Posts filed under 'Lunacy/Idiots'
How would you clean a window? With some window cleaner and a cloth? How about a leaf blower?
Well, the latter option is what somebody who lives near me decided to do. I first noticed this when I was taking out the recycling and heard a leaf blower, looked up and saw the person pointing the leaf blower at the windows. It was around this time that I realised that it was the same noise I had been hearing for the last half hour, albeit now louder, and then it occured to me, they had been using the leaf blower inside their house as well.
I wonder if they manged to blow all the dust out of their house? And just how many small household items they broke or blew to the other side of the room?
By the way, the windows don’t look any cleaner (although the cobwebs appear to be gone).
Samuel
September 12th, 2005 at 06:02pm
In the circus of my life, alarm clock accidents can be minor disasters, making me late for various things, and in general, causing chaos. However after my latest alarm clock accident this morning I heard on the news that somebody else had a far worse alarm clock accident.
An air traffic controller at Canberra Airport slept in, effectively leaving Canberra Airport without an air traffic controller, and a rather worried Qantas flight circling, the pilots must have been very concerned as they wouldn’t have been able to make contact with the airport.
I would have thought that common sense tells you to have more than one air traffic controller scheduled at any given time…but this is little Canberra and I do have a category devoted to idiots…well done Canberra Airport.
Somebody from Canberra Airport did say that it was “unacceptable” and that they would make sure they had at least two air traffic controllers scheduled at any given time from now on, but it seems strange that they didn’t think of it in the first place.
Samuel
September 1st, 2005 at 07:13pm
Canberra can be interesting at times. I took these two photos after seeing this rather insane sight and thinking “I don’t know how they managed it, but this needs to be preserved”, and so it is, here, in photo form, for your entertainment.
Firstly, the scenic view, the lamp post is roughly three metres high.
And now, the closeup. Yes, it is three shopping baskets. They are from Woolworths (“The Fresh Food People” is their tagline), and the nearest Woolworths is roughly ten minutes away. There are a number of closer supermarkets so I’m not sure why the Woolworths baskets were chosen.
Needless to say, somebody had too much time on their hands!
Samuel
August 26th, 2005 at 12:21am
In case you are looking for a job, Tree Of Life in the Canberra Centre are advertising for an “Acting Assistant Manager”, yes, you read it correctly, an “Acting Assistant Manager”.
Now, to my mind, somebody who is acting in a role is simply filling the role of somebody who has retired or gone on leave…acting is an internal pseudo-promotion, not an actual job…..I suppose that Tree Of Life could be preparing to produce a film…are they going to pay the “Acting Customers”???
I’ve just found the feedback form on their website, I might ask them what they think an “Acting Assistant Manager” is. Interestingly, none of the other jobs are “acting” positions.
Whilst we are talking about the civic area, tonight a woman was standing outside Supabarn and took a photo of the checkout…a minute later she took a photo of Baker Delight, causing much hysterical laughter amongst the staff there…don’t ask me what the photos were in aid of, it just seemed rather odd to me…and the surrounding people.
In a nearby apartment block, somebody has somehow managed to put a shopping basket on top of a lightpost…I don’t know and I don’t want to know how they did it (well, maybe I’m a little curious), but I would like to know why they did it….maybe they’ll build a shop around it….who knows…
All these things serve one purpose….keep the planet interesting!
Samuel
August 19th, 2005 at 08:17pm
The title explains the answers.
When I plugged in my flash drive a few moments ago, I had Windows Media Player minimised, and as soon as I plugged it in, Media Player decided it had to ask me if I wanted to scan it for media files ten times.
My answers, well, I’ll read the title of this post to you:
“No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No”
Thankyou to the lovely loony monkeys typing code for Microsoft, you have made my life so much easier…now, what did I plug in my flash drive for in the first place?….Blast, I forgot, and I think it was important too….
Samuel
August 11th, 2005 at 11:15pm
Hmmmm, does anybody reading this remember Idiot Number Three?
Well, I do, and he still likes Internet Explorer, and went on a mini rant when he found Firefox and no Internet Explorer on the computer he was using, he went so far as to say “I hate Firefox”…the words of an idiot, pure & simple.
His mini rant prompted another person in the room to start complaining as well, apparently they want IE to be the default browser…if I never had any contact with that network I probably wouldn’t care, but the fact is I am in contact with that network every day, and work on some fairly important files there. The last thing I want is some leaky, pain in the rear end, security risk, poor excuse for a browser on my desktop.
The main reason this Firefox roll out occurred is because far too many computers on the network were having difficulty receiving proxy and other IE configuration info from the server. Firefox, apart from being the better browser, allows us to lock down these settings locally, so even without a server it still works.
For some reason, the second person mentioned seemed to think the IE’s view source command handles viewing source nicely. IE opens it in Notepad, where you see a large block of semi-gibberish text in a window, which notepad has retrieved from a temporary location and will discard as soon as you close the window (unless you remember to save your changes). Firefox on the other hand opens source in it’s own source viewer, which colour codes the HTML, which is much easier to read and deal with than notepad’s “Block of text” view. The other benefit of Firefox’s view source command is that is forces you to save the HTML file before you modify it…no more of those “I made the best change ever and forgot to save it” moments.
These people know (or at least should) that Firefox is the better browser, and yet use IE without giving it a second thought, why?
This kind of attitude is the reason that so many of the Windows exploits get around so quickly, all those worms spread and all those malware issues take over your desktop with strange offers and pictures. It isn’t so bad when people simply don’t know, but when they do know, and do nothing about it, that is when the problems start.
Not updating software and not following secure computer usage principles is the main reason that all this malware gets around so easily, often the users of the computer don’t know that they are being used to spread garbage, but if they followed some basic security principles then they would be less likely to suffer from, and help spread, such problems.
That being said, following security principles won’t stop malware issues, but it will slow it down, and it will result in less problems for you when you go surfing the web, or need to type a letter, or do something else.
Unfortunately, some people just won’t learn, like those pesky Internet Explorer loving idiots.
Get Firefox!
Samuel
August 1st, 2005 at 06:50pm
It appears that the ACT Government are finally proving beyond all reasonable doubt that they are loony.
They have decided that it is a good idea to close Ginninderra High School, not that anyone agrees with them or wants it to happen, and they have decided to close it, end of story. However, they plan on replacing it with a Kindergarten through Year 10 “Super School”, and at the same time closing a bunch of other Belconnen area schools so that everyone will get to go there.
So now that you are up to speed with the story, lets have a look at this in more detail.
Firstly, the ACT Government are closing Ginninderra High School, the announcement was a bit late though, it was after the closing date for enrolments, and seeing as it is closing at the end of the year, well, people are just plain stuffed. They chose the school because they thought it would be a good school to choose, and now they have to go around to other schools which are most likely to be further away and find out if there is a vacancy for their child. Why couldn’t they gradually phase out the school by not taking any more new students? Certainly it would take time, but it would avoid this ridiculous mess. And the same can be said for existing students, the enrolment period is over, so it is time to visit the other high schools and check for vacancies.
What about consultation, well they did meet with some P&C members from the surrounding area a few months back, not for consultation, just to say “we like this”, and their was a confidentiality agreement to go with it. The government denied they had conducted this meeting at first, and then when it became obvious that they had occurred they did a backflip and said “Yes, we had a meeting.”
The government claim that Ginninderra high is an ageing dinosaur that needs to be pulled down because it is too large for it’s present number of students, could this be because the government don’t like to spend money on maintaining schools by any chance? The government invented the situation of low population of Ginninderra High by cutting costs and making the place unattractive to potential students, and now they want to take it out on everyone else.
I do have to wonder how Ginninderra High even comes remotely near being old, based on the building style, it was probably built during the 70’s or 80’s, which is, compared to other schools in Canberra, fairly young. My primary school (Ainslie Primary) was built in 1927 and still works just fine. (To be more precise, the original building which is now being used as an arts centre was built in 1927 as a temporary home for the school until the “new” building was built, late 20’s early 30’s).
Of course the plans for the site after they pull down the existing school are even more bizarre. The government want to build a super school catering for students from kindergarten to year 10. Oh what fun and excitement!
Anybody who has been in a playground of a primary school or a high school would know that it isn’t exactly bliss. In my experience, primary schools separate the junior kids from the senior kids due to size and maturity differences. High schools are often warzones at break times. So now we combine all of this, put it on a pretty small playing area, and hope for the best.
I’m sure the junior primary school kids will stay in their zone, I doubt that the senior primary school kids will stay in their zone, and I would bet that the high school kids will pose a danger to the junior primary school kids, not all of them, but you are always going to have the handful of difficult students.
Would you want every child aged 5-16 from the Belconnen area in your backyard? I didn’t think so. So why do the government want to do the same thing in a slightly larger area? Good question, lets have a look.
One very large super school in an area means all the other schools get to close, meaning the government can sell off the land and make a pretty penny out of it while we sit back and see more high rise apartment blocks appearing where we used to have schools.
The other thing that needs to be taken into account here is the educational standards of a super school. Whilst the super school would have a high concentration of quality teachers, it would also have a very high concentration of students, and you can bet that the government will do all they can to cut costs, eg. Higher class sizes and less funding for new equipment. Shared resources would become an issue, for example, how many computer labs do you put in? How often will you upgrade them? What kind of gym facilities will there be? What about an assembly hall, it would surely be horrible getting every kid aged 5-16 in the Belconnen area into one room, it is hard enough to make it work when you have all the 5-12 year olds from two suburbs.
Then there is the psychological effects this will have.
One of the main working aspects of the transition from primary school to high school, and from high school to college, is the physical change of location. A different location with different rules and a different atmosphere makes it much easier to adapt. How do you suddenly expect 12 & 13 year olds to accept a massive change in how they operate if they are in the same place, with the same staff, and the same atmosphere? It is hardly easy to make them accept that “You are now in year seven and we expect this from you.” It is much easier to say “Here at xyz High School things are different to your old primary school.” And students will accept the latter much more easily than the former.
Of course, it isn’t as if the government are giving us much choice here, they are pulling down Ginninderra High, end of story, but we can stop this new super school and have the money spent on our hospital waiting lists or improving our existing schools.
I really can’t see why the government can’t do what they have done with just about every other school in Canberra and have a “Renovation Program” which will bring it up to the government’s constantly changing standards.
Basically, the government have made an unholy mess, and they are going to try and convince us that is looks good.
The education minister, Ms. Katy Gallagher (the loopy woman with a silent g), is having a baby (I pity him or her), and I can almost guarantee that she will be leaving town when it comes to the time where her child needs to be enrolled in a school. After all, she wouldn’t want her child educated in her mess of an education system would she?
Samuel
July 28th, 2005 at 10:25pm
There were plenty of instances of stupidity in the last 24 hours, but one in particular takes the cake. Near where I live there is a large communal rubbish hopper, somebody in their infinite wisdom decided that the best orientation for this was on it’s back. How they managed this I will never know, what I do know however is that the hopper was more or less full at the time and as such has now left a rather unholy mess.
I was going to take a photo or two of it, but before I had the chance the rubbish truck company (I think it is Cleanaway) came and returned the bin to a more natural orientation. They did however omit to clean up the mess and move the bin back a metre to it’s normal location.
The bin is now roughly a metre forward of it’s usual undercover location (bin now subject to rainfill) and has an incredible mess behind it.
I must remember to take the digital camera out to photograph this absurd mess tommorow (erm, today)…stay tuned for the photos.
Samuel
July 6th, 2005 at 12:42am
What a wonderful day Microsoft have just had.
To start with, Microsoft have reminded everyone that Windows 2000 support will end on 30 June 2005. Windows 2000 is probably the most widely used OS in corporate environments and cutting support for it isn’t going to win them any friends. Sure, MS want companies to move to their newer, nicer & stranger Windows XP, which will cost money. Australian government agencies would not be happy with spending money on upgrading, so which option do they take:
1) Stay with unsupported an eventually highly unsafe Windows 2000 (see http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm015-ie/ for proof of unpatched and probably never to be patched security issues in Windows 2000). Cost: Short-term $0, Long-term potentially costly investment in fixing all the issues that will arise. Future versions of Windows Apps (and some current ones) not supporting 2000 will also add to the cost through lost productivity and profits.
2) Upgrade to Windows XP and deal with the new quirks it brings, as well as the interesting upgrades of various programs that simply won’t run under XP. Cost: High, could cost a very large sum of money with the gazillion upgrades and re-training of staff…even if only Windows needs to be upgraded it will still be costly.
3) Move to Linux. Depending on the applications required in the company, probably a good idea, even if only part of the company changes. The cost is anywhere from $0 to low/medium depending on which distro is chosen and whether training is required. Regardless of the overall cost, it is still worthwile considering…good to be informed, you may need the information when it comes time to avoid Windows Longhorn.
Second axe grinding issue, Microsoft have censored MSN blogs in China. If you are chinese and want to talk about anything remotely political, Microsoft will give you a nice little warning saying “This topic contains forbidden words. Please delete them.”
Among the censorings are:
- Freedom
- Democracy
- Human Rights
- Communism
- Socialism
- Capitalism
- Taiwanese Independence
- Tibet
- Dalai Lama
- Falun Gong
- Terrorism
- Massacre
- Demonstration
- The name of the chinese president, Hu Jintao
- Tiananmen
If you’re chinese and want a blog, use blogger.com or something useful, because Microsoft & Yahoo want to censor you, Microsoft being more censor filled than Yahoo.
And while I’m at it, lets have a look at AOL and Microsoft.
AOL users reportedly make up the majority of zombie computers on the internet, which is hardly suprising with the way AOL operate.
For those of you who don’t know, AOL internet connections work with proprieatary AOL software (Including their own bizzare version of the clattering rubbish machine that is commonly known as Microsoft Internet Explorer). AOL also do everything in their power to prevent users from understanding the way their computer or the internet works, at the same time, not providing any anti-virus, anti-spyware or other anti-malware software. Congratualtions AOL, it is thanks to you that the rest of us have to ensure that we keep all our anti-malware software up to date consistently and ensure we have good firewalls. Thankyou AOL, you have successfully slowed down the Internet with your constant stream of zombie generated junk, and thankyou so much for never letting any of your users know about any problems that could occur. It is thanks to you AOL that non-computer savvy people have absolutely no idea that they are spreading useless junk and will never know or suspect that such stuff even travels to and from their computers. Thankyou AOL, thankyou sooooo much.
If you are an AOL user, please do a few things, firstly, change ISP. Secondly, install, run, and keep up-to-date anti-malware software (use the search box on the right of the page if it helps). Third, Install Mozilla Firefox (web browser) and Mozilla Thunderbird (email client).
Samuel
June 15th, 2005 at 08:45pm
The “Grapevine through Transact” using lunatic who left comments here and here has acheived two things:
1. Made a complete idiot out of themself by posting rubbish that contradicts fact.
2. Prompted me to lock down comments, you now have to be a registered user of blogger.com, if you aren’t you can sign up here. I really didn’t want to force people to sign up to blogger.com just to comment, but anonymous loonies are good at forcing it.
The blog stats don’t keep exact IPs, they either show ISP or partial IP, in this case it was partial IP, 203.129.37.x, I could find out the full IP by looking at the logs for the site where the images are hosted, but I couldn’t be bothered, and don’t want to post a dynamic IP anyway.
Samuel
June 8th, 2005 at 06:43pm
Well, according to the latest crazy person I have heard from (they were babbling and I was nearby) it is quite possible to feed yourself in India for $4 per week.
I don’t know what this miracle food is or where to buy it, but it could be the answer to world hunger….so the challenge is on, invent the miracle “$4 per week” food.
Samuel
June 7th, 2005 at 05:05pm
The Queen’s Birthday long weekend is coming up here in Canberra, and that means that fireworks can be legally sold and exploded all over Canberra…Oh the joy of it all, constantly being interrupted by the passing lunatics trying to blow up parts of Canberra, having to comfort pets that are easily frightened by the constant banging.
I don’t mind the mass public fireworks that occur at New Years and Canberra Day, they are nice planned events that involve a bunch of experts letting off fireworks in a controlled manner near a large amount of water…But the mass lunatic asylum that is allowed to roam Canberra and terrorise letter boxes, pets and sleeping residents is very very annoying…especially when they continue doing it for the weeks after the Queen’s Birthday long weekend…and the week or so before it as well.
The worst part is, the Police aren’t around to enforce the law, and they certainly aren’t going to rush to the scene of a firework explosion and work out who was responsible…Why? Because they have no way of catching the perpetrators who could very easily be in another suburb by the time the Police arrive.
Samuel
June 6th, 2005 at 07:42pm
It seems that I run into crazy people almost every day, on Friday while I was sitting down listening to the radio a woman passed by me and stared at me the entire time she was walking past, in fact, I would go so far as to say she was gawping at me, or as answers.com puts it “look with amazement; look stupidly”
Oddly enough, it happened again later that day as well…I can’t find any reason for this gawping, unless I my head had momentarily turned bright orange with lime green polka dots…which it didn’t.
Strange strange people.
Samuel
June 5th, 2005 at 09:14pm
I saw an interesting ad on TV not long ago. The people at Country Energy “It’s your country” have informed us that “Gas & Electricity go together”….what a good idea!
As they say in the classics, “It’s more bang for your buck.”
Disclaimer: If you blow yourself up by mixing gas and electricity you can’t blame me, but you can blame Country Energy.
Samuel
June 1st, 2005 at 06:38pm
Remember Idiot Number Three, well he struck again last week, sending the following email to the admin email address where I work:
I hate you!
I allways hated u the most!
I hope a giant rat lands on your head!
Amusing as it may seem to send that, I had something even more amusing for him in return, an account balance of 50 cents and turning on cost control…it was well timed actually, as I saw him today trying to access the internet and getting a “You have exceeded your download quota” message…a quick explanation and a laugh and I fixed it up for him….and for the other people who noticed and were critical of the cost control, I was monitoring his account balance and would have bumped it up a bit if it was going to run out before I got back and had a chance to talk to him.
And naturally, as we have a flat rate internet fee for students, cost control is irrelevant in the overall scheme of things…it is just a quick way to deny a person internet access but let them access the school website and email.
Samuel
May 30th, 2005 at 07:06pm
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