blast, I forgot, and I think it was important too....

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-11T19:46:00.000+10:00

Today's Samuel In Dognwot is not brought to you by any sponsors, but if you want pay me I won't refuse.
Today Samuel is watching Wheel Of Fortune, and is supporting the person in the middle yellow space, who is currently on $200.

As you can probably tell, this was before I spotted the comments from Mrs. Nash, and before I got a working pen.

We are now 3 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-10T18:26:00.000+10:00

Samuel In Dolgnwot, Double Image Special.
As time goes by, these images are becoming more and more abstract, and more and more faint, in this one I didn't even have a working pen to use when I was drawing it.

Today's first image sees Samuel singing the start of "Rock Around The Clock", which really has nothing to do with the goldfields, but he was obviously enjoying himself.

According to the caption, Samuel is "singing to a CD", which is obviously another one of those bits os futuristic technology for 1857.

On this occasion, Mrs Brophy wasn't marking the diaries, it was Mrs Nash, and she was quite annoyed at the lack of goldfield related entires, she was often annoyed about something, but she was especially unimpressed by this.
"Samuel, I would like to read your ideas & thoughts about the goldfields. Please try to keep to the task."

I didn't notice her comments right away, which will probably be evident tommorow.

We are now 4 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series.

Clicking on the pictures will show a larger version, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Radio Ratings

2005-08-10T18:13:00.000+10:00

The Australian Capital City Radio Ratings were released yesterday or the day before, and I am happy to be able to announce that John Laws increased his Sydney market share by 16% (from 9.4% to 10.6%) whilst afternoon presenter John Stanley increased his market share by a whopping 41% (from 8.2% to 10.5%). John Stanley has a very entertaining show, and it is good to see people in Sydney are listening to it.

On a related note, here is a picture of the cake that 2UE presented to John Laws before he went to air on Monday morning, the day of his 70th birthday

Notice the golden candles? Well, it would appear that when 2UE move down the road later this month they will be presenting Lawsie with a new golden studio desk.

The microphone on that cake doesn't look golden, maybe it would have been too obvious what they were planning if they borrowed his microphone just to take a photo of it.

Samuel

When Internet Ads Are Fun

2005-08-09T22:55:00.000+10:00

This afternoon at work, we were discussing pie's (the charming Indian boss who had never heard that word thought we were talking about "pine", which really isn't as tasty and often leads to tooth damage), and after following a link to a pie recipe, I noticed an ad telling me I had won something. Normally, I would not click on one of these ads, but on this occasion, I quite simply couldn't help myself.

After clicking the link, I was presented with a page that had a strange little animation "calculating" my reward, which turned out to be $1101, the page also presented me with a timer telling me I had three minutes to call the number on the screen, which just happened to be an Australian free-call number, I printed the page (it had the claim number on it) and went next door to the office, which has the phone.

Upon dialing this free call number, I was transferred (at the advertising company's cost) to a US call centre indentifying themselves as the "prize claim hotline" or something.

I told the girl who answered the phone that I had just won $1101 and she seemed to become excited (I don't think many people ever ring the number, maybe she was happy to hear another person) and she proceeded to ask me for my claim number, which I gave her. She then went and asked me a few strange, although suprisingly understandable, questions about my holiday habits, how long has it been since my last holiday, what credit card to I prefer to use etc. She also asked for my name and phone number (office phone).

She then went on to tell me about this prize I had won, she was pretty much elaborating on what I had on my printout, a holiday to various places, I didn't really care whether I was going to see a beach near a rollercoaster or not, but I pretended to be interested. She went on and on and on and on and on, until eventually she made the scam a little bit clearer, I was getting this fantastic holiday, I had to take at least one other person with me (which makes the per person cost seem much lower), and the third & fourth person is free. The total cost of this amazing holiday was a mere $1699. Naturally I had my $1101 discount, so it was only going to cost me $598, on credit card NOW and I can take my holiday whenever I want for the next 18 months.

During this entire performance, she was telling me information I was supposed to write down, names of places I could visit, and her name which, just on the off chance she is real and wants to google herself or you speak to her, was Shirley Mathis

She then had a recap of this amazing holiday, and then wanted my email address, she didn't say why she wanted it, so I asked her:
"Are you going to spam me?"
to which she replied
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you"
I asked her a second time and she froze, after a silence of about five seconds she said she was transferring me to her supervisor who "would be able to handle my enquiry better".

I placed them on mute temporarily while I updated my surrounding co-workers on the status of this bizarre call (it was originally on speakerphone, but Shirley couldn't hear me very well, so I picked up the handset), after a brief time on hold, an American man who never identified himself answered the phone and started blabbering more repeated details of this holiday before asking me for my email address, I asked him whether he was going to spam me, to which he replied
"I'm not going to stand on you!"
so then I said
"No, Spam...SSSS-PAAAAM"
He paused, and seemingly went into shock, and after about five seconds said
"Oh, no, no, no (chuckle) we just want to send you a verification code so you can see your prize again."

He didn't bother asking for my email address again, and instead went on to a postal address, I started with a number, and had to spell it out to him, then I had to spell out the worded part of the postal address....twice, at which point one of my co-workers burst out laughing and rolled on the floor for a while, which I told the man on the phone, he seemed to ignore that, and as soon as we were finished with that he went and told me (for the third time) that once he was finished with me he would put me through to a tape recording from the legal department which would ensure that I knew what I was receiving (as if they hadn't told me enough times already). I was beginning to suspect that he was a tape recording himself.

He eventually got to the "I want your credit card details" section of the conversation, and I made an excuse, I told him I had left my credit card at home today, and he said that people usually tell him that when they don't believe the holiday deal. He suggested that I should call home
"Put me on hold and call home!"
I couldn't argue with that logic, so I said I was putting him on hold, couldn't find the hold button and pressed mute instead, I obviously wasn't going to ring home as I had no intention of giving them my financial details, during the time I had them on mute I discussed the progress of the call with my co-workers and heard Shirley saying something to her supervisor about me, which sounded derogatory, it also sounded like she was saying something along the lines of "I think we've got this one". I've always wanted to listen in on people who are on hold, it can prove to be entertaining, my wish came true today.

I waited a few more seconds before taking them off of the muted hold, and continued to play their game as if I hadn't heard anything.
Samuel: Are you still there?
Shirley: Yes, I'm here
Samuel: Oh, ok, your supervisor said I should ring home to get my credit card details
Shirley: I know, I was standing right here

At this stage I was thinking "But you said you were transferring me, how many other people are listening to this, perhaps you are in a small office and the other call centre voices are just a recording."

The call continued
Samuel: Well, I tried, but nobody is home.

And the banter went on for a but longer, she started to sound disappointed, and told me about my holiday again, what came next really caught me off guard.

Shirley: You should borrow your bosses credit card...he can take it out of your pay cheque!
Samuel: (Laughter) I suppose, but he isn't here right now
He was actually less than four metres away at his desk listening to me talking, but I wanted to finish this call politely, maybe they would let me have the bogus holiday to secure the scam...but alas, Shirley reached the stage where

Shirley: Well, I'm not going to be able to process your order without a credit card, I'm really sorry, I really wanted to help you out, I always look out for the people who sound like they need a holiday, and you sounded like that, and I really wanted to help you...
Samuel: Well, with the rate that your ads keep appearing, I'm sure you will be able to give it away to somebody, it is a pity, I would have liked the holiday, it sounded great, I guess it's just not my day.
Shirley: Well it will go back into the system, I really wanted to help you, but I'm so sorry I can't, maybe next time.

And that pretty much ended the call. I went back to the computer to find the three minute timer had changed to "Call Now", I refreshed the page, and got the same claim number, the same prize, and another three minutes to call.

The call itself lasted for 24 minutes and 17 seconds, all of which was paid for by these lovely scammers.

Now if you have some spare time, and want to make those scammers pay, give Shirley and her supervisor a call, the more people the better, just use the details from my printout.

Ah yes, the fun that can come from those internet ads.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-09T19:02:00.000+10:00

Here we go, more Samuel In Dolgnwot!
Another one of those days where Samuel feels like singing. Actually, a few people were blessed with Samuel's singing today, one of them described it as "Wolves Crying".

If you have been watching the series unfold you may have noticed that, as the series has gone on, the pencils have been getting lighter.

We are now 5 episodes away from finishing the Samuel In Dolgnwot series, which reminds me, tomorrow we have another double image special.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Lawsie's Birthday

2005-08-09T00:54:00.000+10:00

As you may recall from the last post about Lawsie's birthday, John Williamson and Pixie Jenkins dropped in to sing happy birthday to Lawsie, you can hear them singing a birthday song and a couple others (Skinny Dingos, Mozzies) for Lawsie as well as having a little chat at http://www.johnlaws.com.au/sound_JL/WILLO.mp3.

Well worth a listen!

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-08T19:07:00.000+10:00

Do I sense that it is time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot?.....Yep, I do.

Well, it looks like a picture of a computer to me....slightly futuristic for 1857, but not to worry.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Musician Of The Week

2005-08-08T18:59:00.000+10:00

Well, this week it goes to Mary Chapin Carpenter, and whilst it is hard to pick just one song, I have gone with this one.

The Hard Way
(Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Show a little inspiration, show a little spark
And show that things that drew me to you and stole my heart
And tell me something I don't know instead of everything I do
And look at me as if I mean something to you
Our hearts are beating while we sleep, but while we're wide awake
You know the world won't stop, and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, and what your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way

Show a little passion, baby, show a little style
And show the knack for knowing when and the gift for knowing how
And have a little trust in us when fear obscures the path
You know we got this far, darling, not by luck, but by never turning back
Some will call on destiny, but I just call on faith
That the world won't stop, and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, to what your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way

Caught up in our little lives, there's not a lot left over
I see what's missing in your eyes; you're searching for that field of clover
So show a little inspiration, show a little spark
Show the world a little light when you show it your heart
We've got two lives, one we're given and the other one we make
And the world won't stop, and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, and your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard (everything we got, we got the hard way)
Everything we got, we got the hard way
(Because the world won't stop) hang on, baby...

Samuel

Schnappi reaches 9

2005-08-08T18:49:00.000+10:00

Yes, Schnappi Das Kleine Krokadil is now 9th on the ARIA singles chart.

Samuel

Happy Birthday Lawsie!

2005-08-08T12:29:00.000+10:00

Today is Monday the 8th of August, 2005. The day which marks Lawsie's 70th birthday.

Congratulations Lawsie, I hope you have a fantastic day.

John Williamson dropped into the studio today while Lawsie was on-air to wish him happy birthday and sing for him, it was quite a good moment, and will probably be on Lawsie's website later today.

I tried to ring his show this morning to wish him a happy birthday, but ringing that show is always difficult as so many people want to talk to him. I ended up leaving a message for him with one of his producers. I also sent him a birthday card.

Happy Birthday Lawsie!

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-07T19:57:00.000+10:00

Before I get angry emails asking me why I haven't produced today's episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot, here it is.
In today's episode, Samuel gets harrassed by about five troopers all asking for the same documentation.

As part of the gold game, a certain number of people chose to be troopers instead of gold diggers for half of the time, they had the job of going around and asking to see certain documents which showed if you had been shopping or kept your digging licence up-to-date, or been cheating.

On this particular day, five troopers visited Samuel (and most of the other gold diggers) to check their shopping documents, this sparked a number of complaints by the gold diggers about the troopers.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

The Weekend Wireless Show

2005-08-07T15:17:00.000+10:00

Last night I found myself having trouble getting to sleep. In fact, I ended up being awake for most of the night and sunlight-free portion of the morning.

One of the many benefits of talk radio is that, when you do have trouble getting to sleep, the radio is capable of keeping you company. Last night I found myself listening to much more of New Day Australia with George Gibson than usual, and eventually became rather intrigued by his lateral thinking question.

I don't remember all the details of the question, but I do remember this much of it:
In the 1960's an East German woman swam the 100M freestyle in a record time of 59.(something, forgot exact number) seconds, but it was never officially recognised, why?

At about 3:30am I felt rather compelled to ring and try to answer the question, I thought that perhaps she had been swimming the Australian Crawl before it was officially recognised. (Contrary to popular belief, freestyle allows the swimmer to choose which swimming style they wish to use, the style that you usually see is the Australian Crawl).

unfortunately, my answer was incorrect, but I did manage a couple games of Reversi on the computer while I was waiting on hold. The conversation I had with George Gibson was rather interesting too.

We started by discussing the temperature in Canberra, which was certainly colder than it was in his studio. Then I gave him my answer, the following dialogue is worthy of transcribing.
George: No, that's not correct.
Samuel: Are you sure?
George: Yes.
Samuel: Well, do you think you could make that the answer?
George: (Laughter), I don't think anybody's ever asked me that before!

Nobody was able to answer the lateral thinking question overnight, so it will be there again on Saturday morning from 5 past Midnight when George Gibson present the "Weekend Wireless Show" New Day Australia on 2UE and network stations.

I eventually drifted off to sleep at about 5:15am

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-06T22:22:00.000+10:00

Roughly four hours later than usual, here is today's Samuel In Dolgnwot

Samuel has a rather rigid feeding routine, and on this particular day, he is enjoying his morning tea, which is 1 Litre of Corn Soup, he will probably have a cup of coffee when he is done.

The feeding routine is another bit of paper I should dig out of the archive boxes.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

SmoothWall forums fit to burst!

2005-08-05T21:56:00.000+10:00

If you have a question about SmoothWall, the answer is probably in one of the 101,000 threads on the SmoothWall forums. Go and check it out.

Samuel

Man watches No Right Turn sign while ANU explodes

2005-08-05T19:40:00.000+10:00

Only Canberra could produce a headline like that, and it is all true, even if slightly exagerated.
This afternoon on my way into Civic I noticed somebody staring at a No Right Turn sign, which was a rather unusual sight. There didn't appear to be anything unusual about the sign...maybe they hadn't seen one before.

Also this afternoon, an explosion at the Australian National University.
In the Research School Of Chemistry, probably the result of an experimental accident.

ABC Online says "A laboratory explosion blew out three windows and sparked a fire at the Australian National University’s (ANU) science building this afternoon. The fire is understood to have burned through the roof of the building. It is not clear what caused the explosion, which hit the third floor of the science building at 1:45pm AEST. Ambulance officers assessed four people from nearby buildings but they did not need treatment. The fire brigade says smoke from the blaze was non-toxic. Investigations into the cause are under way, as the clean-up continues."

This comes just two days after a suspicious package was found at the Jolimont Centre in Civic, sparking a closure of some roads, including Nourthbourne Ave. The police belw up this bag to destroy it, I'm not sure how safe this is when they don't know what is in the bag, but it turned out to be a forgotten bag of clothing.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-05T19:31:00.000+10:00

And here we have another one of those irresistible episodes of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

In today's episode you can see Samuel enduring another one of those days where he isn't able to search for gold. He does appear to be making the most of a bad situation by watching TV & listening to the radio simultaneously.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-04T19:18:00.000+10:00

Time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot
Samuel has had another big gold find today, and has decided to call the animals at his house to tell them about it.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Search Term

2005-08-03T22:01:00.000+10:00

It would appear from the Blog View Stats that every few days, somebody lands on this blog by using the search term "samuel blog 2CC". This strikes me as a rather odd set of words to combine as a search term, I mean, sure I'm a 2CC listener, but I think you would have to know me or be a regular reader to know that, so I would like to request that the person who is using that search term to please let me know why you use it.

There is nothing wrong with you using it, I'm just curious as to why you use it. Could you please leave a comment or email me?

Samuel

Blogger or Wordpress?

2005-08-03T19:25:00.000+10:00

I must say that Blogger.com is starting to irk me, it does it's job, but it isn't exactly useful. It does tend to create some of the most appalling HTML on the planet, working with more than two images is pretty painful, and everything is STATIC! It also doesn't provide me with a way to edit comments (keep or delete), I can't assign categories to posts...in fact, pretty much all I can do is type.

I am seriously considering moving this blog to paid hosting and Wordpress, which is a very nice, dynamic blogging utility (utility is probably the wrong word, but I like it). It probably won't happen instantly, maybe my next holidays in a couple months would be a good time...but eventually this blog is not going to be on blogger.com servers using blogger.com software and blogger.com's strange version of HTML.

(Postscript Addendum Thingy: I accidentally clicked on the insert image button and then decided to click cancel because I didn't want it....so blogger inserted the latest Samuel In Dolgnwot image.....grrrrr)

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-03T19:09:00.000+10:00

More Samuel In Dolgnwot! Yay!
Today you can see Samuel having fun with his lights and fans in his futuristic truck.

Turning them on and off constantly is obviously quite a good quality source of enjoyment for Samuel, and he is the only person on the goldfields in 1857 with the ability to do it.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Blog View Stats for July

2005-08-03T00:05:00.000+10:00

Due to inane difficulties with images and formatting, the previous post containing the stats from July has been removed, and I have instead uploaded the various reports in PDF format to http://www.ibiblio.org/netsec/misc/blogstats/July2005/

Enjoy!

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-02T23:03:00.000+10:00

Another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot!
Today you can see Samuel doing his weekly shopping.

This was a requirement of the Gold Game and cost some trivial amount of money (I must remember to find that bit of paper that has all the transactions from the Gold Game on it).

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Happy Birthday Mr. Ed

2005-08-01T20:24:00.000+10:00

I couldn't let the day go by without saying happy birthday to Mr. Ed and all the other horses out there.

Today, August the 1st, is of course the Horse's Birthday.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse? Well listen to this. I am Mister Ed.

Neigh!

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-08-01T19:10:00.000+10:00

And now... A double image specila of Samuel In Dolgnwot
Today's first image shows Samuel in his gold digging truck (another futuristicness for 1857) where he can see that he has found 36oz of gold for the day.

There are three buttons in front of Samuel which control various functions of the gold digger, thankfully, the process of searching for gold is automated, but can be customised if that is what is desired.

Samuel is obviously quite pleased at his find, which is hardly suprising.

The second image today is another note from the teacher, Mrs. Brophy, who is writing in reference to her previous comment about captions.

She writes "This is an improvement thanks Samuel. Now I know what each pages is telling me. Do you reall think you could watch T.V and listen to 2CA on the goldfields in 1857 though?"

I, upon reading this, went to see her with an explanation about the "Futuristic Technology."

Clicking on the pictures will show larger versions, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Internet Explorer Loving Idiots

2005-08-01T18:50:00.000+10:00

Hmmmm, does anybody reading this remember Idiot Number Three?
Well, I do, and he still likes Internet Explorer, and went on a mini rant when he found Firefox and no Internet Explorer on the computer he was using, he went so far as to say "I hate Firefox"...the words of an idiot, pure & simple.

His mini rant prompted another person in the room to start complaining as well, apparently they want IE to be the default browser...if I never had any contact with that network I probably wouldn't care, but the fact is I am in contact with that network every day, and work on some fairly important files there. The last thing I want is some leaky, pain in the rear end, security risk, poor excuse for a browser on my desktop.

The main reason this Firefox roll out occurred is because far too many computers on the network were having difficulty receiving proxy and other IE configuration info from the server. Firefox, apart from being the better browser, allows us to lock down these settings locally, so even without a server it still works.

For some reason, the second person mentioned seemed to think the IE's view source command handles viewing source nicely. IE opens it in Notepad, where you see a large block of semi-gibberish text in a window, which notepad has retrieved from a temporary location and will discard as soon as you close the window (unless you remember to save your changes). Firefox on the other hand opens source in it's own source viewer, which colour codes the HTML, which is much easier to read and deal with than notepad's "Block of text" view. The other benefit of Firefox's view source command is that is forces you to save the HTML file before you modify it...no more of those "I made the best change ever and forgot to save it" moments.

These people know (or at least should) that Firefox is the better browser, and yet use IE without giving it a second thought, why?

This kind of attitude is the reason that so many of the Windows exploits get around so quickly, all those worms spread and all those malware issues take over your desktop with strange offers and pictures. It isn't so bad when people simply don't know, but when they do know, and do nothing about it, that is when the problems start.

Not updating software and not following secure computer usage principles is the main reason that all this malware gets around so easily, often the users of the computer don't know that they are being used to spread garbage, but if they followed some basic security principles then they would be less likely to suffer from, and help spread, such problems.

That being said, following security principles won't stop malware issues, but it will slow it down, and it will result in less problems for you when you go surfing the web, or need to type a letter, or do something else.

Unfortunately, some people just won't learn, like those pesky Internet Explorer loving idiots.

Get Firefox!

Samuel

Schnappi remains at 12

2005-07-31T22:39:00.000+10:00

This week's ARIA charts have been released and Schnappi remains at 12th position on the singles chart.

This is Schnappi's 4th week in the charts, which can be plotted as CSV (Comma separated Values)
20,21,12,12

Note: While spell checking this post, I received an interesting suggestion for Schnappi

Yes, we now have Casanova Schnappi

Schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp!

Samuel

An apt description of Visual Basic

2005-07-31T19:25:00.000+10:00

Occasionally Slashdot readers leave interesting comments, usually I don't notice them because I have better things to do, on this occasion I noticed a very good description of various programming languages by "WebCowboy".

Thinking about it, you could have a similar discussion about languages--"C culture" vs. "Perl culture" vs "VB culture". C might be like iron, C++ stainless steel. Java might be aluminum foil. Perl would be binder twine. VB...hmm....styrofoam peanuts...or silly string?

WebCowboy also had some interesting, although poorly spelled and punctuated, comments about mainframes.

I can't say I really know for sure what a "mainframe toy" would be--mainframes don't seem like fun at all. I think "mainframers" may have forgotten what childhood was like, or perhaps hatched from a pod fully grown, who knows. I do not have a lot of exposure to that philospohy/culture. If I HAD to pick a toy that was most mainframe-like I might say Mecanno, because like UN*X they are fery uniform in structure, however you have tediously fiddle with those little screws to put anything together, just like a mainframe--you have your "special screwdrivers" (arcane knowledge) and have to follow tedious processes to get things done. Or, perhaps it is like building a birdhous with popsicle sticks, where you have to tediously glue the pieces together with Elmers glue, wait for it to dry before putting it out. In either case, the result is very strong/robust but difficult or impossible to change do you don't bother--you just retrofitr what is there until you get an extremely bizarre looking contraption that is ugly but still very sturdy and dependable.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-31T19:17:00.000+10:00

Time for another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
Today we can see Samuel listening to the radio, in fact, 1053 2CA. He must be listening to a future broadcast as that station didn't exist in 1857!

This would probably have been during a time that Samuel wasn't searching for gold...he can't possibly search 24 hours a day can he?

Tommorow we have another double image special of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Screenshot of WindizUpdate

2005-07-31T19:12:00.000+10:00

Following on from my recent post about WindizUpdate, I thought I should give you a screenshot of it in action.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version.

Samuel

Samuel's Musician Of The Week

2005-07-31T19:03:00.000+10:00

Well, we've hit the section of the record library with CDs named "Country...", and I have a bit of a backlog of people, so this weeks winner is Red Simpson, and here are the lyrics of my favourite song of his:

Hello I'm a truck
You've heard songs about truck drivers
Many times their story's told
How they pulled out of Pittsburgh
For six days on the road
'Bout that feather river canyon
And a-climbin' that old grapevine
That old roadhouse down in Texas
And the girls they left behind
You've heard their tales of daring
And I think that's just fine
But if you can spare a minute
Well I'd like to tell you mine

There'd be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks
No double clutching gear jammin' coffee drinking nuts
They drive their way to glory and they have all the luck
There'd be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks

Well there he sits in that cafe drinking coffee and telling lies
Prob'ly telling 'em 'bout that that hill we topped ten miles back
Outta tell 'em how he missed a gear and that Volkswagen bus full of hippies
Passed us like I was sittin' up on jacks
Or how we took that curve over on 66
Hadn't been for me hangin' on the shoulder
We'd a both wound up in the ditch

If we're on time he takes the credit
'n if we're late I get the blame
Up those hills with shutters open
My stacks a-runnin' flame
My tach'll runnin' red line
Suckin' diesel from the tanks
I take him south and bring him back
Without a word of thanks
Well now you've heard my story and I guess it's my tough luck
There'd be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks

There'd be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks
No double clutchin' gear jammin' coffee drinking nuts
They drive their way to glory and they have all the luck
There'd be no truck drivers if it wasn't for us trucks

Look at him sipping coffee and flirtin' with that waitress
And where do you think he left me?
That's right, next to cattle truck (mooo)
Why couldn't we have put me over there next to that little pink Mack
Gosh she's got pretty mud flaps
And talk bout stacked, they're both chromed
Well he'll be coming out in a minute and he'll get that bar and he'll go
around and beat on my tires
You know for two pints of diesel
Why I'd have a flat on the inside dual
Ha! Boy that fixed him
I never did like the way he drives anyhow
Thinks he's God's gift to waitresses
He never gives 'em a tip
Well I know what he's gonna do now
Take out that tape cartridge of Buck Owens and play it again
I don't know why he don't get a Merle Haggard tape

Samuel

Don't worry, it's only half past sixty-two

2005-07-31T18:51:00.000+10:00

In case you don't already know, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service have told us all that we are out of whack with the sun and need a leap second, so that means we will have an extra second this year, right at the end of the year, which probably means that nobody will know when the new year actually begins, and all those annual "One second past midnight" arguments could turn into "one second past the second midnight".

The US Government want to eliminate leap seconds and just have a leap hour every 300-500 years (WTF?), I think that would be very confusing for most people. It's already hard enough for people to comprehend daylight savings time, let alone an extra hour in the middle.

Leap seconds have caused problems in the past though, one of the most infamous instances was Motorola GPS sytems informing their users that the time was "half past 62 o'clock"...I bet they were confused out of their brains....
"Honey, I thought a leap second was only supposed to go for a second"
"It is"
"But the clock says it's half past 62"
"Does that mean that it's today or tommorow?"
"I think it's the next day, we better go to bed"

Samuel

Windows Update without Internet Explorer

2005-07-30T22:47:00.000+10:00

I have grumbled about Windows Update for a long time because, to use it, you need to run Internet Explorer. And now on top of that you have to go through an extra, time-consuming, Windows Genuine Advantage "Feed me your serial number and I'll tell you if you have a real version of Windows and are able to download updates" procedure, which is very tedious, especially if you want to run Windows Update on a large network.

With that I say hello and hooray to WindizUpdate ( http://windowsupdate.62nds.com ) which doesn't require Internet Explorer. It uses a Firefox/Netscape/Opera/K-Melon plugin, so you can use pretty much any browser you want and still be able to download & install the updates. WindizUpdate was established in January, and the plugin does not appear in any Virus/Adware/Spyware/Other Malware list, and I have it installed on my computer, so it is safe.

Not only does WindizUpdate have the advantage of being used by better browsers than Microsoft's Windows Update, it is also faster. Windows Update takes more than double the time that WindizUpdate takes to work out what updates I need and then suggests a heap of superfluous nonsense is needed.

WindizUpdate also doesn't ask you to install XP Service Pack 2, so if you don't want Windows to break further than absolutely necessary, then it doesn't have to.

WindizUpdate also works on Microsoft's "unsupported" operating systems, NT4, 95, etc

And better yet, it isn't an Active X control, Hooray!

I know which Windows Update I'll be using! (And it doesn't come from Microsoft)

WindizUpdate ( http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/ )

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-30T19:29:00.000+10:00

Time for another daily installment of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
Here we see another one of those futuristic truck scenes, in this case we have Samuel watching TV. It would appear that there is an opera or something like that on the TV, as the quote from it is "Laaa"

On this particular day, Samuel is unable to search for gold.

The gold game was really a game of chance in which we the teachers walked around handing out cards at random, most of them were blank, although some doubled gold finds, or said we couldn't search for gold that day, etc.

After this initial round of card giving, we had to decide what to do that day (unless the card had done that for us), the day was split into two halves, and we had three options, we could either search for gold, do our grocery shopping, or visit the assay office (which is where our gold was turned into money). For the most part, people went searching for gold all day, although we did have to do our grocery shopping each week.

After we had decided what to do for the day, a second round of cards were handed out saying how much gold we could find for the whole day, and then the gold exchange rate was chosen out of a hat.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Sparkles drops out of premiership race

2005-07-29T20:03:00.000+10:00

Sparkles Scully has decided not to run for premier after all, as he doesn't think he has enough support. Ieema the Hiyena (who 2% of NSW people have heard of) looks set to become the Premier when Bob Carr officially steps down next week.

I guess this means the leadership won't have any sparkle in it then!

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-29T19:26:00.000+10:00

Here we have yet another episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot, and possibly the first inconsitency in the series.
As you can see, the truck has changed, the first section is the drivers cabin, the second section is the gold storing trailer, the third section is the gold pickup and sort device and cabin, whilst the last section is the living quarters, with an open roof this time.

As you can see, Samuel is having lunch.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

The future premier of New South Wales

2005-07-29T12:56:00.000+10:00

Well, now that Bob "The Builder" Carr has retired, New South Wales needs a new premier.
The two main contenders are Carl "Sparkles" Scully, who announced in a very monotone and monotempo way "I will put sparkle into the leadership", and Morris Ieema (pronounced Yemma, but still often said as Eye-Yeema), he really needs a nickname too, perhaps "Ieema (Eye-Yeema) the Hiyena" would be best.

I suggest that John Laws should be the premier of New South Wales, he is bound to be better than Sparkles or The Hiyena, he could be the first premier to have his own radio show, and he would never have a problem getting the premier on the show for an interview:
Laws: "Good morning premier"
Laws: "Good morning Mr. Laws"

Incidentally, Ieema was aked if he would also put sparkle into the leadership....he laughed.

Samuel

Wayne Berry distances himself from Ginninderra High

2005-07-29T12:43:00.000+10:00

Wayne Berry MLA, Labor member and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly has publicly distanced himself from the Ginninderra fiasco, which is a good thing as it means that not all of our local Labor memebers are loonies.

I don't think the loopy lady with a silent G is paying any attention though.

Samuel

Ginninderra High School Fiasco

2005-07-28T22:25:00.000+10:00

It appears that the ACT Government are finally proving beyond all reasonable doubt that they are loony.

They have decided that it is a good idea to close Ginninderra High School, not that anyone agrees with them or wants it to happen, and they have decided to close it, end of story. However, they plan on replacing it with a Kindergarten through Year 10 "Super School", and at the same time closing a bunch of other Belconnen area schools so that everyone will get to go there.

So now that you are up to speed with the story, lets have a look at this in more detail.

Firstly, the ACT Government are closing Ginninderra High School, the announcement was a bit late though, it was after the closing date for enrolments, and seeing as it is closing at the end of the year, well, people are just plain stuffed. They chose the school because they thought it would be a good school to choose, and now they have to go around to other schools which are most likely to be further away and find out if there is a vacancy for their child. Why couldn't they gradually phase out the school by not taking any more new students? Certainly it would take time, but it would avoid this ridiculous mess. And the same can be said for existing students, the enrolment period is over, so it is time to visit the other high schools and check for vacancies.

What about consultation, well they did meet with some P&C members from the surrounding area a few months back, not for consultation, just to say "we like this", and their was a confidentiality agreement to go with it. The government denied they had conducted this meeting at first, and then when it became obvious that they had occurred they did a backflip and said "Yes, we had a meeting."

The government claim that Ginninderra high is an ageing dinosaur that needs to be pulled down because it is too large for it's present number of students, could this be because the government don't like to spend money on maintaining schools by any chance? The government invented the situation of low population of Ginninderra High by cutting costs and making the place unattractive to potential students, and now they want to take it out on everyone else.

I do have to wonder how Ginninderra High even comes remotely near being old, based on the building style, it was probably built during the 70's or 80's, which is, compared to other schools in Canberra, fairly young. My primary school (Ainslie Primary) was built in 1927 and still works just fine. (To be more precise, the original building which is now being used as an arts centre was built in 1927 as a temporary home for the school until the "new" building was built, late 20's early 30's).

Of course the plans for the site after they pull down the existing school are even more bizarre. The government want to build a super school catering for students from kindergarten to year 10. Oh what fun and excitement!

Anybody who has been in a playground of a primary school or a high school would know that it isn't exactly bliss. In my experience, primary schools separate the junior kids from the senior kids due to size and maturity differences. High schools are often warzones at break times. So now we combine all of this, put it on a pretty small playing area, and hope for the best.

I'm sure the junior primary school kids will stay in their zone, I doubt that the senior primary school kids will stay in their zone, and I would bet that the high school kids will pose a danger to the junior primary school kids, not all of them, but you are always going to have the handful of difficult students.

Would you want every child aged 5-16 from the Belconnen area in your backyard? I didn't think so. So why do the government want to do the same thing in a slightly larger area? Good question, lets have a look.

One very large super school in an area means all the other schools get to close, meaning the government can sell off the land and make a pretty penny out of it while we sit back and see more high rise apartment blocks appearing where we used to have schools.

The other thing that needs to be taken into account here is the educational standards of a super school. Whilst the super school would have a high concentration of quality teachers, it would also have a very high concentration of students, and you can bet that the government will do all they can to cut costs, eg. Higher class sizes and less funding for new equipment. Shared resources would become an issue, for example, how many computer labs do you put in? How often will you upgrade them? What kind of gym facilities will there be? What about an assembly hall, it would surely be horrible getting every kid aged 5-16 in the Belconnen area into one room, it is hard enough to make it work when you have all the 5-12 year olds from two suburbs.

Then there is the psychological effects this will have.
One of the main working aspects of the transition from primary school to high school, and from high school to college, is the physical change of location. A different location with different rules and a different atmosphere makes it much easier to adapt. How do you suddenly expect 12 & 13 year olds to accept a massive change in how they operate if they are in the same place, with the same staff, and the same atmosphere? It is hardly easy to make them accept that "You are now in year seven and we expect this from you." It is much easier to say "Here at xyz High School things are different to your old primary school." And students will accept the latter much more easily than the former.

Of course, it isn't as if the government are giving us much choice here, they are pulling down Ginninderra High, end of story, but we can stop this new super school and have the money spent on our hospital waiting lists or improving our existing schools.

I really can't see why the government can't do what they have done with just about every other school in Canberra and have a "Renovation Program" which will bring it up to the government's constantly changing standards.

Basically, the government have made an unholy mess, and they are going to try and convince us that is looks good.

The education minister, Ms. Katy Gallagher (the loopy woman with a silent g), is having a baby (I pity him or her), and I can almost guarantee that she will be leaving town when it comes to the time where her child needs to be enrolled in a school. After all, she wouldn't want her child educated in her mess of an education system would she?

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-28T18:37:00.000+10:00

Today we have a special double image special of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
The first image sees Samuel using his somewhat futuristic (for the mid 1800s) gold digging truck.
The first Item on the left is the house cabin where Samuel lives when he is on the goldfields. The next item is the trailer that holds all the gold that is found and the other item picks up soil, analyzes and sorts it, drops the gold in the trailer and places the soil back on the ground.
If you look closely, the teacher has placed another tick in the bottom right orange square, which, just like yesterday, is suprising.

Why is it suprising? Well, lets take a look at part two of today's double image special.
This is the comment that year six teacher, Mrs. Brophy left on the page.
"You need to use some sentences to help make your entries make sense Samuel."
Maybe she just like the colours...
I suppose that in all fairness, the actual aim of the Gold Game was to make us write sustained pieces of writing on a particular topic, and whilst this didn't happen in my case (which is a good thing, we wouldn't have these lovely images if I had followed the task completely) I did still create some intriguing entries none-the-less.

The upshot of all this is that, starting tommorow, the pictures will have captions on them.

Clicking on the pictures will show larger versions, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Ray Hadley returns to the Footy Show

2005-07-28T16:32:00.000+10:00

With the extended absence of Paul Vautin due to an injury, Ray Hadley will make a return to Channel Nine's NRL Footy Show with a guest appearance.

It will be good to have somebody who knows what he is talking about on the Footy Show again, but in my opinion, they should scrap the existing Footy Show and replace it with a new version with the people from 2GB's Continuous Call Team. It would be much more entertaining and would actually have meaningful discussions about football for a change.

Samuel

The Samuel Salute

2005-07-27T22:29:00.000+10:00

NSW Premier Bob Carr announced his retirement from NSW politics today after a long and industrious career.

Mr. Carr has also announced that he has no plans to continue into federal politics.

I have always seen Bob Carr as being a sensible and level headed man, a man of integrity and morals, a gentleman and a leader, and a man of great intellect. New South Wales will be poorer without this great man as premier, and as much as I would like to think it will run smoothly without him, I very much doubt it. One of his ministers is likely to take over as premier, which will be interesting, and perhaps finally prove that City Rail isn't Mr. Carr's fault.

If Mr. Carr does stay out of Federal politics I think it will be a great loss. I would have liked to see him as Prime Minister one day, unfortunately it appears that will not be the case.

Regardless of what Bob Carr does, he has lead a very full, interesting, rewarding, challenging and hopefully enjoyable career and deserves to be able to choose his own terms of retirement. To survive as long as he has in politics and then to be able to make up your own mind about when to call it a day is an incredible achievement, and one that he definitely deserves.

The Honourable Bob Carr receives a very special award which is rarely presented.

Mr. Carr, you receive "The Samuel Salute".

Congratulations on your many fine achievements, and may your retirement be as fulfilling and rewarding as your incredible career has been.

Mr. Carr, well done.

Samuel

Tutorial: Creating Patchwork Art

2005-07-27T21:07:00.000+10:00

Last night I explained how Patchwork Art works, and said I should create a diagram, well, I have. Firstly a warning, this is a very long and colourful post, the blog continues if you scroll past it. This post renders with large gaps in Internet Explorer, use Firefox instead.

Step One: Drawing A Picture In Pen
This is possibly the most important step as it lays out the framework for the picture.

Step Two: Having A Colour Draw
This step places the colours in the order which you will use them. In my case it is a matter of randomising twelve colour pencils.
The order that the example Colour Draw produced is:
Light Green
Orange
Purple
Black
Yellow
Cream
Brown
Light Blue
Pink
Red
Dark Green
Dark Blue

Step Three: Drawing Vertical Lines
It is up to you how many lines there are and how you space them, I recommend having at least four vertical and four horizontal lines. It is preferable that they are not evenly spaced and that you have a different number of vertical and horizontal lines. The lines must be drawn in the Colour Draw order.

Step Four: Drawing Horizontal Lines
This continues the Colour Draw order of colours.

Step Five: Filling in the grid squares
Again we continue with the Colour Draw order of colours. Filling the grid squares (even though they aren't square) is done clockwise.

The black has intercepted a line of its own colour and is allowed to cross the line, this is called a spread.

The light blue has also intercepted a line of its own colour, and we have another spread.

Step Six: Colouring The Objects

Now it is time to colour in the objects. With larger objects such as tables you should follow steps Three, Four & Five on the objects, but with smaller objects, or in places where it doesn't seem appropriate, you may choose to draw a single colour or do some kind of pattern. Whatever you do, you must continue to follow the order of colours from the Colour Draw.

Once you have done that you will have a completed piece of Patchwork Art.

As per usual, clicking on the picture will show a larger version. These pictures are not on the Photo Gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-27T19:11:00.000+10:00

And now for today's episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
In this Episode you can see Samuel doing his shopping.

It was a requirement of the Gold Game that we spent half a day, once a week, shopping. In this picture it is quite clear that the pencil lines were drawn before they people were. If you look closely you can see the teacher has left a tick on the page, which is actually a bit suprising considering what happens in tommorow's double image special of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-26T18:21:00.000+10:00

In today's episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot, you can see Samuel writing or drawing in his diary.

It might be worthwhile explaining how the Patchwork Art actually works.

Basically, I had 12 colour pencils and a pen. Firstly I drew the objects with a pen, in this case it was the person, the chair, the table & the window. Then I had a "Colour Draw" where the colour the colour pencils were arranged in a random order, then I coloured in the background with the pencils in the order that they were drawn. Firstly I drew a set of vertical lines with the colour pencils and then a set of horizontal lines with the pencils. For this picture it appears that the colour draw was "Yellow, Light Blue, Cream, Dark Blue, Purple, Pink, Black, Red, Dark Green, Brown, Orange, Light Green" Then the resulting grid was filled in with the colours in a clockwise direction, if the line between the current grid square and the next grid square was the same colour as the one I was using then it got to "spread" into the next square. The objects were usually coloured in after this using the same method (The pencils were not reordered however) and in this case it would appear that I decided to make the window light blue.

I should probably make an animation of this system to make it a bit clearer.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Software Development Lifecycle

2005-07-26T01:11:00.000+10:00

This is from a person calling themselves "Fox_E_Mama" on the Mozilla website.

Open source calls it: alpha testing Microsoft calls it: 1.0 Google calls it: shhhh ... top secret Apple calls it: unsubstantiated rumors

Open source calls it: beta testing Microsoft calls it: 2.0 Google calls it: beta testing Apple calls it: rumors with possibly some substance to them.

Open source calls it: release candidate Microsoft calls it: 3.0 Google calls it: beta testing Apple calls it: copies are circulated to the usual suspects, who eagerly publish reviews describing it as the "most innovating product yet!".

Open source calls it: 1.0 Microsoft calls it: varies. Previous names have included 3.1, 95, 98, 4.0, 5.0 or X. Google calls it: beta testing Apple calls it: released to the market place, Steve Jobs goes on record to say that it is "insanely great".

Open source calls it: 2.0 Microsoft calls it: SP1,2,3... Google calls it: beta testing Apple calls it: a recall

Samuel

More Reasons I Like Firefox

2005-07-26T00:14:00.000+10:00

Well, apart from the obvious "It isn't written by the lunatic monkeys at Microsoft" reasons, there are a few other reasons I really like Firefox.

For one thing, it knows when it needs updating, and it makes it a simple "couple of clicks" process. Security problems are generally fixed within a few days of the Mozilla people becoming aware of them, which is much better than the monthly patch-o-rama from Microsoft. Internet Explorer doesn't seem to know much at all, let alone when it is out of date...and if you don't run Windows Update, there is a very good chance your copy of IE is out of date....of course if you don't use IE, then you don't have too much to worry about. Note that my version of Firefox isn't out of date, it just keeps the symbol there for a while after it is updated until it checks in with the update server again.

Tabs, well, there isn't much to say there other than the fact that they are great. They make life so much easier.

Feed Integration. Firefox makes it nice and easy to subscribe to feeds, and has one supplied with it, BBC World News headlines.

Extensions, this is ultimately the knockout feature of Firefox. Being open source and somewhat JavaScript based, it is fairly easy to create extensions for Firefox. There are a heap of extensions for Firefox designed to make Firefox easier for people to use. On my status bar you can see the Firefox Gmail Notifier, the Google Adsense Notifier, and a weather forecast thingy. Most, if not all of these extensions work on all distributions of Firefox, so cross-platform is nice and easy. Internet Explorer has extensions too, but most of them are bloatware/adware/spyware toolbars that don't do much.

Extensions aren't by any means limited to the statusbar though, Firefox has an extension that brings the Mozilla Suite's Chatzilla program to Firefox. Chatzilla is an incredibly good IRC client. It amazes me how much open source software relies on IRC for developer discussions and end user support. IRC is an open standard, but was something that most people had never heard of a few years back, now it is one of the first stops for open source info.

Could somebody remind me to never send "/list" to freenode ever again. I did it to help create that screenshot, but it ended up taking 5 minutes for it to get the entire list of 2655 channels....never again.

Of course, one of the complaints I have heard (and have had myself) is the lack of FTP functionality in Firefox. Of all the browsers, Internet Explorer has the most FTP functionality out-of-the-box as it has a Windows Explorer style FTP interface which works almost the same way as Windows Explorer, it lacks advanced features of most FTP clients, but it does a reasonable job (except for the freeze when it has trouble connecting).

Firefox has the standard "List the files and folders as hyperlinks" way of showing FTP connections, which is a bit of a standard approach, and is easier to look at when you want to download something, but it has absolutely no upload features, which makes things slightly painful. Firefox also has problems when a standard FTP login goes slightly astray, and trying it through a proxy is like banging your head on the wall in the hope it will turn into a pumpkin...it just isn't going to happen.

Naturally, somebody has come along and written a fantastic FTP Client extension for Firefox called FireFTP. FireFTP has all the features you would expect from a commercial FTP client, Local & Remote folder views, advanced file settings, ASCII & Binary transfer mode selection, and much more. And the best parts are that it is free, open source, and above all, as a Firefox extension, it is cross-platform. So you can take your favourite FTP client everywhere.

I did like the statement from somebody at Mozilla the other week along the lines of "We are expecting Firefox downloads to increase after the release of Internet Explorer 7". Whilst I agree with them, I would like to see that implemented elsewhere, Open Office downloads increasing whenever MS Office is released, Linux downloads increasing when Windows Vista (the new name for Longhorn) is released...you get my drift.

Samuel

Comment Spam In The Running For Golden Bull Award

2005-07-25T23:48:00.000+10:00

The recent comment spam has now officially been entered in the Plain English Campaign's Golden Bull Awards.

I received an email from Tony Maher, General Manager of the Plain English Campaign a few hours ago in which he wrote:
I will certainly enter this into our 'Golden Bull' awards for you.
Exactly what the author was trying to achieve is beyond me.

Well Tony, it is beyond me too!

Incidentally, I wrote the comment spammer an email in which I said:
For some strange reason, I almost find your comment amusing

He replied with:
Thanks Samuel...
Howdy
(His/Her Website which doesn't deserve a mention)
Please note: message attached

But there were no attatchments, so I suspect that this person is possibly from another planet, or at least trying to appear that way.

I regularly receive Plain English Campaign newsletters and follow their awards closely, so I will attempt to keep you informed.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-25T14:53:00.000+10:00

Today's episode of Samuel In Dolgnwot sees Samuel arriving in Dolgnwot on his horse who is saying "Neigh", Samuel is pleased to arrive as well, saying "Ah good".

Interestingly, this picture was actually the first picture drawn and was the original start of the series, however the pilot episode's plot was created and a picture needed to be drawn for it.

The origin of the name Dolgnwot is an interesting story. At the beginning of the "Gold Game" unit of work, the class was asked for suggestion for the name of the town, one of the suggestions was "Gold Town" backwards, which was taken as "Town Gold" and then the letters were reversed as well, but the teacher made a mistake that nobody realised and so "Dolgnwot" (aka, "Town Glod" backwards) became the name of the town in which the unit of work was to take place.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Schnappi hits 12

2005-07-25T00:48:00.000+10:00

Hooray, Schnappi is now 12 on the ARIA singles chart

I looked tonight as ARIA update the charts on Sunday nights, and I was very very pleasantly suprised.

Schnappi has been in the charts three times, originally at 20, then at 21, and now at 12...I am very pleased.

The Schnappi website can be seen at www.schnappi.tv and I have provided the Schnappi lyrics below.

Ich bin Schnappi das kleine Krokodil,
komm aus Ägypten das liegt direkt am Nil.
Zuerst lag ich in einem Ei,
dann schni schna schnappte ich mich frei.

schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi das kleine Krokodil,
hab scharfe Zähne und davon ganz schön viel.
Ich schnapp mir was ich schnappen kann,
ja schnapp zu weil ich das so gut kann.

schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi das kleine Krokodil,
ich schnappe gern das ist mein Lieblingsspiel.
Ich schleich mich an die Mama ran,
und zeig ihr wie ich schnappen kann!

schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

Ich bin Schnappi das kleine Krokodil,
und vom Schnappen da krieg ich nicht zuviel.
Ich beiss den Papi kurz ins Bein,
und dann, dann schlafe ich einfach ein.

schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp
schni schna schnappi schnappi schnappi schnapp

Samuel

100 Pictures On The Photo Gallery

2005-07-24T23:22:00.000+10:00

My photo gallery hit 100 images tonight after I placed the two Samuel In Dolgnwot images on it. The photo gallery continues to grow, and this milestone is quite an acheivment, especially considering that its main original purpose was hosting my photos from Linux.Conf.Au 2005

The first pictures on the photo gallery were of Nattie at the Canberra balloon fiesta in March, however the photo gallery was still in a trial period at that time. After a little while it became the official image repository for this blog as it automatically resizes pictures and gives them URLs without me having to think about it, and whilst blogger.com now has image uploading, the photo gallery still mirrors most of the images used here and often has more.

The photo gallery went into true production mode when Linux.Conf.Au 2005 came to town, becoming one of the most popular websites of the conference receiving 306 visits with 2357 page views. During this time it received 16748 hits, some of which were from images on this blog, which was one of the most popular blogs during Linux.Conf.Au 2005 and was used as a news source by The Register for Andrew Tridgell's bitkeeper demonstration.

Since this time the photo gallery has received numerous pictures covering things that Nattie has done, pictures I have drawn and numerous other things.

The photo gallery can be found at http://goggo.dyndns.org/gallery/

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

2005-07-24T22:52:00.000+10:00

The Samuel's Artwork series continues now with a series of pictures titled "Samuel In Dolgnwot".

Samuel In Dolgnwot was a series of pictures I drew in Year 6 (1999) during a unit of school work called "The Gold Game". As part of this we had to keep a diary, and rather than write my diary, I drew it, and this series is those drawings. The drawings mainly consist of my "patchwork art" which was my style at the time, I will explain the process I went through to create the images at a later date. I intend on running one episode per day, so stay tuned for the full series of Samuel In Dolgnwot.

The first picture was the cover of the book, and it is an artwork itself. While I was drawing these pictures I decided that it was a TV series, and as such, each picture is an episode. The episode you see here is the pilot episode where I leave home for the goldfields. Despite the fact that this is the first picture in the book, it was, in fact, the last picture drawn in the book. I made the plot for the pilot episode long before I drew the picture.

Anyway, the basic outline of the story is that I live in the forest of Canberra in the mid 1800's (Long before Canberra actually existed, and history shows that Canberra was not a forest, but for the purposes of Samuel In Dolgnwot it was) and my house is very futuristic for its time, containing most of the modern conveniences of 1999, however money is starting to become scarce and as such, I leave for the goldfields in order to make some extra money. In this particular episode, I am just about ready to leave when my mischevious housemates (various animals) hide my luggage and make me go on a mystery hunt through the house, following the clues they have left behind, to find my luggage. Eventually I find the luggage and head for the goldfields on my horse.

Clicking on the pictures will show larger versions, you can also find them on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Comment Spam

2005-07-24T18:23:00.000+10:00

There is a rather long piece of comment spam on the post below this one. It is weird and interesting, but just so you know, my blog does continue after it.

Samuel

Samuel's Musician Of The Week

2005-07-24T12:49:00.000+10:00

This week the award goes to Johnny Cash, and in particular, the song Ring Of Fire which I have fond memories of hearing when I was much younger (two or three years old I beleive).

Wikipedia has a very good biography of Johnny Cash at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash and the lyrics of Ring Of Fire are below.

Love is a burnin' thing,
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire --
I fell into a ring of fire.

I fell into a burnin' ring of fire --
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher,
And it burns, burn, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet.
I fell for you like a child --
Oh, but the fire ran wild.

I fell into a burnin' ring of fire --
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher,
And it burns, burn, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

I fell into a burnin' ring of fire --
I went down, down, down,
And the flames went higher,
And it burns, burn, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

The ring of fire (and Fade)

Samuel

Stargate Atlantis: Brotherhood to be replayed

2005-07-24T12:46:00.000+10:00

Good news, Seven have seen common sense and will be replaying the episode of Stargate Atlantis they cut off last week at the usual time on Thursday.

Well done Seven, and thankyou for considering those of us who watch late night sci-fi.

I hear there were a number of angry phone calls to Seven after the debacle they created, so maybe this had something to do with the decision...regardless, Seven have made the right decision. Thankyou Seven.

Samuel

Schnappi 21 On The ARIA Charts

2005-07-23T22:49:00.000+10:00

I am pleased to be able to announce that Schnappi The Little Crocodile (Schnappi Das Kleine Krokodil) is currently 21 on the ARIA singles chart. Who would have ever thought that Schnappi would be in the charts. He was number one on the German charts for a while apparently, and John Laws did take quite a liking to him, and played him many times each morning for a while, maybe that it is why he is in the charts.

I guess the upshot of this is that all those TV & Radio chart countdown shows have to play Schnappi, which is a good thing. And if you are wondering, Sanity are selling the single for $AUD4.99, which includes the remixes and the video clip.

I think it is time for a picture of Schnappi

Samuel

Stargate Atlantis, now featuring Seven News

2005-07-23T22:38:00.000+10:00

It has taken me a few days to calm down to a point where I can make a reasonable post about this, so here goes.
As you would probably be aware, there was another series of bombings in London the other day, luckyily these didn't explode properly and didn't cause much damage. Anyway, this happened on Thursday night Canberra time, during Stargate Atlantis, and as such, Channel 7 had to interupt Stargate for a news update. I have no problem with that, I just have a problem with the way they did it, there was no warning whatsoever that this was a news bulletin, instead this is what happened.
Stargate was running as per usual, the show was at a fairly tense point and there was an ad break, so far so good, but then the ad break ended and I found myself staring at a Sky News feed with no explanation or warning. It took about two or three minutes before Sky actually explained this rather cryptic series of pictures and until that time, it felt like Seven had hit the wrong button.

It is something you see all the time on TV, somebody hits the wrong button and you are watching a movie screening in Adelaide for a few seconds. Usually these problems are fixed quickly.

I understand that at 11pm Channel Seven aren't likely to have somebody in the newsroom, but I would have at the very least expected a "Seven News Update" intro or a message on the screen saying "Breaking News In London" or something like that. If Seven had done that, people would have known what was happening and wouldn't have been confused, and I wouldn't have been annoyed.

I'll repeat, I have no issue with Seven interupting shows for important news stories, I think it is important, but I would like to see them develop a method which doesn't confuse viewers or look like a mistake.

Samuel

People make money from ads?

2005-07-18T23:46:00.000+10:00

I got a rather nasty shock today when I read a story about a blogger who makes $10000-$20000 per month from google ads on his blog. I have been trying to convince myself that it simply isn't possible to make money from blogs, my ads have netted me a grand total of $0.98 in a month and a half....some people are just plain lucky I guess.

Samuel

Educated web users give Firefox a boost

2005-07-18T23:27:00.000+10:00

I'm pleased to be able to announce that Mozilla Firefox had another increase in users during June.

It seems that the educated group of web surfers has increased to 8.71%, up from 8.00% in May. Microsoft's poor excuse for a browser dropped from 87.23% in May to 86.56 in June.

That means that Firefox is up 0.71% and Internet Explorer is down 0.67%, which probably means that it isn't just IE users switching to Firefox, but users of other browsers (Mozilla Suite, Netscape, Opera, etc) as well.

Since the start of Webstat monitoring for this blog, we have recorded:
Mozilla Firefox 56.42%
Internet Explorer 42.23%
Apple Safari 0.68%
Netscape 0.68%

At the end of each month I will bring you Webstat reports for the month, but if you can't wait, you can always view the stats by clicking on the link on the right hand side of the page.

Samuel

Samuel's Artwork

2005-07-18T23:19:00.000+10:00

I'll kick off this new feature by reposting an image you have seen before (saves me digging through files!).

This is a picture of me holding a cup of coffee in a room where Schnappi the little crocodile is singing (Prior to me coming to the realisation that there is a "c" in Schnappi).
Also in this room is a clock chiming at 10am, a radio and photos of Telstra Tower, Parliament House, my house and Nattie.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

More of Samuel's Artwork coming soon.

Samuel

Museum of Particularly Bad Art

2005-07-18T23:00:00.000+10:00

2CC's Mike Welsh had an interview with someone from the Museum of Particularly Bad Art about their Itchyball Prize, which seemed so interesting that I thought I would mention it.

Basically, all you have to do is send them your bad artwork and the one they judge as the worst wins $2000. I have plenty of pictures I have drawn over the years that I could enter, but they require the original, and I don't like to part with my art.

None the less, it is rather interesting and the end result should also be interesting.

I doubt that I will submit any of my artwork, but I might run a series of "Samuel's Art" specials right here on my blog.

Samuel

Romeo & Juliet in the nude

2005-07-18T20:17:00.000+10:00

The Canberra Theatre Centre and Hutchison Entertainment (advertising at 7:30pm on Prime TV) are bringing Romeo & Juliet to Canberra...but there is an interesting twist to this version....I'll let the Canberra Theatre Company say it: "featuring the most captivating and sensual nude scenes ever presented on a ballet stage."

It must be the night of the nudists because SBS World News had some "lots of naked people running" thing as their top story, and then had an encore performance at the end of the news while they filled the remaining 30 seconds or so. I suppose that it is SBS, and nudity is no stranger to SBS, but Prime running an ad for nudity at 7:30?

The Canberra Theatre Company have some interesting seating arrangements for this nude play
Babies under 3 years of age can sit on their parent's lap
FULL PRICE $79.90
PENSION - AGED / INVALID $69.90
GROUPS 10+ $69.90
SECONDARY STUDENT $69.90

I would have expected this to be in Fyshwick or Mitchell, but alas, it isn't....not that it matters.

Samuel

Samuel's Musician Of The Week

2005-07-17T20:30:00.000+10:00

Not a plural this week, instead we have Glen Campbell, probably best known for this song

Rhinestone Cowboy
I've been walking these streets so long
Singing the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle is the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
There's been a load of compromising
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me
*Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star spangled rodeo
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don't even know
And offers coming over the phone
Well I really don't mind the rain
And a smile can hide all the pain
But you're down when you're riding a train
That's taking the long way
And I dream of the thing I'll do
With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe
There's been a load of compromising
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me

Samuel

A picture of the Ubuntu CDs

2005-07-16T20:31:00.000+10:00

As you may recall from a previous post, I recently received a parcel containing 10 sets of Ubuntu Linux CDs from switzerland. Here is a picture

Samuel

Almost...

2005-07-15T20:26:00.000+10:00

My sources for recent post Lawsie Returns were almost correct.

He actually returns to work two days before they thought, so he will actually be returning to the airwaves on Monday July 25, which is two weeks before his 70th birthday, which will be on Monday August 8.

Samuel

Canberra a well planned city?

2005-07-15T00:31:00.000+10:00

It is said that Canberra is a well planned city, this may be the case, but it does appear to have gone downhill lately.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking Nattie for a walkies to the GPO in Civic and then for an extended walk home which went up city hill and back through Glebe Park.

Allow me to inform you of the three places along the walk that annoyed me to some extent.

Firstly, we have one of the latest monstrosities to be built in Canberra.

Whatever happened to sensible buildings, why do they all have to have these bizarre "artworks" in front or on top of them. That weird metal structure doesn't help the building stand up (although if it does then I hope I never have to go inside), it probably increased the cost of the building by some largish amount, and ultimately it looks completely and utterly ridiculous.....I guess it is in line with the exceptional ability some people have for designing and building the most ugly apartment buildings, but it is turning this beautiful garden city of ours into an eye-sore. If you want to see this strange structure for yourself, it is on the corner Bullumbir Street and Petrie Street, Civic.

The second piece of "well thought out" nonsense is up on City Hill. If you travel between Nourthbourne Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue in a southbound direction then you have probably seen this and don't even notice. That carpark on the left hand side of Vernon Circle southbound is a good little stop off point for tourists who want to see the lovely part of Canberra (and the scenic views) that comprise city hill. Unfortunately, the spot directly opposite the carpark (assuming you can cross the road without being run over) where tourists would be likely to embark on the stroll up city hill is a mini cliff, which effectively makes tourists (and others) have a large stretch of the legs, or walk along the edge of the busy road around to Nourthbourne Avenue where such obstacles don't exist. Why wasn't this area brought down to road level like the rest of City Hill?
Needless to say, Queen Dog-Dog Nattie the First was not impressed about this mini cliff.

This was unfortunately, the last photo I was able to take before the batteries died, so you will have to see the other bit of urban planning for yourself.

The third strange thing was in Glebe Park in the location where the playground equipment used to be (many moons ago). I am aware that this "artwork" has been in this particular location for many a year, but it is part of the very annoying habit the ACT Government have of putting Valuable Public Monstrosities in all locations that seem semi-vacant. Whilst they will be happy to inform you that it is "artwork", I can assure you that these eye-sores are diverting precious funding from our hospitals and schools. About the only thing these VPMs are good for are canine liquid byproducts....Something Nattie would be proud to attest to. She is, after all, the "Twilight Dog" (Twilight being the name of a VPB that glows on Ainslie Avenue at taxpayer expense.)

Samuel

Cricket: Channel Seven Vs Channel Nine

2005-07-15T00:30:00.000+10:00

Well, the One Day Internationals are over, and so is the Channel 7 coverage of cricket. Technically they didn't cover any of it as they just sourced the cricket from Sky Sport and placed a bunch of people in a studio to make generic comments and announce that "South Australia are going to the news now."

I must say that overall I was very pleased with the Channel 7/Sky Sport coverage of the cricket, the commentators were good, they knew what they were talking about and seemed interested in the game, which is more than can be said for the commentators over at Nine.

The Channel 9 commentators are a bunch of boring biddies. They sit there and tell you the same old stories year in year out. Tony Greig and Bill Lawry have the same old arguments year in year out. Heck, if it wasn't for the fact they occasionally talk about the current game I would think it was a recording. Naturally they spend most of their time in broken record mode. Almost every catch is "the catch of the season", and Bill Lawry insists on screaming "Got him...Yeah!" after every single wicket.

Regular readers of The Chronicle in Canberra would probably know that local media personality Rod Quinn said similar things about the channel 9 cricket coverage in his column in the late 90's. Unfortunately, things haven't changed in this time, there are a couple "new" faces, and Ritchie Benaud doesn't host on his own any more, but ultimately the same old formula wins out each and every year.

Channel 9 also have a fetish for providing you with a lot of ads, not just between overs, but between balls. They are constantly trying to flog $500 (plus postage and handling) pieces of junk. Most of these items are bizarre line drawings with bits of paint splattered on them that, according to the channel 9 personalities at least, are "fantastic artworks depicting (insert semi-famous non-event here) by renowned artist (name of somebody nobody has ever heard of) , exclusive to the channel 9 cricket shop."

A typical rundown of one of these ad break overs would be as follows:
Return from ad break
Commentator "Good delivery and a dot ball...Now here we have some artwork (blah blah blah blah blah)"
Commentator announces that the batsman got a half century and continues with advertising
"and it is by renowned artist......And it can be yours for only $599 plus postage and handling without a frame, or $699 plus postage and handling with a frame"
Commentator announces third ball of the over and reads the score
"It is a limited edition of 500, all are personally signed and numbered, call 1900 xyz xyz now for your copy of this limited edition, but hurry as they will sell fast"
Commentator announces fourth ball of the over and declares that it was a "swing and a miss".
"You can also buy this fantastic artwork by (name) on our website (Veeeeery long URL) or visit (domain name) and click on about 20 links"
"Oh, that was a good delivery...(score)"
The commentator then recaps the important details of the picture or whatever other item they are trying to flog, announces the score at the end of the over and goes to an ad break.

It is worth noting that on most occasions, the item which was supposed to sell quickly is usually on offer again the next week with most of the limited edition still for sale.

Channel 9 also manage to ensure that any trivial event (usually a missed catch) is replayed and talked about ad nauseum for the next hour. It usually takes a couple overs for the current commentators to get over it, and then when the next batch of commentaors arrive, they have to talk about it......the bloke dropped the ball and wasn't really going to catch it anyway, get over it!

Channel 7 haven't stooped to such levels, their commentators haven't managed to jinx every potential catch with the channel 9 line "Oh he can't possibly drop this one, he is the safest catch on the field and.......OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH NOOOOOO, he dropped it, how did he manage that?"

In fact, it comes as no surprise to me that Sky Sport (who I believe cover cricket for most of the year) have a commentary team who are capable of covering the game, after all, these commentators do it all year, not just for a few weeks during the summer. I would personally be in favour of Sky Sport covering the Australian cricket season and selling free-to-air rights to one of the local stations.

I must, however, point out the two things that disappointed me about the Channel 7 coverage. My first minor complaint is that, due to cricket occurring on Thursday nights, it took the place of Stargate Atlantis, not to worry though, I got my dose tonight. My second, and much more potent complaint is Tony Squires. It has got me beat as to why Channel 7 hired the idiot in the first place, he is a pure, plain and simple pain in the neck who thinks he is funny. I can only assume that Bruce McAvaney was on holiday or didn't want to be awake past midnight or something like that as he is truly the best sport commentator that Channel 7 have.

On that note, I hope that the AFL have learned their lesson, Channel 9 love NRL and have extended their contract, and in the process extended the number of games they will cover. Whilst I have no problems with more NRL on free-to-air TV, I do have problems with Channel 9 slotting in the AFL after two Friday night NRL games. Channel 10 have managed to uphold a sense of decency with the Saturday AFL coverage, but ultimately, nobody comes close to the professionalism and excellence of the Channel 7 AFL coverage. Lets just hope that the AFL don't just blindly grab the highest bidder for the AFL TV rights, because if they do it will most likely end up in the hands of Channel 9 and Foxtel, whilst the new (and somewhat unofficially announced) partnership of channels 10 & 7 get left dangling a smaller wad of cash with better coverage.

It is no secret that since Channel 9 took over the AFL TV rights, AFL ratings and support in New South Wales have dwindled, this is because it receives no exposure on Friday night, very few people want to wait until midnight to watch a game of AFL, especially when it isn't their favourite sport. Channel 10 have suffered as well, they have been trying to promote Saturday night AFL, but without the weeknight exposure, the Saturday night coverage has been a ratings disaster, which in turn makes Channel 10 less likely to run it at a decent time of the night because low rating programs don't rake in advertising dollars.

Give the Channel 7 & 10 partnership the rights to the AFL and the game will flourish again. And thankyou to 2GB and 3AW respectively for providing such fantastic radio coverage of these sports...It wouldn't be the same without you.

I look forward to more Sky Sport coverage of cricket (this time it is The Ashes tests) through SBS in the coming weeks. I wonder how Les Murray will go at cricket discussion, he is very knowledgable about most sports, so he should be fine....bring it on!

Samuel

My Ubuntu CDs arrived

2005-07-14T21:13:00.000+10:00

Ubuntu Linux are nice people, they ship Ubuntu CDs all over the world for free, it does take a little while for them to arrive, but my pack of 10 arrived today. I was certainly suprised to recieve a parcel from Switzerland....I'm almost certain that I don't know anybody in Switzerland....none the less, a big cheerio to all the swiss people out there!

Samuel

Lawsie Returns

2005-07-14T21:11:00.000+10:00

My sources are informing me that John Laws will take the golden microphone out of its case, give it a light dusting and then make good use of it for a return to the airwaves on Wednesday July 27.

If my sources are correct then this is good news.

Samuel

Linux.conf.au 2006 - Call For Papers

2005-07-12T23:57:00.000+10:00

I received this notice today, and I think it is a good way to use the mail-to-blogger feature...enjoy

Oh, and just in case any script kiddies want to try and post on my blog with the mail-to-blogger feature, I only turn it on when I need it!

Samuel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Jul 12, 2005 9:34 PM
Subject: [lca-announce] linux.conf.au 2006 - Call For Papers
To:
Cc:

2006 - Dunedin, NZ!

linux.conf.au is the annual Australian Linux technical conference, and is
one of the largest gatherings of users and developers of Free and Open
Source Software in the Southern Hemisphere. It is an opportunity for
developers and groups to present their ideas amongst peers, and for the Free
Software and Open Source communities to gather in general.

Summary:
Call for papers is now open!
http://lca2006.linux.org.au/cfp.php

The 2006 conference is being held in Dunedin, New Zealand, at The University
of Otago[1]. More information can be found on the conference website:

http://lca2006.linux.org.au/

Call for papers:

The organisers of linux.conf.au 2006 would like to invite you to
submit a paper for presentation at one of the world's leading Linux
community conferences.

Most presentations will be of a technical nature, but those covering
legal, educational, organisational, community or similar aspects of
open source software will also be welcome. Promotional presentations,
commercial advertisements, sales pitches and their like are not
appropriate for this conference.

Papers on the following topics are encouraged:

* The Linux kernel, filesystems and networking
* Databases and storage
* Programming languages and tools
* Linux on the desktop: productivity, groupware and GUIs
* Multimedia, audio, video, music and games
* Security
* Linux deployments, practical experience and war stories
* Linux on unusual platforms: embedded systems, virtual systems,
handhelds and very large systems
* Distributions, management and standardization
* Other open source projects

We are open to a broader range of topics as well, even non-Linux based
projects. So, submit it to us anyway! Please note however, that all
presentations must be based on 'open source' software and projects.

We have two (very different) main presentation formats: 120+ minute
interactive tutorials and 50 minute seminars. You may also wish to
participate in a miniconf, lightning talk, BOF session, or present a
poster.

** Submission Guidelines

Abstracts are required for paper, tutorial and work in progress
presentations. Abstracts should be up to 400 words and be submitted
to the Paper Review Committee via the web page:

http://lca2006.linux.org.au/cfp/

Submission requires pre-registration as an Author, providing the
following information:

* Author's full name (and preferred handle, if any)
* Author's complete email address
* Author's affiliation with commercial or relevant organisations
* Author's postal address
* Author's telephone and/or mobile numbers, with area and country codes.
* Author's short biography, in around 1 - 3 paragraphs.
* Whether travel and accommodation assistance will be required

Abstracts and biographies should be submitted as plain text. The final
paper should be submitted in an appropriate open format, such as 7-bit
ASCII text, HTML, DocBook or LaTeX.

Any featured software in papers must be available under a licence
compatible with the Open Source Definition[2]. Any papers that are
accompanied by non-disclosure agreement forms will be rejected. All
successful papers must be eligible for republication on-line and on
distribution media given to conference attendees. linux.conf.au
requires publication rights to accepted papers, including the
publication of the audio proceedings as well as publication and
reproduction rights to any video filmed during the presentations.
These rights are non-exclusive. Copyright ownership is retained by
the author. Submitting an abstract indicates understanding of and
consent to these conditions.

In the event that you miss one of the deadlines we reserve the right
to revoke any offer to present your paper. We take having the paper
for the conference proceedings very seriously and late submissions
place an undue burden on our formatting team.

** Travel and Accommodation Assistance

Some financial assistance is available for speakers' travel and
accommodation in cases of need. Please indicate in the appropriate
place during registration as an Author if this is the case.
Financial assistance may be withheld if final complete submissions
aren't received by the date specified above.

Dates to Remember:

* CFP Opens: Tuesday July 12, 2005
* Abstracts Due: Tuesday September 5, 2005
* Notifications by Review Committee begin: Wednesday September 20, 2005
* Final Complete Submissions Due: Friday December 1, 2005
* Conference begins: Monday January 23, 2006

Please feel free to forward this announcement to your local LUG, or any
other person or group that would be interested!

[1]: http://www.otago.ac.nz/
[2]: http://www.opensource.org/osd.html

Regards,

linux.conf.au 2006 Organisers

_______________________________________________
lca-announce mailing list

http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/lca-announce

Samuel's Musicians Of The Week

2005-07-10T21:43:00.000+10:00

And the winner is........The Black Sorrows

Samuel

Linux.Conf.Au 2006

2005-07-09T20:17:00.000+10:00

Well, as you may know (and probably do if you read my blog during LCA2005) Linux.Conf.Au 2006 will be held in Dunedin, New Zealand. Seems slightly odd to me to have the Australian Linux conference across the Tasman, bu so be it.

Anyway, they now have their website up and running, and it looks like the Call For Papers will be opening very very shortly, and when it does, I'll be putting in my submissions. I have a few interesting topics in mind, any of which could be (and hopefully will be) accepted by the organisers. I will admit that I have an ulterior motive for submitting papers, I have no real chance of being able to make it to Dunedin for LCA2006 so I am hoping that they will accept one of my papers and provide me with some assistance in getting to the Conference. I can pay for some of the journey, but I don't think I could pay for all of it.

Samuel

2297?

2005-07-08T21:59:00.000+10:00

I got my new ACTION School Term bus ticket yesterday, which will be used for term three.
If the ACTION School Term bus tickets' serial numbers are issued & printed in order then my new term ticket is the 2297th term ticket issued since the last one I got.

By now you probably think I am completely out of my mind, why do I care and why did I bother to check?...well, I'm glad you asked!

I was sitting down in the lounge room and noticed that my new term ticket was on the seat next to me, as was my St. George Bank card holder (which holds my bus ticket), and so I thought that it would be a good time to take out the old one and put in the new one. At that stage I noticed a similarity, the serial number both started the same way and seemed to have a lot of numbers in common (I gathered that from a quick glance at them near each other), this made me think "How similar are these numbers?" and so I checked.

The old ticket has serial number 05 -270704- 02522
The new ticket has serial number 05 -270704- 04819 which make my new ticket the 2297th ACTION Term Ticket issued since my last ticket.

ACTION School Term bus tickets sell for $55 which means that ACTION have made $126,335 in term tickets sales since my last term ticket.

Now, my new ticket goes into my card holder, and my old ticket goes into my bus ticket collection. (It is a bigish collection, it contains most of my bus tickets from the last 5-10 years.) Actually, to be more precise, the collection has a main pile of credit card size reusable* bus tickets, and a seperate collection of small paper single ride only tickets.

*Reusable tickets are only reusable as per the terms of purchase

Samuel

London Bombings

2005-07-08T18:50:00.000+10:00

I wish to send my condolences to all who have suffered as a result of the despicable acts of mass murder that occurred in London. The first I heard of it was at the end of 7 News (around 6:30pm Local Time) which was about half an hour after the event. It sounded big, but I didn't grasp the event until later on in the evening when the various TV & Radio station canceled normal programming to take the coverage of the event.

I wish all the people well that were affected by the London Bombings, and hope that such events don't happen again, although that is probably just wishful thinking.

Samuel

Blog News

2005-07-08T18:48:00.000+10:00

As you may have noticed, some of the images and links from here haven't been working over the last 48 hours. This has been due to some minor physical relocation of the goggo.dyndns.org server which hosts my photo gallery amongst other things. The relocation has been completed and that server is now back online.

Samuel

Samuel's Musicians Of The Week

2005-07-06T00:49:00.000+10:00

This week (backdated to Sunday) the award goes to................The Beatles.

And my current favourite song from them:
It was twenty years ago today,
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play,
they've been going in and out of style,
but they're guaranteed to raise the smile.
So may I introduce to you,
the act you've known for all these years,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
we hope you will enjoy the show,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
sit back and let the evening go,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It's wonderful to be here,
it's certainly a thrill,
you're such a lovely audience,
we'd like to take you home with us, we'd love to take you home.

I don't really want to stop the show,
but I thought you might like to know,
that the singer's going to sing a song
and he wants you all to sing along.
So let me introduce to you,
the one and only Billy Shears,
and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

(reprise)

We're Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
we hope you have enjoyed the show,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
we're sorry, but it's time to go.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Sergeant Pepper's Lonely.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
we'd like to thank you once again.
Sergeant Pepper's one and only Lonely Hearts Club Band,
it's getting very near the end.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely,
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Samuel

Of all the stupid thing people do

2005-07-06T00:42:00.000+10:00

There were plenty of instances of stupidity in the last 24 hours, but one in particular takes the cake. Near where I live there is a large communal rubbish hopper, somebody in their infinite wisdom decided that the best orientation for this was on it's back. How they managed this I will never know, what I do know however is that the hopper was more or less full at the time and as such has now left a rather unholy mess.
I was going to take a photo or two of it, but before I had the chance the rubbish truck company (I think it is Cleanaway) came and returned the bin to a more natural orientation. They did however omit to clean up the mess and move the bin back a metre to it's normal location.
The bin is now roughly a metre forward of it's usual undercover location (bin now subject to rainfill) and has an incredible mess behind it.
I must remember to take the digital camera out to photograph this absurd mess tommorow (erm, today)...stay tuned for the photos.

Samuel

Hehe Another IE Exploit

2005-07-05T00:27:00.000+10:00

I know I'm constantly taking swipes at Internet Explorer, but it's fun.

The latest IE flaw can allow an attacker to take over control of your computer, the funny thing is that Microsoft have decided that the best short term approach to the problem is to set security zone settings to high, effectively making a lot of websites impossible to use....hmmmmm, I think the better solution is

It's not all bad news for Microsoft though, Bill Gates has acknowledged that internet security is Microsoft's greatest challenge, which I think is at least a step forward. I think that the next thing they should try is acknowledging that IE is insecure trash and work out ways to make Firefox work with Windows Update. Over time, making Windows Update work the way Firefox wants it to would be a good move, but in the short term we need to get all those IE centric sites working in Firefox, which really means altering Firefox. Perhaps take a Netscape approach and have the IE engine available inside Firefox, maybe even have it automatically switch over to the IE engine for IE centric sites, there are some security issues with that, and that is why it would be a temporary measure until Firefox understands IE sites or IE sites and redesigned with Firefox in mind.

Perhaps I am just being far too optimistic, but I would like to think not.

Samuel

I Haven't Vanished

2005-07-03T23:12:00.000+10:00

You could be forgiven for thinking I have disappeared off the face of the earth. Luckily, that hasn't happened, instead I spent most of last week in Mitchell "The garden suburb of the North" on work experience, and due to a non-disclosure agreement I am unable to say much about it.

I'll have a think about what I can and can't say before I say anything.

Samuel's Blog will return to normal shortly (tonight or tommorow), so stay tuned.

Samuel

Samuel's Musicians Of The Week

2005-06-26T17:49:00.000+10:00

The award this week almost went to the Wayfarers (who are under album name "The Australian Collection), but they got beaten right on the finish line by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Samuel

Blogger.com finally has image uploading

2005-06-26T17:44:00.000+10:00

Yay, I don't have to upload images to my photo gallery before putting them on my blog.

I felt like using the new feature to add the picture to the left of screen.

And it automatically sizes it nicely, I like this.

Samuel