Posts filed under 'General News'
Happy 30th Birthday 2CC.
Canberra’s Talk Radio 1206 2CC turned 30 at 7am. Originally a music station, it is now a talk radio station and they have been running a few promotions relating to their 30th birthday. They gave away a 1975 Holden Kingswood and are currently giving away $30,000 worth of home improvements.
(Click image to enlarge)
John Kerr wished 2CC a happy 30th birthday at quarter past midnight this morning as part of his daily birthday list and offered up a memory or two. I recorded it for your listening pleasure, and you can hear it by clicking here.
According to radio historian Wayne Mac, the first song played on 2CC was Pick Me Up by Canberra band The Ritz, and they were originally broadcasting from Bellenden St Gungahlin.
I remember when 2CC started turning to talk, and David Young’s Garden was on from 7am-8am on Saturdays and 7am-9am on Sundays. I was one of the regular callers to that show, although rarely talking about anything useful, I was usually the first caller through and David seemed to enjoy our conversations. I would often sit up in bed with a cup of coffee listening to David Young, and occasionally the trading post, which started at 8am on Saturdays (I think). I remember that the two hosts rotated each week and the callers were constantly calling them the wrong names. Of course I started listening to 2CC when it was still a music station, probably in 1990 or 1991.
Happy Birthday 2CC!
Samuel
October 31st, 2005 at 07:00am
Australian readers would probably be familiar with Dettol and it’s partner product, Dettol Soap. This is probably the most well known anti-bacterial soap in Australia, and it is advertised as being incredibly good for you, if you believe the advertisers it does just about everything except paint the ceiling.
But research is now proving that these anti-bacterial soaps are no more useful than ordinary soaps, and may in fact be enhancing the evolution of drug-resistant superbugs. I suppose superbugs are inevitable, but we really don’t need to speed up the process.
Medical Newspaper Medpage Today have more
Samuel
October 22nd, 2005 at 06:35pm
I have some Google Alerts setup with various names and keywords so that when a news story appears with these names or keywords I know about it. I have one for “John Laws” which often gives me newspaper reports on various interviews he has conducted, but I also have one for “John Kerr”. Whilst I know John Kerr as an overnight radio presenter and a former Governor General, but it seems that Google know him as a bunch of sports coaches in the US, and now as a taxi driver in Port Macquarie. The reason I bring this up is that this recent taxi driver story is quite entertaining. This story comes from the Port Macquarie News, and is as follows.
Heard the one about the owl and the snake?
Wednesday, 19 October 2005
IF YOU caught a cab in Port Macquarie on Thursday morning, chances are you shared it with a brown snake.
The 40 centimetre reptile spent about five hours in the car before it was discovered by a horrified passenger.
According to taxi driver John Kerr the snake managed to get into the car when he hit an owl on his shift.
“I was driving out near Major Innes Drive about one in the morning on Thursday when I saw this owl take off from the road with a snake in its claws,” John explained.
“The owl flew straight into the car and got wedged in the roof racks.”
John stopped the car and got out to see if the owl was still alive.
While he was helping the dazed bird he failed to notice the brown snake slither into the darkness of his cab.
“The owl was a bit dazed, but all right,” John said. “I searched for the snake, but couldn’t find it so I assumed it had slithered off into the bushes.”
John had a few more passengers before he dropped his cab off at the end of his shift.
After giving it a quick clean out he left it for the next driver who began his shift at 5.30am.
When Charlie Beddie started work that morning he was totally unaware of his venomous passenger.
“My first job was at Rydges where I had to pick up a few flight staff,” Charlie said.
“Two of the crew had already climbed in the back of the car and the pilot was sitting in the front when the last flight attendant climbed in.
“As he was getting into the car he noticed the snake and calmly announced it to the rest of us.”
Charlie said when the other passengers heard the news they were out of the car quicker than lightning.
Charlie borrowed a dustpan and broom from the hotel and tried to catch the snake.
“The snake was certainly a feisty fella and did not want to be caught,” Charlie said.
“Finally I managed to get him into the dustpan and then put him into a plastic bin, much to the relief of the flight crew.”
The snake was later released into the bush and Charlie still got his fare out to the airport.
If anyone did catch the cab on Thursday morning Charlie hopes they did not have bare feet.
Samuel
October 19th, 2005 at 05:14pm
Apoligies for the very bad attempt at a pun in the title, but it seemed appropriate.
This afternoon my attention was drawn to the comments of Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman. Piers made some very interesting, and in my view correct, observations about the Leaky Stanhope Saga, which I have previously covered.
As I don’t know how long the link to the Daily Telegraph article will last for, I have mirrored Piers’ comments below. I have since emailed Piers with my views on the issue, and some little bits of information which Piers might be interested in when it comes to the rest of the Chief Turnip’s cabinet.
I also found it quite interesting that the John Laws web poll “Are the Howard Government’s proposed anti-terror laws too tough?” attracted the following result.
Yes 21%
No 79%
I’ll admit that the average John Laws listener is probably somewhat right-winged, but considering that the John Laws website is reported to have hundreds of thousands of visitors each day, it is probably a mostly fair representation of a cross section of the community, especially seeing as people are often referred to the polls by email with no knowledge of what discussions have taken place on the show.
Another fiddle by the Nero of Canberra
October 18, 2005
Piers Ackerman
SHOWING once again he is not the best man to have on your side in a firestorm, ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, on whose watch Canberra burnt two summers ago, has abandoned all ethical and security considerations in an attempt to undermine the Federal Government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation.
Having agreed with all other state and territory leaders to respect the confidentiality of the draft anti-terrorism bill while it was under discussion, Mr Stanhope, displaying all the maturity of a wet-behind-the-ears student activist, promptly published the content on his Toy Town government’s website, and, in so doing made himself out to be some sort of hero with the immature Left.
Responsible government requires responsible leadership – even more so with the world locked in combat against the most lethal forms of terrorism.
But not from the knee-jerk populist Mr Stanhope. The lessons taught by New York, Bali, Jakarta, Madrid and London have escaped the notice of this former Beazley political staffer.
If security matters cannot be discussed in confidentiality, there is little chance of ever meeting the terrorist threat.
Mr Stanhope, has, of course, a dismal record when it comes to protecting the malcontented public servants in his fiefdom.
When bushfires threatened the ACT in January, 2003, his administration rejected the concerned inquiries made by the NSW fire authorities and the subsequent firestorm that swept through Canberra’s suburbs destroyed more than 500 houses, killed four people and left others with serious burns.
Scandalously, this self-proclaimed man-of-the-people then attempted to shut down the coronial inquiry just as it began to raise questions which went to the heart of his administration’s failed decision-making process.
When later challenged about the ACT Government’s failure to recognise the gravity of the bushfire threat, he said famously: “I’m not a firefighter; I don’t have that experience.”
No, indeed. Nor is there any evidence that he is an expert on terrorism but he did say after being briefed by the heads of the security apparatus on the new anti-terror laws: “Faced with blunt advice from the head of ASIO, from the head of the Office of National Assessments and from the head of the Australian Federal Police that we do indeed face grave circumstances in Australia, it really isn’t possible for any head of government to turn away and to take some other advice or to make some personal judgment on how serious the situation is. The situation is serious.”
The meeting with the security chiefs, he said, “provided, I believe, a strong justification for a range of new laws”.
That was last month. Three weeks later, the populist politician has changed his tune dramatically, telling a meeting of Muslim leaders in Canberra last Friday: “Today I invite Canberra’s Muslims to see for themselves the draft legislation the Prime Minister has presented to the states and territories for their consideration.
“I do not wish to deceive you. The laws to which I have agreed are unpalatable laws. They are laws I never anticipated I would be called upon to consider.
“I believe it is wrong and counterproductive for us to keep insisting that this behaviour has no causal links to our invasion of Iraq. I also believe that the anxiety and dislocation felt by Muslims can no longer be seen in isolation from the West’s behaviour in relation to Palestine.”
Where Mr Stanhope’s newfound knowledge of terrorism comes from is a mystery.
Perhaps he is being briefed by Michael Costello, who also worked on Mr Beazley’s staff and is now the $400,000-a-year head of the ACT’s water and electricity utility.
Fanatical Islamist terrorists began targeting infidels or poor observers of the tenets of Islam long before the Iraqi conflict and without any reference to Middle Eastern political structure.
Previously, Mr Stanhope restrained his half-baked political activism to providing support for a juvenile staffer who stealthily crept around Canberra shopping areas in the dead of night creating stultifyingly stupid graffiti. Now he has brought his naive approach to bear on more serious affairs.
The contrast between the stupefying response of this arch poseur to the current global crisis and that of the 10 million or so brave Iraqis who defied suicidal murderers to register their acceptance of Iraq’s new constitution last weekend is absolutely breathtaking.
Their enthusiasm in the face of dreadful threats matched that of the millions of Africans a decade ago who queued for hours to vote for freedom from apartheid in South Africa after years of oppression.
Like the South Africans, Iraqis believe they can stand up to those who want to steal the keys of liberty and democracy.
How, given his absurd utterances, would Mr Stanhope and his fellow doomsayers expect Australia to respond to the threat of international terrorism against those he represents? With the same facile response he mustered before the bushfires two years ago or with more steel?
His unprincipled abrogation of his agreement to participate in confidential talks on a series of unexceptional proposals to deal with terrorism certainly does not inspire confidence in his understanding of the gravity of the situation the world now faces.
Nor do his views on Iraq and the Middle East indicate anything beyond arrant populism.
He has committed a serious breach of trust and it would be perfectly understandable should colleagues in the state and federal governments exclude him from future confidential talks and briefings.
Courtesy of dailytelegraph.com.au
Samuel
October 18th, 2005 at 08:59pm
The Chief Turnip of the ACT, Jon Stanhope, has released a confidential document on his chief ministerial website (Warning, site contains large scary pictures at the top of every page).
The document he leaked was a confidential draft copy of the federal government’s anti-terrorism legislation. This was given to each of the state and territory leaders as part of the briefing they received on the new legislation.
The draft legislation is due before Federal parliament in a couple weeks, and will probably be refined by then, so not only is this leak a breach of confidentiality, it is also unwise and irresponsible. Not only has the chief turnip broken the trust between the federal and ACT government’s, he has also placed further sensible and logical revisions of the legislation at risk.
I will admit that it does appear to have a few rough edges, but these would have been revised before or during their time in parliament, and the early release has provided extra amunition for a propoganda campaign from the “no anti-terrorism legislation” camp. Already Green’s senator/leader Bob Brown has said that it contains a section which enables police to shoot to kill, and frankly, I don’t think anti-terrorism legislation would be complete without such a clause, and I strongly suspect that Mr. Brown has taken it out of context, and omitted any safeguards/regulations which would be part of the paragraphs in question. The federal government aren’t stupid enough to just hand out guns to the police and say “If you see something, shoot it.” They know that the “rogue senators” wouldn’t stand for it, and neither would the other parties.
ACT Shadow Attorney General Bill Stefaniak produced a press release in which he stated the obvious and true facts of the matter:
“I have to question the judgement of the Chief Minister to circulate this document on the world wide web when it clearly states on the front page ‘Draft-in-Confidence”
“To my knowledge no other Labor state leaders have sort to betray the Federal Government’s confidence in this manner.”
“Mr Stanhope was the biggest critic of the Anti-Terror approach that the Federal Government was proposing to take, but then, after a special briefing at the COAG meeting he finally realised the Prime Minister’s number one goal is national security.”
“Why then has Jon Stanhope betrayed the trust of the Federal Government and his state colleagues in posting what is a very private and confidential document to his personal website for all to see?”
“This is not a smart move and shows a severe lack of judgement on the part of the Leader of this Territory.”
“Jon Stanhope has embarrassed the ACT in his actions and will never be able to be trusted with confidential material of this nature again. “
Perhaps that is just it, perhaps the chief turnip only pretended to be pleased about the new legislation so that he could leak it in an unfinished and rough state which could ultimately destroy it. If so, then this has to be one of the worst cases of political grandstanding in the history of Australian politics.
Regardless of his intentions, he has leaked a confidential government document, and deserves to be punished. If his intentions were as I stated above, then a charge of treason should also be considered…after all, isn’t an attempt to unfairly influence the proceedings of potential anti-terrorism legislation an unusual form of terrorism?
I haven’t read the draft legislation yet, but I will make sure I get read enough to get an overview of it. As unfortunate as it is, the draft legislation has been viewed by so many people now, that it would be impossible to remove it from public knowledge, and to not get see some of it now would open myself up to manipulation by those of Stanhope’s ilk. I will not store a copy of the draft legislation on this site, but I will retain my two-pages-per-page double-sided copy of it for now, and if requested, I will shred it and make sure I don’t disclose any of the contents.
For now the offending document can be viewed from the Chief Turnip’s website (warning, site contains a large scary picture of Stanhope on every page), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is removed sometime soon…even if a court order is required.
Chief Turnip Stanhope is an outright twit, and shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office, he is a danger to our society, and can never be trusted with confidential documents ever again. The release of the draft legislation will hamper efforts to logically fix up any problems which may be part of the legislation, and has almost certainly fueled a proganda war between the “for” & “against” camps, as can be seen in the incredible amount of press releases relating to it.
Samuel
Disclaimer: Neither I, nor anybody related to this website can be held responsible for any consequences that may occur should you decide to view the confidential draft legislation, information provided here is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation, direction or otherwise that you should view the confidential document. Should you choose to do so, it is at your own risk. Comments which contravine this notice will be removed without notice.
October 15th, 2005 at 09:00pm
The federal minister for communications, Helen Coonan has made an announcement about digital radio. Apparently the major metropolitan areas will get it first, and will use something called the Eureka 147 system, and they will provide broadcasters with 128 kilo bits per second, which is half the recommended bandwidth for the Eureka system.
Now, I don’t know much about the Eureka system, but if the bit rates are in any way similar to those of MP3 compression then 128kbps stereo will be fine for speech and some music, but won’t be great for music. In my experience “on the fly” compression generally requires higher bandwidth than “post compression” as the latter can deal the audio file as a whole whilst the former has to compress as it goes, which I find usually provides worse audio quality than post compression. The point I am trying to make here is that 128kbps stereo might be fine with post compression, but it won’t provide the same quality for broadcast.
I have read that the UK is using Eureka at 128kbps and it sounds dreadful, but I can’t confirm that, so if anybody knows better then I would be glad to hear from you.
Also Digital Radio will coexist with analog radio for now, as there is no set “switch off” date for analog radio. The same can’t be said for digital and analog television, with 2008 being confirmed as the switch off date for analog television (in metro areas anyway) to free up the airwaves for digital radio.
There hasn’t really been any clear decision made for the regional areas, except that they will get digital radio soon, and as far as I know, Canberra is considered a regional area when it comes to television and radio. The regionals might not even use Eureka, Ms. Coonan announced that DRM may be used instead. I personally don’t understand why we would use two different radio systems, but such is government regulation.
Interestingly, Radio 2 moved on to odd parts of the radio dial hoping to be part of the digital radio saga, but they have missed out, and that can’t possibly help the already dwindling share price. According to radioinfo.com.au “Low power community stations, open narrowcasters and Section 40 off-band licencees will miss out on space in the first round of allocations, which will be planned by ACMA.”
radioinfo also reports that “VHF spectrum will be the preferred carrier medium, with L Band being considered for in-fill transmission and other future uses. Spectrum planning will begin immediately, but the Minister expects that legislation and a staggered technical roll out will mean that consumers may still have to wait up to 2 years before they will be able to enjoy a full range of digital radio services.”
This certainly marks a very exciting period for the future of radio in Australia, I can only hope that the regulators make the right decisions, otherwise we may be left with a substandard system, and fixing that could be very tricky.
Samuel
UPDATE: Upon further reading it has become apparent that Eureka uses MP2, which is going to be interesting to say the least. Also, stations will be allocated 256kbps worth of bandwidth, but will only be allowed to broadcast at 128kbps, the other half of the bandwidth will be reserved for extra features and services. I don’t like the sound of this at all.
October 14th, 2005 at 04:11pm
Regular readers of my blog would know that I once had a dream about people living in kitchen appliances, in this dream I lived in a fridge and the neighbours lived in a freezer, I then turned this story into an incredible work of fiction.
Well, now, for the second time in history, UK News Source Ananova receives a link from this website, as they have a story which just goes to show that truth really is stranger than fiction.
I’ll let them tell the story
Iceman can’t stand the heat
A Russian man who suffers from a rare disorder that means his body easily overheats has been divorced after moving to Siberia and turning his house into a fridge.
Vitaly Matyukhin, from Arkhangelsk, converted his new home into a fridge after being told by doctors that he was suffering from a “heat exchange disorder”.
The condition means he risks overheating if exposed to anything over five degrees Celsius, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported.
But after Matyukhin converted his home his wife Olga and their son walked out, saying they could no longer stand the cold.
The condition started after Matyukhin was taken to hospital suffering from heat stroke, which according to doctors upset his body’s internal method of regulating his body temperature.
He said he now only ever leaves his house late at night in winter when the temperature drops below freezing.
His only real problem here is that, if the power goes out, he isn’t going to be able to reenact the events of The Fridge and delve into the power system to fix the problem, as there is a very good chance the teperature might rise above 5 degrees.
Samuel
October 4th, 2005 at 08:28am
I am deeply saddened by the news that Don Adams (aka Maxwell Smart/Agent 86 from Get Smart) has passed away aged 82.
Get Smart wasn’t one of the TV shows of my era, but its reruns touched me, and it became one of my favourite TV shows.
I had a couple lighthearted stories to run today, but I am going to hold them in honour of Don Adams. May he rest in peace, and be in our hearts always.
Samuel
Click here to hear the Get Smart theme music
The New York Times has this report
Don Adams, Television’s Maxwell Smart, Dies at 82
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: September 27, 2005
Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the 1960’s sitcom “Get Smart,” combining clipped, decisive diction with appalling, hilarious ineptitude, died on Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82.
Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone from the TV show “Get Smart” was displayed in 2002 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation in Simi Valley, Calif.
Readers
Forum: Television
The cause was a lung infection, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Tufeld said that Mr. Adams broke his hip a year ago and had been in poor health.
Maxwell Smart – in a way, his name was the show’s biggest joke – was a bumbling secret agent for Control, the good guys, who weekly foiled the plans of the evil cabal Kaos for world domination.
Inevitably, Smart’s ham-handed detective style landed him in hot water. Luckily, his faithful and beautiful sidekick, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), was as bright as he was dense, and could bail him out. (Smart was Agent 86: bartender’s code for cutting off service to a drunk.)
“Get Smart” twice won the Emmy for best comedy series, and Mr. Adams won three Emmys for best actor.
“Get Smart” ran on NBC from 1965 to 1969 and on CBS from 1969 to 1970. Years later, producers tried to recapture the show’s initial spark in the 1980 film “The Nude Bomb,” the 1989 television movie “Get Smart, Again!” and a revival on Fox that lasted seven episodes in 1995. Mr. Adams appeared in all the incarnations.
The original show spoofed the James Bond movies in an innocent, if sophomoric way, and one of its most winning characteristics was the seriousness with which Maxwell Smart again and again did and said things that were really stupid. Several of his lines became popular catchphrases, particularly with young people:
“Would you believe?” (Used when someone did not believe one of Smart’s prevarications and he was about to suggest another.)
“Let me handle it, 99.” (And then he would, and botch it.)
“Sorry about that, Chief” (When he reported to his boss, played by Edward Platt, after the inevitable failure.)
But Smart’s charm lay in his utter humanness, the opposite of Bond’s preposterous competence. In an interview with The Saturday Evening Post in 1966, Mr. Adams analyzed Smart: “He’s not superhuman. But he believes in what he does and he wants to do his best.”
His best was rarely good enough. Smart called into work with a dial phone on the sole of his shoe, and often got a wrong number. He wore jet shoes that shot him up, often into the roof. He was so security-minded that he would often swallow secret messages before reading them.
Donald James Yarmy was born on April 13, 1923, in Manhattan. He said changed his last name to that of his first wife, Adelaide Adams, because acting auditions were often done in alphabetical order.
His father ran a few small restaurants in the Bronx. Mr. Adams grew up hating school and playing hooky at the movies. During World War II, he joined the Marines at 16 by lying about his age. On Guadalcanal, he was shot and contracted blackwater fever, fatal 90 percent of the time.
After the war, he drifted into stand-up comedy, always refraining from dirty jokes, presaging the almost ludicrous uprightness of Maxwell Smart. He cut back on nightclub work to support his family with jobs as a restaurant cashier and as a commercial artist.
His first real success as a comic came when he won an Arthur Godfrey “Talent Scouts” competition in 1954, which led to television variety show appearances on “The Steve Allen Show” and elsewhere.
Mr. Adams created the comedy character Byron Glick, an incompetent house detective, who was a precursor to Max. Mr. Adams tried comedy writing, producing material for Garry Moore and Mr. Allen. When Mr. Adams’s friend Bill Dana got a comedy series, he hired Mr. Adams to regularly play Byron Glick.
“Get Smart” was originally the brainchild of the producers Dan Melnick and David Susskind, and was then refined by the writers Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. ABC passed on the show, but NBC loved it. The writers first thought of Tom Poston for the Smart role, but Mr. Adams was under contract to NBC.
The program was immediately a success with viewers, though Jack Gould, reviewing the new show in The New York Times, fretted that Mr. Adams was trying too hard to be funny. Mr. Gould, however, heartily approved of Ms. Feldon, fondly recalling her appearances in Revlon’s “Tiger Girl” commercials.
In an interview on NBC’s “Today Show” in 2002, Ms. Feldon gave Mr. Adams credit for much of the show’s success. “When you got in a scene with Don, it was like stepping onto a surfboard, and you just flew over those waves,” she said. “And it was exhilarating.”
Mr. Adams took a much smaller salary when offered a chance for a 33 percent piece of the show. “Get Smart” has been popular in reruns for decades, making for steady annuities.
After “Get Smart,” Mr. Adams did a short-lived comedy series called “The Partners.” After that, he pursued many things, including a very successful voice-over career, speaking for the cartoon character Inspector Gadget. (He was also the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo in the early 1960’s.) He directed and appeared in commercials, and made many guest appearances on shows like “The Love Boat.”
Mr. Adams was married and divorced three times and had seven children. His daughter Cecily Adams, an actress and casting director, died in 2004. His brother, Dick Yarmy, an actor, died in 1992.
Writers have noted disarming similarity between Mr. Adams and Max, his most famous character. The Saturday Evening Post told a story of Mr. Adams looking for money in his pocket to tip a young man who had parked his car. He had no change, no bill he thought was small enough and could find nothing when he rummaged in his glove compartment.
“And so motorists began sounding their horns, the kid shifted from foot to foot and an audience gathered,” the magazine wrote. “It was pure Don Adams. And pure Maxwell Smart.”
September 27th, 2005 at 01:34pm
A number of news outlets are reporting that an Australian professor has just rewritten the laws of trigonometry. Rather than using tools designed for circles, he uses squares and “spread”. Apparently the current system of trigonomtry is error prone, which doesn’t suprise me, but I’ve always been fascinated about what we (as a society and schools) would do if there was a major change in the way we carry out mathematical procedures. I’ve always felt that there was a time when we were very open to change in Science, Maths and English, but lately I feel we have become stubborn and these rules which may or may not be correct are bound into some kind of inflicted concrete. Perhaps it is just that there haven’t really been any major theoretical changes in my lifetime, sure computers have entered mainstream use, but it never seemed like a difficult thing to implement into classrooms, it happened gradually, helped in some ways by computer companies like Apple giving computers to schools for their own purposes, and in effect helping to bring a new generation into a new world.
Allow me to deviate slightly. Apple were very generous, particularly in parts of Australia where they gave schools a bunch of Apple Macintosh computers. Apple believed that students growing up with, and learning to use, Macintosh computers would grow up and continue to use Apple Macintosh. Although this wasn’t entirely unreasonable thinking, it wasn’t exactly correct. Microsoft, who Apple contracted to help write the first version of Macintosh (incredibly buggy by the way), then went and wrote Windows based on similar code for a different architecture. IBM and Microsoft had a bit of a partnership going with Windows and OS/2, however Microsoft did some evil things to IBM and released Windows 95, based quite firmly on OS/2 code, whilst retaining backward compatibility with older versions of Windows. Windows 3.11 (and previous) applications were able to run on OS/2, but Microsoft weasled out of their obligations with IBM and manged to give them a solid push into a downward spiral. By locking OS/2 out of running Windows 95 applications, they effectively drove nails into the coffin of a very good Operating System. Windows 95 was also the first Windows to look like Macintosh, and with the combination of code from Mac and OS/2, Microsoft obviously thought they had won the war, unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) they were in such a rush that they botched the OS and left it filled with bugs and security issues that they have never been able to fix. The current incarnation of Windows continues the line of work that started with these rushed combinations, and it has become quite apparent that the people at Microsoft really don’t know how to write a decent Kernel or Operating System. It may be dominant, but it is far from perfect, and fixing it would break all the existing Windows applications, so they can’t do that…catch 22.
Anyway, back to Trigonometry and educational change. It seems that teachers and textbooks all rely on the existing rules, and even simplifactions and clarifications to these rules take time to be implemented. Apparently the new rules of trigonometry will make calculations easier and more accurate, so I do hope that they are understood and implemented soon. Due to the inherently simpler nature of the newer rules, I wouldn’t expect much retraining will be required for people who use and teach the existing rules, the thing that will take time, however, will be the implementation of the new rules in people’s heads.
After a while, the notion of how to utilise trigonometry becomes second nature, and that is the tricky bit. Whilst you can learn a new way to do something, it is not always easy to actually do it the new way when it comes to the time that you need to do it. In fact, that takes a lot longer, and that is what will slow down the implementation of the new rules.
The same thing happened with the conversion from imperial meaurements to metric measurements. People still talk in yards, pounds and inches because those are the measurements that are second nature to them. Mind you, I think there would be greater resistance to a measurement system change now than there was when we changed from imperial to metric, mainly due to that stubborness I mentioned earlier.
ABC Online explains the new Trigonometry pretty well:
The mathematical study of triangles has just got a whole lot simpler, according to a researcher who says his new theory of trigonometry is easier to use and more accurate.
Associate Professor Norman Wildberger, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, says his theory of “rational trigonometry” is more like algebra as you can plug numbers into an equation and get an accurate result.
“We’re going to look at trigonometry in a new way,” says Wildberger.
“We’re going to leave sines and cosines to the circular motion part of mathematics and not force it on triangles.”
Wildberger says the trigonometry we know and love (or hate) today has its historical roots in the work of ancient astronomers, like Ptolemy, who studied the motion of planets.
In this case, the angle between two points in the sky, as seen from Earth, was a reasonable way of calculating the distance between them, he says.
But, says Wildberger, the problem came when others applied these theories, developed for spherical geometry, to the study of flat triangles.
“It’s all very well to do if you’re working on a sphere or a circle but when we actually study triangles there aren’t any circles there,” he says.
New concepts
The key purpose of trigonometry is to understand the relationships between the corners and sides of triangles.
It is used in areas like surveying, engineering and construction today.
Classical trigonometry calls the separation between two lines an “angle”, which is the length of a circular arc between two lines.
An angle can be calculated using an equation that relates the corners of a triangle (using the concepts of sine, cosine or tangent) to the length (distance) of the side opposite it.
But Wildberger says that distance is not the best way to measure the separation of two points and angle is not the best way to measure the separation of two lines.
“It’s not the concept that leads to a mathematics that is the most pleasant and the most useful and the most accurate,” he says.
Instead of distance, Wildberger’s trigonometry uses a concept called “quandrance”, the square of distance.
Instead of angle, he uses the concept of “spread”, calculated by dividing one quadrance by another.
The spread between two lines is a number between 0 (representing parallel lines) and 1 (representing lines at right angles).
Wildberger says it would be possible to make a new protractor that measures spread instead of angle.
You would then plug the values for the quadrance and spread into his set of equations.
More accurate
What’s better about the system, says Wildberger, is that all the terms in the equations can be calculated exactly, or are “rational”, hence the term for his new theory, “rational trigonometry”.
But sine, cosine and tangent, are usually only approximated, he says, making them “transcendental functions”.
This means that any complex calculation using classical trigonometry could result in a significant accumulation of errors.
Wildberger says he hopes that “rational trigonometry” will provide high school students with a simpler way of thinking about triangles that is both more accurate and easier to carry out.
And he says the improved accuracy will be important elsewhere such as in GPS surveying or when engineers design devices.
Wildberger says he developed the new theory while studying more complex maths.
“It wasn’t that I set out to do this. It was just a fluke, in a way, that I realised ‘Hey these ideas can change elementary trigonometry’.”
Wildberger’s book, Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry, published by Wild Egg books, is launched this week.
Samuel
September 19th, 2005 at 09:09pm
Congratulations to Sydney radio station 2UE, who have now moved to their new digital studios. The first program broadcast was Saturday Night Live with Stuart Bocking at 9PM last night, which was pretty much exclusive to 2UE as most of their network stations (including 2CC Canberra) were covering the rugby league finals.
I did notice though that 2UE managed to send their ads through to the network stations, this may have been an operator error (there were a couple of those as the staff got used to the new equipment) or it may have been an oversight on the technicians behalf where they either forgot to prevent ads from being broadcast to network stations or forgot to inform the operators of the correct procedure for ad breaks.
According to people who have worked their previously, with the old equipment it was neccesary to mute the computer on the audition channel which went through to networks during ad breaks, and it may be similar with the new equipment.
Most of the network stations (actually, I think all of them) run automated overnight, so they pretty much leave the 2UE channel and the computer channel open and things work as expected, as 2UE sends silence to network station during the ad break. Instead, last night 2UE sent their ad breaks through, so the computers at local stations played the ads, but 2UE were also playing ads and therefore both sets of ads were playing over the top of each other.
If it happens again tonight I will make sure I bring it to 2UE’s attention tommorow so that they can fix it.
Apart from that, the new equipment and studios should be fantastic, and I will be keeping an eye out for some photos to share with you, especially the new John Laws studio, which is rumoured to have a gold coloured desk.
Samuel
September 11th, 2005 at 05:23pm
British Companies have been warned that they face a computer “meltdown” as zillions of british workers use their computers to track cricket scores during the fifth Ashes test.
One of the quotes from computer firm Network General was quite interesting and amusing
While every company is aware of the risks posed by computer viruses, few will have ever considered Ricky Ponting and Michael Vaughan’s men a potential threat to their computer networks
Interesting, this could be an opportunity to semi-solve the problem of yesterday’s “cricket score statusbar” searcher.
I personally use the resources of Channel 7 to keep up to date with cricket scores when I’m not near the TV, just hover on cricket and click scoreboard, and hey presto (or bingo, or bingo bango bongo) you have live cricket scores & stats.
Samuel
September 6th, 2005 at 10:51am
This is a story that caught my attention this morning.
A Romanian man who stole seven chickens has been jailed for three and a half years. The man, who is 51, was apprehended whilst returning to Romania after a four year absence, apparently he was recognised by his international arrest warrant. The man was very suprised to find himself on Interpol’s most wanted list.
I’m no expert on Romania or it’s law, but if these chickens are a form of currency he may have comitted an offence similar to robbing a bank.
UK news source Ananova have slightly more details, and not as much humour.
I wonder what he did with the chickens?
Samuel
September 6th, 2005 at 10:42am
For those of you who don’t already know, Sydney radio station 2UE are moving to new all-digital studios in a new building.
The news that I am able to break to you right here is that the first show to come out of the new studios will be Saturday Night Live with Stuart Bocking at 9PM Sydney time, this coming Saturday (September 10), all programming from that point on will be coming from the new digital studios.
2UE were due to start broadcasting from the new studios early this week, but they pushed the date back so that all the staff could learn how to use the new equipment.
It has been said, although I am unable to confirm it, that John Laws’ office is twice the size of 2UE breakfast host Mike Carlton’s office, and that Mike isn’t overly pleased about that.
It is also said, and probably correctly said, that the John Laws studio will have a gold coloured desk with his signature on it, which should match his golden microphone quite well.
Apparently 2UE own this building at 170 Pacific Highway, Greenwich, which has a Dick Smith Electronics store in it (Think Tandy/Radio Shack style store). I suppose if the techs ever need to fix anything they can pop downstairs and grab a bit of solder!
Samuel
September 4th, 2005 at 07:42pm
According to some CSIRO scientists, sheep are not as dumb as a lot of people think.
The scientists sent the sheep through a maze and found that after going through the maze a few times, they had reduced their maze solving time from 90 seconds to 30 seconds.
Personally, I have never seen sheep as stupid. Flocking may be instinctive, but I never as it as a sign of unintelligence.
What I would like to know though, is why did the CSIRO undertake this study, after reading the entire ABC News article I still can’t see why they did it. Does it really prove anything of any value? I don’t think so, so what purpose does it serve? Anybody care to enlighten me?
Samuel
August 30th, 2005 at 11:07pm
From the “I keep telling you I don’t drink too much coffee” files comes this story:
Numerous media outlets are informing us all about the benefits scientists have found in coffee, to quote some of the story
A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants – which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer – to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes.
…
“Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close,” said Professor Vinson, whose study was described at the weekend to the American Chemical Society in Washington.
The study found that both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee appeared to provide similar levels of antioxidants.
…
They (antioxidants) have been linked to a number of health benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer. Studies have associated coffee drinking with a reduced risk of liver and colon cancer, type two diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease.
…
A spokesman for the British Coffee Association said: “This study reconfirms the fact that moderate coffee consumption of four to five cups a day not only is perfectly safe but may confer health benefits.”
All these quotes and the rest of the article can be found in the Online Edition of The Independent.
Samuel
August 29th, 2005 at 10:31pm
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