It’s Canberra day, and Samuel examines the weekend’s South Australian and Tasmanian state elections and what effect they have had on Australia’s political landscape.
The episode can be downloaded from here.
Samuel
7 comments March 20th, 2006 at 06:00am
Round two turned out better for me than round one.
I picked 4/7 (57.14%), taking me to a total of 5/14 (35.71%).
Samuel
March 19th, 2006 at 08:00pm
This week the award goes to Tom Jones, and the feature song is one I remember hearing in the lounge room when I was about three or four years old. I must have heard it regularly as I had a game of running around the circular mat on the floor whenever it was on.
The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train,
and there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.The old house is still standing tho’ the paint is cracked and dry,
and there’s that old oak tree I used to play on.
Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.Then I awake and look around me, at four grey wall that surround me
and I realiae, yes I was only dreaming.
For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre –
arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak.
Again I’ll touch the green, green grass of home.Yes, they’ll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
as they lay me neath the green, green grass of home.
Samuel
March 19th, 2006 at 07:36pm
After coming to the conclusion that there must be more gold in Dolgnwot, Samuel heads back there in his advanced truck, which even includes a house.
Samuel
5 comments March 19th, 2006 at 06:00pm
Credit to Media Watch for finding this one.
The photo you see there was part of an article about John Howard’s 10 years of prime ministership, Media Watch said this about the caption on their TV show.
Paul Howard?!
Come on Shepparton it’s been 10 years.
Media Watch seem to think this was a mistake, but did they consider the possibility that Shepparton News may have uncovered John Howard’s secret identity…perhaps Paul locked up John many years ago and assumed his identity…or maybe not.
Samuel
4 comments March 18th, 2006 at 11:51pm
I would just like to take a moment to thank everyone who has been listening to and/or subscribing to Editorial Echoes through the first week for your support. I have been pleasantly surprised by the download statistics all week, and I’m very pleased to see Editorial Echoes currently ranked 17 in the Talk Radio category on iTunes. I have screenshots to prove it!
(Click to enlarge)
Or accept my closeup
Once again thankyou, and there will be another episode of Editorial Echoes on Monday morning.
Whilst on the subject of podcasts, Samuel’s Persiflage will be behind schedule this month in that it will be released after the 10th-20th of the month window. This has been caused by interview delays, and I will endeavour to have it online for you ASAP.
Samuel
10 comments March 17th, 2006 at 07:02pm
You may recall this post from nearly a month ago where I informed you of the unsafe manner in which Campbell High School‘s PE Classes were travelling to (and presumably from) the Civic Pool, with minimal, if any, teacher supervision and direction. As promised I sent a letter to the principal of Campbell High School, but I never received a reply.
None the less, the letter was received by the principal of Campbell High and once can only assume that meetings/directives ensued, as I was most pleased to see a Campbell High School PE Group heading back to Campbell High School from the pool in an orderly manner with clear teacher supervision and direction. This was this morning at about 11 o’clock as I was crossing the bridge over Coranderrk Street. I was very impressed to see the school group also utilising the bridge, and I gave the leading teacher an approving smile and “hello” as she passed. I also gave the teacher at the back of the group a smile, but he was focussing on the group and did not see me, which is fine as he was carrying out his job and fulfilling his duty of care.
Whenever possible I like to follow up my editorials where I raise concerns about issues to see if anything has changed, and if so I like to bring you the news, which is hopefully positive. I can assure you that I will be sending the principal of Campbell High School a very complimentary letter, thanking her for taking my concerns into account, and seeing that they were rectified. I am very pleased at this outcome, and am glad to see the public school system taking public concerns into account.
Well done Campbell High School!
Samuel
13 comments March 17th, 2006 at 04:05pm
On top of the old carpark between the City Markets and the old Griffin Centre is a new extension to the Canberra Centre which is currently under construction.
From the top of the City Markets carpark the construction looks like this.
Now from ground level, a sign advertising the expansion.
The construction is filled with “peep holes” around the side which enables people to see what is happening inside without being inside, this first photo isn’t very clear though.
Looking down Bunda Street you can just see some peep holes and a lot parked vehicles and cranes.
And some from the peep holes. Note that it was a lot darker than the photos indicates, but the camera compensated for that. I did not use a flash.
Then I took a photo of two cranes, one from Bovis Lend Lease and the other from The Men From Marrs.
Another photo from a peep hole.
More of the Section 84 construction from Bunda Street.
Some signs on a staff entrance.
And more of the outside of the construction from Bunda Street.
And another one of inside the constructions.
The Men From Marrs crane from near the base of the crane.
And then a photo of the construction work from Ballumbir Street.
Samuel
7 comments March 17th, 2006 at 03:30pm
After my disasterous first round, hopefully I can do a bit better this weekend.
NRL Round 2
Bulldogs V Tigers
Eels V Warriors
Sharks V Broncos
Cowboys V Sea Eagles
Roosters V Storm
Dragons V Panthers
Raiders V Knights
Samuel
March 17th, 2006 at 11:21am
As regular readers of this blog would be well aware from the recent coverage here, here, here & here, there is some underground cabling going on at Civic, to bring power to a new building which is currently under construction in Civic.
The cabling which runs from the Mount Ainslie substation down to the building in Civic, has been going on for quite some time, and they are finally up to pushing the cables through the conduit.
This map may be of some use in following this article
I took these photos on Monday, and started from the CIT Campus on the corner of Coranderrk Street and Constitution Avenue, by walking up Coranderrk Street where a set of seemingly unrelated cabling is taking place.
Just before the intersection between Coranderrk and Doonkuna Streets is one of these points of cabling.
There is some more near the corner of Coranderrk Street and Elimatta Street
And again near the corner of Coranderrk Street and Limestone Avenue (in the background is Campbell High School, the red and white building).
This set of cabling does not obviously appear to connect to any other cabling, so where it goes to from here is a mystery. Although I may have stumbled upon the answer later on in the tour.
From here I made the journey to the Mount Ainslie Substation. Taking photos of major bits of infrastructure in a mildly concealed location does fall into the category of “suspicious activity” and with UEA (the cabling company) staff around, I decided that I should limit the number of photos that I took. The ones that I did take don’t show much, and I would have like to take some more from a better angle, but these will do. Here is one.
There is a lot of conduit floating about on Mount Ainslie at the moment.
From the point I was standing on for the last two photos, you can see two points of cabling holes in the ground, the trench path in the distance, the back of the substation sign on the left, and a UEA truck on the right.
And another picture of the substation
Around this time an american tourist who was passing by asked me if I was a photographer and what I was photographing.
There is a sign for the substation (which ActewAGL call the “City East Zone Substation” and a sign informing us that the path we are using is a horse track).
There is also the back of a sign owned (and marked as such) by Cord Excavations. They have put their phone number (6260 2166) on it, presumably so that if it is lost, and you find it, you can ring them and they can pick it up.
And of course I was on the edge of the Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve, which also has a sign.
Here is one of the many cabling holes, featuring one cable and three streams of conduit, which is fairly normal for the current progress of the cabling.
And more conduit.
And much more conduit with a UEA truck.
It would appear that a trench was dug from the substation to the first road along the path, and from that point on Horizontal Directional Drilling was used. The trench (which has now been dug over) can be clearly seen here.
Further down we have another cabling hole.
And some of the nature reserve.
From here you can see the under-construction building, the eventual destination of the cables.
Shortly after this two ActewAGL vans passed by and I took a photo of one.
They then stopped up at the previously photographed hole and started working around there.
Then we have another hole, the first one along the Horizontal Directional Drilling.
And another one
Then there is one down at the corner of Batman Street and Limestone Avenue
Two UEA trucks turned up around this time and the occupants gave me strange looks, so I didn’t take further photos of that particular hole and went on to the next one, which looks like this.
It would appear that UEA are using Skippy Bins to store their dirt.
Then we have the hole which turns from being parallel with Limestone Avenue, to go under Limestone Avenue and become parallel with Allambee Street.
In that last photo you can see a fourth conduit, which appears to head in the general direction of Coranderrk, which makes it looks like they are giving that line of cabling a new feed, instead of using whatever feed they were using previously, which was quite possibly the same feed which services Campbell High School. Presumably they will split one of the cables into two so that it can feed Coranderrk Street.
On Allambee Street the holes on a block where things are a bit more likely to get thrown in by residents have been dug over.
By this time it is possible that I had attracted attention for taking photos of all this cabling, and a government car pulled up and the occupant appeared to monitor me for a while before going away.
On the next block, the first hole is marked “Demolition In Progress”.
Another hole has been dug over on this particualr block, although it is unclear why.
On the next block we have another hole.
From here we can see the under-construction building.
Crossing the road to the next block I could see some people working on a roof on a building in Argyle Square.
And it is possible to see the under-construction building and a crane from halfway down this block.
Where Allambee Street turns into Currong Street there is a large hole.
Half way down Currong Street it turns right on to Boolee Street, but the corner was covered in dirt.
On Boolee Street there is a sign informing of a road closure during some of the work which misspells Boolee.
And more signs related to the road closure.
From here you can see the under-construction building.
And there is a Horizontal Directional Drilling machine on the corner of Boolee Street and Kograh Lane.
And the hole just in front of it, where you can see some conduit and the drill piece on the Horizontal Directional Drilling machine
The cabling then goes under Ballumbir Street and through Glebe Park, on the corner of Boolee Street and Ballumbir Street there is are some street signs.
I then entered Glebe Park through the Galliard Smith Gate
From just inside the park you can see lots of Conduit and their hole in the ground.
Glebe Park is very wet underground, and has always been that way, as such this hole is pretty wet.
From here the under-construction building is highly visible.
UEA were moving one of their Horizontal Directional Drilling machine, if you look closely you will see mats under the machine, which appears to be needed for moving the machine on the bricks. The people moving the machine have to move the mats in front of the machine after they get behind it. In the background you can see the new building.
Around this time one of the UEA trucks that passed me on Limestone Avenue entered Glebe Park and the people inside started giggling when they saw me still taking photos. From just outside of Glebe Park I could see more UEA vehicles.
I then took a photo from the next block, on top of where the cable is going, with the path directly in front of, and directly behind me. You can see the under-construction building’s transformer room from here.
I then zoomed in the transformer room.
And one of the “High Voltage” signs.
I then took some photos of the under-construction building.
I then walked over to the CIT Campus for a cup of coffee at Cafe Yala (with discounts for students) and took these photos of the building from the bridge to the CIT Campus over Coranderrk Street.
After this I went and photographed the other main construction site over at section 84 (The Canberra Centre extension), which I will have the photos of, online shortly.
Samuel
16 comments March 17th, 2006 at 08:00am
This morning Samuel takes a look at the Commonwealth Games and their reputation as the “goodwill games”.
The episode can be downloaded from here.
I was in a much less noisy environment for this one, so I’ve tried it without noise reduction, I think it comes out OK, let me know if you have a view on the noise reduction or lack thereof.
The next episode will be on Monday, as this is a weekday podcast.
Samuel
9 comments March 17th, 2006 at 06:00am
Minister for communication Helen Coonan has left the way open for advertising on the ABC. Will it happen? Will the ABC remain supposedly “independent”? And should it happen? Samuel answers the questions!
The episode can be downloaded from here
We also have an iTunes link now, which is http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=130324642&s=143460
Samuel
12 comments March 16th, 2006 at 06:00am
A storm swept through Canberra this evening, it brought a spectacular lightning show, plenty of rain, a wee bit of hail. The Bureau Of Meteorology’s weather radar caught the action quite well.
I also caught this photo on the corner of Doonkuna and Allambee Streets just after the storm.
Samuel
1 comment March 15th, 2006 at 07:40pm
It amazes me how utterly stupid the designers of most large buildings in the Belconnen area really are. You would think that if you were designing buildings that the general public will need to be able to navigate quickly and easily, you would have a logical layout for the building…but not in Belconnen.
No, in Belconnen it is common to have buildings which are more like a maze than a building. One level may be multiple levels joined by starnge bridges and spiral staircases, with odd branches off to other different but connected buildings, which may share the same floor but use different floor numbers. Entrances are another strangeness of the area, you have to walk half way around a building to find a small unmarked and by no means obvious door which might just be an entrance, and hope that it doesn’t have a small “staff only” marking on it.
And don’t get me started on the interior grounds which often need to be navigated in order to find an entrance. These undulating maze like areas with paths that don’t really have any general direction and have many offshoots going in directions without any signs telling where they lead to, are often worse than the buildings themselves.
It could just be that I am used to the majority of buildings in the inner north where one level is one level, not many different levels on different buildings that might actually be the same building but are just split into many “organisational” buildings for no apparent reason. In the inner north, a corridor has logical room numbering, the staircases are predictable, and the signs point in the right direction. Perhaps I am just lucky to spend most of my time in logical buildings.
I do hope that the Belconnen experience hasn’t been repeated in too many other locations, as it is utterly ridiculous, and in a perfect world would be a criminal offence which would see the designers stripped of their legal ability to design buildings.
I just hope I don’t have to visit one of the buildings again in the near future.
Samuel
10 comments March 15th, 2006 at 04:52pm
I have to inform you that there will be no Editorial Echoes today, for the same reason that there has been no new posts on this blog over the last 24 hours…hayfever, and a rather nasty dose of it too!
There was really no point in me trying to record a podcast with a blocked nose and a sore throat, and as I spent most of the day asleep anyway, I didn’t have much to talk about. I am feeling better now, and will have to travel out to Bruce today to hand in an assignment which was due yesterday, the same one I nearly handed in last week (and to the person who emailed me with a non-working email address, no it wasn’t Requirements Analysis, it was Client Support).
Anyway, I will take this opportunity to explain the automation which is enabling you to receive Editorial Echoes each morning at 6am, even though I may still be asleep.
The night before the episode goes online I do a quick bit of editing (noise reduction and adding in the music) before saving the MP3 and uploading it. I also write the update for the RSS feed, and the sidebar listing, these also get uploaded.
Before I go any further, I should explain a thing or two about the directory structure of this website. This website is hosted on Bluehost‘s “Box 35” along with many other websites. On that server, I have a directory located at /home/samuelgo/ this is my “home directory” and is effectively my root directory (aka my / directory)thanks to the use of a “chroot jail”. (It is worthwhile pointing out that the server is Linux based, and you can type those terms into Google for more info).
Everything you see on this website is located in my /public_html/ directory, which is effectively the / directory of the website (aka the https://samuelgordonstewart.com/). (Technically most of this site is generated dynamically by pulling stuff out of a database, and most of the URLs don’t physically exist but are understood by the server with the help of some modrewrite rules in the .htaccess file.)
OK, if I were to upload these files straight into the Editorial Echoes directory (/public_html/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/) it would be possible for people to download them earlier than the release date, and would result in podcast software downloading it very early, so a bit of automation and trickyness is necessary.
Instead of uploading the files to the public Editorial Echoes directory, I upload them to a hidden Editorial Echoes directory outside of the /public_html/ directory, and effectively not accessable by the public. This directory is the /echoes/ directory.
As I said, that file isn’t publically accessable, so that doesn’t really solve anything as there’s no point having a podcast that people can’t download…that’s where the automation kicks in. I have a couple cron jobs (cron being the Linux task scheduling program) set up to automatically copy the various files to their public locations. These three files are
The cron jobs look like this:
55 11 * * * mv /home/samuelgo/echoes/echo*.mp3 /home/samuelgo/public_html/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/
0 12 * * * cp /home/samuelgo/echoes/echoes.xml /home/samuelgo/public_html/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/echoes.xml
0 12 * * * cp /home/samuelgo/echoes/sidebar.php /home/samuelgo/public_html/wp-content/themes/blix/sidebar.php
Each cron job is one line, but the webpage forces line wrapping. The server is somewhere in the mountian timezone of the US, which is currently 18 hours behind Canberra. I will have to modify the times when the difference changes.
I should probably explain these cron jobs.
The first one says “at minute 55 of hour 11 of every day of every month on every day of the week, move /home/samuelgo/echoes/echo*.mp3 to /home/samuelgo/public_html/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/”
The asterisk is very important there as the mp3 files will have different names each day, but will conform to the “echo(episode number).mp3” format. The move command is also important as it means I don’t have to delete the old mp3 files each night, and the command isn’t going to recopy old files. The time (which works out to 5:55am Canberra time) is very very important. The mp3 file must be available before anything else is online, otherwise podcast software will fail to download the new episode, which will result in them either giving up or constantly retrying (which would, with enough podcast clients, create a distributed denial of service due to the excessive number of concurrent connections), make WordPress provide incorrect information in the blog’s RSS feed about the mp3 file, and give people who manually download the file “404” errors until the file is online.
The second one says “at minute 0 of hour 12 of every day of every month on every day of the week, copy /home/samuelgo/echoes/echoes.xml to /home/samuelgo/public_html/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/echoes.xml”
The only real differences here are the time (Midday server time, 6am Canberra time), the command (copy instead of move) and the filenames. I’ll let you use your imagination for the third one.
Also overnight, I write the post for the Editorial Echoes episode, which I schedule to appear at 6am. WordPress will ultimately make it appear slightly earlier or later, which again emphasises the need for the MP3 to be online before 6am.
The only thing which cannot be automated is the Editorial Echoes website, which I manually update when I get around to it. It is normal for it to be a bit behind from time to time.
I hope that sheds some light on the automation which makes this all possible without me having to be up at 6am every morning.
Samuel
14 comments March 15th, 2006 at 06:59am
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