Samuel's Blog

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs

Good evening Stuart,

Just a note about what Eric was saying about the compact fluorescent lightbulbs interfering with AM radio signals to the extent that if you have one light on in the house, you have no radio…well I had three on during his call, including one about a metre and a half from the radio, and I could not hear any interference. I then picked up the radio to test his theory, and I had to bring the radio within five centimetres of the bulb to get a minor buzz.

If his bulbs are knocking out his radio, then his bulbs are faulty and should be replaced.

I love these lightbulbs, mainly because I prefer the light they produce to the light a traditional incandescent bulb produces. The fact that they cost less to run and last a lot longer than the average bulb is a bonus. And as for the dimmers, there are a handful of CFLs that work with dimmers, they aren't very common yet, but they will be (not that I'm a huge fan of dimmers anyway).

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

P.S. Congratulations on your new 2UE promo…it's almost funny to think that you've had a promo on 2CC for months and you've only just got one on 2UE!

5 comments September 19th, 2007 at 11:27pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Vote 1 Samuel?

Originally posted Monday, September 17, 2007
Update: This poll has received a fair bit of attention from regular readers of this blog, the Canberra media (2CC in particular), and the people of Canberra, and as such I have decided to bump this back up to the top of the page. I will do so again on Friday. End Update

I thought I might have a bit of fun with the poll this week. Last night I was reading various documents on the Australian Electoral Commision’s website, and discovered something which surprised me…candidates for elections can only be nominated after the writs have been issued. It’s logical when I think about it, as the nominees can only be confirmed as eligible to vote after the rolls have closed (which occurs at 8pm on the day the writs are issued), however it did correct my belief that candidates had to nominate prior to the writs being issued.

This got me thinking about whether or not I would have something to offer the electorate of Fraser as an independent candidate at the upcoming federal election. Admittedly, the chances of me actually unseating the current Labor member for Fraser aren’t great, but it is fairly obvious that I have a lot of views on a lot of subjects, and I think I could make a useful and interesting contribution to parliament.

So, the question this week is:

At this stage it is purely speculative. I’m not asking if you would vote for me, and I haven’t even decided if I want to stand for election. That being said, I think I could make a useful contribution, so I would like to know whether or not you would like to see me stand for election.

Now, last week’s poll:

No surprises there!

For a list of all previous results, see the Weekly Poll Results page.

Samuel

11 comments September 19th, 2007 at 06:43pm

Windows Help not included in Windows Vista

Among the annoyances that I keep finding in Windows Vista is this little gem. The Windows Help application (WinHlp32.exe) is not included in Windows Vista. This is the program responsible for opening 32 bit .hlp files, used in such applications as Microsoft Office 2000, which I prefer over the current incarnation of Microsoft Office for a number of reasons. Trying to get help from such a program brings up the rather unhelpful window shown on the right, the most infuriating part of which is, that applies for the help tooltips (pictured below) where you click the “?” button and then click on an object to get information about that object.

Officially 32 bit .hlp files are obsolete and have been replaced by other help formats, and so it makes sense that they wouldn’t be supported any more…until you find out that the even more obsolete 16 bit .hlp files are supported as Microsoft decided to ship WinHelp.exe with Vista. The logic behind this decision is impossible to comprehend, however it does appear to be a rather strange and cynical attempt to force Vista users to upgrade to newer versions of various Microsoft products by making the old ones “troublesome” under Vista.

Thankfully WinHlp32.exe can be downloaded and installed from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607 which will restore the full functionality of Windows Help (third picture), but I do have to ask Microsoft whether or not it was really worth breaking the “help” function of many existing applications for the sake of saving about a megabyte in a 10GB operating system? No? Well, then they must be trying to make people upgrade.

What a nuisance!

Samuel

2 comments September 19th, 2007 at 09:03am

Canberra Radio Ratings #2 for 2007

Late last week Nielsen Media Research released the results of the second survey of radio listeners in Canberra for 2007. For the last few ratings I haven’t managed to produce a statistical analysis of the ratings due to the amount of time it takes, however this time I have gone to the effort of putting all the ratings results since 2005 in to a spreadsheet, this not only allows me to automate the calculations required for the analysis, but also allows me to create graphs. As such, you can expect much more interesting ratings results from me from now on.

So, without further ado, the ratings.

666 ABC Canberra have clearly cemented themselves at the top of the ratings (congratulations to them…but I really can’t understand why…if the audience want to listen to the ABC, Radio National is much better, and if they’re not fussed about whether the station they are listening to is an ABC one or not then 2CC is the best talk radio station in Canberra in my opinion), 2CA are making an impressive comeback, and ABC Classic FM are losing ground quickly. 2CC have now lost ground for two consecutive surveys (although I have been informed that Mike Frame’s weekend programs are rating between 14% and 16% in their timeslots, and are the highest rating programs of any 2CC presenter, local or otherwise). FM 104.7 did much better than their sister station Mix 106.3, and JJJ continue to gain.

It is quite interesting to see how the leaderboard has changed over time (Excel refused to reduce the Y axis range to “1 to 10”).

I think it is quite interesting to see the segmentation of the market between the talk and music stations, and how it changes over time.

There are five music stations and four talk stations in Canberra, so it is also interesting to see the average rating of each station in each category.

ABC and Commercial audiences.

There are five ABC stations and four commercial stations…therefore the averages of the stations in each category.

And probably my favourite category comparison…the battle of the bands.

FM might still be winning, but this is the second consecutive gain for AM!

The averages based on four AM stations and five FM stations.

So far the date for the first survey of 2008 has not been announced.

4 comments September 19th, 2007 at 06:30am