G'Day Mate MkII

Friday Five

1. 1. What was your first Halloween costume?
What is Halloween? Does it have anything to do with these kids banging on the door? We don't celebrate Halloween in Australia at all.

2. What was your best costume and why?
I was the Black Knight in a school play once. Does that count?

3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat?
Please explain?

4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.)
Well it happens to coincide with my brother-in-law's birthday - Happy Birthday Andy! But other than that, nope.

5. Share your favorite scary story...real or legend!
I still wake up screaming sometimes after a nightmare of this.

Milestone

I think I get more people looking at the Newton than this blog :-)

Women Drivers

Melodrama has a post about women bloggers so I just can't resist posting the first (of five) pictures of women drivers (which is a weird Australian way of looking at things). The photos were supplied by WEBY (thanks mate).

Mr Inferno

As you are probably aware from previous references, there was an idiot who recently failed to qualify for a Darwin Award. Paul first raised the matter and in the process asked what a 'toilet block' was (I assume they are called something different in Canada). Basically this idiot climbed on top of the toilet block (click for pictures) with a BMX bike, set fire to himself and then rode if off the edge. He missed the pile of mattresses and broke his wrist. Some police rocked up and threw a bin full of water over him and confiscated his bike.

Yeah, yeah. So what. Well Mr Inferno Infernal Idiot is inthe paper again. It turns out that he intends to reattempt the stunt. It also turns out that he does this type of stupidity on a regular basis and has a website with photos to prove it (including a similar flaming bmx stunt).

He fails to qualify for the Darwin Award because (a) he is not dead and (b) he has a teenage son who helped to set him on fire.

The bind moggles mind boggles. On a more positive note (from the end of the newspaper story):

Meanwhile Randwick council is investigating whether Mr Concannon violated the Local Government Act by lighting a fire in the open and performing on public land without a permit.

Friday Five (Rehash)

No Friday Five has appeared yet for this week so here is an old one from 2001.

1. Where were you born (city or state or just country).
Whadda ya reckon? Stralia!
Actually I was born in Nepean Hospital (near Penrith), New South Wales, Australia.
[Should I add "the World" and "the Universe" to that?]

2. What is your favorite number?
Depends on my mood. Could be 42. Could be 7. Could be 17.

3. Vanilla or chocolate?
Coffee flavoured please.

4. What section of a bookstore would I find you in?
Fantasy & Sci-Fi or maybe in the computer section.

5. What kind of mattress do you have on your bed? soft? firm? water?
Hands up those who has seen Crocodile Dundee! Yeah. Thought so. Remember the Hotel in Nu Yark? The chick comes in and discovers he was sleeping on the floor. Well that floor is softer than my mattress!

Me Famous!

Q. What is even better than being #1 in the Blog Ecosystem?
A. Being the headline at All AgitProp

Check it out, a wonderful reward for half an hour of hacking with Graphic Converter (click on the image to read the related story):

Whadda we call Charlie?

Jivha has a puzzle over at his blog about the current visit to India by Charlie. The essence of the puzzle is what to call him (apart from the obvious: "Charlie"). For reasons that should be clear to anyone with half a brain (except of course for Mr "the world is controlled by little green men" Ma-Hard-Hair) it would not be exactly politic to call him Prince (who is a ex-rock singer noise-maker).

Jivha suggests calling him Mr. Charles but I don't like the idea of combining Mr with a first name. Why not use his surname? Well Jivha did some research and found this which clearly states that he was baptised as "Charles Philip Arthur George". Ahhh yes, but my kids were baptised in a similar fashion with absolutely no reference to their surname (not even on the baptismal certificates). So what is his surname?

Well prior to 1917, the royal house of Great Britain was officially "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha). The surname (as best as could be discovered) was probably Wettin (see previous reference). On July 17, 1917 the whole thing was sorted out by Georgie V who basically changed the name of the royal house and the surname to "Windsor" (i.e. named after a castle). This was probably to get rid of the Germanic sounding name given the war between Britain and Germany at the time.

Problem solved, Charlie Wettin became Charlie Windsor.

But wait, there's more. In 1960, the Queen (QE2) issued an Order in Council changing her surname, and the surnames of her descendants to Mountbatten-Windsor . She and her descendants are still members of the "House of Windsor" but their surname no longer matches. (The "Mountbatten" bit comes from her husband - just in case you were wondering.)

Note that in the unlikely even that Charlie gets promoted, he could change his name to match his father (Mountbatten), or pick some other castle or random object and make the whole situation even more confused.

End result: Charlie is actually Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor. Still Charlie would do (unless you are Scot of course in which case Charlie is a living insult to the tribal memory of the real Prince Charlie who was defeated in 1745).

Beer Drinking

According to this story in Yahoo News, a judge has rejected a compo claim for a bloke who injured himself opening a bottle of beer (while trying to impress a chick). The tail end of the article contains this (spelling corrected) gem:

The Telegraph [Ed: a local daily paper] applauded the decision which comes rising claims of negligence and public liability by increasingly litigious Australians.
"How much tuition does an ordinary Australian need in how to open a bottle of beer?" the newspaper said.

Indeed.

Story spotted via AMCGLTD who also have another link to a vital research story .

MT Plugins

Yesterday I had the day off (to make up for last Sunday), so I took a couple of photographs for Paul (go and read his article and find out why) and then did the shopping. I was enthusiastically aided by my daughter (too young for school) who comes out with the most amazing information.

Daughter: "Do you know what ears are for Daddy?"
Me: "No, what are ears for?"
D: "They are for hearing things."
Me: "Do you know what noses are for."
D: "Yes Daddy".
Me: "What are noses for?"
D: "For leaking out boogies into tissues."

Accurate but not exactly what the script called for.

Back to the topic at hand, when she was having her afternoon nap, I got working on a new install of MovableType. I still run that on a server at home (even though this blog is hosted at typepad). My brother and some friends also have blogs on my server (which AFAIK is not a breach of the licence because there is no commercial arrangements - it is free to them and there is a single instance of MT with multiple authors). Anyway, on Sunday I plan to upgrade the main server and I wanted to minimise the impact on the blogs. So the plan goes something like this: clean install MT on another system, transfer the files, remap port 80 on the firewall, do the upgrade and reverse the process. Except that I can't remember how I installed the plugins before (or even what the plugins were) - hence I stumbled over the Plugin Manager which is absolutely brilliant. Some plugins still refuse to install but I have plugins coming out my ears now .....

Friday Five (Late)

Apparently there was no Friday Five last week but I missed the previous week as well so here, for your entertainment is that one instead....

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.
Lettuce (from the garden), milk (for the kids), lemon juice (for me), proactive (margarine for people with high cholesterol), eggs (for those who don't need the proactive).

2. Name five things in your freezer.
Mince (for patties), frozen corn (because the corn in the garden isn't ready yet), icecream (for the kids), iceblocks (plain water, for use in the air cooler), fish balls (for chinese cooking).

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.
Literally under the sink whould be saucepans and basins. If you allow for anywhere under the bench then I can add a water filter, dishwasher powder and a toaster.

4. Name five things around your computer.
Well this computer happens to be on the dining room table (connected over wireless to the main server). Around this computer are: a box of tissues, half a loaf of bread, a pair of kiddies scissors (the ones that can only cut paper), the handset of the cordless phone and a sci-fi novel to read when I finish typing. Around the main computer there are: a pile of unpaid bills, a usb/serial convertor which is connected to a Newton cable and a dongle (for installing software), my mobile phone (recharging because I was using Salling clicker to control iTunes), the video camera (also recharging), and my wifes laptop (also charging).

5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.
Thyroxin (Oroxin - thyroid medication - mine), Claratyne (allergy medication - mine), Panadine Forte (mine), Panadol capsules (my wife), Childrens Panadol (the kids).

I stand corrected (again)!

Not all lawyers are evil and apparently Microslosh are the key innovators in the computer industry. In the comments attached to this post, there is a brief piece by User 6971:

It's hard to believe M$ would borrow anything - they're the true innovators in our business. Even though they've never been given credit for it, they invented MS-DOS, the Personal Computer, the Hierarchical File System, AARD code, Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, Vaporware, Monopoly Abuse, the Trash Can, the Event-Driven Programming Model, the MVC Paradigm (later used by PARC), the Mouse, the Window, Steve Ballmer, the Lisa and the Macintosh, Price Gouging, the Symbolic Link, and the Internet Worm.
The guys and girls in Redmond are SMART - they don't need to borrow anything. Give them long enough, and they'll remember they invented it.

Well that solves that then! I apologise unreservedly for ever implying that Microslash was unable to innovate. Apparently their ability to innovate is completely beyond belief.

Kiwi Humour

At work, I have a mate who is a Kiwi. Apart from that he is a great bloke but has this little thing called an obsession. He is mad keen on Rugby (Union not League). Now if I was to be honest for a moment, and ignore my Australian heritage, I would have to admit that the Kiwi Rugby team is probably the best in the world (ducks to avoid rotten fruit thrown by irate Aussies). The response of the average Kiwi to Rugby is akin to the response of the average Victorian to AFL - pretty close to worship.

Anyway, me mate [Ed: "my mate" just doesn't sound right] has tickets to almost every game that is on. He has driven to Melbourne and back. He has flown to Brisbane. He is attending every game that he possibly can. We have been suggesting that he get sponsored by Steinlarger or someone similar as a reward for this hard work. [Ed: Melbourne to Brisbane is further than Rome to Edinburgh as the crow flies.]

To cut a long story short (and to get to the point), he arrives at Brisbane and checks into his hotel. Just some hotel selected at random that happened to have a room available. As he does he spots a couple of Rugby Union mini-buses outside. 'Ello, 'ello, whats all this about? He has checked into the hotel where the Kiwi team are staying. Not only that, they are practising in a paddock just outside and across the road from the hotel. Talk about a dream come true! Anyway, being a Kiwi, he is wearing the right sort of gear and has no trouble chatting to some of the players.

Where's the point about the humour? Well he gets one of the players (Tana Umuga) to call up a mate who is also flying into Brisbane to see the game. He gets a call on his mobile and wants to tell someone but everyone around him is talking to someone else. Really can't believe he is getting a personal call from one of the worlds top players. Later, me mate gets another player (Chris Jack) to call a friend and leave a message on his mobile.

While I like the humour of the story, I also think that the friendly way it was handled speaks volumes about the Kiwi team and I wish them all the best. Compare that to the French team who wouldn't even speak to a journalist and left it up to the coach to make a statement: "It doesn't matter if the crowds don't like us, we will win anyway".

Lawyers

Sometimes an individual can cause you to rethink a lifelong belief. I have always believed that lawyers are really just SSBF in suits. I had the chance to do law at university and decided against it because of my opinion of lawyers and in all the time since, nothing has really changed my mind. I have met a few "nice" lawyers (one was even a QC) but they were lawyers first and foremost. The see things only from a legal perspective. [Now it is OK for me to only see things from a geek perspective but it is not OK for them to have a similar bias :-)]

Well, I have finally found a lawyer who appears to think. More importantly he thinks as a non-lawyer. Sure he complains about geeks and computers but he appears to be human first and lawyer second (or maybe third after 'cook'). Check out this post and study the comments as well. Steve (sorry, I should say "the Teaspoon of Whipped Cream in Jennifer Eccleston's Navel") is commenting on the whole terrorist thing in Iraq at the moment and he has managed to put his finger on something that has been bugging me. In the back of my mind something was jumping up and down and saying "Oy". I had skimmed an article this morning about the car bombing in Iraq and just kept going. Then I spotted Steve's article and "TING!" the lightbulb turned on (ala Daffy Duck). What exactly does blowing up Iraqi citizens achieve (from the perspective of the terrorists). At least the idiots in Palestine try to blow up in Israel, these idiots are killing the people they need for support.

In the comment section, there are two different authors who each try to define a moderate Muslim:

Paul Jané says:

I wrote a few days ago that I think that the main difference between a "moderate" Muslim and a less moderate one lies in the lack of ready access to explosives. I stand by that.

Aaronresponds:

A "moderate" Muslim, simply, is one who is willing to kill you and your family and put your wife, sisters and daughters in burkas... later.

I assume Dr. Ma-Hard-Hair is a moderate Muslim?

Old Fashioned SPAM

Third SPAM post in one day... this one is old fashioned SPAM. It arrived in the physical mailbox outside the front door. It has my name and my street address. This is mondo-wierd because I only ever use the street address for parcel delivery when I order from companies in the US (because they refuse to deliver to my PO Box). I never get mail here. I never provide the address to banks, credit card companies, whatever. This SPAM is advertising Virgin credit cards (presumably linked to Virgin Mobile/Airlines/Records/whatever).

Hmmm. Do I want to strain through the effort of working out how they got that name/address combination? Obviously the credit union would have it (due to the mortgage) but they promise faithfully never to share it except with the credit reference people. On the whole, I would trust the credit union but what about the credit reference people?

Problem solved. om (of om_blog) got it as well and he/she checked it out. It was the credit reference people. Oh well, I guess that means I have a good credit rating or Virgin wouldn't have bothered spaming me.

Scum Sucking Bottom Feeder

Boy was that quick. You post about one SSBF and you get another. Jowolfa2 would like to start up correspondance with other SSBF's - especially ones that pollute blog comments.

Scum Sucking Bottom Feeder

Oy. This is another Scum Sucking Bottom Feeder alert! I have just received three different (but very similiar) emails from a SSBF for various domains I look after (you can guess which domains). The spam appears to come from John Kennedy and there is a reply-to address of Listings as well. You can read the whole (edited) letter in the extended article if you care.

The point of this SSBF is that he (she or it) will attempt to bill you for this listing that they have stolen copied from a public directory service. You cean read about this scam here (where I found a reference via google) or better still here (via a reference on from the first site).

The site data presented is actually stolen derived from DMOZ which is FREE (as in beer).

From: John Kennedy
Subject: Please check deleted.com listing by Friday, October 31
Date: 26 October 2003 1:01:13 PM
Reply-To:
Return-Path:
Received: from top--sites.net ([202.9.152.26]) by mailhost.deleted.com (8.12.9/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h9Q2ZuWO003740 for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:36:00 +1100 (EST)
Received: from topsitesmail (localhost) by top--sites.net (LSMTP for Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <0.0369D2D7@top--sites.net>; Sat, 25 Oct 2003 22:01:13 -0400
Message-Id: <200310260236.h9Q2ZuWO003740@mailhost.deleted.com>

Could you please be so kind as to check your deleted.com listing, if you don't mind, at:
http://top--sites.net/update.htm?d=deleted.com&v=2261&e=i

We can only list you if you click the update button by Friday (even if your listing is fine).

Your updated listing will also appear to the left of Yahoo, MSN, Google, Go, AOL, Netscape, Lycos, AltaVista, and Excite searches by AutoSearch users in Internet Explorer's Search window.

Thanks,

John Kennedy

P.S. Please also review our translations of your website into seven languages. And don't miss our reports on your website's popularity and your server's uptime.

You can unsubscribe at: http://top--sites.net/cancel.htm?d=deleted.com&v=2261&e=i

Random Thought

Inspired by a comment on All AgitProp:

(*snort* because you never know when those wacky Presbyterians might strap some explosives on and go visit a mosque)

Just imagine for a moment what it would be like if the western prejudice about Moslems was correct - you would get suicide bombers, terrorism, stupidity, racism. Now imagine if the Moslem prejudices about the west were correct - you would get presbyterians suicide bombing mosques, catholics sniping at ayatollas, orthodox leaders declaring crusades (religious groups and activities were selected at random). Hmmm. Wonder who has the more accurate prejudices?

French Terrorists

Looks like the SMH has found a winning formula. Write a story about terrorists (that gets 50% of the readers) but make the terrorist French (the other 50%).

Screenshot from the on-line edition (links to main page of the paper):

Quiz of the Week(end)

Hmmm. I didn't think this guy was normal at all....

Human.
Secretly, you are really just normal! WHOA!


What is your Secret Identity?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sunday Thoughts

Today's reading was the story about the blind man. You all know the one - this fellow is at the side of the main road from Jerico to Jerusalem (before the terrorists staked the place out) and he hears that some bloke is coming so he starts shouting out "Hey mate, over here". Everyone tells him to shutup but he keeps on calling - real persistant bugger. Everyone keeps shushing him but he keeps going until Jesus calls him over. So he drops his cloak and someone in the crowd marches over to Jesus. You can just imagine them thinking - "Boy is he gunna cop it now" but that ain't what happens. Jesus looks at the blind man and asks him: "Whaddya want me to do for you?" straight out, no mucking around. The bloke says he wants to see again and wacko it happens.
The thing that struck me about this story (well the story plus the homily from Fr. Shallvey) was that Jesus was ready to do whatever this guy asked for BUT he had to ask. It's like we all have things we really want but do we have the courage to ask. I mean think of the disappointment if Jesus goes "Sorry dude, no can do", hugh downer. I know what I want to ask for, do you?

Quiet Weekend

Please don't expect too much this weekend. Apart from some callout work (1 AM Sunday), the rest of the time will be spent on another project.

Product Naming

According to Paul Jané, GM is going to rename a car because of what the name means in Quebeckistani French. I assume that means there is a significant number of "teenagers in French-speaking Quebec" who would buy this car with a different name :-)

After all, AFAIK, the French company that markets Pshitt (French equivalent of Schweppes) changed the name of their product, NOT!

[Ed: You can find more strange product names here.]

Good News (at last)

There has been a bit of blogging coverage relating to Bushie's visit Down Under. Paul Jané has a photo of Steve Irwin at Parliment House (probably not at the same time as Bushie). Even more exciting (an this is the good news part) is a post by Kathy Kinsley which mentions that US-Australia free-trade agreement. I didn't spot any local references but she got it from the Washington Post (which is almost Gospel). If we see it appearing in the New (registration) York (required) Times then we know it must be time for the second coming.

I could be guessing wildly here but when (if) that agreement happens, it will really annoy Ma-Hard-Hair and the rest of the "too white to be asian" crowd :-)

[Ed: Calling someone "Bushie" could be a friendly modification on the name Bush (or Bushsomething like Bushland, Bushels, etc) or it could be suggesting that they are from the bush in which case the name would imply "country hick" or "hillbilly".]

P.S. While you are checking out "On the Third Hand" (Kathy's blog), make sure you read this and think about it. It is the same double standard as the racism story earlier.

Is it still racism?

Staggered across this post (and of course I read the story on the paper) about My-Hard-Hair & Co claiming that Australia was too white to be part of Asia. If we claimed that Malaysia was "too Muslim" or "too dirty" or (can I say this) "too asian" then we would be lambasted as racists.

BTW, Check out the comments, Kathy K has a link to this item from SatireWire which could solve the whole problem (and make it possible for me to get to the Apple WWDC next year - just drive over that bridge). BTW The issue about AFL is that once it hits prime time in the US, they will stop watched the padded boys playing with balls and get involved in Real Footy (tm).

Don't shake hands! (Revised)

Things must be really boring in Africa right now. That is why there is so much media attention directed at the 'black', 'white', 'zionist', 'imperialist', 'west', 'south', 'east', 'tall', 'short', 'african' who is apparently able to emasculate men by shaking hands with them. That is all we need - more Unix!

[Editor: To save all the inevitable questions about why I would have even found that story, I will reveal my entire linking chain - only because they happen to be in tabs across the top of my Safari browser. The full story can be found here. It was then mentioned here (there is a story behind that domain name) and picked up here which got a mention on All AgitProp which I was reading because it had a backtrack to this blog.]

Confuse-a-bot

Steve over at Little Tiny Lies tried to hold a conversation with a bot. In the comments, Aaron suggests a couple of ways to confuse bots (or at least to detect them) including the 'mis-information trick' and the 'English complexity trick' both of which can be resolved by (very) careful coding or a restriction on the subject matter. However, the article (and comments) reminded me of something I read many years ago in Cognitive Science where the discussion was about methods for defeating a turing test. The idea was to come up with something that was simple but effective and impossible to code against. The solution (sorry but I can't recall the authors of the paper) was to use comparative terms where you get ratings. One example went like this:

On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 is terrible, 10 is brilliant) rate the name "FLUGLY" as a screen name for an actress. On the same scale rate the name "FLUGLY" as applied to a childs' soft stuffed toy.

The deal is that humans give very consistent ratings (negative for the actress, positive for the toy) whereas the computer will have to make wild-ass guesses. Because of possible scoring problems, the authors went on to expand the idea and derive another test that involves categorisation.

There are two categories: "ping" and "pong". You need to decide which category the following words belong to: "needle", "basketball", "Eiffel tower", "wet dog".

Note that shape itself is not a valid solution but surprisingly humans get this right while the poor old computer is once again guessing.
Any other suggestions?

Midweek Mystery

OK. What the heck is this? Would you like to use it?

Ma Hard Hair

I have been trying for a couple of days to inject some passion into a rant about Ma-Hard-Hair (also known as Mr Pathetic) who is retiring (again). Based on the last two events he will attempt to shock the world, cry on television and then be persuaded by his supporters to un-retire again.
The problem was that I just could not inspire enough passion when his statements (random puffs of hot air?) were just so ridiculous that no one could believe them except maybe for some insane fundamentalists.
[Aside: Paul Jané has a lovely definition of a "moderate" Muslim:

To answer Andrew's question in the comments to this post, the difference between a "moderate" Muslim and the less moderate variety lies in the fact that the so-called "moderate" feels that he's entitled to bitch at you, but he's enough of a realist to see that blowing himself to bits really isn't much of a solution to any problem.
Alternately, they could just be Muslims lacking ready access to explosives, I don't know.

Not sure which ones would believe My-Hard-Hair though....]

Anyway, instead of hanging around here and waiting for be to gather enough bile to be rude, check out Paul's version of the same story which is better written than my draft (including more polished language and less spelling mistakes).

Violence

There was a woman sitting on the bus opposite to me this morning. She had tried to use makeup to conceal a black left eye. And a bruised and cut lip. And what appeared to be bruises on her arm.

What can you say? How can you tell someone that not all men are like that?

Then I got thinking a bit more. Is it hypocritical for me to support corporal punishment (of children) but condemn whoever has hit this woman? Is it possible that some animal thought that he was applying "corporal" punishment?

You and I know that there is a world of difference between educating a child and hitting a grown adult but could one stem from the other? Should I rethink my attitude to corporal punishment? It would be easy to say that children "can't be reasoned with" but I can think of some adults that are in the same category :-)

I guess with an adult you have more choices in how you handle the situation (e.g. walk away) that are simply not available when dealing with your own children. Also, if you disallow "corporal punishment" what can you use as a deterrent? Some kids respond to a time-out. Or sitting in the corner. Or loss of privileges. Sometimes just your disappointment is enough to encourage them to mend your ways. For other kids, all that is just water off a duck's back. What options do you have then?

It is ironic that we can be so critical of our parents as we grow up and then suddenly we find that maybe they were coping better than we are when we have kids.

[If you would like to respond with ideas about how to raise children then you should either speak from personal experience as a child or as a parent yourself. Please do not give me Dr. Spock.]

Useful Map Results

During a discussion about which on-line mapping service is better, one of the comments pointed to this site.

I like the comment at the bottom:

When using any walking directions or map, it is a good idea to stop at an inn or hostelry and inquire about news from abroad. Find out whether any wars are brewing, and if so, whether agents of the enemy are pursuing you. This is only an aid in planning. Your eventual route and mileage may vary.

Masons vs Anglicans

Is this happening in other places or only in Sydney? I am neither a Mason, or an Anglican (though I used to be Anglican) but I have both Masons and Anglicans in the family. Is it really such a problem? My grandfather used to tell me that masons believe in G*D and believe in the bible. That sounds fairly innocent but may not have been the whole truth....

The celebrant at my great-uncle's funeral was definitely both Anglican (American = Episcopalian?) and Mason and it was a strange mixture of religious customs rounded off with a dose of Scottish culture.

According to the article, both organisations are embarking on membership drives - why not combine forces? (that was said tongue-firmly-in-cheek).

Original article can be found on-line here.

Masons must choose lodge or church: synod
By Malcolm Brown
October 21, 2003

The Sydney Anglican Synod has called on all Christian members of Masonic lodges to withdraw their membership and for church facilities not to be used for activities linked with Freemasonry.
The motion, passed yesterday, also "requests that councils of all Anglican schools . . . consider any association that their school may have with any Masonic lodge, and to withdraw from any such association".
The King's School, Shore and Trinity were specifically mentioned during the debate.
The motion was put by Reverend Bill Winthrop, Rector of St Paul's Church, Lithgow, whose parish council last December passed a motion calling on Freemasons and members of the Order of the Eastern Star to choose between those movements and continuing membership of the congregation.
Mr Winthrop said yesterday that though the synod had passed a motion in 1988 condemning Freemasonry as leading people away from God, it was not cast in strong enough terms and it was now up to the synod to pass an unequivocal motion stating its position.
He said it was especially important as the United Grand Lodge of Sydney and the ACT was on a membership drive and it was up to the Anglican church, which itself had embarked on a long-term campaign to boost church membership, to counter this.
The motion said that Freemasonry and Christianity were "fundamentally and irreconcilability incompatible" and that Freemasonry "teaches and upholds a system of false religious and spiritual beliefs that are contrary to biblical Christianity".
Speakers for the motion held the floor, including Reverend John Davies, from Northbridge, who said that in the Royal Lodge the secret name of God as revealed was in fact a combination of the biblical name and the names of several "ancient, pagan gods".
Another speaker drew parallels between Freemasonry and witchcraft.
Sandy Bennet, from the parish of Kurrajong, put an amendment - "synod encourages ministers and other Christians to reach out in love to all Freemasons to share with them the Gospel of Christ" - which was adopted in the motion.
George Curry, former Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of Sydney and the ACT, said last night that the lodge would have to study the text of the motion before it responded.

Sun Java

Hey I use Sun gear a lot but what is it with the JVM on Solaris. It sucks. It sucks badly.

Found myself talking about the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and SMC (Sun Management Center)....

Question: What is wrong with SMC?

Me: Well it runs under JVM on Solaris.

Question: So, java is cool.

Me: Well runs may not be the right word. Walks might be better.

Conclusion:
SMC walks on JVM on Solaris.
... Walks slowly.
... Walks very slowly like a dog.
... A really old dog.
... Who only has one leg.
... Which is encased in a block of cement.
... At the bottom of the harbour.

Hey Sun, you make more money selling Solaris than you do selling Windblows! How about tuning the JVM so it can run walk faster on Solaris?

New Ecosystem Feature

Apparently the Blog Ecosystem has a new feature:

Kiwi Dilemma

I already explained about how the Kiwi's are barracking for two teams in the Thugby (Union) World Cup ... "New Zealand" and "anyone who plays Australia". Well it turns out that there are in fact two major dilemmas that face Rugby-mad Kiwis in the coming weeks. The first is a game between France and the USA. Most Kiwis don't like the USA (remember ANZUS and the nuclear ships) but they hate the French (remember the Rainbow Warrior). Choosing who to support in that game sounds like choosing who you dislike least :-)

Much bigger dilemma occurs in Ireland beat Australia and then Australia has to play France. That will really split the Kiwi supporters - who do you boo? The frogs or the wallabies.

One mate has it solved, he just won't go to either game :-)

By the way, if you want to find out the local reaction to the French, check this article (copy in extended post if no longer on-line). The highlights have to be: (a) more people cheering for Japan when they play in Australia than in Japan; and (b) the French only care about winning, not about the public perception of them :-)

Original article was posted at Rugby Heaven.

Little amour for the French
Monday, October 20, 2003

It's enough to make even a Frenchman feel unloved.
For the second game in a row, a vocal Rugby World Cup crowd threw its wholehearted support behind France's opposition.
About 20,000 people in Townsville cheered Japan and jeered the French, booing during flyhalf Frederic Michalak's penalty attempts.
Japan's captain Takuro Miuchi said it was the first time he had experienced such strong support.
"When we played at home in the Rugby World Cup qualifiers we didn't see as many national flags as we saw tonight," he said.
It was the same story last week in Brisbane, when the 45,795-plus crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Fijian.
In both cases, the crowd chose the underdog: France beat Fiji 61-18 in the Pool B opener and then held off a gusty Japan to win 51-29.
France team manager Jo Maso was not surprised by the crowd's reaction, saying he did not believe the spectators were particularly anti-French.
"I knew the public would be very much for (Japan)," he said through an interpreter.
"We knew straight away that the Japanese have been here on tour, they're based here, they've been here for three weeks already, they're an exciting team."
French skipper Fabien Galthie said he understood the public wanted to support Japan.
"The most important thing is to win, the public is not the most important," he said.
"I hope we played well and the public liked to watch us and maybe they will want to support us in a few months."

Local Politics

First a bit of background for non-Australians (well probably for some Australians too). In Australia it is compulsory to vote. You get fined if you (a) don't vote; or (b) vote more than once in the same election. Funny thing is that I don't think it matters whether you vote 2 times or 20 times, it is the same fine.....

So, everyone has to vote which gives everyone the right to complain about the government they elect :-) unlike California where everyone complains but less than half actually make the decision.

When we vote for a Federal election (process is similar for the State election) we get two ballot papers (plus an extra if there is a referendum). One paper lists the candidates for the local seat (i.e. the area where you normally reside) who will enter the lower house and the other is candidates to represent the entire state in the upper house. If you care, the Prime Minister comes from the lower house.

So, how do the candidates get on the lower house paper (there is a point to this story so just hang in there)? Well different parties have different methods for getting drunk endorsing candidates but at the end of the day, most intelligent parties nominate a single candidate for each seat. I happen to be a National Party (or Fred Nile) voter but I live in the Federal seat of Wentworth. This is the closest thing to a rotten borough that exists in NSW - it is held by the Liberal party so tightly that you have to pass a loyalty test to live in the seat :-)

There are were about 800 official paid-up members of the liberal party in the seat and at the last election they nominated some bloke named Peter King MP (well he is MP now anyway) who was duly elected as our representative. I forgot to mention that not only is the seat of Wentworth a liberal seat, it is also a pro-monachist seat (i.e. prefers the Queen to the prospect of a republic). It is also an expensive seat (includes the richest real estate in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney) and it is generally held to be extremely conservative.

Some other bloke decided that he wanted to stop being a "power behind the throne" and move into parliament (better pension). He resigned his role in the party (as an organisation) to stand for the party (in parliament). Being a smart codger, he decided to stand in the seat of Wentworth (currently held by Peter King MP). To ensure that he would get the nomination he arranged for a bunch of friends and associates to join the liberal party in that seat which had the dual effect of increasing membership and helping the party financially. It is not clear whether these new members had to pay their own fees or received some assistance for their trouble. Obviously the sitting member was not that impressed and so he too, started gathering new members. Due to internal party rules the cut-off point was some time last week and it has now reached the point where one quarter of the members of the liberal party in NSW, are now all in one seat. Estimates suggest that between 3500 and 4000 new members have signed up!

Wait for it, there is a punch-line. Even if the newcomer wins the selection for the seat, it is not guaranteed that he will win the seat - even standing for the liberal party. You see he has a handicap. Well it is a handicap as far as the voters are concerned. In his previous public incarnation, the newcomer was (and may still be) the president of the republican party.

For more details, check out this article (also in extended post).

Original article may be found at: the Sydney Morning Herald.

Challenges have Turnbull, King on edge of their seats
By Anne Davies
October 20, 2003

It's over but it's really only just begun. The deadline passed on Saturday for the Liberal MP for Wentworth, Peter King, and the man who wants his job, Malcolm Turnbull, to recruit new members who can vote for preselection.
Although Sydney's most spectacular branch stacking exercise might be at an end, it is not the end of the battle between the merchant banker Mr Turnbull and Mr King, with legal challenges in the wind.
Wentworth now holds nearly one-quarter of the NSW Liberal Party's membership, and the state directorate is flush with new funds.
But the number of new recruits by each side remains uncertain.
It is likely the rivals have jointly recruited between 3500 to 4000 new members on top of the 800 already in Wentworth.
The Turnbull camp has recruited almost exclusively to the Point Piper branch, and at Saturday's meeting, welcomed 1491 new members.
But slightly troubling for them is that about one in five people were not names they recognised as their recruits.
The King camp has spread its recruits across several branches although a large number have been recruited to Rose Bay, where Peter King's wife, Fiona, presides.
Neither side was claiming victory yesterday. In any case the battle to win preselection for the heartland Liberal seat is likely to enter a new phase, where candidates will be trying to win over each others' recruits, potential preselectors and the Liberal Party hierarchy, while simultaneously reaching for their rule books.
Both sides are poring over Joske's Rules of Meetings, the leading text on valid meetings, with several challenges expected to be filed with the Liberal Party's NSW office shortly.
Under Liberal Party rules, the selection of the candidate is by indirect election.
Members of the party choose delegates to attend a preselection conference. There are 112 chosen by the branches, and a further 48 chosen by head office or at random from the party.
New members must have three months' membership to take part in a preselection, dated from the time they are accepted by the branch. This explains the flurries of activity over the last few weeks. Nominations close on January 19.
Timing of the meetings was crucial. The Turnbull camp claims several branches controlled by Mr King failed to give seven days' notice of a meeting. This has been denied by the King camp.
At the Rose bay branch - Mr King's stronghold - the meeting had to be moved forward from last night to yesterday morning, because of concerns members might miss the three months membership requirement.

Pass this on :-)

Do you get lots of those wonderful "pass it on" emails? There are the Urban Legends (Missing kidneys, Mobile phone viruses), Feel Good Stories (Man survives fall from tower) and the Offer Too Good To Be True (Bill Gates mainly). Naturally as seasoned internet-using junkies professionals, you all immediately send such emails to 95 of your former best friends. Well Rachel Pascoe has had enough of it (copy of article in extended post if you can no longer see it online).

My attitude towards mail goes something like this - is it addressed to me (my email, my name) and not known to be SPAM then I read it. If it is from a mailing list I subscribe to (NPDS, NewtonTalk, Perl, etc) then I read it. If it is about my blog or Newton then I read it. If it is addressed to lots of people but not spam then it is probably work related and can be ignored safely. Otherwise it will be (a) an urban legend, (b) from nigeria, or (c) a nigerian clone.

There are a few different types of chain emails. The wish one (scroll down the page, make a wish and if you send it to 20 people, it will come true), the sympathy story (my name is Timmy and I live in a well - but if you send this email on, my town can afford to get me out of here), the Guinness World Recordsone (this chain letter has been in existence since 1872. Keep it going and everyone will get your names in the records) and the friend one (I love all my friends, so I forwarded them this email with many colours and smiley face pictures on it so they'd know how much I love them).
If you're going to send an email, at least make it interesting or something amusing or something to do with business - or even original. Isn't that why email was invented?
I doubt that people actually want to get this rubbish sent to their inbox 50 times a day. One person sends it to a whole bunch of people, the next sends it again to some others, and so on.
My dear friends all love sending me emails, so I get the same thing in my inbox at least six times a day.
I honestly don't care if some imaginary dead person comes to my house. Maybe I'll give them a can of deodorant, just to be polite. I don't care if I'm in the book ofGuinness World Records. They don't publish everyone's name anyway.
I don't care that if I don't send an email to two or more people I'll never meet my true love. I appreciate my friends' gesture to show how much I mean to them, but couldn't they come up with something original and more sincere?
By the way, if you send this column on, some mysterious philanthropist will give you a dollar every time someone else sends it. But if you don't, you will suffer from some strange phobia that doesn't exist.
If you send this column to two to nine people, you might find true love with a hot, sexy hermaphrodite one day.
Should you send this column to 10 to 19 people, you will get 10 to 19 punches from the people who are getting annoyed with you. And if you send this column to up to a million people you will have a happy, rich and carefree lifestyle for the rest of your life and die an old person. Happy?

Quiz of the Week(end)

You are the French Guard.
Slightly off, living in an area you really don't
belong in, you lie and taunt those around you.
From all the cruel memories of your childhood,
you decide to take revenge on cute furry farm
animals. They make good cannonballs. Ppffftt!


What Monty Python Holy Grail Quest Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

OzNewton Update

Oh boy have I been busy. I have been forced to learn far more about css than I ever wanted to know. At the same time I have been introduced to SSI (Server Side Includes) for the Newton webserver. After much hacking, I got the Newton homepage to look like the blog (sort of) but it was messy and drawn in a table (which AFAIK is no longer the "correct" approach). Given NPDS already uses a stylesheet, I started hacking. After much stress and angst (and a lot of help from Richard Sheppard) I got the stylesheets working (sort of again). Then I started dreaming about fiddling with SSI's to build the main page (instead of the tables). You can see the (partial) result in this archived screenshot. After I finish the footer (and fiddle with the css again) the main index page will become something as simple as:

<HTML>

    <HEAD><TITLE>Welcome to OzNewton</TITLE>

    <link href="http://www.guru-international.com/Newton/Newt.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

</HEAD>

<BODY>

    <OzN_HDR>

    <div id="main">

        <OzN_MNU>

<h2>Welcome</h2>

<p>G'day Mate, it is <TIME> here in <USR_CITY>, Australia.

Feel free to poke around this tiny portable web server.

If you have any questions or suggestions,

click on the "Whiteboard" link below and fill in a comment form.

You can also try paging me using the webpager over on the right.

Enjoy your visit!

<h2>Notes in my Notepad:</h2><NOTE_LIST>

<h2>Notes Posted Via the WWW:</h2><POST_LIST>

<h2>Post a Note Using:</h2><NOTE_POST>

<h2>Search My Notepad:</h2><NOTE_SEARCH>

</div>

<OzN_FTR>

</BODY></HTML>

The current result looks like this archive screenshot which demonstrates that I need to get back to the css and margins and stuff but at least it works!

So what? Well it means you can now embed multiple notes (thanks to Paul Guyot) into a single html file which allows for different parts to be updated independently. It also means that I can start looking at how to use this to override some of the other templates that are used for other generated content (e.g. notes interface).

Kids History

My son (age 6) and I (aged a lot more) were discussing history, as one does with one's son. In particular we were talking about the antipathy between the French and the English and the 100 years war (which was not 100 years long). After some deep thought, he pointed out that the Giant (in Jack & the Beanstalk) was probably French.

Huh? Well he does go on about Englishmen: "Fe Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, be he alive or be he dead, I'll gring his bones to make my bread".

Bet you think of this story next time you read about Jacques Chirac.....

World (Rugby) Cup

Lovely story in Column 8 (Sydney Morning Herald) on Wednesday:

World Cup for Dummies. Rebekah Ward, of Upper Hutt, NZ, is the four-year-old granddaughter of Mary-Helen Ward, of Leichhardt. She was introduced to the delights of televised rugby via Saturday's first All Blacks game, Mary-Helen says. "After the first 10 minutes of careful watching she commented, 'I think those people are going to get in trouble soon; they keep beating each other up.' After about half an hour she said, 'I think all those people want that ball.' When her parents confirmed that they did, she asked, 'Why didn't they buy enough balls for everybody to have one?' " There's no answer to that.

Of course all the Kiwis who reside in Australia are going to twice as many matches as the Australians. This is because the Kiwis always barrack for two teams - the "All Blacks" and "anyone who plays Australia".

System Architects

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy right about here, I worked as a 'Unix architect'. This involved designing networks of Unix systems and sizing systems for a given set of applications. It was hard work. It was complicated. It required a lot of background knowledge and research. It was heaps of fun.

Fast forward ten years. I can do this stuff in my sleep but I am not a Systems Architect any more. My job description says "Senior Unix Consultant" which means that people can walk up to me and ask the hard questions like "When I try to run su, I get some error about root not existing" and without blinking an eyelid I can say "Run 'mount -o logging,setuid,remount' on the filesystem and it will work".

However, my employer does have some Systems Architects. They get paid lots of money for their skills which seem to consist solely of being able to read IBM patterns and regurgitating them on our letterhead. As a result we are apparently following "best industry practice" (i.e. doing what IBM tells us to do). This then involves installing lots of software made by IBM (who else?) which NEVER works. Effectively we turn into an IBM beta test site for dodgy software.

Take WebSphere which is really just some java mixed in with Apache (but an old, out of date version of apache). You could achieve the same results with standard freeware - apache, tomcat and maybe mysql. Instead we have to install DB2 (we use Oracle not DB2) and WebSphere. Great, it turns out that WebSphere doesn't work in 64 bit mode. This is apparently because we are using an alpha version (the one that is standard industry best practice - everyone is using it). We send IBM instructions on recompiling in 64 bit mode. They send back a patch and the beta version. The beta version is 32 bit again. We send instructions, they send a patch and the next beta. Ad infinitum.

The end result, we pay lots of money to IBM and lots of money to people who can regurgitate IBM material. Most of the material is marketing gumpf and surely IBM can't really expect everyone to be so gullible as to believe that Industry Best Practice involves beta software.... On the other hand we seem to be getting closer and closer into bed with them everyday and the failure of every single piece of rolled out software to date does not seem to deter the process.

In fact, so far, there has not been a single "architected" solution that actually works correctly from an operational perspective. The customers may be happy but the techos behind the scene have to fiddle constantly to keep things alive. Unfortunately senior management (who wouldn't know the difference between Unix and eunuchs) only see the glossy brochures, fantastic presentations (that promise the earth) from the architects and the customers who claim to be satisfied (but they really want this enhancement and that add on and some other bit doesn't quite work as advertised). The real cost in hardware, software and manpower is not measured. Nor are the alternative solutions (like Linux/Apache/TomCat) considered as a way of measuring the real cost of an all IBM solution.

The only token gesture to the anti-IBM sentiment that dwells in the operational teams is to threaten to add .NET to the existing J2EE as a backup standard which has frightened all the project teams into submission. With all the cost cutting that is going on, surely it is time for the CIO to realise that she could fire the entire strategy and architecture group (including some very expensive agency hire people) and get a secretary to cut and paste our logo over the IBM logo on their blueprints or redbooks or whatever the scheme is called today. We would have the same problems as today but save a bucketload of money and angst. Of course a really savvy CIO would have worked out that an IT group of less than 150 people probably doesn't need 10% of them working in S&A in the first place.

P.S. Some of the guys in S&A are nice people - this is not a personal attack on them. They are just performing a useless task that costs a lot of money and serves only to keep IT management happy.

Alternate Job

[From Pete]

Come to think of it, this might be a better job than the one I have :-)

Pay sucks.

Health and Safety Regulations don't apply ...

Technolust II

A couple of weeks ago, I published an article about some comments made by a dedicated Newton user. Some of the comments were about seeing the real thing :-) Well I still haven't photographed the eMate but I can show you the screen (that is a live link) from one of my Newton 2100's. This machine with about 4 Mb (yes that is four megabytes) of flash memory is running a webserver and can even run Java (via WABI). The server has server side includes (to handle things like the date and time and the list of notes).

Midweek Mystery

Here we go again. Big clue, this is a religious building of some kind in Sydney. What is it called?

Another clue: A former employer had me working here to build some PC's (running SCO and Interactive Unix).

Kindergarten for men...

[Via email from Ben who got it from 'The Age' a newspaper in Melbourne]

Now this seems like a good idea...

Tuesday September 30, 2003

A "kindergarten" for men has been established in Hamburg, Germany, to allow women to drop off their partners so they can shop in peace. Lunch and two beers are included in the fee at the adult play pen run by specially trained "nurses" Jenny and Bianca.

If you pay extra, can you have more beer?

NPDS Everywhere

My Newton is not the only web-serving Newton on the net. There are a bunch of them all over the shop. One of the most impressive designs that I have seen so far can be found at Silicon Meadow.

To check out some of the other portable web-servers, you can check the NPDS Tracker sites (NPDS boxes can register with the tracker sites so you know if they are up or down). The two sites I know about can be found here and here.

For more information about the software (just in case you have a Newton), the main site is here and the doco is mainly here. There was also an NPDS magazine which can be found here.

Solaris Packages

Spent a large part of today trying to write up a package creation guide for Solaris. The idea is to take some software (OpenSSL in this case), build both 64 and 32 bit binaries and assemble the whole thing into a Solaris package for mass distribution. Piece of cake.
Now document the process so it can be followed by a new graduate. Then revise it so it can be read by a manager (Dilbert style).
Actually the libraries are easy because the 32 bit files go in the lib directory and the 64 bit ones go in the sparcv9 subdirectory. The executables are a little bit harder unless you happen to find out about isaexec (which lives in /usr/lib normally). This allows you to put the 32 bit executables in a sparcv7 subdirectory, the 64 bit files go in sparcv9 and you create hard links to isaexec with the same name as your executables.
The tricky part ended up being the script that creates the pkg file. In the end I had a script that will work in most cases by just setting the four config entries at the top of the file. For more advanced cases, the script contains lots of commented sections (e.g. to include init scripts, or files outside the normal package space).
Any Solaris geeks who want a copy of the script are welcome to it :-)

For the geeks who are still reading: what on earth happened to sparcv8? Was Sun only using odd numbers or did it reference some value between 32 and 64?

Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is apparently 30 years old this month (I saw an advert on the side of the bus). Really? I just assumed that it had been there forever and I have no idea what was on the site previously. There used to be a decent restaurant over looking the harbour (and it may still be there). I have only been to the restaurant three times (but not necessarily once every ten years) and every single time they have got the booking wrong. The last time was when I took my wife there for a wedding anniversary and I had confirmed the booking via phone, checking the day of the week and time and the date (just to be sure). Nevertheless when we arrived at the security booth to park, there was no record of our booking. After much heated discussion we were allowed in and it turned out that our booking was for a different time, day and date!

By the way, the most special thing about the Sydney Opera House (and this is not a joke) is that it is too small to actually hold a full opera!

Shhh. Don't tell the film stars!

If they find out about this story, shooting guns in the air at weddings will become a world wide custom with most of the shots aimed at the news crews in helicoptors trying to sneek a look at the wedding party :-)

¿s!y+ peaj noh ue>

This is a story from Utterly Boring which links to a on-line translator!

Bigfoot?

Maybe there was some basis to the stories after all.... Check out this BBC story about:

the well-preserved furry limb of a mystery creature was found some 3,500 metres up in the permafrost of the Altay mountains, in Russia's remote Siberia region.

Looks bigger than my foot :-) and it reminds me of this dinosaur exhibition that had in Sydney some time ago. It was a bunch of dinosaurs from China, some were fairly small and are believed to belong to the links between reptiles and birds. You know, the sort of half and half things like reptiles with fur and birds with scales and so on. The thing that struck me was the comment in the brochure about translating the names because the Chinese didn't call them dinosaurs - they were dragons. All the Chinese stories about long necked dragons suddenly made sense and the use of "dragon" bone and "dragon" eggs were literally fossilised bone/eggs of dinosaurs. Maybe the yeti/bigfoot is something similar that will suddenly click like that as well.....

I came across the story via amcgtld.

Quiz of the Week(end)

A stern yet benevolent organizer who often knows best, your wits are keenly fixed on aiding efforts you deem worthy.

What about you?

Corrections

Well the Newton is back on again. Some idjit forgot to plug in it (shame, shame) and it ran out of juice last night. Oh well. The error was in the source of the parts. The new backlight and screen actually came from Calvin Greer not Mr PCBman (who supplied the serial card). I was crossing my wires due to entusiasm with Mr PCBman announcing that he is almost ready with the eMate internal memory upgrade which will help my son's eMate (currently we swap between the storage card and the wireless link card). I will try to arrange a photo of the Newton serving web pages ASAP but posting will be a little light due to a family emergency.

Friday Five

1. Do you watch sports? If so, which ones?
AFL (for non Australians, this is real football - not that silly hands off game with a round ball, nor is it the game intended for idiots built like outdoor dunnies who try to knock each other senseless. It is also not that sort of game that stops every 5 minutes to show adverts) and sometimes cricket.

2. What/who are your favorite sports teams and/or favorite athletes?
Team would be Sydney Swans (AFL), Players would include: Tony Lockett (retired), Paul Kelly (retired), Paul Roos (now the coach) and Adam Goodes.

3. Are there any sports you hate?
Ones I have to participate in :-) and Thugby League (the outdoor dunny one).

4. Have you ever been to a sports event?
Yup. Been to fencing competitions (my wife fenced for the University team) and AFL games (Go Swannies).

5. Do/did you play any sports (in school or other)? How long did you play?
Cricket and each game is far too long :-)

Gone? Where?

Where have all the postings gone, long time passing...

Sorry bout that. I have three excuses:
1. I am tired (left home at 5 AM)
2. I am busy (migrated core admin server)
3. I have been distracted

What the heck is that link? It goes to a web server running on battery powered machine that uses flash memory (and not very much of it) - i.e. a Newton. Not much there yet but give me a few more days....

It was a lot of work because this Newton was pretty much DOA - bad case of the jaggies and stuffed serial port and dead batteries. Thanks to Mr PCBman I was able to get a new backlight, touchscreen and serial board. I picked up a new soldering iron from Jaycar, a memory battery from Tricky Dicky and a main battery on eBay. Several hours of screwing and unscrewing (because I kept forgetting bits or doing it in the wrong sequence), and I have a brand spanking new Newton (well sort of) with a white backlight and an unscratched screen....

New BOFH

The latest BOFH has just appeared and it explains how to get your disk drive replaced under maintenance. Go read it now.

Political Actors?

Looks like Arnie is the new governor of California and the press is not all that impressed. Most of the complaints are about the lack of qualifications he has; or at least the lack of political experience. That got me thinking: why can't an actor be elected to public office? Is the media suggesting that an actor could not be president?
Seriously, what is wrong with actors? Try turning the question around aid explain why realators, lawyers and journalists make good politicians. In Australia we even elect used car salesmen to public office! It can't be related to honesty (there go all the realators), or truthfulness (bye bye lawyers) or intelligence (some of the journos).
There is some question related to his treatment of women but as far as I can see, that questionshould be raised against both of the primary participants.
I can think of reasons why politicians should not become actors (cause they are so baaad at it) but are there any readers out there who can explain why actors in general (as opposed to Arnie specifically) are not capable of becoming politicians?

Email SPAM

I have been thinking a lot about SPAM lately. There were a number of triggers for this, the first was that changing ISPs has really reduced my SPAM to a manageable level which is wierd. The main reason that it is wierd is that I do not use my ISP address for anything at all.

[Aside: Many years ago, I applied for (and got) my own class C IP address (which was used for a company that I was working with). I had a NIC handle and all that stuff which were linked to my ISP of the day (this was probably in the mid 80's). The ISP went under and I just got another one but I can no longer do anything about my class C address - I cannot return it to the pool of available addresses, I cannot use it for a new network (routing issues) and I cannot claim an IPv6 address based on it because effectively that NIC handle is disabled because the email address no longer exists.]

My former ISP (Telstra) swears blind that they never ever (cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die) gave out email addresses but suddenly I am missing some 20 to 40 SPAM messages a day.

The next trigger was another blog where I posted a comment and then got some wierd SPAM mail back about registering my email address to prevent spam or something. Oh well, no comment then. Mind you the same thing happened when I left a comment on this blog and I did go to the trouble of following the process because otherwise I won't be able to email my brother :-)

Third trigger was this post by Kingsley about a way of ranking emails to reduce SPAM (and it is worth a read).

The result was that I went back through my mailbox (106 items at the moment) and thought about SPAM and ranking and effective tools. As a result of all this introspection, I think Kingsley is right. We need to be smarter about how we deal with the crap. I would like to have a system like we have in Australia for physical mail (if you label your mailbox with 'No Junk Mail' then no unaddressed mail can be left in it) but I don't see anyway to technically ensure compliance and a voluntary scheme has less chance than the proverbial snowflake in hell. If I had a PA (personal assistant) to handle my mail (like Kingsley suggests) then all I need to do is to work out appropriate ranking rules BUT there is one problem which is new unsolicited mail which is not SPAM - is there any such thing?

Yes. Here is an example (albeit a poor one):

Dear [NAME DELETED],
I wanted to inquire about any freelance contract Web programming opportunities that may be available relating to Web databases, search engines, membership systems, shopping cart/e-commerce and surveys etc.
Warmest regards,
[NAME DELETED]

Is this SPAM? I don't think so. Firstly it was addressed specifically to me at my primary (published) email address (it was not a CC or broadcast mail). Secondly, I am the contact at my company who would decide to hire such individuals. Thirdly, there is no attempt to flog anything other than the writer's personal services. Fourthly, there was no attempt to hide the identity of the sender or source of the message (in fact the senders name and website check out and provide a physical address and phone number). So I don't think this is SPAM.

[Aside: Is it effective? You gotta be kidding me. There are two key problems with approaching me this way. First and most important is the lack of any personal touch (apart from warmest regards). A more professional closure would be "Sincerely" (which means 'without wax' - i.e. without deception) and there should have been some introduction of the person (my name is Fred and I have been doing this for a few years blah blah blah read your website/blog/email message blah blah blah and wondered if you might require a freelance blah blah blah). The second key problem is that I am a techo (and I think that would be obvious from most of the places that you can find my email address) and so this person is trying to sell ice to an eskimo. Besides that, I know a lot of buddies (many of them bloggers) who are 'between jobs' at the moment I would give them work (because I know them).]

Now for the $6 million question: how can I teach my PA to allow this message through and reject the Nigerian SPAM that arrived at the same time? I know Kingsley used phrases like "subjects I'm interested in" but being a techo (rather than a PHB) I tend to see things in terms of code - how can you write such an expression?

CIA Joke

[There was a bunch of unattributed jokes sent via email. Some of them appear on this site. You may want to check there for more of the same.]

The CIA has spent a fortune on training the perfect Russian spy. He is fluent Russian speaker and an expert on Russian society. On his first day undercover, he is confident that he can blend into the crowd so he stops at a corner stall to get a newspaper. The kid says (in Russian): "There you go Mr Yankee" as he hands the paper to him. Somewhat puzzled, he stops in the park and asks for directions. "Sure thing Mr American" says the office worker that he meets. Next he tries a policeman and asks for the time. "10:00 AM Imperialist Oppressor of the Working Class". Completely stunned he breaks down and asks the policeman why he is so sure that the spy is American. "That's easy" says the cop, "you're black!".

More Fish-Oil

Apparently Panther (MacOS X 10.3) now has an official release date - October 24th (just 15 sleeps away). Now you too can enjoy all the wonderful things like brushed metal, threaded mail, encrypted home directories and cached iDisks.

It's A-Fish-Oil

Typepad is no longer a "preview release". It is now officially launched or lunched or something. There are special discount offers available in the first month (and I still have some discount codes if you need them).

Men vs Women (Serious)

Thanks to a pointer from Steve at Little Tiny Lies I have been reading this article.

I can remember some of this stuff from Cognitive Science (like the MRI scan differences) but this author has managed to put the science into an easily understood format. The key argument in the article (and presumably the book) is that men and women are different (which is probably a heresy as far as the radical-femanists and politically-correct universe is concerned). The article suggests that the reason that women find men hard to understand stem from these differences:

The answers, says social philosopher and author Michael Gurian, lie not in laziness, sexism or sheer pigheadedness but in profound differences between the male and female brain - and scientists now have the technology to prove it.
"What Could He Be Thinking? How a Man's Mind Really Works" combines two decades of neurobiological research with anecdotes from everyday life and Gurian's experience as a family therapist to present a new vision of the male psyche.
It's a vision Gurian hopes will help promote a better understanding of men and reverse what he sees as the dangerous assumption that men have simply become redundant.
"As a culture, we've made profound mistakes in the last few decades by assuming that men were unnecessary. Many people have even gone so far as to negate or dismiss what is at the core of a man," Gurian writes.

The article goes on to raise some of the key differences that science has discovered:

The male brain secretes less of the powerful primary bonding chemical oxytocin and less of the calming chemical serotonin than the female brain.
So while women find emotional conversations a good way to chill out at the end of the day, the tired male brain needs to zone out all that touchy-feely chatter to relax - which is why he wants the remote control to zap through "mindless" sport or action movies.
His brain takes in less sensory detail than a woman's, so he doesn't see or even feel the dust and household mess in the same way.
The male brain attaches less personal identity to the inside of a home and more to the workplace or the garden - which is why he doesn't get worked up about housework.
Male hormones such as testosterone and vasopressin set the male brain up to seek competitive, hierarchical groups in its constant quest to prove self-worth.
That is why men - paradoxically, from a hormonally altered new mother's point of view - become even more workaholic once they have kids, to whom they must also prove their worth.

So does this mean that we men should all rush out and buy a copy of the book?

Gurian says his book is aimed mainly at women. "Men get this already. They are living this brain, but they don't have the conscious language to explain it. Women are not living it.
"If they are relating to a man, I hope they will be touched, informed and entertained, and will have a new vision of the way they can make their relationship work."
The consequences are profound for a generation of women brought up to believe it is men who have to change, and men who must respond to a female way of relating for marriage to succeed.

Is there any hope for us mere males?

Gurian says men can learn new skills and alter their behavior - but they won't be able to meet all of women's expectations.

Oh well, I guess it is good that someone is looking into it. Having two children (one boy, and one girl) I can tell you that there are differences between them that have nothing to do with culture or social pressures. Even by the age of two or three, they had different expectations / preferences that follow fairly traditional roles.

Old Russian Joke

A man in Soviet Russia has been saving up for a car. Finally he has enough money so he heads down to the local Lada dealer to put down his deposit. The salesman advises him that he can pick up his car in 2005.
Man: "Wow, that's quick. Which month?"
Salesman: "April"
Man: "Ok, which day?"
Salesman: "25th".
Man: "Oh no. Morning or afternoon?"
Salesman: "What difference does it make?"
Man: "Well the plumber is coming in the morning."

Water, Water Everwhere!

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone. Actually the forecasts say that it will be back later in the week but just for now the sun is shining and the breeze is pleasant. All I need now is an electrician to fix the wretched spot lights in the back yard. Getting hold of one is starting to remind me of that old Russian joke. The last one that came out charged a call out fee but did no work! Oh well, we have one booked for Friday...

Blog Comment Spammers

So far I have not been infected by the recent rash of blog comment spamming but a number of the sites I read regularly have been complaining about it. Well there is a solution.....

Pop over to Little Tiny Lies and find out what "the Teaspoon of Whipped Cream in Jennifer Eccleston's Navel" (actually I think his name is Steve) has to say about it:

By the way, I found a new way to handle comment spammers. I really think you will like this. I am considering putting in a queue, which means every comment will be reviewed by me prior to appearing on the blog. But it may not be necessary. Today, some cretin advertised a life insurance site in my comments, so I banned his IP and then changed his comment to read "Come to my site for cheap life insurance from a company that does not accept business from Jews!" It'll be there for as long as my blog exists, and there isn't one damn thing he can do about it. The next guy will get something like, "Email me for info on man-boy love," with the email address for his technical contact prominently displayed. This is way more fun than a queue.
I don't know why anyone would be stupid enough to spam my comments. No one will ever read a year-old comment to a long-forgotten entry, and I'm pretty sure they don't show up on Google. But if they're going to waste my time, I'm going to give them what they deserve.

Friday Five (Late)

1. What vehicle do you drive?
Well actually I catch a bus to work :-) We do own a car but my wife drives it. It is a Toyota Vienta (1996 model). It looks like a Camry but in 1996, Toyota badged their cars Vienta (V6) or Camry (V4). The following year they had both V4 and V6 Camry's and Vienta was just a styling thing.

2. How long have you had it?
From new (i.e. 1996), so seven years.

3. What is the coolest feature on your vehicle?
Unlike previous cars, the service people are really good. One previous vehicle we had was damaged by the service center.

4. What is the most annoying thing about your vehicle?
Fuel economy ain't so good (any more) and you cannot see the back when reverse parking (even with a spoiler). Also there ain't enough room with two approved child restraints to fit another adult comfortably in the back.

5. If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now?
Maybe one of these or perhaps this one. Keep in mind that cars in Australia are a lot more expensive (relative to earning power) than in the US ($AU47,000 for the Avensis Ultima, $AU73,000 for the Tarago Ultima).

Motivational Management III

As an organisation, we have done "the right thing" (tm) and located our primary data center somewhere else (i.e. not where we are). Our backup and test data center is here but all the production systems are in the primary data center. This is a smart, sensible approach to managing computer infrastructure. The main data center is ours. We built it. We paid for it. It is in operation 24x7 (lights out). Apparently we are now going to sell it. Site is probably worth a coupla million ($~AU 2,000,000), maybe more. Instead we will rent some space at $~AU 500,000 pa (excluding conversion, electricity, services). We will have to get the new data center certified for our gear (that will take 6 to 8 weeks). We will have to cancel contracts with our users of the data center (maybe $~AU 1 million). We will have to cancel contracts with our service providers (telco's, network, etc) which will cost another $~AU 1.5 million. We will have to take an outage on the 24x7 systems because the disaster redundancy project is only partially completed. And as anyone in the IT business would know, not all of the gear will survive the transition. Bits fall off, machines won't restart, someone loses the cables, etc.

Why?

If you know about accounting, you know that there are P&L (Profit and Loss) and Balance Sheets that are prepared on a regular basis. One shows the Assets (and Liabilities) at a certain point in time. The other shows how this is changing (whether you are making or losing money). Governments (at least in Australia) do not use these style or reports. They present a "balance sheet" which is really more like a profit and loss statement except that they cheat on the definition of income. In a real business, if I have an asset which I sell for cash (say my filing cabinet - which is not normally something I would sell) then I have reduced one asset (my office furniture) and increased another (my bank account). The money I received is not income. If I am a government, I can take an asset and sell it and pretend that it is income and then claim to have "balanced my budget". I can even take a money generating asset and sell it and then claim to have made money even though I have destroyed the future cash flows from that asset.

If you are still awake, can you see what is happening. We can report the sale of the data center as "income" even though the loss of that asset will cost us a fortune in the future.

Motivational Management II

The MD (Mismanaging Director) announces a big Youth Summit / Youth Forum type thing. The question is "why don't young people want to work for this organisation". I could save him a lot of trouble by just asking the first graduate who works here:
Me: Excuse me WEBY (Work Experience Boy), why don't more of your classmates work here?
WEBY: The pay sucks.
There, problem solved. You want more young people offer them more money. Apparently this is not the required answer because they are still going to have the youth thing (anyone under 30 is a youth) to find out some alternate answers (motivation?).
Next the MD organises a "chat to staff" for all the divisions. For us, there appear to be some total strangers in the meeting - turns out they are to ask the "Dorethy Dixers" (pre-arranged questions). Nevertheless, a few real questions get asked like:
Staff: "What is going to happen to the graduate program?"
MD: "What graduate program? Oh that one, probably going to discontinue it."

Hey is there some staff award for coming up with money saving ideas? Here is my idea. Cancel the Youth Forum thingy. Explain to the MD that most of the "youth" come through the graduate program and they want more money. Problem solved, money saved. What is my reward? A pink slip?

Motivational Management I

[Please, no speculation about where I work in the comments!]

Remember the series on motivational management, well it is back with a vengence. We will start with the easy one first. Way back (a couple of months ago) half the agency hire staff were slashed (DCM - Don't Come Monday). This was across the board - operational, project and planning. Note that all projects are on hold so the cuts to planning and project were less likely to have an impact that cuts to operations where the staff are maintaining existing systems which continue to need maintenance. Everything has sort of settled down, everyone is working harder but there is some type of status quo.

Where is the motivational part? Everyone is screaming for more staff (32 lost out of 200 is a fairly big hit) so management re-hired in the planning/architecture section. This is despite the fact that there is no work for that section and that operations were the ones most affected. Just got to love the PHB (Pointy Haired Boss) in action - I wonder if Scott Adams has an insider here?

Technolust?

A little while ago on the NewtonTalk mailing list there was a post which captured the whole idea of technolust beautifully. Let's all be honest here, we are all geeks (and geekesses?) or we wouldn't be using this type of technology.
[Aside: Blogging is popular but it hasn't reach the stage where the average Joe on the streets is going to be trading his/her blog addresses yet. It certainly hasn't reached the point where my mother would have one.]
As geeks we all have to some degree that fascination with technology. For some it may be cars, others computer hardware. In this case, Jim Siburt of 'New Media Design' is talking about a peice of hardware that is obsolete (he has given permission to post these comments):

Well I am an obsessive link follower. I look at email addresses and signatures and follow those links to find some page of interest that I might have missed in my never ending browsing. Most often it leads to someone's place of business or their ISP. But sometimes I receive a rare treat and discover a great blog and links to places I have never visited.
Today I visited Grant Hutchinson's blog and was amused and entertained. But it was the Newt server and seeing the screen that sent chills down my spine and invoked Newton envy. I realize now that what I really want is a 2100 but I have grown to love my little eMate in these very short weeks of romance. The times I have spent lovingly stroking her almost full sized keyboard and felt the firm yet responsiveness of her perfectly proportioned keys have been exhilarating. Yes, she, not an it. Some of you may object but with the soft curves and smooth texture how could I not envision her feminine qualities.
But I digress. I saw the raw power of the 2100, the richness of the icons, and yes the dock stretching down the left side of the screen and knew I must have one! So I wait and wonder how to accomplish this without crushing the heart of my little green eMate.
She's not that little but don't tell her I said that. I kind of like her voluptuousness.

Wonder what he is talking about? You can find a picture and some details here but the picture does not do it justice. The emate was intended as a school machine and it was extremely robust. I can remember the Apple Rep throwing one in the air and allowing to crash onto the floor, he then picked it up opened the screen and starting writing on it. BTW the general perception of the writing recognition was poor(*) at the time but as this article notes, it was still streets ahead of what Palm and PocketPC offer today.

Emates are still around today (my son uses one) and quite popular. The look and feel is sort of iBook but smaller and for primary school kids more usable. If anyone is curious, I would be happy to post pictures.

*Obligatory Diskworld note: Commander Vimes has "pocket disorganiser" which claims to recognise writing. He scribbles something on a bit of paper and shows it to the imp who says "Yup. That's writing."

Microslosh Security

[Sent by Pete via email.]

Rendezvous

Another lawyer story coming up. According to MacSlash some poor dude in Australia is being sent lawyer letters regarding his use of the word 'Rendezvous' to refer to the Apple product. Apple's Rendezvous is just a marketing name for an open standard for connecting computers without configuring them. It means that two macs can be networked by installing a cable (or wireless connection) with no software changes at all.
As the gentleman in question notes, in Australia the name 'Rendezvous' is owned by Apple. Tibco only has rights to the name 'TIBCO Rendezvous' which is something quite different.
What is the point of this article? Well apparently TIBCO's lawyers are using Google to find references to Rendezvous and I thought we should all give them some more work to do and the easiest way to do that is to include the phrase Rendezvous in your posts and link to stories about Rendezvous and so on ....

NewtonX ?

The NewtonTalk mailing list provided a pointer to a fascinating article at the Low End Mac about the possibilities for a new handheld from Apple. This wish stemed from the author playing with an old Newton and a new PocketPC and finding that the PocketPC still hasn't caught up with the long abandoned Newton.

Welcome to the party...

Apparently SGI has been given the distinct honour of being invited to the SCO vs IBM party. Details can be found at The Register but the key section includes:

"We believe that the SCO Group's allegations are without merit and that our fully paid license is nonterminable," SGI said in the [SEC] filing. "Nonetheless, there can be no assurance that this dispute with SCO Group will not escalate into litigation, which could have a material adverse effect on SGI, or that SCO Group's intellectual property claims will not impair the market acceptance of the Linux operating system."

The lawyers must be feasting by now....

Beyond Patching?

NetNewsWire shows the 'summary' for entries and it contained this gem which was so good, I don't even have to read the full article from CNet:

Microsoft moves beyond patches
Conceding that its strategy of patching Windows holes as they emerge has not worked, the software giant plans a new security effort focused on what it calls "securing the perimeter."

Makes sense to me and fits with earlier discussion here about discontecting Microslosh boxes from the internet. Secure the perimeter by using real computers (TM) that run Real Operating Systems (TM) which effectively means anything not made by Microslosh - even a C64 or Tandy Colour Computer would be more secure :-)

Actually if you read the article it is a typical "inside the box" look at the problem. The quotes run along the lines of: "we issue patches", "customers won't install them", "speed of internet means the cycle from bug to patch is getting tighter", "need to issue patches more frequently", "need customers to patch more often", "customers still won't install them" ad infinitum.

Hop outside the box and ask yourself something. How does Open Software deal with this? Answer: by writing the code more carefully to start with. Instead of slapping the customers around for not installing patches, slap the coders (and their managers) around for producing buggy code. The problem will be rooted in two key causes - first there is the inability to write good, secure code (most universities no longer teach this because they have become insensitised by exposure to lousy software) and secondly there is the way that quick coding as opposed to good coding is rewarded internally. Promote coders whose software does not need to be patched rather than the coders who generate the most function points / lines of code / whatever.

Where is Ken Robinson when you need him?

P.S. Ken Robinson was a lecturer (now a professor) at UNSW who taught me (in second year, a long time ago) a subject called something along the lines of "program proving" which involved writing code in some horrible language that included pre-conditions and postconditions for every statement. The deal was that you could prove (in this language) exactly what the program would do. The rigour of learning this way has always stayed with me and I think it (or something similar) should be compulsary for all programmers.

The prayer of the overweight....

[Special thanks to Jivha.]

Midweek Mystery

Given that Australia is less than 250 years young (dating from European settlement), where the heck would you find a full scale Gothic cathederal:

Strange Newton

As the regular readers would know, I am a Newton user and in fact about half the posts to this blog are written on a Newton and then emailed or posted directly to the blog. Despite having been given the axe some time ago by Apple, there is still a strong and active Newton community, much of which revolves around the NewtonTalk mailing list. Today the digest contained a pointer to a very different Newton, part of the vertical integration market that could (had it happened faster) have saved the Newton or at least led to a spinoff of Newton Inc. This Newton was custom designed for the French medical system of the day and a complete set of pictures and specifications can be found here on a blog that is also written on a Newton :-) If you like old (but functional) technology, have a squiz at this engineering marvel.....

Water, Water Everwhere!

Just a couple of hot days and then the cold weather returns. All the moths had appeared and suddenly died when the cold snap returned! Literally carpeting the floors at work after the weekend - thousands of them. Mind you, cold is only relative and not absolute. Also it is still dry, we seen to have missed out or most of the rain this year and water restrictions start today.
Now I have a technical question about the water restrictions that you might be able to help with. Basically it is now illegal to use any form of sprinkler system but a hand held hose is allowed. This will lead to an increase in beer consumption as all the blokes stand in the garden knocking back a few tinnies while holding a hose. OK. Here is the question, how many beers will it take to turn the average bloke into a sprinkler system? Obviously if he passes out and is found lying on his back, hose in the air, then there is little functional difference to a normal sprinkler but at what point does the transition occur? How much money will be spent training the water cops to detect the difference?
Maybe I am just old and cynical but I think this whole scheme is yet another part of the State government's attempts to convert the utilities to revenue raising arms so that it can continue to pretend that it is fiscally responsible.

Of course now that the water restrictions are in place - it is pouring!

Kids Riddles

My three year old has asked me this riddle about 5000 times this week so I feel that I should inflict it on you:

Q: What did the bee say to the flower?

A: Hi, Honey!

I have been severly reprimanded for subtituting 'Hello' or 'Gday' instead of 'Hi' because she is firmly convinced that you have to get the punchline exactly right as opposed to her brother who takes the Granny Weatherwax approach. There is one book where Granny keeps trying to tell this story about one of those "we'll cook anything" joints where a guy walks in and orders an alligator sandwich and asks the cook to .... "do it in a hurry", "straight away", "as quickly as possible" and so on. Every time she misses the correct punchline ("and make it snappy").