Samuel’s Blog

For Dinner

A dinner suggestion from a kid in Michel’s Patisserie Weston yesterday:

Ice cream soup with chocolate sauce.

Sounds great, I wonder what vegetables will be included in the soup.

Samuel

Add comment December 5th, 2008 at 01:14pm

QuickTime Confusion

Last night when I went to open iTunes, I was greeted by a rather annoying error stating that iTunes could not be opened due to a “detected” problem with QuickTime. Apple recommend uninstalling QuickTime and then installing it again under these circumstances, but that sounds like a bit of a “we don’t know, but this might help” solution to me.

Considering that nothing had changed since I used iTunes about 24 hours before receiving the error, I figured that I would see if I could sort the problem out myself before resorting to a reinstallation. I remembered that a few hours before the error I started loading a large MP3 (Samuel’s Persiflage #8 to be precise) in Firefox, but cancelled it by closing the tab it was in when I realised that for one reason or another, Firefox was insisting on downloading the full file before letting the QuickTime plugin play it, which is a change from its previous behaviour of letting the QuickTime plugin play the file while it is downloading.

My thought was that, possibly, a QuickTime process was still active and was preventing iTunes from loading QuickTime properly. I couldn’t see any QuickTime processes in the Task Manager, so I tested the theory by launching QuickTime from the start menu…oddly this resulted in an installation wizard, which produced the following rather insightful message:

I somewhat nervously hit “OK” and watched the progress bar indicate that the setup routine was doing something, although I haven’t the faintest clue what it was doing as I wasn’t prompted with a Windows UAC “Are you sure that you want to grant this program permission to do stuff?” message, which indicates that no changes were made in the Windows or Program Files directories.

Once Setup finished, QuickTime loaded, and iTunes was able to work. It’s beyond me what that was all about, but at least I didn’t have to waste time going through Apple’s website to find the somewhat hidden standalone QuickTime installer.

Samuel

Add comment December 5th, 2008 at 09:56am

And another three weeks of radio

As I noted earlier this week, from the 15th to the 19th of December I will be working for 2QN and Classic Rock in Deniliquin.

As it happens, 1WAY FM’s breakfast host James Scott will be taking leave for four weeks starting on the 15th. Obviously I won’t be in town during the first week of his absence, however from the 22nd of January until the 9th of January I will be in town and filling in for James. This will include Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

So, it’s a week of news in Deniliquin, during which I will be taking unpaid leave from my “day job” in Canberra, and then three weeks of Breakfast on 1WAY FM, which conveniently coincides with shifts which don’t occur during the morning at my “day job”.

I might be pushing myself a bit to cover a breakfast show and maintain my “day job” for those few weeks, but I think it will be fun. I’m considering putting in for leave for late January or at some stage in February anyway…but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Samuel

1 comment December 5th, 2008 at 07:15am

2CC and 2CA are streaming!

2CC and 2CA are streaming at long last, and the sound quality is pretty good.

2CC are currently streaming in Windows Media Audio 9.1 format at 32 kbps, 22 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR which is more than ample for talk radio, and sounds a lot better than most other talk radio webstreams in the country.

2CA are doing even better with a Windows Media Audio 9.1 stream at 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR. I’m quite happy with this sound quality too.

At this stage I can see mentions on the 2XL and SnowFM websites of streaming, but the streams aren’t working for me at this time.

None the less, I’m very happy that I can now listen to 2CC and 2CA from outside of Canberra without hooking a radio up to a computer at home and running Shoutcast. Very happy, and I’ll treat it as an early Christmas present. Thank you Capital Radio Network!

Samuel

2 comments December 4th, 2008 at 07:20pm

The Petrol Price Cycle

It’s still a mystery to me.

An hour ago, unleaded petrol was 99.5 cents per litre at Caltex Weston, now it’s 115.9 cents per litre. An increase of 16.4 cents per litre.

At least it coincided with a fuel truck arriving to deliver fuel.

Samuel

1 comment December 4th, 2008 at 04:18pm

He should teach Business Studies

It’s a pity that this teacher is a maths teacher, because he would make an excellent Business Studies teacher:

Tom Farber gives a lot of tests. He’s a calculus teacher, after all.

So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they’ll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.

Hmm, it’s a basic problem of business, what we want to do costs this much, but we don’t have enough funds to cover it…what can we do to cover our costs? Tom’s solution was ingenious.

“Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.

San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving, and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.

Not everyone is convinced of the merits of the idea though

That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.

“The advertisers are paying for something, and it’s access to kids,” he says.

About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”

The school doesn’t seem to be worried though, hinting that there are limits as to who can advertise.

Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but he notes, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’ “

One can only hope though that the New South Wales government don’t get any ideas, because a statement like this:

To Farber, 47, it’s a logical solution: “We’re expected to do more with less.”

Because if they do, then we might see entire schools being built out of advertising billboards as they try to find money to plug their never-ending budget holes.

Samuel

Add comment December 4th, 2008 at 03:42pm

I don’t see the problem

You may have heard the story about federal MP James Bidgood who witnessed a newsworthy event yesterday, took photos of it, and reportedly sold them to the media, with the money going to charity.

The event in questions was a protester setting himself on fire outside Parliament House. The opposition and sections of the media have jumped all over Mr. Bidgood for his actions, but I really can’t see the problem.

If a newspaper photographer had been there, or a television camera crew, or even if I had been there with a camera, there would have been footage and/or photos. The photographer or camera crew would have taken the pictures back to the newsroom for their News Director to decide if they wanted to publish it, whilst I would have taken the photos home and published them here on this blog.

People sell photos of newsworthy events to the media all the time, so I can’t understand what the problem is here.

Joe Hockey, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect, has been the loudest critic of Mr. Bidgood…frankly Mr. Hockey, pull your head in, and ask Julie Bishop to actually answer a question the next time she appears on Lateline.

As for Mr. Bidgood. He has apologised for his actions (unnecessary in my view), but I will be writing to him to support his actions. What he did was attempt to bring the truth to the public, and it’s nice to see a politician doing that for a change.

Samuel

2 comments December 4th, 2008 at 11:36am

Tonight on ABC1

It’s a fun night (or hour or so) of British comedy. At 8pm, the My Family Christmas Special, and at 8:30, Wallace and Gromit star in an all new adventure, it’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death”.

I’m hopeful that the To The Manor Born Christmas Special which premiered on British television last year (on Christmas Eve if I recall correctly) will find its way to the ABC this month. It was a great show and I’d be very surprised if the ABC don’t air it.

I won’t get home until a bit after 8pm tonight, so I’ll just have to timeshift tonight’s programming, and then watch last night’s episode of MDA from ABC2 afterwards.

Samuel

Add comment December 3rd, 2008 at 01:58pm

In case you’re wondering…

The more observant amongst you will have probably noticed that every time I post a poll, a stray “n” appears just above it. Annoyingly, it’s not possible for me to remove this without manually editing the database which runs this site.

As it turns out, it’s a bug (as I suspected) in the Democracy plugin which runs the polls. I just didn’t connect the dots between that and me upgrading this blog to WordPress version 2.5.x a while back.

In lieu of a patch from the developer, it looks like the fix is fairly straight-forward. I’ll try it out at some stage in the coming days and see how it goes.

Samuel

Add comment December 2nd, 2008 at 02:24pm

Vale Paul Hardy

Radioinfo is reporting that Paul ‘Cracker’ Hardy, the voice of the Harvey Norman commercials amongst other things, has died due to a heart attack aged 57.

Update: Paul apparently passed away on Sunday night. Morning host on American music radio station 95.3FM WAOR, Tommie Lee, has written a short tribute to Paul on his blog. End Update

Further Update: I’ve had a look through my collection of ads and found a few of Paul’s voiceovers…unfortunately I can’t find any of his Rebel Sport ads, although it’s quite probable that I have some at home in an un-catalogued file somewhere. Anyway, here’s a sample of some of the ads of his that I have in my collection, plus his demo from his production company Hardy Audio.

Download MP3

Some of the non-Harvey Norman ads make me realise just how prolific Paul’s voice really is in Australian media…to think that his subtle voice changes made me think I was listening to a different person.

Thanks to Frankster for contributing a couple of these ads to my collection a while back (around the time of the Harvey Norman theme music change if I recall correctly) and to Jock’s Journal for the photo of Paul. Jock’s Journal have a tributes page at http://newmedia.com.au/Paul_Hardy.htm.
End Update

Samuel

2 comments December 2nd, 2008 at 01:51pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Westpac and St. George Bank Merging

It’s all done and dusted, and I can even use Westpac ATMs without being charged an “other bank ATM” fee which saves me from navigating the maze of construction works in Cooleman Court, but I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the merger between Westpac Bank and St. George Bank. So, I’ll ask you:

The results from last week’s poll were fairly split:

That said, if we treat “OK” as a neutral answer, then we have 16 people satisfied with the Rudd Government’s performance, and eight people unsatisfied. A 67%-33% split is pretty good in my books.

Davky also noted in the comments on last week’s poll that, for a first term government, they’re doing well on the “unity” front. I’d agree with that, although I probably do err on the side of “OK-Bad, but no worse than anyone else”, and I think I voted for the latter.

Results from previous polls can be viewed at http://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

Add comment December 2nd, 2008 at 11:19am

Deniliquin — It’s about six and a half hours drive from Canberra

There’s a headline which proves that I should not be the director of tourism and marketing for the Deniliquin Council!

I was going to wait until about 9am to post this, but seeing as I just told John Kerr and half the country about it…I’ll be spending the week in Deniliquin, starting at some stage, probably around midday on Sunday the 14th of December, (unless I decide to leave Canberra on the Saturday instead…assuming that the hotel have a vacancy for another night) and working at 2QN and Classic Rock FM filling in for newsreader Graham Munson from Monday to Friday.

Google Maps thinks it will take between 6.5 and 7 hours to drive there, depending on whether I go through Albury or Narrandera, although it does tend to overestimate the travel time for such trips. That said, with a couple stops along the way, it could be very accurate.

It should be a good week, and I’m certainly looking forward to it. The only downside that I can see to this is that I will have to miss out on a Christmas party on that Sunday, and I won’t be in town to panel the final Open House show of the year on 1WAY FM. I won’t have to miss the show entirely though as Vision, another station who take the show, have a repeater in Deniliquin. I suppose that blogging could be problematic during that week depending on what Internet access I have…suddenly I’m pleased that my laptop has a standard modem built-in, and Internode offer ten hours of complimentary dialup access per month with their ADSL plans. Such access would feel like I was waiting for somebody to send me a copy of the Internet on floppy disks via Australia Post, but it would be better than nothing.

Anyway, as I said, it should be a good week. I’m excited about it.

Samuel

3 comments December 2nd, 2008 at 03:20am

Aircheck Sunday Tuesday: 1WAY FM’s ACT Election Coverage

This week we’re heading back to the night of October 18 for 1WAY FM’s ACT Election updates. I was joined on the night by station manager Tim Malone who spent some of the night in the tally room, and by Kenneth Webb who was providing a bit more depth to the story behind the numbers. I also chatted with Kingsley Bruce, host of the Saturday night show “All That Jazz and Blues” a few times during the night, as the election updates were occurring during his show.

The coverage was going to start at 7pm, however when it became apparent shortly after 6pm that the electronically lodged votes were being counted by the electoral commission’s computers quite rapidly, we decided to start the coverage early.

You’re going to need a while for this one if you intend on listening to the whole thing. It might as well be an episode of Samuel’s Persiflage as it runs for an hour and twenty minutes.

Download MP3

Copyright notice: Copyright on this audio is jointly held by Samuel Gordon-Stewart, 1WAY FM, Tim Malone, Kenneth Webb and Kingsley Bruce. It is made available for personal use, and “fair use” as defined by copyright legislation only. This audio may not be redistributed without the prior written permission of a copyright holder.

Samuel

Add comment December 2nd, 2008 at 01:03am

Busy Busy

That was a rather busy weekend. A late version of Aircheck Sunday, a new poll, an article which I’m writing for a corporate newsletter, and some interesting news about the week of the 14th-20th of December are all coming shortly.

Samuel

3 comments December 1st, 2008 at 09:46pm

Something worth watching on television on a Thursday

I was just looking at the television guide for this evening to see if there is anything worth watching because, quite frankly, the usual Thursday night lineup isn’t very inspiring. I’ve lost interest in the two shows which I used to find interesting on a Thursday (namely Inspector Rex on SBS, of which I can only watch the repeats so many times before I start reciting them, and Law And Order SVU which really needs to be put out of its misery) and as such wasn’t exactly expecting to find anything useful.

To my rescue comes Steve Liebmann with new episodes of his excellent documentary series Crime Investigation Australia which tonight looks in to the Claremont murders of the mid-1990s. The programme starts at 8:30 on Channel Nine and concludes at 9:45, which is theoretically (assuming that Channel Ten can keep to their publicly released schedule) 15 minutes in to Law And Order SVU, so I suppose that I could watch Steve Liebmann’s show and timeshift SVU in the hope that the producers of SVU manage to provide me with something slightly more interesting than most of their recent episodes. I suspect that the ability to skip the ad breaks in that show might help my cause.

Anyhoo, the blurb in the TV guide about Steve’s show tonight is as follows:

This chilling episode details the long and difficult investigation which began with the disappearance of 18-year-old secretary Sarah Spiers from a nightclub in the up-market Perth suburb of Claremont on Australia Day, 1996. The new information has been kept secret by police until now for fear its release could jeopardise the investigation.

Sounds like it will be very worthwhile viewing.

Update 8:36PM: Nine also seem to have a lackadaisical approach to timekeeping. C’mon guys, I don’t want to watch any more minutes of the end of Getaway. End Update

Samuel

2 comments November 27th, 2008 at 08:05pm