This week the award goes to Johnny Horton, and the feature song is “Sink The Bismarck”.
In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun,
The Germans had the biggest ship,
They had the biggest guns.
The Bismarck was the fastest ship,
That ever sailed the seas,
On her deck were guns as big as steers,
And shells as big as trees.
Out of the cold and foggy night,
Came the British ship the Hood.
And ev’ry British seaman he knew and understood,
They had to sink the Bismarck, the terror of the sea.
Stop those guns as big as steers,
And those shells as big as trees.
We’ll find that German battleship,
That’s makin’ such a fuss.
We gotta sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
They hit the decks a-runnin’ boys,
And spin those guns around.
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down.
The Hood found the Bismarck and on that fatal day.
The Bismarck started firin’ fifteen miles away.
We gotta sink the Bismarck was the battle sound.
But when the smoke had cleared away,
The mighty Hood went down.
For six long days and weary nights,
They tried to find her trail.
Churchill told the people put ev’ry ship a-sail,
‘Cause somewhere on that ocean,
I know she’s gotta be.
We gotta sink the Bismarck to the bottom of the sea.
We’ll find that German battleship,
That’s makin’ such a fuss.
We gotta sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
They hit the decks a-runnin’ boys,
And spin those guns around.
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down.
The fog was gone the seventh day,
And they saw the mornin’ sun.
Ten hours away from homeland,
The Bismark made its run.
The Admiral of the British fleet said,
Turn those bows around.
We found that German battleship,
And we’re gonna cut her down.
The British guns were aimed,
And the shells were comin’ fast.
The first shell hit the Bismarck,
They knew she couldn’t last.
That mighty German battleship is just a memory.
Sink the Bismarck was the battle cry,
That shook the seven seas.
We found that German battleship,
Was makin’ such a fuss.
We had to sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
We hit the deck a-runnin’ and,
We spun those guns around.
We found the mighty Bismarck,
And then we cut her down.
We found that German battleship,
Was makin’ such a fuss.
We had to sink the Bismarck,
‘Cause the world depends on us.
We hit the deck a-runnin’ and,
We spun those guns around.
We found the mighty Bismarck,
And then we cut her down.
One thing I’ve noticed about 2UE lately, is that the shows where the presenter doubles as the panel op have been sounding quite odd on network stations. Hosts have consistently cut the network feed for computer audio, creating annoying silences when they play bits of incidental music (such as at the end of a call), Glenn Wheeler has become quite an expert in that in recent weeks. Somebody really needs to reminds the presenters that they only need to cut the computer network feed for ads and 2UE specific intros.
The other example which has driven me nuts is Stuart Bocking enabling the complete audio feed during the weather, effectively making network station weather and 2UE weather clash. It’s quite simple Stuart, press the button when the weather finishes. This is not a criticism, just a bit of helpful advice.
I’ve noticed that 2GB seem to employ panel operators for all shows, perhaps 2UE should consider this. Yesterday’s OB sounded very good from a technical perspective as there was a panel op at 2UE controlling things, which made the program flow nicely.
I have said before (perhaps not here), that automation and networking are only obvious when things go wrong, and then it reflects badly on all stations involved, regardless of how fair that might be.
I would urge 2UE to do one of two things, employ panel ops 24/7, or remind staff of correct panelling procedure.
As you may recall from 2UE’s letter, John Kerr will be returning to 2UE on the weekend version of New Day Australia on January 28. This is now less than one week away, and I have closed the petition and archived it.
I appreciate, as I’m sure John does, all the support that people gave John. 2UE have decided to keep John on weekends, so it is time to get behind that show.
I have archived the Save John Kerr page here, and the petition here. 2UE will receive the final version of the petition, as it would be unfair of me to not pass on the comments left in good faith.
If you still want to send a message to 2UE, you will need to send it directly to them.
It would appear that Steve stumbled on another part of the exploit, rather than the section which was being used. Steve uncovered a section which made use of an invalid length record in metafiles with only one record. It is the considered opinion of independent security experts that this section of the code was deliberately implemented by the programmer as a way of executing code in a metafile. Whether or not it is a backdoor is dependent on your definition of backdoor. Whilst it is a program backdoor similar to “secret” master BIOS passwords set by the manufacturer, it isn’t a backdoor in the “malicious person remotely gains access to your computer” sense (although it can contain code to do such things).
Steve has now, in collaboration with other experts, created a WMF exploit tester which tests for all the known ways of exploiting the WMF exploit, on Windows and WINE.
The following operating systems and envoironments are vulnerable to the WMF exploit until a patch is installed:
Windows Vista beta
Windows XP
Windows 2000
WINE
The following operating systems are vulnerable and will not be patched by Microsoft, you must run a vulnerability supressor such as the one from NOD32 (it’s free) on these operating systems.
Windows NT 4
All other operating systems are safe.
You can download the vulnerability tester, and read more about the WMF exploit from http://www.grc.com/wmf/wmf.htm, the page includes a detailed Q & A about the vulnerability, including analysis from Microsoft and security experts other than Steve.
Whilst I appreciate that there are people who disregard just about everything Steve says, I think he has written a fairly comprehensive, well thought out, and unbiased article on that page. If nothing else, there is a good vulnerability tester there for anyone and everyone to check their systems.
Also, you may be interested in his discussion with Leo Laporte about the WMF exploit in the most recent edition (episode 23) of Security Now!. Steve explains his vulnerability tester, and the discussion explains the exploit.
As you may recall, I reported about a week ago that the ABC are running a special “Reunions Special” series of As Time Goes By, which is a series of four episodes which pick up after the original series ended. These episodes are screening on Friday nights at 8PM.
Last night, ABC TV ran episode two, a summary of which can be found below. (Source: ABC TV)
Jean, Sandy and Judith wait nervously for news of Harry’s job and Alistair’s doctors appointment. Lionel is the first to return home, having left Alistair waiting for test results.
Alone at last, Jean and Lionel reflect on the day. Lionel is keen to talk about something other than babies, but Jean wants to know why he and his first wife never had children.
Episode three will screen on ABC TV at 8PM on Friday, January 27, whilst episode four will screen at 8PM on Friday, February 3.
I can sum that up in one word…”lunatics” (for those that keep emailing me saying it’s “loonatics”, that’s a movie, not a word!).
Take 2UE’s OB at The Domain in Sydney for example. 2UE generally have enclosed studios for every OB, which is lucky as somebody could have been seriously hurt if they didn’t. I’ll let a Sydney listener, Madcat from USENET Aus.Radio.broadcast explain what happened:
I was just listeening to 2UE just after 1pm Saturday, and they are
doing their “Find Me A Home” program as an OB from The Domain in
Sydney.
Some woman started banging on the glass window telling them to “turn
it down”. They told her to stop, as she’d break the glass. She did
for a few moments.
Then she started up again…constantly and hard – BANG BANG BANG BANG.
And it really did sound like the window would shatter.
The real esate guy adn the host got all flustered, and mentioned that
they would have to get the police.
(Verbatim copy, errors were in original text).
Poor Monica Trapaga, her first day filling in for Glenn Wheeler and she gets a visit from a lunatic. If this person had wanted to have the speaker volume turned down, you would think she could have asked one of the 2UE staff, there seemed to be plenty there (including weekday afternoon presenter John Stanley). I don’t think I’ve seen a single OB that didn’t have non-presenting station staff all over the place.
Canberra only get 2pm to 6pm of Glenn’s (Monica’s) show on a Saturday, but the bits I heard did sound like Monica got a bit of a shock from that drama and needed a break. To her credit she continued with the show, and it was undoubtedly a coup for 2UE having Monica at an OB, but it did seem quite clear that she was shaken up by the whole event. I hope that 2UE have the courtesy to give her tomorrow off if she needs it.
The ACT Government has announced an additional 22 mobile speed camera locations. Whilst I’m glad they are monitoring more areas, I don’t approve of the publication of camera locations.
The ACT government have this strange theory that publicising speed camera locations will slow people down, ultimately though, all it does is give motorists a chance to slow down near a speed camera and speed up again once they pass it.
This thread on Canberra Cruises proves this theory, as it clearly shows that people there might slow down around the cameras, but they won’t slow down elsewhere. So what to do?
Well I was chatting with 2CC’s Mike Frame today just after he interviewed an ACT government spokeperson about the new cameras, during this interview Mike seemed to agree with the idea of notifying motorists of speed cameras. I said to Mike that I think we should do away with the conspicuous white vans for speed cameras, and should just have random vehicles in random locations with the speed cameras. This would have much more effect on motorists’ speeds as they would need to avoid speeding altogether in order to avoid fines, demerit points and other punishments. By the end of the conversation Mike seemed to agree that I had a good point.
I really think that the idea of speed cameras being pure revenue raisers is nonsense…if people obeyed the road rules there would be no revenue from speed cameras.
Another thing which I think would help make the roads safer is a licence fee system based on the number of demerit points the licence holder has attracted (I use the word “attratced” because I can’t work out whether one gains or loses demerit points). For example, 0 points = free licence, 1 point = $100 licence, 2 points = $200, 3 points = $400, 4 points = $800, 5 points = $1600, etc.
Of course, an increased covert and marked police presence would help. Covert speed cameras would help keep speed down, whilst covert police cars would help keep other road rules in an unbroken state as you would never know when the police might catch you. Marked police vehicles and foot/bicycle patrols would help keep general law and order in check. It’s pretty simple, but I suppose it just requires funding…
I posted this as a comment over here, but I think it will be more useful as a general announcement. I am becoming annoyed at having to make these announcements, but please read and abide or go elsewhere.
I retain editorial control over this site, I will delete useless comments, especially when they are offtopic. What I am seeing at the moment is that a few people are taking every chance they can to leave comments on various subjects which do not correspond to the post they are attached to.
I don’t want to censor people, but useless and annoying comments will be deleted.
I’m sorry if this inconveniences you, but there is nothing stopping you from starting your own site if you want to talk about stuff which I don’t. There are plenty of free webshosts and blogging services out there for you to choose from.
For the record, I am making a financial loss from this site and my podcast. That doesn’t concern me, because the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of the cost. What does bother me is seeing me lose control of something which I pay to maintain and dedicate a lot of time to.
One thing I have noticed about bigger blogs and forums is that they tend to have a lot of useless comments from people who couldn’t give a toss about the topic, and instead feel like posting garbage to websites. Some of the bigger forums have an advantage in that they generally have a bunch of admins and moderators who can deal with that and set the general tone of the site. I do not have that luxury, this is a one person operation, and I can’t be here 24/7 to maintain it. Therefore it is important that I set the tone when I am here, so that it carries over to when I’m not.
Sometimes I am forced to take measures that I don’t like, and have been criticised for previously, but if I don’t make these decisions then this site would spiral out of control and I would be likely to not renew the site hosting.
There are other blogs which run successfully without comments. Whilst thay might work here, I suspect it would remove a large portion of the readership. One of the key aspects of this site is the discussion, and I find a lot of it to be interesting, but I still need to retain control over it so that things run smoothly. I don’t want to lose visitors because I can’t control the comments…that would be a disaster, so I control the comments to the extent that I stop childish behaviour, and spam-like comments.
I appreciate you reading the site, and I appreciate you leaving comments, but if you cross the line in my view as site owner, then you will be forced to take action. I’m not going to ban anyone for disagreeing with me, but I will ban people who continually post rubbish.
This site is here for me to have fun, not to spend hours deleting rubbish. If you can’t deal with that, then go elsewhere.
Earlier in the week I interviewed Wayne Mac for Samuel’s Persiflage episode two, where we talked about Wayne’s book, Don’t Touch That Dial. On this occasion Wayne had to rush off after the show and as such was unable to sign the book or have his photo taken.
We made alternative arrangements, which involved meeting for lunch and coffee today. During this time Wayne signed the book with the following:
Here is Wayne signing the book:
And a photo of myself with Wayne:
This was also a good time for me to hand Wayne an audio CD copy of Samuel’s Persiflage episode two and a thankyou letter. My standard policy for guests on Samuel’s Persiflage is that they receive a letter with information about the show (including the fact that it is now archived by the National Library of Australia), as well as an audio CD copy of the show, and monthly download statistics. At this stage the podcast hasn’t been running long enough for me to establish how long these monthly updates need to continue for.
You may recall that during my interview with Wayne, he was talking about John Kerr’s jingle from 1963 and was just starting to say something about John Vertigan when we were forced to cut to the jingle by an unexpected banging on the front door. Today I took the opportunity to ask Wayne what he was going to say, and he informed me that the jingle was part of a package of jingles where the main song was recorded and the names inserted later. Upon listening to the jingle closely it is quite possible to hear the difference in the way the various bits of the song are sung. This jingle package was used by many stations for many DJ’s.
For the record, the book weighs in at 1.88 KG according to my weighing of it.
Myer is an Australian department store, which is in my view somewhat conservative and isn’t likely to advertise a product it doesn’t expect that people will want to buy it. It has been years (late 1990’s) since I have seen a non-Windows computer in a Myer or Grace Bros store (Grace Bros was at that stage a partner store of Myer as part of the Coles Myer corporation, the two stores have since merged), so you can imagine my surprise when I looked through a Myer catalogue today and saw three Apple computers running Mac OS X, as well as a bunch of software for Mac. For the record the other five computers for sale were all running Windows.
The Apple computers were an iMac, and iBook and a Powerbook. The software was Apple iLife 2005, Apple iWork 2005, Norton AntiVirus for Mac 2005 and Apple Mac OS X (Tiger) 10.4.3, interestingly this was the full version of OS X and retails for $199, which is pretty good considering that Windows XP Home Edition full version costs $324, and Professional costs $478.
I still think that Apple will anounce an x86 version of Mac OS X later in the year, which would give them an interesting advantage over Windows in that Mac would run natively on x86, the new apple-intel platform (whatever it’s called) as well as Power PC (assuming they continue to support PowerPC for a while), whereas Windows would only run on x86 and 64 bit platforms, and would require a fair bit of end user modification to run on apple-intel (I’m running with that name until somebody corrects me!), something which is probably prohibited under the End User Licence Agreement anyway.
I wasn’t going to write anything about the blog awards and voting being open etc, especially with two websites actively campaigning on my behalf (something which I don’t endorse), but after checking what was being said in recent links to this blog, I felt compelled to share a gem of wisdom from The Teejmahal with you:
It blows my mind that there are people who actually actively CAMPAIGN for this s***? (*cough*Kitta*cough* *cough*). The hell? They mean nothing. Seriously. People read who they want to read. Insider awards don’t change that, and they never will. Vote for who you like, and if you win – hey, that’s lovely. If you don’t – hey, that’s lovely too. If you’re hung up on results like this, you’re writing for the wrong reasons. Blogger, heal thyself.
…
My advice. Use the awards for their primary purpose – to discover new blogs. There are some great new babies appearing on the scene, and fresh blood can only help the community. The photoblogs in particular are taking off, and there’s some great things happening.
TJ also had, what appears to be, a compliment for me.
The kid’s smart, a HELL of a lot more eloquent than the majority of the OMIGAWD WTF’ers in his age group, and it’ll probably be a bit of an ego boost for him. So all power to him. He’s funny looking, wears skivvies and will quite likely die a virgin, but he knows his own mind and handles ripping with dignity.
Thankfully it will only be another week and the torture of this whole blog awards process will be over. In future years I must remember to decline my nomination.
That being said, I’m not going to try and prevent you voting for me, but I think there are plenty of others who would gain much more satisfaction from winning these awards.
Samuel’s Persiflage episode number two, the January 2006 edition is online.
The first thing you should notice is that I’ve done away with the previous cringe inducing intro, in favour of something much more useful, in fact Samuel’s Persiflage now has a regular piece of theme music, which certainly helps make the show sound much more professional. During the show you may notice some voiceovers as well, a very big thankyou to ausvoice.com who have done a fantastic job with those.
The main content of this episode of Samuel’s Persiflage is a somewhat comprehensive interview with Wayne Mac, radio historian and author extraordinaire who, as previously noted, has released a book titled “Don’t Touch That Dial, Hits ‘n’ Memories of Australian Radio”. Wayne and I have a good chinwag about Australian radio past and present (mostly past) as well as the book.
We suspend the interview half way through for the listener feedback (podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com), due to time constraints I had to select a few and leave others out, those that were left out should have received personal replies anyway. The listener feedback segment starts with an intro which I spent about an hour on, which I think works quite well…keep an ear out!
We return to the interview, there is plenty of discussion to be had. Nattie can be heard joining the conversation at one stage, just prior to the playing of a John Kerr jingle from 1963, after which we discuss the book and wrap up the interview.
Unfortunately there was no time for any odd or quirky stories, but that doesn’t matter, the interview is great fun.
The file itself is available here, and is 63:00 in length (57.6MB) at 128kbps stereo. (I’ve decided that I can’t stand most of the music used in the podcast being converted to mono, it just sounds very flat. If there is significant demand, I may provide a lower quality dial-up version.)
For those of you who are using podcast software to receive your podcasts, the feed can be found here and if you are using iTunes you can subscribe to Samuel’s Persiflage by clicking here.
Since the last episode, Samuel’s Persiflage has been added to a few podcast directories, so a special welcome to those of you who have come in from a podcast directory.
Podcast related questions and comments can be sent to podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com or left in the comments section of this post.
I received an interesting email from the National Library of Australia today, in it they requested permission to archive Samuel’s Blog in the PANDORA Archive, “a growing collection of Australian online publications, established initially by the National Library of Australia in 1996, and now built in collaboration with nine other Australian libraries and cultural collecting organisations.”
Personal sites will usually only be selected if they provide information of outstanding research value unavailable elsewhere or if they are of exceptional quality or particular interest.
I must say that I am honoured by this request, and look forward to providing a resource for the future. PANDORA entries are maintained by the National Library Of Australia for future generations, which means that Samuel’s Blog will remain available to the public regardless of whether this site remains in existence or is made obsolete by changes in technology. PANDORA entries are also added to the National Library’s catalogue and the National Bibliographic Database (a database of catalogue records shared by over 1,100 Australian libraries).
The entire site will be archived on an annual basis, and will be made available through the PANDORA website. This includes all articles, photos, audio, video, and even Samuel’s Persiflage.
Needless to say I am excited about this, and have granted the National Library permission to archive.
Just in case you were wondering, PANDORA is an acronym for “Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia”.
If you are reading this in the year 2050 or some other far flung future year, welcome! I hope you find this useful in some way, I am proud to be part of documented Australian history. I wonder what I’ll be doing in 2050 (I’ll be 63 years old…will I still be running this site?).
It was rather nice to wake up to the rain this morning. A nice grey morning with the pleasing pitter patter of rain on the roof and a good drnching for the garden.
The long awaited book on the history and people of Australian radio, Don’t Touch That Dial, Hits ‘n’ Memories Of Australian Radio, has been released and is available exclusively through www.waynemac.com.
The best way to explain the book is to use the words of Wayne Mac:
Don’t Touch That Dial chronicles Australian radio from the days when teenagers were first seduced by the new sounds of Top 40 pop and DJs in the late 1950s.
It takes you on a journey where radio went from strength to strength on AM, then FM, introducing music, news, personalities, commentators and colourful characters several of whom became household names.
In Don’t Touch That Dial Wayne Mac takes account of an entertainment phenomenon which has touched the lives of generations of Australians.
A celebration of radio and its people in words and pictures.
The book format is A4 hard cover, 400 pages.
The foreword is written by legendary radio presenter Bob Rogers, in which he writes about Wayne
Wayne Mac was a keen young radio listener in the ’60s, who turned his passion for radio listening into a successful career as an announcer and program director in the ’70s and ’80s. Documenting this era of our radio history is long overdue. Wayne’s commitment to this task, through several years of meticulous research, has resulted in an authoritative and entertaining read. Few stones are left unturned. I have even been reminded of a few things about me, which I’d forgotten and I had a few laughs along the way.
The book is sorted into sections and chapters:
PART ONE:
1. ‘From Wireless to Radio’…an introduction to the very early days
2. ‘A New Hit to Happen’…the Top 40 era begins
3. ‘Stacks of Wax and Platter Chatter’…introducing Australia’s pioneering Disc Jockeys
4. ‘The ’60s: and the Beat Goes On’…the next generation of DJs and new sounds in pop music
5. ‘A Bright Good Morning to You’…the sound of breakfast and morning shows
6. ‘Hello, You’re on the Air’…talkback radio begins
7. ‘Now a Word From Our Sponsor’…the business end of radio
8. ‘Goin’ Up the Country’…how did country radio compare with the city?
9. ‘Have You Heard the News?’…the establishment and role of radio news
10. ‘The Music Goes Round My Head’…the origins of music format styles and positioning
11. ‘Sound of the ’70s’…greater sophistication of format radio through audience segmentation
12. ‘Something Special’…the era of producing radio specials and ‘event’ programming
13. ‘Jingle Jangle’…the production of advertising, promo and station identification jingles
14. ‘Cunning Stunts’…a Top 10 of station promotions and publicity stunts…and then some!
15. ‘FM Arrives’…finally!
16. ‘The Power in Radio’…the radio hierarchy. Who called the shots?
17. ‘The Changing Tune of the ’80s’…New formats, music, technology and new players
PART TWO:
Frequently Asked Questions
The Stations: the Players
POSTSCRIPT:
Wayne has put an awful lot of work, time and dedication into this book, and it shows. Don’t Touch That Dial is a quality book in a limited print run. It is expected that it will increase in value in the years to come.
If you would like more information about Wayne’s book, head on over to his website at www.waynemac.com, and keep your ear on the radio as Wayne will be interviewed countless times in the coming weeks.
