It was obviously going to happen, but it happened a bit quicker than even I could have predicted. One does have to wonder if perhaps this is part of the reason the Rudd government have been so enthusiastically cutting expenses anywhere they can find them since gaining power?
The compensation claims don’t have to be successful, the money which will be spent on the legal proceedings is bad enough.
Incidentally, I’ve been drafting an editorial about the apology since Tuesday, I’ll try and finish it by tonight…it’s probably better now that the compensation claims are starting.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the rather fanciful use of technology on many television (and movie) law enforcement dramas, ranging from satellites capable of tracking a person in real time to the point of being able to hear the conversation they are having, to a single partial fingerprint being turned in to a complete set of fingerprints and an employment history in the space of about two seconds…along with the idea that recorded CCTV footage (on VHS cassette) of an out of focus numberplate in the distance can somehow be magically restored to a sharp high resolution image of the numberplate, and just for good measure, a perfect image of the people in the car.
How refreshing it is, therefore, to see British police drama “The Bill” using technology in a much more realistic way. Last year I mentioned London’s CCTV network, and this is definitely the most commonly used piece of technology on The Bill. It is rarely conclusive on its own, but is extremely helpful when it comes to proving or disproving alibis, and generally quite helpful in putting a case together. The pictures are generally quite realistic in that they aren’t exactly great quality, and impossible things such as zooming in to a pre-recorded image are never done.
On the weekend I read with interest a blog post by Russell Coker about The Bill‘s use of technology which, for somebody who stopped watching the bill about a decade ago due to a rather ridiculous story about piracy, is quite complementary. Russell makes a point about the electronic whiteboard used to collate a timeline and various bits of data about the case CID (Criminal Investigation Department) were working on, being very realistic (I would debate that for the handwriting recognition which seemed a bit too perfect). It’s interesting that Russell picked this episode as his return to The Bill as it was their first to use an electronic whiteboard. It was a welcome upgrade to the standard whiteboard they had been using, especially due to the ease with which they were able to move events around on the timeline.
The software would also be useful in court, as rather than recreating the whiteboard or producing photos of it, the entire whiteboard could be displayed on a screen, saving valuable court time.
Russell did question whether the software running the whiteboard was used by British Police; Considering The Bill’s strong relationship with the Metropolitan Police (they use real warrant cards, uniforms and police cars, amongst other things), I would be very surprised if the software or something very similar to it isn’t used by the police.
It is only within the last year that I started watching The Bill again, after dropping it in disgust during its peculiar soap opera phase. I am very pleased with the current cast and production team, and I am also pleased with the ABC’s move to screen both episodes on Saturday night. Apparently the Tuesday episode wasn’t rating particularly well, so hopefully the “summer” move will be continued through the year. Repeating them on ABC2 on Tuesday is a nice touch as well.
Yes, it’s been a bit quiet here lately. I’m not going to go in to the reasons why, but it will pick up again tomorrow.
Tonight you may notice some minor disruptions as I upgrade WordPress and perform an account audit. A security hole which allows a registered user to edit the posts of others exists in the version of WordPress currently installed on this website, and it certainly explains the large number of suspicious registrations lately. Account registration has been temporarily disabled and some obviously automatically created accounts have been deleted. I will be going through the rest of the accounts tonight, those that have not posted any comments since signing up may be removed.
If you have recently signed up for an account but haven’t posted any comments, your account may be removed in this process. Please feel free to sign up again or contact me to have your account reinstated. A database backup will be taken before any action is taken, so reinstating an account should be a simple matter of reimporting it from the backup.
I let this poll run for a few extra days as I couldn’t see the point of cutting it off half a week before Kevin Rudd apologised. Now that the text of the apology has been released to the public and we are 13 hours away from the official apology, it seems like an appropriate time to close the poll.
Do you support Kevin Rudd’s plan to apologise to the stolen generation?
I am very surprised. Despite my own answer of “no” (which have only become more adamant now that I’ve seen the apology), I was expecting at least 80% of respondents to answer “yes”. Obviously I’m not as alone as I thought on the matter, and I seriously underestimated the public sentiment.
There will be a new weekly poll on Thursday which will also go for about a week and a half.
It’s the Chinese year of the rat, and whilst there are a couple songs by that name, I don’t like them, so I’m going with the closest match that I do like for the Musician Of The Week award this week. The award goes to Al Stewart and the feature song is “Year Of The Cat”.
On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat
She doesn’t give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow ’till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There’s a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat
Well, she looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what’s waiting inside
The year of the cat
Well, morning comes and you’re still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you’ve thrown away your choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you’re bound to leave her
But for now you’re gonna to stay
In the year of the cat
“responce”
“loose” instead of “lose”
“effect” instead of “affect” (and vice versa)
It’s driving me nuts!
(This post was written whilst I was severely agitated, as a result it is unlikely that it will ever be elaborated on, it was just a useful way to get my agitation “off my chest”.)
How about informing people that federal treasurer Wayne Swan and housing minister Tanya Plibersek would be holding a press conference at 3:30pm?
One wonders if AAP were just watching Sky News, saw the press conference and decided that they better write something, anything, anything at all, about it.
Radio FIVEaa, Adelaide’s commercial talkback station, have announced the fill-in presenter for afternoon host Amanda Blair…it’s none other than the former federal minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer MP.
Mr. Downer, who retained the seat of Mayo in last year’s election, will host FIVEaa’s afternoon show from February 25 to March 7.
Mayo appears to be on the outskirts of Adelaide and parts of it would undoubtedly be in range of FIVEaa, which makes me wonder about the merits of allowing a member of parliament to control what comes out of the transmitter for a few hours each day…I can’t find a specific clause in the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice which expressly prevents a member of parliament from hosting a program, however it is blatantly obvious whenever a politician is interviewed, that they generally like their own opinions at the expense of all others, which makes me wonder how well Mr. Downer will be able to uphold clause 2.2 (c):
2.2 In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs, a licensee must ensure that:
(c) reasonable efforts are made or reasonable opportunities are given to present significant viewpoints when dealing with controversial issues of public importance, either within the same program or similar programs, while the issue has immediate relevance to the community;
Technically the station will be complying with the rules if, for example, Mr. Downer presents a hopelessly biased program and the next program is dedicated to people disagreeing with him…although I’m sure with Media Watch back in session by then, FIVEaa and Mr. Downer won’t want the attention.
On the positive side, it is a very interesting way of being available to your constituents and it is bound to generate a lot of calls. Mr. Downer will almost certainly be able to add a very thorough understanding of foreign affairs to any discussion, and hopefully will follow up on whatever local issues get thrown his way.
I wonder how many people are going to ring up and say that they voted for him?
I have a few concerns about having a current member of parliament hosting a radio program, but from a ratings and publicity perspective it’s a stroke of genius…the main problem though is that if it works, you can expect politicians to start filling in all over the country, and with some of them, that could be incredibly boring.
China’s bureau of meteorology are under strict orders to make sure that it doesn’t rain on the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in August:
CHINESE weather boffins say they have stopped the rain from falling in experiments aimed at guaranteeing a dry opening ceremony at August’s Olympic Games.
With no roof on the showpiece Bird’s Nest stadium, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau has been charged with developing methods of preventing wet weather spoiling what promises to be a spectacular start to the Games on the evening of August 8.
“Our experiments with rain mitigation have been aimed at light rain,” said Zhang Qian, head of weather manipulation at the bureau.
“With heavy rain it is more difficult. The results with light rain have been satisfactory.”
But if this is the best the weather manipulation people can do, then we’ll be lucky if a typhoon doesn’t hit the Olympics:
GUANGZHOU, China (AFP) — Millions of Chinese workers battled for a precious train ticket home Sunday as authorities flew in emergency supplies to areas stranded by the worst weather in 50 years.
Food and medical supplies were airlifted to the snowbound southwestern province of Guizhou and neighbouring Hunan where many people have been without power for more than a week, the official Xinhua news agency said.
[..]
The blizzards and icy temperatures that have lasted nearly three weeks now have stranded millions of people at airports, railway stations and bus depots in China’s south, central and eastern regions.
The weather has destroyed crops, hit industrial production, disrupted coal and food supplies and led to power blackouts, for a bill estimated at around 7.5 billion dollars, according to official figures.
At least 105 million out of the country’s 1.3 billion population have been affected and more than 60 have been killed, the government says.
Or perhaps it’s me that should be worried, the department of weather manipulation will probably unleash a cyclone on Canberra now that I’ve had a go at them.
Yesterday’s one-day international cricket match between Australia and India at The Gabba was washed out by rain. The weather forecast for the next two matches has me concerned.
Match Two (February 5): Sri Lanka V India at The Gabba (Brisbane): Rain 23°C-26°C
Match Three (February 8): Australia V Sri Lanka at the SCG (Sydney): Showers 21°C-25°C
The fourth match is the first one to have a good weather forecast.
Match Four (February 10): Australia V India at the MCG (Melbourne): Mostly Sunny 14°C-26°C
The next match is in Canberra on the 12th of February, at this stage Canberra is in for rain until the 10th by which stage it will start to clear, in a couple days we will know more.
Kevin Rudd is adamant that his apology will not lead to compensation, although you can be guaranteed that it will be tested in court at some stage, especially seeing as Bruce Trevorrow, the first stolen generation Aborigine to receive compensation, received an additional quarter of a million dollars last week. Compensation is only part of the issue though, there is also the debate over whether the current government should apologise for the acts of a previous government, whether a blanket apology or a selective apology is appropriate, and whether or not we even need to apologise.
The issue is undoubtedly a minefield of controversy, hence the reason for keeping the question simple. If you want to elaborate on your answer, please feel free to do so in the comments below.
Last week’s question was:
Should the Australian Navy be deployed to stop the whaling?
Whilst the majority say “yes”, 41% is still an awful lot of opposition. I would be interested to know what method the 41% would use to stop the whaling, if they want it stopped at all.
Unlike the last time I tried this, I’m using an alias so that I’ll be able to follow through with working out the scam, without divulging my personal details. Regular updates will be posted here, and Ruhtra has his very own category to keep track of the emails.
To start with, the email from Lbuyow (it almost had no line breaks…I’ve fixed up the formatting a bit to make it more readable):
Hello my new friend.
I want write to you and want to know you much more. I would like to correspond with you.
And now it is a little about me, My name is Lyubow, I live in most beautiful city in Russia – Sain-Petersburg. I think, you heard about it. If you will have opportunity arrive here do it necessary and you will see how it’s look likes. I was born 11 of December 1978 years. I have all my life before me. I of 168 sm of growth and my weight of 52 kg. I have finished school and then studied
in university. I studied history of the different countries and the English language for this reason and I can talk in English.
I work in shop on sale mobile phones. I don’t like my work, but I can’t find anything better. When I acted to study in university I thought that my future profession may be useful, but then I have understood that with my profession I can go to work only at school and I don’t want it, because on those wages that pay for teachers our government, it isn’t possible to live. Therefore I have gone to work at shop.
I want to tell about my hobbies, I very much love cinema! I think, that I can stay at a cinema all the day. I like gardening and green flowers. I prefer to listen to music on mood. I can listen in the evening to classical music and in the morning I can include radio and hop while I prepare for breakfast. I haven’t bad habits, I do not smoke and never used any narcotic substances. I can drink easy alcoholic drinks, but it happens only during holidays and in the company of my girlfriends.
I never was married and I have no children. I don’t know why, but I could not find the pleasant person for me. Much man want only sex with me. Other part can’t talk with me or can’t find a way to my soul. I want to know about your past relation. I will trip to Australia soon.
I will arrive to Perth. My girlfriend Oksana live there. She move from Russia some years ago. We communicate all time. She told me about her new family and live there. I want to live in Australia too. She help me with documents and all expenses for trip. Her husband is rich man and they don’t need anything in life. They help with money for me always. I will not ask you about money! I am not scammer. I heard much stories about it and you can trust me. If we want to meet in future, I will meet you myself, when I will be there. I want travel around Australia. I want talk with you on msn, give me you hotmail address for it. I don’t want to ask you many questions, just write me about yourself as I did. And of course feel free to ask questions! I shall wait for your letter.
You can write to me on my e-mail: shipkoluba@gmail.com<mailto:shipkoluba@gmail.com>
From past experience, it really doesn’t matter what you write in reply to these lunatics, as long as it is vaguely related to what they have written. I’m remaining on-topic for now (albeit avoiding a couple questions) and I’m painting a picture of Ruhtra as somebody who’s not very tech-savvy, and a bit gullible, the perfect target for this type of scam.
Ruhtra’s reply:
Dear Lyubow,
It is very lovely to hear from you and I think you will enjoy living in Australia. I have not been to Saint Petersburg but I have seen pictures of it on many television documentaries. You are correct, it is very lovely.
My name is Ruhtra Tolemac, I was born in the New South Wales town of Gundagai on the 19th of August 1980, I now live in Canberra which is the capital city. It has a very nice lake. I work as a baker, producing many fine breads and cakes. I am a very good cook.
I, like you, do not have any bad habits, and would like to get to know you better.
I do not have the MSN thing as I find computers to be a bit of a confusion sometimes, but I am OK with emails and I hope you receive and read this and would like to be in contact. I hope to talk to you soon.
If you have any more questions for me, I would be happy to answer them as you sound like a very lovely lady from the wonderful country of Russia.
Yours most sincerely,
Ruhtra Tolemac
The replies to this scam tend to be a bit slow, and tend to be done in bulk with the same reply going out to everyone who has replied to the initial email. For now, it’s just a matter of waiting.
This week’s award goes to Neil Diamond, and the feature song is “Sweet Caroline”.
Where it began
I can’t begin to know when
But then I know its growin’ strong
Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who’d have believed you’d come along
Hands, touchin’ hands
Reachin’ out
Touchin’ me
Touchin’ you
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined
To believe they never would
But now I
Look at the night
And it don’t seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt
Hurtin’ runs off my shoulders
How can I hurt when holdin’ you
Warm, touchin’ warm
Reachin’ out
Touchin’ me
Touchin’ you
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined
To believe they never would
Oh, no, no
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
Sweet Caroline
I believed they never could
Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
Sweet Caroline
The email from "Mariana" is, as you say, a scam. I couldn't work out the point of it when I received those emails last year, so I played along for a while…we got as far as her heading to Moscow to catch a plane to Australia, before I gave up out of boredom. I believe the scam was going to involve me sending her money so that she catch a plane to Australia.
I'm about to start the process again with an alias and follow through until I get a definitive answer as to what the scam is.
Mike Bailey, the former ABC weatherman and unsuccessful Labor candidate for North Sydney in last year’s federal election, has joined Channel Nine a weather presenter on their Sydney bulletin.
I was very surprised but also quite pleased to see Mike Bailey on the television again, I didn’t think I would ever see him presenting the weather on a commercial news service. It would appear that Mike will be presenting the weather on Friday and Saturday.
I remember watching an educational video about the weather in High School. Mike Bailey was the host of the video, in which he pushed bags of air around to demonstrate high and low pressure systems. I enjoyed that video, even though others found it incredibly boring…I had the great pleasure of seeing the video about half a dozen times during high school, mostly due Mr. Damien Malony showing it to my class a number of times. The video was produced by Video Education Australia, unfortunately I can’t find it in their catalogue, but I may contact them to see if the video is still available…I would like to have a copy of it.
