Posts filed under 'Talkback Emails'
Good morning again John,
Many weeks ago you asked how the "Super 66" lottery draw works, as you were confused as to how you could get he same number drawn out twice.
A few years ago, before all the televised lotteries were shortened, we used to see the Super 66 draw on television in Canberra. Basically you have a barrel with six compartments, each compartment has ten balls numbered zero through ten nine. From memory, you can't choose your own numbers in Super 66, it is a bit like a variation on New South Wales' "Lucky Lotteries" where you just get a ticket number and hope your number comes up, except that they only draw one set of numbers in Super 66, and prizes are assigned based on how many of those numbers you have.
New South Wales Lotteries did the exact same thing (but with seven numbers) when they had "Lucky Seven" on Friday nights before the football.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 24th, 2006 at 04:00am
John,
Please excuse me for a moment, but I have a message for Ishmael, I've wanted to say it too him all year, and this morning he has tipped me right over the edge…Ishmael, go and stuff your head up a turkey.
I just love the way he can deflate his own arguments…Isn't it wonderful that he wants people to ring up, but only the people who don't normally ring up (invent them Ishmael if you want them, I'm sorry that a group of people are awake on Saturday and Sunday morning and want to have a chat), he wants people to not talk about their personal life, he wants you to be fairer (but admits you've never been nasty or unfair to him…or many others).
Ishmael, we don't need serious newstalk every second of every day…I repeat, go and stuff your head up a turkey you goose!
And I was having such a good morning until that moron got on. I shall return to my good morning and jolly Christmas spirit now that I've got that off my chest.
Have a good morning John, and Merry Christmas (again),
Samuel
Update 1:27am January 10, 2007: Since publishing this email, Ishmael has contacted me and we have had some discussions. I have come to the conclusion that whilst I disagree with a lot of Ishmael’s opinions, he isn’t the stark raving mad lunatic I portrayed him as, and actually seems like a fairly reasonable individual.
My description of Ishmael as a “serial pest caller” was harsh and unwarranted, especially seeing as there are plenty of callers who actually do fit that category, and it is unfair to compare Ishmael to them when Ishmael actually calls to make a point rather than a nuisance.
I still think the choice of timing of Ishmael’s exchange with John Kerr was poor, but I do now see where he is coming from.
Whilst Ishmael understands that I won’t be taking down any of what I wrote, I would like to publicly apologise to Ishmael for being a bit too harsh in my comments. End Update
December 24th, 2006 at 03:30am
Dear Stan,
Thank you for the years of entertainment that you have provided. I would like to wish you all the best for the future, and I sincerely hope that you recover from your health problems as quickly as possible.
Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year Stan, I will miss you, and although it won't be the same without you, knowing that you are concentrating on getting better outweighs missing you from the radio.
Best of luck and all the best for the future! May your years ahead be as bright and wonderful as your career has been to date.
Yours Sincerely,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 22nd, 2006 at 09:00pm
Good morning Stuart,
Well you’ll be pleased to know that most of my aches and pains are gone, and I did eventually get to sleep last night, although it wasn’t for very long. The medicine the doctor has me on works very well, but the side affects are interesting, I want to sleep, but the medicine wants to keep me awake for at least three to four hours after I take it. It’s also making a lot of things taste quite terrible, and making me very thirsty, but at least I seem to be able to concentrate for a while now, even if it does take me three times as long to write an email than it normally would.
I would just like to send my best wishes to everyone who is currently affected by bushfires, it is a terrible situation to be in, and I think we owe our firefighters, especially the volunteers, and awful lot.
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 14th, 2006 at 11:30pm
Morning again John,
The one thing I didn’t get to say on the phone was that I would like to wish Stuart and all of his guests a wonderful day at their Christmas Lunch later today. I was going to call Stuart during his afternoon shift, but silly me went and had a nap and Mike Williams was on when I woke up!
Have a great week John, and have a nice sleep when you get home this morning.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 11th, 2006 at 02:00am
Good morning John,
Sounds like you’re having one of those mornings where you just run away screaming and let the emergency tape run the show.
That drink machine that stole Mike’s money…there are a few machines like that at my work, the coins go in, the machine accepts them, but it doesn’t add them to the total. Do you know who makes the machines? I’d like to buy some shares in them.
So the phones don’t work, on the bright side you won’t be Perth’s long-range taxi booking service…of course you could just give out your mobile number and use the speakerphone mode, but that would probably be very hard for any of us to hear and understand.
And to think you’ve got to sit there until 6am…sorry John, but I’m glad it’s you and not me.
Just thinking…I bet the phones work in the studio which doesn’t work!
Have a good morning John…I’ll call later if you get the phones working.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 10th, 2006 at 11:30pm
Good afternoon Stuart (what an unusual sentence…I’m used to saying good morning to you)
What a pleasant surprise to hear your voice in the afternoon, I remember the first time I heard you away from Lawsie’s show on Christmas day in 2004, I was eagerly trying to remember your name thinking "he sounds a lot like the co-driver…I wonder…"
Call me old-fashioned if you want, but I just don’t see the fuss about the child care rebate, surely if you have minimal financial difference between working and staying at home, the answer is obvious…stay at home with the kids! Most families are civilised and the parents should be able to come to some sort of agreement where either one parent works full-time or they both work part-time. Surely it is better for the children if a parent can be at home in those early developmental years, and I think home cooked meals will be much healthier than take away food every night.
If more people considered staying at home as a good option we would have less demand on child care, and in turn it would probably be more affordable for those who really need it.
On a different note…what a silly idea to dump the Westpac and NRMA rescue helicopters in favour of a for-profit Canadian company…I think a furry little alien by the name of Alf summed it up many years ago when he said "If it ain’t broke, don’t step on it".
Enjoy the food that Lynne Mullins brings in later today…I get the impression it won’t be a force feeding!
Have a good afternoon, and don’t disappear from overnights just yet!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 9th, 2006 at 12:00pm
Good afternoon Glenn,
I’m glad you had a good time at your Christmas function yesterday, sounds like you had a lot of fun.
You said earlier that you wouldn’t want to start work at the same time as George and Paul but you would like to go home when they do…well how about this idea. On an 9-5 day, start work on Perth time, and spend the rest of the day on Auckland time…so effectively you start work at 9am Perth time by which time it is already 2pm and you’ve got a morning tea break and a lunch break to catch up on…it could be 3:30 by the time you finish them so you can go and have afternoon tea, and then just because your boss is feeling generous you can go home an hour early!
And the Labor Party Coup…slightly more democratic than the Fijian one, but still a hard choice…how do I choose between a man who can’t remember a name, and a man who, if allowed to talk for any length of time, manages to veer off topic, blame the government for everything and get just about everyone off side with at least one of his comments.
Still, if I had to choose between Beazley, Rudd and ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope, I know which one wouldn’t have a chance…and it’s not Beazley or Rudd!
Have a great weekend Glenn.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 2nd, 2006 at 12:00pm
Good morning Stuart,
While I was listening to your caller earlier who didn’t know much about cricket (except that silly point has something to do with it) I suddenly remembered this explanation of cricket which I saw on Lawsie’s website a while back…hopefully it will clear things up a bit!
Cricket: As explained to a foreigner
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
Have a good weekend Stuart.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 24th, 2006 at 03:00am
Good morning Mr. Kerr,
I should probably congratulate you…if the new 2UE website is to be believed, your show has been extended by a few hours as it lists Tom Wards as appearing on your show at 8:30am Saturdays! An amusing typo.
The Crowne Plaza Terrigal faxed through my order form yesterday, and I have filled it out, I’ll post it on Monday…which incidentally is when I start the new job.
I am very tired now as I’ve had minimal sleep in the last 36 hours due to finding out about my #### #### being approved on Thursday morning, and the subsequent scramble to get all of my work finished at my temporary job before I finished yesterday.
If it’s OK with you John, I would just like to give a really big "thank you" to Belconnen Community Service and Julia Ross Recruitment who have kept me in employment for the last couple months whilst I waited on the #### ####…they made my life a whole lot easier, and it was great working for them.
Have a great day John and all of the lovely listeners.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 10th, 2006 at 11:00pm
G’day Lawsie,
Sorry to hear that you had to put your lovely little cat to sleep…I’m sure you did it for the best reasons, and I know that it is very very hard, but hang in there buddy, you saved your lovely little cat from agony and pain and that was a very humane and loving thing to do.
I know that I wouldn’t want to ever part with my little doggie Nattie, but if it was a choice between a painful lingering end, or a reasonably happy end, I know which one I would choose.
Just have faith that you did the right thing, and take your time to grieve.
Best wishes,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 10th, 2006 at 10:30am
Hi John,
While you were away Steve had a moment where I should have taken on the role of pedant…so I’ll do it now instead. During Tuesday’s TV ratings, Steve mentioned that Seven had a certain amount of dollars for a show instead of viewers…he must have been thinking about the Melbourne Cup at the time.
I hope you got the wedding card I sent by fax (the one with the drawing of you and your new wife at the Melbourne Cup).
Have a great day,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
(This email is ineligible to win any prizes due to me winning some DVDs on New Day Australia a couple weeks ago).
November 9th, 2006 at 11:30am
Good morning John,
The call you had on just after me this morning about telemarketers has really struck a chord with me…my mobile number, like most, is not listed in the phone book, yet somehow Telstra’s sales department which carrier I’m with and seem to enjoy ringing me to try and get me to change to them. I don’t mind them ringing, and having worked in a Telstra Call Centre (not sales thankfully) I understand what the people go through and I try to be nice to them…but they have no right…none whatsoever to know which carrier I choose to be with. The telephone network needs to know so that calls can get through…but Telstra sales, when I am not a Telstra customer, should not have access to that information.
To Telstra’s credit, the girl on the phone was very nice when I said that I am happy with my current service and let the call go…but I’m still annoyed with Telstra for what they did.
About those door-to-door sales…well you might recall that in April (or maybe it was May) one of the jobs I applied for saw me whisked away to the other side of Canberra following a door-to-door sales rep around before I could find out what the company did. Incidentally this bloke was trying to get people to change electricity and gas provider, and wanted to see people’s bills…the tactics and mind games they use are scary…I particularly like their trick of telling you that a lot of your neighbours are changing company and they don’t want you to miss out, but they can’t tell you who has changed due to privacy laws, and the offer expires as soon as they leave.
I have a tip for you John…most companies do not run their own door-to-door campaigns, they employ one of a handful of agencies to do the work, and these agencies build up a bit of a database of houses to avoid…the way to get on that list? Be rude or get angry with them…I know it’s unpleasant to do, but it’ll get you on the blacklist quicker than you can say "I’m not interested".
Also, I won a couple John Wayne DVDs on Flicks and Things in your absence…are 2UE Promotions using super glue on the parcels these days? I had to attack the package with scissors to get the darn thing open…and it’s a good thing I didn’t win your Melbourne Cup sweep, because the DVDs came with a letter stating that I’m ineligible to enter competitions for 30 days.
Have a great morning John, and a big hello to Charity, Irene, Johanna, Georgie, and just in case he is listening at this hour, Craig who runs a wonderful cafe in Dickson.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 9th, 2006 at 01:00am
Attempt number three! This is an email I sent to 2CC’s Mike Jeffreys yesterday.
Good morning Mike,
Well, just as you suspected and Ian Peters avoided, there is a technology poised to make 3G (aka Telstra NextG) obsolete. The name isn’t as catchy (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA) but I’m sure Telstra’s marketing people can think of something…”NextG-SuperPlus” perhaps?
Anyway, it’s basically the same offering as 3G, just faster and better integrated with non-phone devices, and much like 3G was years ago, HSDPA is being rolled out in other countires long before it is even a blip on our shores.
Business Week have an article on it at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061106_875720.htm?campaign_id=bier_tcv.g3a.rss1106k which I have copied in below.
But, as the technology people at Slashdot have noted (http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/11/06/141207.shtml ), this is just one of many such technologies…still, I’m more than happy with a phone which makes a ringing noise and doesn’t have a colour display or take photos or check my emails.
Have a great day Mike,
Regards,
Samuel
High-Speed Wireless Dreams
HSDPA may finally deliver a small piece of wireless utopia. We tear down a PC card that can help make it happen
by Arik Hesseldahl
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Just when it seemed that the overused wireless catchphrase “3G” might finally fade from memory, new technologies are starting to emerge and stake their own claim to the post-3G zeitgeist. For years 3G, or “third generation,” denoted some future wireless utopia where voice, data, and video would all merge into a wondrous amalgam, marked by snazzy phones that do everything perfectly—and fast.
But there’s a new wireless utopia, and again, it’s about merging voice, data, and all the other stuff at even faster speeds. One of them is known as High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA, and it has started appearing on wireless networks operated by companies such as Vodaphone (VOD) in Europe and Cingular Wireless (a joint venture of AT&T ( T) and BellSouth (BLS)) in the U.S. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Samsung has started building HSDPA-ready phones.
PC Cards
The technology promises wireless speeds as high as 3.6 Mbps but in practice will be much slower than that—fast enough, though, to make wirelessly surfing the Web and downloading music and video worth the effort. That will make it ideal for wireless Internet access on a PC, and manufacturers have started to release PC cards for just that purpose. There are already scores on the market.
Market research firm iSuppli recently took apart one of those cards, the E620, manufactured by Chinese electronics giant Huawei and found that in addition to running fast, it doesn’t cost all that much to make. Vodaphone sells the E620 card in Britain for a price equivalent to about $272. The components inside the card cost about $73, while manufacturing costs amount to about $6 per unit, says iSuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler.
Chips Ahoy
And while Huawei is certainly making a decent profit given its costs, the big winner in the HSDPA business appears to be wireless chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM). Of the $73 in component costs inside the card, more than $40 worth of chips come from Qualcomm, Rassweiler says. “We’ve been looking inside other cards and some handsets that are HSDPA-ready from LG Electronics and Samsung, and we’re seeing the very same Qualcomm chips every time,” he says. The same set of Qualcomm chips appear in Samsung’s SGH-Z520 and LG’s Chocolate KU-800, the second version of LG’s music-playing phone (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/5/06, “Easy Listening on LG’s Chocolate”).
“Qualcomm for years has had the CDMA side of the wireless business sewn up for itself,” Rassweiler says. “Now it’s looking like with HSDPA, its influence on the wireless industry could increase.” Other companies building HSDPA chips include Texas Instruments (TXN) and Broadcom ( BRCM). Motorola (MOT), Siemens ( SI), and Sierra Wireless (SWIR) are all building HSDPA cards.
Other chips inside the card include Flash memory from Samsung, a USB controller from NEC (NIPNY), and power controller chips from Anadigics ( ANAD) and AVX ( AVX).
ISuppli has forecast shipments of 917,000 HSDPA devices this year, and expects shipments to increase to 87 million units a year by 2010.
Hesseldahl is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.
Samuel
November 8th, 2006 at 02:07pm
Good morning John,
Well this will be a busy day for the newsroom…the interest rate announcement this morning, and then counting starts for the US Midterm election around 11am Sydney time (7pm Eastern US)…it will be interesting to see how that all turns out…I don’t quite understand their system myself, but it will be interesting to follow anyway.
At this stage it looks like I should be able to make it to your Terrigal luncheon, and if I do I’ll be staying in Sydney overnight. I’m sure you remember my trip to and from Sydney in the one day last year…it was fun but it’s not something I would like to repeat.
I suppose I should mention the Melbourne Cup…my horses didn’t do much, but I got second prize in the sweep at work, and it was a bit of fun for a Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday in a couple years that I haven’t been at home for the cup.
Interestingly, it rained in Canberra yesterday, something which seems to becoming a Canberra tradition for the Melbourne Cup…I clearly remember the rain on Melbourne Cup day in Canberra for the last few years.
Have a great morning John,
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
November 8th, 2006 at 12:00am
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