Samuel's Blog

NRL Tips: Round 12

A short week in the NRL due to next week’s State Of Origin match.

Bulldogs V Dragons
Rabbitohs V Knights
Titans V Cowboys
Broncos V Warriors

Samuel

May 31st, 2013 at 06:39pm

AFL Tips: Round 10

Sorry that my tips are appearing quite late in the day. It has been quite a busy day.

Brisbane V Collingwood
Carlton V GWS
Adelaide V Fremantle
Sydney V Essendon
Geelong V Gold Coast
Western Bulldogs V Port Adelaide
Melbourne V Hawthorn
North Melbourne V St. Kilda
West Coast V Richmond

Samuel

May 31st, 2013 at 06:37pm

NRL Tips: Round 11 results

My best round of the year to date. I’m still surprised that the Tigers beat the Cowboys, but I can’t claim to be surprised that the Storm got up over the Roosters.

Tigers V Cowboys -2
Bulldogs V Broncos +10
Dragons V Panthers +19
Roosters V Storm -8
Sea Eagles V Raiders +6
Eels V Titans +38
Warriors V Knights +14
Sharks V Rabbitohs +2

NRL Round 11 total: +79

Previous rounds
NRL Round 1 total: -20
NRL Round 2 total: +24
NRL Round 3 total: -30
NRL Round 4 total: -12
NRL Round 5 total: +42
NRL Round 6 total: -53
NRL Round 7 total: +30
NRL Round 8 total: +4
NRL Round 9 total: +12
NRL Round 10 total: +76

Total for the year so far: +152

How did you go this week? You might want to check out Luxbet NRL Betting next time. Luxbet is backed by TAB.
If you had picked the winners in this NRL round, you would have yielded $3,163.70 from a $5 bet from Luxbet NRL Betting.

Samuel

May 28th, 2013 at 09:50am

AFL Tips: Round 9 results

Collingwood V Sydney -47
Port Adelaide V Geelong -48
GWS V West Coast +100
St. Kilda V Western Bulldogs +9
Brisbane V Carlton +13
Richmond V Essendon +29
Hawthorn V Gold Coast +26
North Melbourne V Adelaide -1
Fremantle V Melbourne +90

Round 9 total: +171

Previous rounds
AFL Round 1 total: +199
AFL Round 2 total: +148
AFL Round 3 total: +138
AFL Round 4 total: +8
AFL Round 5 total: -96
AFL Round 6 total: +86
Round 7 total: -19
Round 8 total: +21

Total for the year so far: +656

Samuel

May 28th, 2013 at 09:35am

Friday Funnies: How not to handle the satellites

CBS Local News in Sacramento provides this gem of a story.

A man who called 911 more than 100 times in one month says he’s not going to stop until his concerns are heard by the federal government.

Jimmy Shao keeps a log book of every 911 call he’s made. So many that he boasts he’s probably set a world record.

He doesn’t believe he’s wasting the time of emergency responders because he has an emergency of his own: Shao believes he’s being watched by shadowy government authorities.

He claims to believe his body is controlled by satellites.

“My brain, I can feel it starting. I’m blasted by the signals, every couple of minutes,” he said. “I yell and I scream, ‘Stop it, I don’t need this,’ but they never listen.”

Sacramento Police say he’s ignored warnings to stop calling over and over, so they arrested him for 911 abuse.
[..]
Fresh out of jail, Shao promises he isn’t done dialing 911, “until Congress starts an investigation.”

Police say if he does continue to call he will be arrested again. They also say they may look for some counseling to get him some help.

Alas the story leaves me with more questions than answers. For example, I would love to know:
Are the satellites making him call 911?
When does he fill out the log book? Before, during, or after the call?
Does calling 911 help to stop the satellites from controlling him?
How does he know that congress aren’t in cahoots with the “shadowy government” folk who are controlling him?
Has he tried ringing various government departments who might be in control of the satellites so that he can more directly tell them “stop it, I don’t need this”?
Why haven’t the police just bought him some aluminium foil to help block out the signals?

So now I know Sacramento for two things. Firstly for having a PBS station which announces “Sacramento” in a posh pseudo-British accent that Rush Limbaugh loves to imitate, and for being the focal point of the shadowy government folk’s experiments…I think I might steer clear of the place lest it be contagious.

And then there’s the comments on the CBS article…I like this one:

dboots • 6 hours ago
this man may not be that far from the truth. Because of Lawrence
Livermore Nat Lab testing satellite constellations, here in San Joaquin County we can no longer see the real stars. We hardly ever get to see thousands of stars anymore and instead it is less than 200
(two hundred) as they block our ability to see the real stars. You can see these satellite constellations sending pulses back and forth of which stars are real and which are part of their system. What are the purposes of the pulses seen? Are the satellites a Star Wars Weapon n Defense system? Are they tracking us? If
future wars are meant to be fought from a comfort of an armchair then at
some point they have to test those satellite Star Wars weapons. Where
else are they gonna test them but aiming them our way? Those
satellite constellations are your future police
force/army/navy/marines/national guard most likely. look up smile 🙂

Or it could just be light pollution blocking out the light of some of the stars…but no, clearly the real stars are being hidden in a cupboard somewhere.

Samuel

1 comment May 24th, 2013 at 05:33pm

NRL Tips: Round 11

Tigers V Cowboys
Bulldogs V Broncos
Dragons V Panthers
Roosters V Storm
Sea Eagles V Raiders
Eels V Titans
Warriors V Knights
Sharks V Rabbitohs

Now that you know who I’m tipping, be sure to check out TAB’s AFL & NRL footy tipping website.
If you fancy tipping on this weeks round, I suggest having a look at TAB Footy Tipping.
TAB run are running an AFL / NRL tipping competition this season with weekly prizes, check it out.

Samuel

May 24th, 2013 at 05:21pm

AFL Tips: Round 9

Collingwood V Sydney
Port Adelaide V Geelong
GWS V West Coast
St. Kilda V Western Bulldogs
Brisbane V Carlton
Richmond V Essendon
Hawthorn V Gold Coast
North Melbourne V Adelaide
Fremantle V Melbourne

Samuel

1 comment May 24th, 2013 at 05:17pm

NASA study finds that carbon dioxide may help to cool the planet

For quite some time now, whenever someone has felt the need to explain the basics of the theory of anthropogenic global warming to me (the theory that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere prevents heat from escaping Earth by reflecting it back towards Earth) I have felt compelled to pose the question “but if carbon dioxide reflects heat, would it not also reflect heat from the sun back in to space, negating any excessive reflective action it may have on heat which is already on Earth?”. This usually results in me being scoffed at and told that I just don’t understand the science.

How interesting it is then that a recent NASA study (and remember, NASA has been one of the main proponents of the theory of man-made warming) seems to prove me right.

A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.

“This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.”

Mlynczak is the associate principal investigator for the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air hundreds of km above our planet’s surface.

“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
[..]
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.
[..]
“This is a new frontier in the sun-Earth connection,” says Mlynczak, “and the data we’re collecting are unprecedented.”

5% of the energy which was received from the sun made its way through to the planet’s surface. This is to be expected as we obviously receive enough energy from the sun at ground level to keep warm and to see sunlight etc, but 95% of the energy was absorbed and sent back out in to space through a process of temporary heating of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. Surface heat making its way up to the atmosphere could very easily have a similar effect in that it heats up the atmosphere, causing the majority of the heat to be radiated back out in to space while a small amount (5% based on this study) to stay on Earth.

Principia Scientific International’s Alan Siddons concurs with this.

Over at Principia Scientific International (PSI) greenhouse gas effect (GHE) critic, Alan Siddons is hailing the findings. Siddons and his colleagues have been winning support from hundreds of independent scientists for their GHE studies carried out over the last seven years. PSI has proved that the numbers fed into computer models by [NASA’s chief climatologist, Dr James] Hansen and others were based on a faulty interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics. PSI also recently uncovered long overlooked evidence from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) that shows it was widely known the GHE was discredited prior to 1951.
[..]
As PSI’s own space scientists have confirmed, as solar energy penetrates deeper into our atmosphere, even more of its energy will end up being sent straight back out to space, thus preventing it heating up the surface of our earth. The NASA Langley Research Center report agrees with PSI
[..]
To those independent scientists and engineers at Principia Scientific International this is not news. The “natural thermostat” effect of CO2 has long been known by applied scientists and engineers how have exploited it’s remarkable properties in the manufacturer of refrigerators and air conditioning systems. The fledgling independent science body has repeatedly shown in it’s openly peer reviewed papers that atmospheric carbon dioxide does not cause global warming nor climate change.

The findings of this study show that carbon dioxide is less of a heater and more of a cooler, although it could also point to carbon dioxide not really being a heater or a cooler, but a regulator. Either way it shows that the sun’s cycles have more to do with the earth’s temperature and climate than carbon dioxide levels, especially given that despite consistent increases in carbon dioxide levels over the last few decades, we have not seen any statistically significant warming of the planet in the last 17 years.

The links between the sun and the climate becomes even more clear when historical records of solar activity are checked against temperature records as there is a remarkable correlation between the two. Perhaps now we are starting to understand the science behind the link. I look forward to more research in to this link in the future.

Samuel

5 comments May 23rd, 2013 at 09:12am

AFL Tips: Round 8 results

I dare say that I owe my positive score this week to Hawthorn’s large victory over GWS.

West Coast V North Melbourne -2
Essendon V Brisbane -10
Hawthorn V GWS +83
Gold Coast V Western Bulldogs -32
Collingwood V Geelong +6
Sydney V Fremantle — DRAW +/-0
Carlton V Port Adelaide -18
Richmond V Melbourne +34
Adelaide V St. Kilda -40

Round 8 total: +21

Previous rounds
AFL Round 1 total: +199
AFL Round 2 total: +148
AFL Round 3 total: +138
AFL Round 4 total: +8
AFL Round 5 total: -96
AFL Round 6 total: +86
Round 7 total: -19

Total for the year so far: +485

How did you go this week? You might want to check out Luxbet AFL Betting next time. Luxbet is backed by TAB.
If you had picked the winners in this AFL round, you would have yielded $509.50 from a $5 bet from Luxbet AFL Betting.

Samuel

May 23rd, 2013 at 08:28am

NRL Tips: Round 10 results

Some very big scores going my way gave me a big boost this week.

Broncos V Titans +26
Rabbitohs V Tigers +44
Dragons V Eels -20
Panthers V Warriors +56
Cowboys V Roosters -4
Sharks V Raiders +10
Knights V Bulldogs -36
Storm V Sea Eagles — DRAW, +/-0

NRL Round 10 total: +76

Previous rounds
NRL Round 1 total: -20
NRL Round 2 total: +24
NRL Round 3 total: -30
NRL Round 4 total: -12
NRL Round 5 total: +42
NRL Round 6 total: -53
NRL Round 7 total: +30
NRL Round 8 total: +4
NRL Round 9 total: +12

Total for the year so far: +73

Here’s a freebie for the Luxbet folk as the draw resulted in a very interesting result. A $5 bet on the winners this week (if you picked the draw plus the winners) would have netted you $2738.40.

Samuel

May 23rd, 2013 at 08:14am

Technical problems with logging in to this blog

It has come to my attention that some people may be seeing a page which simply says “not acceptable” when they attempt to log in to this blog. This, unfortunately, is a necessary (and hopefully temporary) security measure which has been put in place by my web host VentraIP in order to combat an ongoing worldwide attack against WordPress installations. This security measure is outside of my control and I can not prevent this error message from appearing, however I can provide some help to overcome it.

The message should only appear if you load the login page a certain number times in a short period of time (as my web host has not made the exact number of page loads and the exact period of time available publicly, I will not disclose it at this time), and it should be noted that displaying the login page and submitting your username and password count as two separate loads of the login page.

If you see this message, your best option is to wait a couple minutes and try again. If that doesn’t help, try clearing your browser’s cache before trying again. Although the “not acceptable” page should not be cached by your browser, in my testing I found that my browser did cache it and was displaying it even when the server was trying to accept or decline a log in or log out attempt and serve up the appropriate page.

The attack against WordPress installations has been going on for quite some time now, so this security measure could be around for a while. As much of a nuisance as the security measure may be, it is far better than the alternative of having servers overloaded by automated attempts to break in to administrative accounts of WordPress installations; and even though I would like to see a greater number of loads of the login page permitted before the “not acceptable” message is displayed, I trust that my web host has not picked an arbitrary number and has instead picked a number which accurately reflects the necessary measures to limit the impact of the ongoing attack.

If problems persist, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help you log in.

Samuel

4 comments May 23rd, 2013 at 07:45am

People missing from the electoral roll

When I heard about this story yesterday it was as a one-line brief mention at the end of a radio news bulletin. My mind jumped to a different conclusion, and that conclusion still isn’t answered.

Almost 1.4 million voters are missing from Australia’s electoral roll, new figures show.
[..]
Since laws recently passed allowing the AEC to directly enrol voters through cross-checking other government data, 80,000 people have been added to the roll and 310,000 addresses updated.

The AEC expects to add about 150,000 names to the roll by this process before the election.

(h/t Yahoo News)

That leaves a lot of people missing from the rolls and I have to assume that it’s based on an estimate of the number of people who should be eligible based on population estimates from the Australian Bureau Of Statistics, as if they knew the exact number of people who should be on the roll based on actual personal information stored by other parts of the government, then the Electoral Commission would enrol them.

Still, there is a question which hasn’t been answered. The story which I heard yesterday simply noted that:

Almost 1.4 million voters are missing from Australia’s electoral roll

Which brought my mind back to an interview which 2UE’s Jason Morrison conducted with someone from the Electoral Commission a few months ago after he received calls from people who had checked their enrolment on the electoral roll and found that they had gone missing from the electoral roll. The person from the Electoral Commission denied that they had adjusted any details on the roll and blamed the voters for forgetting the details they had enrolled with. For some, he may have had a point, but not for most of the many many people who rang in.

At least now we know that the electoral roll data is being changed by the Australian Electoral Commission, althoughwe still do not have an answer as to why perfectly valid entries have been altered…I suspect an error in the process at the AEC whereby they have trusted data entered by other government departments even when the only difference between that data and what was on the electoral roll was a full middle name instead of an initial or vice-versa.

The good news I suppose is that you can check your enrolment on the AEC website at https://oevf.aec.gov.au/. It should be noted though that the form is very picky about what details you must enter correctly, so you might want to try a few variations of your name and address if you don’t find yourself immediately. Alternatively you can visit an AEC office and check the electoral roll there. You don’t need to know any details to see the list of voters on the electoral roll at an AEC office. Or you could just ring the AEC to correct your entry…but they’ll probably want you to fill out paperwork for that.

Going back to the job being undertaken by the AEC of adding people to the electoral roll based on data held by other government departments, I wonder two things:
1. How many incorrect entries will be added based on out-of-date data?
2. How many people who have avoided registering to vote will find themselves on the electoral roll? I know of some people who have never registered and would be very interested if they are caught in the net, so to speak.

Samuel

2 comments May 22nd, 2013 at 06:33pm

A simple question about immunisation

I might be missing something here, but the news out of New South Wales that unimmunised children could soon be excluded from childcare centres because apparently they’re a threat to the safety of us all, has me wondering one thing.

Who is actually at risk here? Surely if immunisation protects us from diseases, then unimmunised people potentially spreading diseases is only a concern for the unimmunised people, as the immunised ones should be immune. So if unimmunised people are the only ones at risk, and the parents of unimmunised children have made the decision to not immunise their children for one reason or another, surely it is their choice and excluding these kids from childcare centres provides no societal benefit as unimmunised kids should provide no risk to immunised kids.

This would seem logical if immunisation provides, as the name implies, immunity from certain diseases…but then again, maybe I’m missing something.

Would anyone like to explain this to me?

Samuel

3 comments May 21st, 2013 at 06:12pm

AFL Tips: Round 8

West Coast V North Melbourne
Essendon V Brisbane
Hawthorn V GWS
Gold Coast V Western Bulldogs
Collingwood V Geelong
Sydney V Fremantle
Carlton V Port Adelaide
Richmond V Melbourne
Adelaide V St. Kilda

Now that you’ve seen who I’m tipping, factor it in to your calculations and be sure to check out TAB’s AFL & NRL footy tipping website.
If you fancy tipping on this week’s round, I suggest having a look at TAB Footy Tipping.
TAB run are running an AFL / NRL tipping competition this season with weekly prizes. Check it out!

Samuel

May 17th, 2013 at 05:42pm

NRL Tips: Round 10

Going in to this round I am sitting on a score of -3. With any luck, I should be able to get in to positive territory this week.

Broncos V Titans
Rabbitohs V Tigers
Dragons V Eels
Panthers V Warriors
Cowboys V Roosters
Sharks V Raiders
Knights V Bulldogs
Storm V Sea Eagles

Samuel

May 17th, 2013 at 05:37pm