I was taking Nattie for a walk this morning as I usually do, we were walking around Argyle Square, which is a block of private townhouses on Ainslie Avenue, near Civic. As we were walking along Allambee Street, there was a government pather on the other side of the road, having his morning tea break. He was sitting under a tree, with his car radio on, and from a distance I thought I could recognise a voice, as I got closer I heard someone talking about sharks, and then hear Tim Webster, who was interviewing a shark expert.
I was tempted to say hello to the pather, but Nattie just wanted to keep walking, so we kept right on walking.
Canberra, with it’s surrounding bushland, has quite a bit of wildlife, some of them have chosen to live in urban gardens but remain mostly unseen. Occasionally they venture out and are sighted by residents.
Yesterday the possum which lives on the next block paid my block a visit, and with the heat, took shelter on top of a bush covered outdoor cupboard. Here are some photos of this nice possum.
Nattie wanted to chase the possum, but was restrained. The possum eventually went on its merry way at about 8:30pm, after a bit over 12 hours on top of the cupboard.
Due to popular demand, I have taken a photo of a photo which was seen in another photo.
There were a few requests for the photo seen in the background of this photo:
So, here it is:
To answer some questions about the photo, the lady is a family friend who is affectionately known as my nanny, the man is her late husband. I don’t know where the photo was taken.
Unfortunately the photo was never particularly clear in the first place.
This week the award goes to a group of country singers known as “The Highwaymen”, the group comprised Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson. Choosing a feature song from this group was quite a challenge, but I ended up settling on “Like Desperados Waiting For A Train” due to the incredible sound of all four of them singing the chorus together.
I played the Red River Valley
He’d sit in the kitchen and cry
Run his fingers through seventy years of livin’
And wonder, “Lord, why has every well I’ve drilled gone dry?”
We were friends, me and this old man
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
He’s a drifter, and a driller of oil wells
and an old school man of the world
He let me how to drive his car when he’s too drunk to
And he’d wink and give me money for the girls
And our lives were like some old Western movie
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
From the time that I could walk he’d take me with him
To a bar called the Green Frog Cafe
And there were old men with beer guts and dominos
Lying ’bout their lives while they played
And I was just a kid, they called his Sidekick
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
One day I looked up and he’s pushin’ eighty
And there’s brown tobacco stains all down his chin
To me he’s one of the heroes of this country
So why’s he all dressed up like them old men
Drinkin’ beer and playin’ Moon and Forty-two
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
The day before he died I went to see him
I was grown and he was almost gone.
So we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchen
And sang one another verse to that old song
(spoken) Come on, Jack, that son-of-a-gun’s a comin’
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
Like desperados waitin’ for a train
One thing I have noticed over the last week or so is that the people who think that Summernats is a good idea generally belong in one or both of the following categories:
People who don’t live in the inner north of Canberra.
People who think the only way to have fun is through loud noises, preferably whilst intoxicated.
I’m sure they enjoy this event and it’s inherent noise, smoke and pointlessness, in fact I’m sure they enjoy it, because they carry it out of the venue at the end of each day and continue it on suburban streets. The lovely loonies who bring their high-powered vehicles into Canberra each year aren’t content with watching others perform unusual activities in an enclosed environment, no, they feel a need to keep everyone else awake for many hours afterwards.
It is the general attitude of this group of people which becomes very annoying, they tend to think that the best way to drive a car is with a flat foot, especially when on a suburban road, couple this with the loud vehicles that these people generally drive, and suddently you will understand why I was still awake at 3 o’clock this morning, despite attempts to go to sleep.
I’m sure there are some genuine car enthusiasts who can behave themselves and not feel a need to wake up northern Canberra, and I’m sure Summernats does wonders for the local economy (especially the petrol stations), but it has a rather negative impact on those who live anywhere near it.
Organiser Chic Henry was on 2CC a couple weeks back telling us all that the people who don’t like Summernats don’t like noise and generally have something wrong with them…well sorry Chic, but you’re wrong. I don’t mind noise, but I’d rather not have it outside my window at 3am, I also don’t like the undesirable element which are generally attracted to your event, the ones who manage to drag Canberra’s road safety level to record lows (no pun intended).
Whilst Chic maintains that Summernats is a fantastic and safe event, reality shows it is anything but safe. For example, last night a ute in one of the parades managed to lose control and plow into a crowd, injuring four to six people, depending on your news source. Watching the footage it is quite clear that the driver was a goose and the fencing was completely inadequate.
According to Channel Ten, Summernats organiser Chic Henry says there’s always an element of danger associated with motor sports. Chic is right about that, but there is a vast difference between most motor sports and Summernats, the fencing. Most motor sports have a proper concrete barrier or similar with proper fencing above it, Summernats has a puny little fence that could probably be pushed over by an average grown human.
Add to that the fact that it was possible for a semi-streaker to get onto the arena under the location where a crane was about to drop a car on to a caravan (proper fences would fix that) and then they missed the caravan anyway, and you really have a very unusual definition of “safe” in Chic’s dictionary.
When Chic was on 2CC as previously mentioned, he was talking about how Summernats almost didn’t survive when they had to find a new location a few years ago…wouldn’t it have been brilliant if it hadn’t survived? Absolutely fantastic in my view. According to the ABC Television News, crowd numbers were down this year, which is fantastic as it might be spelling the beginning of the end for this strange annual annoyance.
News reports indicate that Chic will review safety procedures, well I’m going to give him some free advice. The best way to make the event safer is to not have it…there! Problem solved! Alternatively, move it to the middle of nowhere…that will, at the very least, make Canberra’s roads a bit safer…and let the loonies make as much noise as they want with nobody getting annoyed…won’t stop the injuries though.
If Summernats leaves Canberra I’ll be pleased, if it disappears altogether then I’ll be over the moon, as the world will be slightly more sane!
It looks like the spammers have found the podcast email address, as it received it’s first spam email overnight, which was apparently from the vice president (of what???)
From: SUPER LOTTERY
Reply-To: superclaim@zwallet.com
To: podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com
Date: Jan 8, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: You have won US$500,000.00
NOTICE…CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
SUPER E-MAIL LOTTO INTERNATIONAL MEGA MILLION
PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPT
BATCH NO: 65409/11/05/SLT
REF. NO: SLT/54390812/121/3421
WINNING NOTIFICATION / FINAL
NOTICE…CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
This is to inform you of the release of the E-MAIL LOTTERY
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attached to ticket number 219028 with Serial number
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covered with HIGH INSURANCE POLICY. It is important that
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international Mega Million will decline payment if such irregularity
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All participants were selected through a computer ballot
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companies and 3,000,000.00 individual email addresses and
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please contact your claims agent below on or before the 21st of February 2006
CONTACT NAME: JIM EDWARDS
EMAIL: agentjim05@netscape.net
It is imperative that you contact your assigned payment
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Please note in order to avoid preventable delays and
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Congratulations once more from our members of staff and
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Normally I would not publish email addresses, but these people are special (and I’m hoping the spam robots will pick up the addresses and spam them).
I wonder if Mrs Vice President Spitale and Jim Edwards are Shirley Mathis and “supervisor”, the holiday by phone scammers I reported back in August? If so, it’s lovely to hear from you again, but I’m still not giving you my bosses credit card number…
I received an email from “Melanie” earlier in the week, she had a great idea.
Long time listener first time caller. I’ve been trying to read through your archives, but I find myself giving up after one or two entries, because you have no links to the next entry from the current entry. I’m not sure how simple this would be to implement, but I think it would make newer readers, who are looking to delve into your back catalogue, a bit happier.
Well, I’m pleased to say that this has now been implemented. Every post page now contains a link to the next and previous post, for example, here is what it look like on Coffee Filled With Lovely Antioxidants, from August 29, 2005.
As I said to Melanie in a reply, this will make it much easier to fix up all of those old posts from the old blogger.com site.
As you would probably be aware by now, Microsoft have released a patch for the WMF exploit. Microsoft have only released the patch for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003, if you’re using another version of Windows then you’re out of luck for now, but Steve Gibson from grc.com has said that he may explore writing a patch for the unpatched versions of Windows. Steve, incidentally, helped in the development of the unofficial patch written by Ilfak Guilfanov.
To establish if you are vulnerable to the WMF exploit, you can download this WMF file (thanks to the Internet Storm Centre). Download it to your desktop and open it, if you are vulnerable the calculator will open and possibly crash Windows Explorer or whatever program you open it with, this WMF file will not harm your system. If you open it and the calculator doesn’t open, then you are safe. Upon further inspection I have discovered that Norton Anti-Virus detects it as “Bloodhound.Exploit.56” (it’s name for the WMF exploit) and claims that it cannot repair the file. If you are running anti-virus software you might not be able to test the file.
Well Channel 9 outdid themselves with their late night news bulletin, Nightline, last night. I could have been certain that I was watching A Current Affair with an altered background.
For one reason or another, each and every story had to be introduced with an opinion, for example, a story about Victorian highland drovers hering their cattle through national parks was introduced as “it’s illegal, but it’s alright because they are trying to save their heritage” (paraphrased).
Channel 9 are supposed to be a respectable news agency, I do hope this was just a bad night and not a new mandate…unless they are trying to rid themselves of an audience…
The AFL have now confirmed that the Seven/Ten consortium have won the broadcast rights for the 2007-2011 AFL seasons with the right to sell up to four games per week to other providers if they desire.
Hooray for good coverage, and congratulations to Seven & Ten.
Further Update: Seven/Ten have decided to sell three games to Foxtel per week
The Seven/Ten consortium have matched the Nine/Foxtel bid for the AFL, unfortunately this makes things slightly unclear as to who will win the rights. Seven/Ten have first and last bid rights, but a match isn’t an outbid, so who knows?
Ultimately I would prefer to have the AFL on Seven/Ten. Firstly, Seven/Ten do a better job of it in my view, plus Nine are already tied up with NRL and can’t really put both on live on Friday night.
Seven & Ten also have the better commentators in my view, hopefully Bruce McAvaney will take up the commentators position again. He is in my view, the best AFL commentator of the current era. He has done well hosting things for Seven, hopefully they can persuade him into the seat behind the microphone…or he might just jump in…
Putting that to one side, Nine (excluding Dennis Commetti Ex-Seven) and Foxtel have some of the most boring and pointless AFL commentators the game has ever seen, and don’t get me started on Collingwood president Eddie McGuire commentating on Collingwood matches for Nine.
Bring back good AFL Coverage, give the rights to Seven & Ten!
Word is circulating that 2UE management have asked John Kerr in for a meeting on Wednesday January 18. As yet it is unclear what this meeting is going to be about, but with the sheer amount of complaints 2UE have been receiving over their move of John to weekends, it wouldn’t surprise me, or others, if they are going to discuss reversing the decision.
On that note, it isn’t too late to help, sign the petition, ring 2UE on (02) 9954 9930, or write a letter to:
The Station Manager
Radio 2UE
PO Box 954
St Leonards NSW 1590
Australia
For those of you who a re wondering, George Gibson will be filling in for Angela Bishop on 2GB’s middawn program (Midnight-5am) from Monday January 9 until Friday January 13.
George will be co-hosting with Dan Mullins (ex 2CC) and will be able to be heard on the 2GB webstream for those of us who do not live in Sydney.
Looking at some of the news in the IT world at the moment, there is certainly a lot happening.
Starting with the Microsoft WMF (Windows Metafile) bug, which is undoubtedly the worst bug Microsoft have had for quite a while. Basically, a WMF file is a vector image script, which defines lines and shapes, effectively allowing it to be scaled to any size without distortion. Unfortunately when Microsoft designed the WMF specification, they included an error handler so that a faulty WMF image could still do something, however this allows people to write bad WMF files with an error handler containing malicious code. Even worse is that it is virtually undetectable, as a WMF files doesn’t have to have a .wmf extension and can be opened simply by being an image of a webpage, in an email, a document of some description or any number of other ways.
It gets worse, within 24 hours of the exploit being discovered, there were active exploits, dropping all sorts of nasties on Windows based computers everywhere, and Microsoft still don’t have a patch, despite the fact that it is now well over a week since the exploit was found. Thankfully an independent security expert has written a temporary patch, which Microsoft and many security agencies are recommending that you install.
The patch has been verified by the Internet Storm Centre who have hosted the patch at http://handlers.sans.org/tliston/wmffix_hexblog14.exe, the patch has also been verified by many other security agencies and experts. This vulnerability affects most versions of Windows, and is a very severe. It is recommended that you install the patch.
Apart from that, it is common sense security which will also help. The usual don’t open unknown attachments, don’t follow suspect links, and something that a lot of people don’t do but should, turn off the preview pane in your email client, otherwise your emails open simply by being selected, which can happen very easily, and very accidentally.
Other interesting and good IT News includes:
Wisconsin requires voting software to be open source and print a paper confirmation so that anybody who wants to can verify the software does what it should do.
The French military police ditch Internet Explorer and Outlook in favour of Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, citing standards compliance and the fact that they want everybody to be able to read their public information, not just Microsoft users.
Massachusetts confirms that they are adopting the Open Document Format (ODF), currently found in Open Office, and ditching Microsoft’s proprietary office format, citing, again, open standards compliance, enabling anyone to read and write the data regardless of operating system or office software (once Microsoft play ball and accept ODF in MS Office, it’s Microsoft’s loss if they don’t!).
An interesting day or so in IT, and not Microsoft’s finest!
