Samuel's Blog

What’s so funny Hillary?

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to think piracy is funny.

I’m not sure that the Captain of the Maersk Alabama Richard Phillips, who is currently being held hostage by Somali pirates, sees the funny side of it.

And Hillary, why are the navy a mile away? If they were a tad closer they might have been able to rescue the good Captain when he nearly escaped by jumping in the water overnight.

Samuel

April 11th, 2009 at 05:30pm

Sounds familiar

It must be time for the annual “Sandy Aloisi disagrees with Mike Carlton” story.

SHE used to be his boss at 2UE and is now his breakfast co-host and yesterday Sandy Aloisi certainly tried to counsel Mike Carlton when he went on a predictable tirade.

Looks like the Daily Telegraph have a template for this story. That opening sentence seems far too familiar.

The self-described atheist praised the decision to de-Christianise Royal North Shore Hospital’s chapel and criticised aggrieved Mosman Mayor Dominic Lopez.

Carlton then talked over an exasperated Aloisi – to the point she told him not to silence her with a kill button.

A 2UE source ensured us there was no such button.

They’re right, there isn’t a “kill” button, but if Mike Carlton is the panel operator, there is a button for him to turn Sandy’s microphone off.

Anyway, that article gets my award for “useless non-story of the week”.

Samuel

April 11th, 2009 at 11:42am

At the third stroke…

After watching yesterday’s video about Clive Robertson, I noticed these two videos about a device which replaced possibly the worst job in telecommunications history…the job of sitting in front of a microphone and announcing the time every few seconds.

This first video is about “George” the speaking clock being installed in Melbourne in 1954. The fact that the recorded time announcements were stored on three optical discs makes the whole thing look like some ancient Godzilla sized CD player.

And in 1990, news camera footage from “George” being retired and replaced by a digital system. Features an interview with the new (and current) voice of the speaking clock Richard Peach, who replaced Gordon Gow.

Samuel

April 11th, 2009 at 06:13am