Posts filed under 'Bizarreness'
Well in about five minutes it will be the start of Clive Robertson’s four morning stint on 2UE filling in for John Kerr and Stuart Bocking. I’m looking forward to this, Clive is great talent and it should be fun having him on during the wee hours, and I would imagine that 2CC will be pleased with nine hours of sharp-witted, quick-thinking, highly-entertaining presenters with Mike Jeffreys following Clive with the breakfast show.
But it is Friday the 13th, and whilst I don’t usually subscribe to such superstitions, this is a rather unusual Friday the 13th as the digits in today’s date add up to thirteen (1 + 3 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 6 = 13). I haven’t verified it, but apparently it is the first time since the days of Genghis Khan that such an anomaly has occurred. This does lead a pesimistic back-of-mind thought that on this particular day it might be wise to be wary of Murphy’s Law…whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
So what could go wrong? Let’s see…2UE decide that Clive doesn’t need a producer and, just like Stuart and John, can answer the phones himself whilst running a radio show…a power surge causes various systems including the phone and the station audio computer to freeze, with the newsroom vacant Clive is the only person left in the building and so he sings to us for hours until one of the breakfast show staff turn up.
John Kerr, taking a flight out of the country today, suddenly finds that the airline have a pilot strike and he is now required to fly the plane…reluctantly John agrees and, due to a navigational error, lands at the North Pole where he is voted in as the new Santa Claus, and is not permitted to return to Australia except for present runs at Christmas.
2UE’s 11am fire drill sees everyone evacuated, including John Laws and the newsroom…a pre-recorded news bulletin is played, and a song scheduled to play after it, followed by an ad break…the chief fire warden accidentally locks the door to 2UE and leaves the key inside, providing 2UE and network stations with dead air for a couple hours while the locksmiths try to open a door which, due to extreme heat, has warped and has to be knocked down by the fire brigade.
When 2UE are finally back on-air, John Stanley proceeds with his “break mirrors and walk under ladders segment”, whilst trying to smash a mirror with a hammer he loses control of the hammer, which flies through the window and knocks out the station manager, who then falls down the stairs where all the staff who are due to be on air in the next 24 hours are standing. John Stanley is required to fill-in until 6PM Saturday, but due to a ladder falling on his head, a producer arranges a new “talking clock” network by dialling the talking clock and putting it to air, which is subsequently picked up by all network stations, but only for a few minutes as Optus D1 melts due to defective protective material, and takes out all Southern Cross network feeds with it.
Mike Frame and Kris McKenzie fill in on 2CC for the next three days whilst Southern Cross arrange a new satellite feed, taking six hours on/six hours off shifts.
At the very least, this proves that my imagination is still active!
Samuel
October 13th, 2006 at 12:00am
From today’s collection of spam emails:
From: Ben <maddyxqxeh@myfirstmail.com>
Reply-To: Ben <maddyxqxeh@myfirstmail.com>
To: smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com
Date: Oct 7, 2006 5:43 PM
Subject: Is your website www.gmail.com offline, or why can’t I find it on Yahoo?
Your website (www.gmail.com) on top positions on Google, Yahoo and MSN search!
We will get your website (www.gmail.com) to the top positions on all major search engines.
Use our great value offer:
We will submit your website (www.gmail.com) to 890 Search Engines, including Google, Yahoo and MSN.
you SAVE £ 50
now only £149 – was £ 199 (one time fee, no further cost)
To order click HERE (FREE DELIVERY)
By using our service, your website (www.gmail.com) will automatically gain positions on Google, Yahoo and MSN within 5-7 weeks. We will increase your link popularity (Page RankTM), as your website will have a large amount of new backlinks from all the search engines.
It is your decision, if your customers will find your website.
Try our great value offer – No risk involved!
If you are not satisfied with our service, you get your money back! – NO QUESTIONS ASKED!
To order click HERE (FREE DELIVERY)
Kind regards
The search engine marketing experts salesteam
——————————
You don’t want our messages anymore? Simply click here
——————————
smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com
——————————
ijesfexk Xeeaeonacre Dukkeejie Yeloyvyure Tecwq: (0 60 88) – 41 45 02 56 Abneleef Cjgedn-lcpet
sletaeig Pieieexatre Yuujespse Depxxuvute Veoyq Eeptw Rebwc Ubbemeof Amreah-nycer
I’ve stripped out the links, but you get the drift. It looks like “Ben” is taking the domain names of email addresses, and adding them to the body of the message, in an attempt to get website owners to pay him/her/it.
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of email addresses which are spammed (and the vast majority of email addresses for that matter) are not used by the person responsible for the maintenance and administration of the domain name in the email address, and the vast majority of people who do run websites know that search engine optimisers don’t work…they might get you listed on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc, but you need the links from real websites, not funny little search engines and directories, to increase your page ranking.
For example, do a search for pages which link to this website…I can guarantee you that this site is listed in a few hundred or more directories and little search engines, and none, or almost none of them will appear in the results.
That being said, somebody, somewhere, will follow the link and enter their credit card details, under the false impression that, this will somehow bring in more traffic (or who knows what else they might think it will do)…and then they can wait for all the nice unknown credit card charges to appear…endless fun can be had in spam!
Samuel
October 7th, 2006 at 10:59pm
I see that Johnboy of RiotACT fame has decided that this blog is part of Canberra’s “weird” contribution to the blogosphere…to be quite honest, I’m flattered, and I would be tempted to replace “It’s just not normal” if I wasn’t one of five Canberra bloggers apparently “pumping all the weird into the blogosphere”.
I’ve always been a little bit odd, and it seems that those who didn’t like the fact that I’m not quite the same as everyone else, have backed off a bit, and seen the good side to my quirks and differences. “Weird” is, in reality, a bit of a fun complement…the opposite of which being “normal”, something which nobody to date has been able to define with any degree of authority.
However, and I really didn’t want to push this war of words along, John B1_B5 is not impressed with being declared one of Canberra’s weirdest, and has hit back at Johnboy and The RiotACT…according to John B1_B5, The RiotACT is “The most boring site on the Internet”, Johnboy has “no idea how utterly BORING his postings are” and his postings are often “highly inaccurate and poorly researched”.
Quite clearly, John B1_B5 is not impressed, and is really flying off the handle in disgust at the moment. It is rather interesting though that, after calling Johnboy’s article “highly inaccurate and poorly researched”, John B1_B5 went on to say:
never let the facts get in the way of a “good story” by this Commonwealth Public
Servant, who seems to devote a large amount of time posting stuff on his
private website during Public Service working hours .
OK, now who’s highly inaccurate and poorly researched? Johnboy used to work at Parliament House in the press gallery for a private company…he is now doing similar work from home on The Concatenate…at least since I’ve been reading RiotACT (April 2005) Johnboy has not been working for the public service…maybe before that, but I wouldn’t know about that.
Both Johns are quite entitled to their opinions, and it is of little concern to me what they think of each other, but if sanity is to prevail here, I would expect Johnboy to ignore John B1_B5’s bizarre retort.
Moving back to Samuel’s Blog for a moment, just for prosperity, here is what Johnboy wrote:
Samuel Gordon Stewart who’s blog would be less remarkable if he was 50 years older, and is currently (as near as I can make out) blogging statements he was hoping to make on talk-back radio.
Well, close, copies of emails I sent to Tim Webster…I missed bits of the show so I don’t know if he read either email out or not…it’s also interesting to note that on RiotACT, my name has been unhyphenated by Johnboy for over a week…oh well, all a bit of fun I suppose!
Samuel
October 6th, 2006 at 10:20pm
What is it about public holiday Monday and Civic which brings all the loonies out of their shells?
Around lunch time today I ventured into Civic to pick up some lunch for the family from Kingsleys Chicken (one of our “once every now and then” fast food choices…usually we’re not fans of fast food) and some afternoon tea from Dobinsons. On my way I passed a phone booth which was occupied by two teenage girls, one of them was standing right in front of the phone, whilst the other one was standing next to her talking on her mobile phone…neither of them were using the payphone!
That, unfortunately, was a sign of things to come. When I arrived at Kingsley’s Chicken I got ticket number “01” from the machine, at the time they were serving ticket number “97” so the wait wouldn’t be too long, so I waited as 98 and 99 went past, and then they reached “00”…the girl who was serving at the time called out in a rather thick accent something which sounded like “num-bo”…I’m sure she meant “number oh”, although why she couldn’t be clear about it and call out “zero” is beyond me. Eventually, after she nearly called out my number, the person with ticket “00” came forward to see if he was next.
Then came my turn, a young bloke, possibly Inidian, called out my number, I came forward and proceeded to give him my order:
Me: “Could I get six chicken croquets and a jumbo chips please?”
Him: “Six crockets and the jumbo chips?”
I should point out that, being roughly based on a dutch food of the same name, the correct pronounciation of “croquets” is “crow-kays”, not “crockets” as the people at Kingsley’s seem to call them.
Me: “Yes please”.
Him: “I will put the gravy on the chips yes?”
Me: “No thank you, just the chips please.”
Him: “So no crockets?”
Me: “No…six croquets and a jumbo chips.”
Him: “And no gravy?”
Me: “That’s right.”
Him: “How about a drink? We have (insert list of drinks here).”
Me: “No, just the croquets and the chips please.”
Him: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes!”
Him: “So no drinks or gravy?”
Me: “Correct!”
Finally it sunk in, and he informed me of the total price, I gave him some money, and he gave me the correct change…but it wasn’t over, they only had four croquets ready, so he checked with one of the cooking people how long I would have to wait for the croquets…almost as if it mattered, I mean I paid for the things, what does it matter how long it will be?
Him: “The crockets will be three minutes, would you like half your order now and the rest when it’s ready, or would you like it all later?”
Me: “It doesn’t matter, just when it’s all ready.”
It got worse…he then turned around, got a cup, poured out a drink and put it on the bench in front of me…
Him: “Here is a free drink” (or something to that effect…he was mumbling…he didn’t tell me what drink it was though…would have been too bad if I had accepted it and been allergic to it, they might need a lawyer then)
Me: “I DON’T WANT…(mumbling)”
I had already explicitly declined a drink twice, so why he thought I would want one is beyond me. A few minutes later one of the cooking people brought my order over, I thanked her for it and left…leaving the drink right there on the counter.
The rest of my journey was sensible, and when I checked the radio, Glenn Wheeler on 2CC was asking people about commonly misspelled and mispronounced words, one of my personal hobby horses. I would have called in to tell him about “everythink” and “anythink” and well as “there”, “their” and “they’re”, but I had lunch first and they stopped taking calls about it by the time I got to the phone.
It looks like this will be the first blog post I’ve sent by mail to anyone in a while…I wonder if Kingsley’s Civic Manager will reply?
Samuel
October 2nd, 2006 at 06:34pm
One of the many consistently controversial subjects of our time is the names that people choose for the newborn children. Sometimes these names are just plain odd, and undoubtedly some of those names will ensure that children don’t get a smooth ride through school, or have to spell it to everyone, but to the same extent, having a bit of a rough time in school (and learning to accept people’s names) is part of growing up, and you can always change your name if you get tired of spelling it.
Unfortunately some people feel that it is their need to ridicule the names chosen by parents…I’m sure we’ve all done it, seen or heard a name and thought “what???”, and that’s fine, that’s your right, I’m more concerned about the people who feel a need to publically lambast people in a lasting way over their choice of name.
Unfortunately, somebody I (up until now) had quite an amount of respect for decided to do so on the weekend. Kerces, of RiotACT fame (and occasional contributor here), decided to “name and shame” the children, and turn it into a weekly feature of RiotACT…according to her post it was a collective decision of the RiotACT administrators:
In the general interests of getting tough on bogans and the causes of bogans (plus giving Kerces an excuse to buy a newspaper each weekend), we of the secret RA server room decided to start a weekly (or at least frequent) column of bogan-tastic baby names found each week in the Canberra Time classifieds.
So, they intend on trawling the births notices of the Canberra Time each Saturday for names they don’t approve of, and then berate them publically, have a bunch of people leave comments about how horrible the name is, write about how horrible and nasty the parents must be, and let all the search engines pick it up so that when somebody in the family is bored and decides to Google the name, they end up with a screen filled with messages about what a bad family it is.
If it was just first names, it might not be so bad (of course they wouldn’t have a story if it was just first names), but publishing the full names and then going on about how miserable the lives of the children will be is really taking things way too far.
I generally wouldn’t wish this on people, but I hope RiotACT get sued for this…the sooner they take down this monstorous nonsense, the better.
Samuel
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:17pm
It just keeps getting worse for the embattled Department of Immigration…this time they’ve managed to delete just over 4,900 records of Australian citizens currently travelling overseas, effectively locking them out of the country until the data can be manually re-entered from paper.
Sources inside the Department of Immigration have informed me (and subsequently verified) that the records were lost late last week during routine staff training. Staff were being trained in the use of a system for managing records of Australians who are currently overseas (and possibly others), and were using dummy records for training. Near the end of the day, on a day late last week, the Immigration official supervising the training went home, leaving a mostly trained trainer in charge. Sometime around 5:10pm one of the trainees entered some data incorrectly and asked the trainer for assistance, the trainer advised them to press the delete key, the trainee subsequently queried this advice by asking “are you sure?”, to which the trainer said “yes, press the delete key”.
According to sources, when the delete key is pressed on this system it does not ask for confirmation, and pops up a message when it has completed the task. On this occasion it is believed that the cursor was in the wrong location because the system whirred away for a little while before popping up a message stating that it had successfully deleted 4900 or so records…unfortunately very few of those were dummy records, and most of them were real records, and without them, people in those records are unable to re-enter the country.
“What about backups?” I hear you ask…this system doesn’t have them…apparently it is a deterrent to people playing around with the system…more like a very tempting chaos creator if you ask me.
Immigration are working on restoring the deleted data from other systems and from paper at the moment, no disciplinary action is likely as this was a genuine accident, but procedures are being reviewed.
It is unknown how many people have been affected as they attempted to re-enter the country.
Samuel
September 27th, 2006 at 07:16am
After my recent email to Mr. Mike David, honourable online money giver, stating that I had not heard from his personal assistant, one Mr. Brown, I received an email which I know is very important, because the entire message is written in the subject.
From: BOB MIKE <GLOBAL4com@spinfinder.com>
Reply-To: GLOBAL4com@spinfinder.com
To: smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com
Date: Sep 19, 2006 8:50 AM
Subject: Dear Samuel Please contact Mr. Brown at ( info@diplomaticservice.net )
Mike David
So, as requested, I contacted Mr. Brown on his new email address…I am a bit confused about the sanity of Mike David though, he seems to be unsure of his own name as he is using “BOB MIKE” in the from field of his emails these days.
From: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: info@diplomaticservice.net
Date: Sep 19, 2006 7:14 PM
Subject: Consignment for Mr. Mike David
Dear Mr. Brown,
Mike David has asked me to contact you regarding his consignment, which he would like me to pick up for him as he is too busy with investing at the moment.
Please contact me so that we may make the arrangements.
Blissful Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
This time, Mr Brown was rather prompt at replying, and presented me with a very professional email (albeit with broken english).
From: info@diplomaticservice.net <info@diplomaticservice.net>
To: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 19, 2006 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: Consignment for Mr. Mike David
DIPLOMATIC GLOBAL SERVICE
CONSIGNMENT CLEARING HOUSE
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS.
EUROPE OFFICE TEL – 31 644 271 874
TEL /FAX – 31 847 473 477
E-MAIL; info@diplomaticservice.net
E-Mail – spin-diplomta@spinfinder.com
Attn : Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Please do let us know any of the following ways that will be more
convenient for you to collect this consignment .
1 )Me coming with the diplomat to deliver the consignment to your country.
2 )Me sending you the consignment by diplomatic courier services.
3) You coming to the Netherlands to pick up the consignment .
I dont have a representative in your state to whom you could pay
the requested amount at reception,so I can send a diplomat.
Please do let me hear from you as soon as possible.
THANKS
GEORGE BROWN
DIPLOMATIC GLOBAL SERVICE
CONSIGNMENT CLEARING HOUSE
AMSTERDAM,THE NETHERLANDS
EUROPE OFFICE TEL–31 644 271 874
HEAD OFFICE TEL\FAX 31 847473477
E-MAIL; info@diplomaticservice.net
Operational GraphOpe tio
We are neither just an off shore office nor are we only on shore ……..WE ARE BOTH; We touch base at every nook and cranny of the country. That is why you ‘ll always find DIPLOMATIC GLOBAL SERVICE up North ,down South, East and West. Our amiable record is borne out of the philosophy of clients satisfaction, we offer our clients the following services: Traditional services , Visible Transaction Services, Exports Desk Services and Public Sectors Services.
We are totally devoted to you
You’ve just gotta love this poor attempt at a company footer on that email…usually they ramble on about how the email is confidential and the company won some award for something last week…but this one just rambles…it may have come out of an automated translator.
Anyway, I looked at the options and thought for a while about them. Surely if Mr. Brown were to visit my country with a diplomat they would want me to pay for the airfares, if they send it via courier they are going to make me pay for the courier and then tell me some story about the parcel getting lost…and there is no way I’m flying to the Netherlands just to meet people who don’t exist and pick up a parcel which also doesn’t exist…although they would probably insist on buying the airline tickets and making me pay them for the tickets before they mail them to me.
In the end, I decided that I could have more fun if I insisted on Mr. Brown flying to Australia. Time to bring out the waffle iron for this email.
From: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: “info@diplomaticservice.net” <info@diplomaticservice.net>
Date: Sep 19, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: Consignment for Mr. Mike David
Dear George,
It is my firm belief that this consignment is very important, and as such I feel that the only way to ensure the safe arrival and delivery of the consignment is for yourself to accompany the diplomat and the consignment to my country of residence (Australia). I do hope that you are able to spare some time in the nearby future, as this would be highly fortuitous and prove to be the most fruitful outcome of goodness for all parties involved.
Many regards and thoughtful wishes,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Where to from here…well it all depends on where Mr. Brown leads me I suppose…I wonder what my chances are of reversing the scam and getting money from them?
Samuel
September 20th, 2006 at 01:12am
Having not heard back from Mr. Brown, personal assistant to Mike David, nearly 24 hours after sending him an email, I decided to contact Mike david and find out what is going on. I have never failed to receive a reply from a scammer before, so something must be wrong.
From: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: global4com@spinfinder.com
Date: Sep 16, 2006 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: consignment
Dear Friend Mike,
I have tried to contact your personal assistant Mr. Brown, I did this nearly 24 hours ago, and I am yet to hear back from him. Please contact me with advice as to what you would like me to do next.
Blissful regards,
Samuel
I do hope this doesn’t end here…I haven’t had my fun yet, and I don’t want the spammers to get the song in the title stuck in my head, only two weeks after I got rid of it!
Samuel
September 16th, 2006 at 11:10pm
Oh how I love wasting the time (and money) of scammers. It’s easy to waste the money of phone based scammers, especially when they have free call numbers setup to divert overseas…at their own cost, but it is just as enjoyable to waste the time of email based scammers.
Last month Clayton Northcutt had plenty of fun doing just that, and this month I am going to have some fun.
Occasionally some spam slips through Gmail’s spam filters and lands in my inbox, such as this one from Dr. Mona Diop, an illiterate bank manager, with a need to steal the money of dead people.
Dear ,
My name is Dr Mona Diop,am the branch and computer manager here in our bank.I have only written to seek your indulgence and assistance. I wish to make a transfer involving a huge amount of base £15,000,000.00 {Fifteen Million B.Pounds Sterlings}of Late Mr Mark Smith out of the bank,he died since 1995,till now the account remains dormat.I am proposing to make this transfer to a designated bank account of your choice. Thus, for your indulgence and support,
I propose an offer of 20% of the total amount to be yours after the transfer has been successfully concluded.Your full name and phone number/fax is need in the first place.Kindly reply me stating your interest, and I shall furnish you with the details and necessary proceedures with which to make the transfer progress. I am anxiously awaiting your response through my confidential/bank email address:
mona_diop02@yahoo.com
Thanks and God bless
Dr Mona Diop,
Manger.
………………………….
My Informations will be given
to you in my next mail.
Fairly standard, nothing new or interesting about this one, but she (or maybe even he) did send it twice, and on both occasions it slipped past the spam filter, so I felt like replying.
Dear Spammer Mona,
Banks do not use yahoo email addresses, and if you were a manager, you would be able to write an email without dozens of spelling and gramatical errors.
I must ask you a question though, why is everything from Rivers just so comfortable?
Kind regards,
Samuel
For those of you who aren’t subjected to Australian television…there is a clothing shop called “Rivers” which has an advertising campaign featuring a slideshow of their current discounts, and a poorly recorded voiceover where a person keeps repeating the phrase “Why is everything from Rivers just so comfortable”. The ad annoys the heck out of me, so I thought it was an appropriate question to ask a spammer, alas she/him/it didn’t answer the question.
Dear Samuel ,
what you have to believe this is my personal email address so if you can believe with then try and get back to me so that i will direct the way to take ,
thanks
Dr Mona
Sorry Mona, but you didn’t address two of my points, and your scam isn’t interesting, so I shall refrain from contacting you again.
Last night, another, slightly more interesting spammed scam landed in my inbox.
From: mike david <global4com@spinfinder.com>
Reply-To: global4com@spinfinder.com
To: smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com
Date: Sep 15, 2006 9:51 PM
Subject: consignment
Dear Friend
I need your assistance to help me in receiving my funds form a security office in the Netherlands .
I am obliged to inform you that I have succeeded in receiving ( fourteen million dollars ) from a partner that work with the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) South African .
My partner initiated this idea so everything was perfectly done because we strike this deal with one Lady accountant who works with the Federal Ministry of Finance also she rendered a tremendous help to us and everything worked out successfully .
I will appreciate your assistance in receiving the Funds and I have decided to compensate you with the sum of $850,000 in Cash (Eight Hundred and fifty Thousand United States Dollars).
I am doing this simply to show you that it is good to do good things to the right people always.
So if you can help please contact my personal assistant with the security office in the Netherlands
Mr Brown with this e-mail address
( spin-diplomta@spinfinder.com )
Please tell him that you will like to pick up my consignment and do not tell him that the five million is in the Box, also do let me know immediately you receive a reply from Mr Brown .
I am very busy here in London because of the investment projects,So feel free to get in touch with him to send the consignment to you without any delay and I will fax him the paper works in-other for you to pick it up.
Best Regards
Mike David
Mr. Brown? Alternating amounts of money in a box/case? Secrecy even from those involved? And no bank accounts in sight? I’m reminded of Clayton’s fun, and intend on seeing where this one goes, so I, as requested, made contact with Mr. Brown.
From: Samuel Gordon-Stewart <smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: spin-diplomta@spinfinder.com
Date: Sep 16, 2006 12:27 AM
Subject: consignment of Mike David
Dear Mr. Brown,
I am writing to you in regards to an email I received from Mr. Mike David. He asked me to write to you about picking up his consignment, and asked that I express my interest in picking up the consignment.
I eargerly await your reply on this important matter.
Yours with kind regards and wishing you a blissful day,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
I just had to honour Clayton by adding in the blissful day reference (see Clayton’s story and you’ll understand). I googled spinfinder.com, it would appear that many people have received scam emails from this domain, and the site itself appears to be one of those strange attempts at being a web portal that bombards you with ads, and some of the ads on that page do redirect you through adware and spyware laden sites on their way through to the target sites.
I now await a reply from Mr. Brown.
Samuel
September 16th, 2006 at 12:57am
It looks like 2UE have entered the pre-recorded news game, their 2am bulletin this morning was unfortunately a repeat of yesterday’s 2am bulletin, featuring news of the newspoll predicting a Peter Beattie victory in “today’s state election”, the motor racing industry mourning the loss of Peter Brock (but none of the details revealed during Saturday), a report which made the multiple bombings in India sound like they only just happened in the last few hours…and all of the latest in sport…from Friday night.
In fact the only thing which wasn’t out of date was the time call…at least they managed to play a 2am bulletin.
It’s a real shame that 2UE have followed the lead of their sister station in Melbourne, 3AW, and started pre-recording overnight news bulletins…looks like 2GB might be the only live and local overnight news service in Sydney after all.
Samuel
September 10th, 2006 at 02:20am
Last week one of the Google ads on this site led to another website, which was offering a $1000+per day work at home data entry job. On this website some woman claims to work a couple hours a day doing data entry for major Internet companies such as Ebay, Yahoo, Verizon etc, and earning astranomical amounts of money in the process. According to this “Computer Learning Centre” website, these companies don’t publicise these jobs very much.
This easily fits into the “too good to be true category” for any number of reasons including the facts that data entry jobs don’t pay thousands of dollars for a couple hours work (half my job is data entry…I get about $20/hour), the companies mentioned are dealing with sensitive information which would not be delegated to unchecked third parties, and major Internet companies who need external data entry staff have got some efficiency and automation problems. So in order to counter this problem, “Computer Learning Centre” show screenshots of bank statement “proving” that they really do get all of this money, and they even go and announce that they are approved by the “Consumer Advocacy Group of America“.
The consumer advocacy website details a few scams and non-scams, and has this to say about the Computer Learning Centre:
Name: Computer Learning Center Data Training Course
Rating: 97
Average Investment: $179
Average Yearly Return: $85,000
Summary: This company offers a short course in how to earn a comfortable living doing data entry from your home computer. Obviously, this is not the kind of data entry many people are used to. But using the power of the internet, and in connection with a number of well known companies, participants are taught how to type simple data in online forms which net more money than we thought was possible. We were suspicious of this opportunity and thought it was too good to be true until we spoke with a number of people participating in the program. Those involved were more than satisfied with their earnings. We followed up with a Business Bureau check and found no complaints whatsoever in the last three years.
Starting to sound plausible isn’t it? Well it does until you start to look into the technical side of the websites…one was registered on the 20th of June, the other on the 21st, they are both hosted by GoDaddy, they were previously both on the same server, one has since been moved, they both host their secure pages on the same server, the registration details for each site has been modified every week or so since registration, and the discount offer for the data entry course has been marked as expiring on progressively later dates since the sites went online.
Currently the discount is set to expire today (Friday 18th August)…should be interesting to watch that move. Even more odd, the discount keeps being extended despite the website stating “even though the data entry work is unlimited, the Computer Learning Center staff is starting to get overloaded. And they don’t want to take on so many students that they can’t give everyone personal attention. So unfortunately, they may have to discontinue taking on new students for this program in the near future.”
Moving onto another scam now, and Clayton Northcutt has been keeping one email scammer busy recently, and managed to attain the title of “Executive Officer of Outlet EDF23” and identification tag number “EDF/015 /Clayton Northcutt” for the Matsushita Semiconductor Company Ltd. For the full amusing details, see these posts in order:
Saturday August 5
Sunday August 6
Monday August 7
Friday August 11 and
Sunday August 13
Samuel
August 18th, 2006 at 03:27pm
I received this interesting bit of spam the other day…it appears to be an insider trading scam.
Ever thought of putting the result of joint work into your own trading career? Now you can do that, making use of great stocking tips worked out by experts!
I know this product will be advertised massively soon, and the stock is doomed to boom in the nearest future.
The email then goes on about a ringtone company before ending like this:
Enter the opportunity with this stock, and you’ll leave with totally handsome gains.
Don’t knock on wood – just learn to be a pro trader, and the rest will flow!
And the subject of this peculiar bit of spam? That should be obvious…”great gain on pink sheets, read a message”, oh, not obvious? Hmmm
Samuel
July 24th, 2006 at 10:32am
OK, who here remembers my article from late May about ACT Planning and Land Authority‘s (ACTPLA) bizzare renaming of Cooyong/Ballumbir/Coranderrk Street?
Well it would appear that it has done the rounds at ACTPLA’s Dickson office. On Thursday, when I had some spare time on one of my breaks, I went for stroll down Challis Street in Dickson, one of the buildings I walked past was that of ACTPLA where about five or six ACTPLA staff were discussing something and making a fair bit of noise in the process. As I was approaching, one of the staff noticed me and stopped talking, she started staring at me, and three of the other staff did the same, the group started mumbling to each other and watched me walk past.
When I got to the end of the block I had a look back to see what they were up to, they were continuing their discussion and keeping an eye on me. As I looked back, one of them suddenly stopped looking at me, whilst one of the older men continued to watch me.
I then continued on my way and went back to my office.
It is worthwhile noting that ACTPLA are yet to update the street signs after the name change they forced on the road I mentioned in the previous article (linked above)…how long does it take to produce ten or so road signs? Were they discussing that in that meeting I walked past? What’s the bet that they get the signs wrong when the put them up?
Samuel
July 8th, 2006 at 09:37am
It would appear that Nostradamus thinks Spain will win the world cup. Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos (probably not related to Nine’s “60 Minutes”) has run a story which quotes one of Nostradamus’ prophecies, namely:
In the sixth month of 2006 the King of Spain will cross the Pyrenees with his troops. The legions of Beelzebub will battle him in central Europe and suffer doom and destruction. The Holy Grail will then come to Spain.
The only problem I can forsee here is that the world cup ends on July 9…still, when you write something nearly 500 years in advance, I think you can be forgiven for getting the date wrong by 9 days.
For the record, Spain are currently paying $11.00 on ACTTAB Sportsbet to win the world cup.
Samuel
June 26th, 2006 at 06:46am
As I was watching Media Watch on Monday night, a rather unusual part of the ABC editorial guidelines popped up:
Everyone makes mistakes, but here at the ABC broadcasters are expected to correct their mistakes and then do better.
The process is spelt out in the ABC editorial guidelines and it’s generally well understood by journalists and program makers.
This week Communications Minister Helen Coonan announced two new appointments to the ABC board, including the controversial historian Keith Windschuttle.
Last year in his Earle Page Memorial Oration, Mr Windschuttle made this – now infamous – claim about the history of the ABC.
[ABC broadcaster Alan] Ashbolt managed to find jobs for a small group of Marxists and radicals like himself. In the ensuing thirty years that group, its appointees and values, have captured the organization.
— Vilifying Australia, The perverse ideology of our adversary culture, by Keith Windschuttle
Under the ABC editorial guidelines, broadcasters must back up their opinions with facts.
We wonder whether Keith Windschuttle would be able to back up his extraordinary claims in the same way.
Putting ABC advertorial comments (“but here at the ABC broadcasters are expected to correct their mistakes and then do better”) aside for a moment, the editorial guideline quoted struck me as rather odd, namely:
Under the ABC editorial guidelines, broadcasters must back up their opinions with facts.
Oh well, so much for independent thinking and freedom of the press. That guideline might sound good on the surface, and it was definitely used by Media Watch to discredit Keith Windschuttle, but that guideline makes absolutely no sense for a broadcaster with talk radio and television discussion programmes in its lineup. The guideline inhibits broadcasters’ opinions and thoughts, and means that the audience are not getting the full picture…and the ABC aren’t going to try and give it to them.
Allow me to give you a few examples, all pertaining to the ACT government, as those are the examples that spring to mind.
Firstly, the school closures announced in the recent ACT budget are, in my opinion, a political stunt designed to sweep other budget details under the media radar, and to enable the government to close a smaller number of schools. 39 schools seems like a rather silly number of schools to close, and a number which is bound to grab headlines, some of the proposed closures are downright silly, and some of the merger plans even sillier (turning Campbell High into a 7-12 school and effectively killing the college environment on a block of land which doesn’t have enough room for the extra students, for example).
I think that the ACT government learned a thing or two from the massive public outrage over the closure of Ginninderra High last year, and decided that in order to close a small number of schools they would need to add a bunch of other schools to the list, pretend to consult the public, and eventually say that they are only closing the small number of schools and have the spin doctors announce that they are “saving 25 schools” or something to that effect.
I also think the have managed to mostly slip a lot of small details (such as a change in measurement method for rates increases so that they appear to be smaller) under the radar, and with the media almost entirely focussed on the schools, the opposition aren’t having much luck bringing those small details to public attention.
How does this relate to ABC editorial policy I hear you ask…quite simple…I cannot back up that opinion with facts, quite simply because there are none…I can’t prove that the government only ever intended on closing a small number of schools, and I can’t prove that there are a bunch of small devious things hidden in the budget, because I don’t specialise in reading zillion page government documents…and it is a public document, which gives the government a valid excuse about not sweeping anything under the carpet. I can’t prove these things, they are an opinion, and as has been said to me on many occasions in a different context, an opinion is not an axiom (A self-evident or universally recognized truth).
Moving on to example two, Andrew Barr. Andrew Barr took over former treasurer Ted Quinlan’s seat on a countback after Ted Quinlan retired from the ACT government. Andrew Barr was instantly given the education portfolio, which had been a public relations disaster under Katy Gallagher. That led me to believe that Andrew Barr, as the new kid in a big important portfolio, would be used as a skapegoat for all the government’s educational ills…the longer Andrew Barr spends in that role, and the worse things get, the more convinced I am of this.
None the less, it is an opinion, one not founded in verifiable truths and facts (I doubt anyone, even the Chief Turnip himself, can see what happens in the Chief Turnip’s head), and one that I would not be able to propose on-air at the ABC. The topic would be a discussion point, and would prompt debate about government plans and personalities…but alas, that is not within the bounds of ABC editorial guidelines.
And how about one more example? Ted Quinlan…who knows why he jumped ship…I think he decided that he was not willing to hand down the worst budget the ACT has seen and continue to battle the frivolous expensive plans of senior government ministers (pointless busway anyone?)…after all the rumors had been circulating on commercial talkback of government budget problems since October/November last year…why stay when you know it’s worse than anybody thought, and the Chief Turnip is insisting on interesting accounting to make it look a tad better?
Again, I can’t back that up with facts…but it sounds reasonable, it probably is reasonable, and since when was politics a cut and dry case of facts? Political reporting and analysing is all about reading between the lines, being a tad cynical, and putting ideas out there for the public to discuss.
The ABC editorial policy prevents broadcasters from speculating, and it prevents broadcasters from speaking their mind…it’s almost a case of believing everything that everyone says. The ABC obviously forgets that what we regard as fact may actually be a fabrication, and next week we might find that out…surely it is better to let the broadcaster go out on a limb and speculate that the fact is a fabrication because they believe it is, rather than forcing them to accept the false fact…or does the ABC disapprove of broadcasters who think for themselves?
Samuel
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:21pm
Next Posts
Previous Posts