GelatiGate... Much ado about doo doo.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
The Balltower Has No Bells?
So on Sunday the Swan Belltower aka Richard Court's big green erection rang 29 times in a row somewhere in the middle of the hour rather than at the appropriate start/end. How do I know? T. and I were sat in a car at the lights as this happened. This is the first thing I've written about that incident because at the time I hardly noticed it. Trish did, because she picks things like that up. "25," she said, "26, 27, 28, 29..." at which stage the lights had changed and we were rolling again. The bell may have pealed more but we were out of there.
I've also NEVER seen anything for the Swan Bells or the Belltower appear in Google Ads - and yet, when I opened Gmail, the sponsored link was this. Talk about spookily synchronous... And spookily asnychronous too, because our daylight saving time (another Richard Court favourite) kicked in at 2AM Sunday morning and I have no doubt it bollixed the bell recordings.
And - I know, people have chipped me about this before, but come on... Has anyone actually seen any bells in the belltower? I had a short discussion online with someone who claimed to have worked at the Belltower and they swore that the tower really has bells, not just a big loud recorded carillion. But I've never seen anything that would even vaguely resemble a doorbell as I drive past it, so I prefer to think that just like Dick Caught, this erection has no bells...
(For non-Western Aussies, the Belltower was commissioned by a second generation premier of the state (Charles Court is Richard Court's father) as some kind of shot at a lasting memorial, I guess. The trouble is that it is ugly, expensive, a blot on the riverscape, and it was the butt of many jokes, some not really repeatable. Follow the thread of thought I've established, and run with it. You'll get the idea... )
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I've also NEVER seen anything for the Swan Bells or the Belltower appear in Google Ads - and yet, when I opened Gmail, the sponsored link was this. Talk about spookily synchronous... And spookily asnychronous too, because our daylight saving time (another Richard Court favourite) kicked in at 2AM Sunday morning and I have no doubt it bollixed the bell recordings.
And - I know, people have chipped me about this before, but come on... Has anyone actually seen any bells in the belltower? I had a short discussion online with someone who claimed to have worked at the Belltower and they swore that the tower really has bells, not just a big loud recorded carillion. But I've never seen anything that would even vaguely resemble a doorbell as I drive past it, so I prefer to think that just like Dick Caught, this erection has no bells...
(For non-Western Aussies, the Belltower was commissioned by a second generation premier of the state (Charles Court is Richard Court's father) as some kind of shot at a lasting memorial, I guess. The trouble is that it is ugly, expensive, a blot on the riverscape, and it was the butt of many jokes, some not really repeatable. Follow the thread of thought I've established, and run with it. You'll get the idea... )
Friday, 24 October 2008
Failed War On Drugs?
It seems that drug use is increasing by 12% per year. The video states that they think that legalising marijuana would prevent young people getting into harder drugs. In other words, marijuana is the gateway drug. This is probably true, but let's run with this for a moment...
Say dope is legalised. So anyone over a certain age can have access to it legally, across the counter. Haven't they heard of tobacco? It's a drug too, a legal poison, and it's available to "anyone over a certain age" as well. But it's not stopping children as young as five from walking around their homes with a cigarette, and not stopping primary school students smoking behind the bike shed. How did they get tobacco? Same way they'll get choof if it's "legalised."
Whatever way they can. As also happens with alcohol and every other drug known to mankind. Can you see how, in a society where those same kids can buy sixteen different kinds of street drugs, the "gateway" drug will just be one of those others? If governments were really serious about the drug problem, they'd have a death penalty for supplying harmful drugs, and several tobacco and alcohol cartels would already have been put to death.
But if you "legalise" marijuana, there's another source of revenue and excises.... Do the maths people. The only way to stop bad things like tobacco, alcohol, drugs, petrol and fossil fuels - is to take personal responsibility, take a stand, and say no...
Say dope is legalised. So anyone over a certain age can have access to it legally, across the counter. Haven't they heard of tobacco? It's a drug too, a legal poison, and it's available to "anyone over a certain age" as well. But it's not stopping children as young as five from walking around their homes with a cigarette, and not stopping primary school students smoking behind the bike shed. How did they get tobacco? Same way they'll get choof if it's "legalised."
Whatever way they can. As also happens with alcohol and every other drug known to mankind. Can you see how, in a society where those same kids can buy sixteen different kinds of street drugs, the "gateway" drug will just be one of those others? If governments were really serious about the drug problem, they'd have a death penalty for supplying harmful drugs, and several tobacco and alcohol cartels would already have been put to death.
But if you "legalise" marijuana, there's another source of revenue and excises.... Do the maths people. The only way to stop bad things like tobacco, alcohol, drugs, petrol and fossil fuels - is to take personal responsibility, take a stand, and say no...
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Location, Location, Lights, Camera!
What colour are your dreams? Apparently if you dream in black and white you're likely to be in a specific age group that was exposed to B&W TV and film programs a lot. The fact is that either side of the B&W film and TV era, most people dreamed in colour. It kind of makes sense, too.
Before the advent of B&W, the only monochrome experience people were likely to have was the odd charcoal or pencil sketch - and they hardly have much impact, generally. And afterwards, TV and films were in colour. Actually, I can kind of prove it. The people who were in their formative years in that era, were people as young as my age, and upward. Luckily for me, there was a brief encounter with B&W TV in the early Sixties when I was still quite young, then I had no access to TV again until I was about 13 - 14. (Because we lived in rural Australia in the late 60's and early 70's when TV coverage was still mainly confined to cities. My parents didn't remove TV privileges, they removed us from the TV...)
And my dreams are in glorious colour. I'm sure had I been exposed to mono telly and films I would also be having drab dreams.
Which leads to a bit of an understanding of how environment affects and shapes us: Suppose you lived in a drab place with little colour other than the greys whites and blacks of permafrost - you're 25% likely to have monochrome dreams. Actually - since B&W TV would only have taken a few hours a day of your life while living in permafrost is - permanent - I'd say you would find that people in such environments are 50% or more likely to dream in monochrome.
These people were the drivers of technology and modern life. They had to be, because the land was inhospitable. And maybe it's easier to think logically in B&W. Whatever - I've just noticed and drawn your attention to what may well be an important correlation: People who lie in drab colourless environments invent things. And people who live in wonderfully friendly environments with a riot of colours (think jungles and tropics) were more content to adapt to life rather than adapt life to them.
Who knows if that's true, it certainly makes sense and explains the wide spread of stages of technological development of the different races. All it took was location...
Before the advent of B&W, the only monochrome experience people were likely to have was the odd charcoal or pencil sketch - and they hardly have much impact, generally. And afterwards, TV and films were in colour. Actually, I can kind of prove it. The people who were in their formative years in that era, were people as young as my age, and upward. Luckily for me, there was a brief encounter with B&W TV in the early Sixties when I was still quite young, then I had no access to TV again until I was about 13 - 14. (Because we lived in rural Australia in the late 60's and early 70's when TV coverage was still mainly confined to cities. My parents didn't remove TV privileges, they removed us from the TV...)
And my dreams are in glorious colour. I'm sure had I been exposed to mono telly and films I would also be having drab dreams.
Which leads to a bit of an understanding of how environment affects and shapes us: Suppose you lived in a drab place with little colour other than the greys whites and blacks of permafrost - you're 25% likely to have monochrome dreams. Actually - since B&W TV would only have taken a few hours a day of your life while living in permafrost is - permanent - I'd say you would find that people in such environments are 50% or more likely to dream in monochrome.
These people were the drivers of technology and modern life. They had to be, because the land was inhospitable. And maybe it's easier to think logically in B&W. Whatever - I've just noticed and drawn your attention to what may well be an important correlation: People who lie in drab colourless environments invent things. And people who live in wonderfully friendly environments with a riot of colours (think jungles and tropics) were more content to adapt to life rather than adapt life to them.
Who knows if that's true, it certainly makes sense and explains the wide spread of stages of technological development of the different races. All it took was location...
Friday, 17 October 2008
Can haz gremlin?
My first boss was a great one for "gremlins." Way before the movie came out, a gremlin was a mischievous imp that caused things to fail. Dave and I worked on B&W TVs and later on colour TVs, and the odd car radio, stereo, and two way radio, and "gremlins" were responsible for about half the failures we repaired every day.
I'm still very much in that kind of frame of reference, to me, there are still gremlins that haunt particular TVs, or certain poor cellphone reception spots, and yes, even the odd vehicle here and there. So would I buy this:
This is supposedly a picture of a 2010 Prius, and it has this gremlin right there, in the press materials. I wonder if the 2010 model will have a string of failures, problems, and recalls? I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford one when they are released, but even if I could, I wonder if this will make me reconsider?
BTW no that is not a photoshopped picture - here it is on its article page on Wired.
The Wallet Is The New Tinfoil Hat.
The new tinfoil hat is...
Yep, where once we stuck our heads into clumsy inelegant home-made Faraday cages to prevent someone getting in and changing your identity, now this article shows you how to make a clumsy inelegant "tinfoil hat" for your RFID cards and prevent your identity getting out...
I love duct tape, don't get me wrong. Duct and gaffa tape are the kings of clumsy inelegant solutions to many of life's little problems. But that's just it - they are clumsy and inelegant. They are meant to be temporary. Also, I prefer to keep the solutions arrived at with duct tape, very very hidden...
In these days of conductive threads and circuits printed onto cloth, leather, and flexible plastics, there have to be a dozen solutions that look better.
Also - and call me radical for thinking this - I think privacy is a thing that was a brief fad between the Victorian Era and the Industrial Revolution, either side of that there wasn't much of it around, and no-one actually cared. I'd much prefer my SmartRider card to be available without having to dig a duct-taped folder out of my wallet, try and separate the oozy melted adhesive-glazed sides, rip my SmartRider out, wave it at the card reader - and get it stuck to the screen. All while fifteen other riders are lined up behind me, tut-tutting and sighing loudly and pushing me ever so politely past the reader...
I'll accept that people can probably make a copy of the RFID part of my passport and probably make a decent copy of it, too. But they could do similar things to me before, too - skimming my letterbox at home for personal details, or in a public place, a bit of pickpocketing isn't exactly unknown, you know?
So I'll take my chances I think, keep identifying stuff at home in a lock box like we're supposed to, and if I absolutely have to carry some kind of secret agent ID I'll hold out for a nicely woven metallic cloth folder or something.
Your wallet!
Yep, where once we stuck our heads into clumsy inelegant home-made Faraday cages to prevent someone getting in and changing your identity, now this article shows you how to make a clumsy inelegant "tinfoil hat" for your RFID cards and prevent your identity getting out...
I love duct tape, don't get me wrong. Duct and gaffa tape are the kings of clumsy inelegant solutions to many of life's little problems. But that's just it - they are clumsy and inelegant. They are meant to be temporary. Also, I prefer to keep the solutions arrived at with duct tape, very very hidden...
In these days of conductive threads and circuits printed onto cloth, leather, and flexible plastics, there have to be a dozen solutions that look better.
Also - and call me radical for thinking this - I think privacy is a thing that was a brief fad between the Victorian Era and the Industrial Revolution, either side of that there wasn't much of it around, and no-one actually cared. I'd much prefer my SmartRider card to be available without having to dig a duct-taped folder out of my wallet, try and separate the oozy melted adhesive-glazed sides, rip my SmartRider out, wave it at the card reader - and get it stuck to the screen. All while fifteen other riders are lined up behind me, tut-tutting and sighing loudly and pushing me ever so politely past the reader...
I'll accept that people can probably make a copy of the RFID part of my passport and probably make a decent copy of it, too. But they could do similar things to me before, too - skimming my letterbox at home for personal details, or in a public place, a bit of pickpocketing isn't exactly unknown, you know?
So I'll take my chances I think, keep identifying stuff at home in a lock box like we're supposed to, and if I absolutely have to carry some kind of secret agent ID I'll hold out for a nicely woven metallic cloth folder or something.
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Meta-Meta-Meta-Post. Thanks TechCrunch and Scoble!
Now this is a twist! FriendFeed (where I have a stream , yes) has an embeddable page. TechCrunch has the article, Scoble made me aware of it via a Twitter post, and I looked it up from those leads. This is an example of how things ricochet around the place. Wheee!
The only problem is, why am I going to embed someone else's blog into mine? FriendFeed is already doing that, and I think that's where it would stay for me. If an article popped up that was of interest of me, I think cut and paste would be fine thanks. I want people to come read my blog, yes. But I don't want to do it by collecting other articles, nor do I want to do it by being an RSS aggregator.
So the article Michael wrote is about blogging (making it metablogging) - but hang on, this is a blog article about a tool that collects blog articles. And now I've written an article about it. After seeing it on a microblogging site...
Just tickled my sense of humour I guess... I'l go back to writing now...
The only problem is, why am I going to embed someone else's blog into mine? FriendFeed is already doing that, and I think that's where it would stay for me. If an article popped up that was of interest of me, I think cut and paste would be fine thanks. I want people to come read my blog, yes. But I don't want to do it by collecting other articles, nor do I want to do it by being an RSS aggregator.
So the article Michael wrote is about blogging (making it metablogging) - but hang on, this is a blog article about a tool that collects blog articles. And now I've written an article about it. After seeing it on a microblogging site...
Just tickled my sense of humour I guess... I'l go back to writing now...
Broadband, U Doin It Rong...
Okay - a few linkable articles have showed up, I'm happier. Then I read this and I get sad again.
See, I have for almost five years fought with my ISPs and with Telstra about getting new copper line or something because, frankly, my ADSL connection sucks the big one. Right at the limit for ADSL, the line wasn't even good for dial-up, with every modem I ever tried having to reconnect ten to thirty times a day. (Yes, that is definitely THIRTY on some days, costing around $8 in dialling fees on those days.)
When ADSL became possible I used an ADSL modem that had given great results in the city of Perth, and watched the connection stay unconnected up to 12 hours a day, in annoyingly random chunks. Sometimes there would be a whole hour of staying connected, sometimes the connection would drop out after five minutes and stay unconnected for an hour or so...
Multiple complaints over many many months produced a slight improvement when a technician replaced water damaged connectors in the comms pit, but it was still dodgy and slow.
Oh and did I mention that this was NOT country WA, but still in the capital city, Perth? Yeah, that's right, I feel very sorry for people in rural areas but come on, why talk about doing rural areas right when you still haven't mastered basic urban areas?
See, I have for almost five years fought with my ISPs and with Telstra about getting new copper line or something because, frankly, my ADSL connection sucks the big one. Right at the limit for ADSL, the line wasn't even good for dial-up, with every modem I ever tried having to reconnect ten to thirty times a day. (Yes, that is definitely THIRTY on some days, costing around $8 in dialling fees on those days.)
When ADSL became possible I used an ADSL modem that had given great results in the city of Perth, and watched the connection stay unconnected up to 12 hours a day, in annoyingly random chunks. Sometimes there would be a whole hour of staying connected, sometimes the connection would drop out after five minutes and stay unconnected for an hour or so...
Multiple complaints over many many months produced a slight improvement when a technician replaced water damaged connectors in the comms pit, but it was still dodgy and slow.
Oh and did I mention that this was NOT country WA, but still in the capital city, Perth? Yeah, that's right, I feel very sorry for people in rural areas but come on, why talk about doing rural areas right when you still haven't mastered basic urban areas?
Oh - and lastly - I will be minding a friend's farm which is within 30km of several midsized towns. It has satellite Internet, a lag of 2 seconds for everything you do... Broadband? She wishes she could have dialup speeds as long as it didn't take half a day to do the banking online.
(exits stage left muttering something about utter balls-ups...)
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