a few weeks ago, SBS broadcast the first episodes of two documentary series, ‘Office Tigers’, and ‘Dead Tired’.  Office Tigers is a 4 part series about the inner workings of an Indian business taking outsourced business from major USA corporations.  Dead Tired is a two part series about the consequences of westernised culture that habitually compromises sleep in favour of living ever faster and more complicated lives.

after watching the first episode of Office Tigers with very mixed feelings, i couldn’t help but laugh and cry at SBS’s sense of irony by following it immediately with Dead Tired.  having wrestled with my own “sleep hygiene” issues over the last several years, it’s obvious to me that the importation of western business (and social) culture into India – including less sleep – is likely to result in the same dramatic impact to health – but on an Indian population scale.

several years ago i read a book called ‘The Promise Of Sleep” (2000, William Demment & Christopher Vaughan).  Demment is a pioneering sleep researcher, investigating not only sleep, but the usually hidden consequences of not getting enough of it, over a period of almost 50 years, especially back when almost no one else was giving it a second thought.  Dead Tired is an insightful TV documentary covering similar ground, based on a broader body of more modern research, and which echos Demment’s concerning findings and warnings about our sleep-deprived culture.

in the offices of Office Tigers in Channai, the American co-CEO inculcates his Indian employees with what I view as the WORST aspects of modern western business culture.  he roams the office chastising employees for not wearing their ties; has his supervisors warn their employees that if they take a day off, it’d better be only for something serious like septisemia rather than the flu; and encourages working absurdly long hours (the office is open 24/7 running shifts – there’s no locks on the doors, just a few security guards).  this is all justified by claiming to be a meritocracy rewarding hard work.  yeah, right…

India’s burgeoning middle classes (which it never really had much of until relatively recent times) are understandably clamouring for the salary and lifestyle that comes from working in these new western companies.  but what are the consequences?  not only are a billion Indians (and more than a billion Chinese) rapidly developing societies with the same energy demands of the west, with all the global warming & finite resource consumption concerns that have been mulled over by east & west alike for many years now, but they’re following our footsteps into sleep-deprived western lifestyles!

what will it be like for such a huge populace to suffer (and fail to tackle) the hidden health problems that come from typical western sleep-deprived lifestyles?  just look around you:  lower productivity, horrible car accidents, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and more.  yay…

and once again, SBS rocks with two fascinating documentary series, whose combination is deliciously ironic.

at last, some good news!

IceTV has won its three year battle against Channel Nine’s specious copyright suit against IceTV.

http://www.icetv.com.au/news/?p=614

Nine’s competition reviewed IceTVs processes from a copyright perspective years ago & decided there was nothing for them to answer for.

so i’m not sure what, at this late stage, Channel Nine’s end-game was supposed to be in persevering with the case, but now that i’ve switched entirely to using Elgato eyeTV + IceTV (in other words, the tv tuner in my TV is rarely used now), not-infrequently seeing “not available” in the program guide for Channel Nine (due to IceTV’s observance of the original judgement’s ruling) made them (Nine) look – once again – like frakking idiots.

if it’s not in IceTV, I CAN’T (read: won’t) WATCH IT !  admittedly there’s rarely anything on Channel Nine worth watching… more Two & A Half Men, anyone??? <yawn>

lets hope Channel Nine give up on this bullshit for good, and, um, perhaps focus on being a TV station in dire need of pulling thier finger out, programming-wise.

i hope the people at IceTV are drinking the champaigne tonight, they sure deserve it after being dragged through 3 years go specious copyright claim bullshit in Nine’s futile attempt to dodge the future.

Look at this sorry history for Agile (aka Internode’s infrastructure parent company), who’ve clearly been trying to get their ADSL2+ infrastructure into my Northcote exchange for more than 18 months:

http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/viewexchange.php?Exchange=NCOE

Internode, like all ISPs, must first decide if they have a ‘business case’ for installing their own ADSL infrastructure into an exchange.  Only then can they begin what is clearly an arduous process.  Internode decided on 5 September 2007 that they DID have a business case, and from that point on, have every incentive to do so promptly.

TWO DAYS LATER they changed status to ‘Removed’, and based on what I’ve read for years on this issue, were presumably denied ’space’ in the exchange by Telstra.

15th April 2008, more than 7 MONTH later, they had another crack at it – based on what change in circumstances I don’t know, but I’m guessing at some stage Telstra said “OK, try again, sucker”.

Then, not until 12th January 2009, ANOTHER NINE MONTHS LATER, did it move from In Build-Waiting (for other competitors to gain glacial sequential access to the exchange), to In Build.  Hoo-fucking-ray.

If you’re wondering why, have a read of Simon Hacket’s (Internode’s MD) answers to many common questions about this shambolic state of affairs caused largely by Telstra (but only for competitors, Bigpond seem to get clear fast access to exchanges when they need):

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=631758

Who knows how much longer I’ll have to wait for it to become active, before having to run the gauntlet of the DSLAM running out of ports due to the sudden exodus of Internode customers from the Telstra DSLAM to the Internode DSLAM.  Or perhaps it’ll transpire like it did when I lived in Windsor/Prahran until late 2005, only to see the Agile DSLAM there come online within a few month after I’d moved elsewhere.

I’m simply astonished that this crap has been allowed to happen for so many years.  Where’s the ACCC in all this?  Still asleep?  They’re clearly not looking after my interests on this issue.

Telstra obtained the vast majority of its copper network, and the exchange buildings they all connect to, on MY DIME, and those of my parents & grand-parents (and you & yours) BEFORE they were progressively privatised.  It is PUBLIC property (that should have access granted by an independent body) – or at least should have been deemed so, and that is where this whole farce had its genesis.  ‘Cuz a privatised Telstra with its network owned intact was supposed to be good for competition, right?  Wrong again…  Fucked over by powerful vested interests, again…

Dear Mr Johnson,
(his email quoted below)
Thanks for the notice about an iPhone-friendly adaptation of GaydarMobile.  However, that wasn’t the main thrust of my last communication to Gaydar on the matter.  But it *is* nice to know you’re keeping track of ‘interest’.

Aside from the lack of an actual iPhone *application* for Gaydar, where this latest adaptation to the GaydarMobile website may be an acceptable compromise (I have no intention of finding out), my point is that I still think you’re NUTS for wanting to charge me US$48 for Gaydar + GaydarMobile, vs $28 for just Gaydar (3 months).

So, lemme get this right.  Regardless of which mobile device I use, you want to charge me a 70% subscription premium to access the same service, simply for the ‘privilege’ of doing so from a mobile device?

I can’t comment on what others may or may not be doing specifically in the online gay dating site genre as regards mobile device access, but I *can* comment on the broader explosion of mobile accessibility options, and the business models behind them, and yours is heading, in my humble opinion, in 180 degrees the exact wrong direction, by charging *any* premium, let alone such a steep one, and is thus doomed to failure.

It’s my contention that free – or very low premium – access to said same service via mobile would attract a larger subscription (from the many guys who baulk at sitting down in front of a computer for any length of time – you see this sentiment expressed in profiles all the time), and thus pay your development costs, and *then* reap the reward.  If you need any evidence of this rapidly growing phenomenon, I would draw your attention to iPhone apps such as WhosHere (for a ‘general’ audience but clearly embraced by gay men) & Grindr (specifically for gay men) to name just two.

Yours sincerely,

On 18/03/2009, at 3:02 AM, Simon Johnson wrote:

Hello iPhone Fan,

You recently got in touch with us as you’d like to use GaydarMobile on your Apple iPhone. Great news! We’ve updated GaydarMobile to now work on iPhone.  You’ll find GaydarMobile is easier to use on your iPhone than logging into the online version of Gaydar that uses frames and might be difficult for your phone to understand.

GaydarMobile lets you plan your perfect night in, even when you’re out. Using your mobile phone you can send and receive messages, view profiles and chat to your friends and favourites. Here’s how…

§  Text GAYDAR to 69080 (UK only) or tap in www.gaydarmobile.co.uk through your mobile phone internet browser.
§  Log in with your existing Gaydar username and password. If you don’t have a Gaydar account, you can join free through GaydarMobile or online at Gaydar.net
§  Once you’re logged into GaydarMobile follow the on screen instructions to validate your number.

Once you’ve followed the above steps you’re ready to use GaydarMobile. Congratulations! GaydarMobile is very easy to use, and you’ll find that you have the same features available on your mobile as you do online. So it shouldn’t take too long for you to find your way around.

GaydarMobile isn’t a text service, however it does use data and you should check with your service provider if you have a data package. Most call packages now include data as standard.

Start cruising from the comfort and privacy of your mobile phone handset, no matter where you are. On the train, at your desk, on the beach, in your favourite bar or queuing in the supermarket. Who knows, a hot guy might be behind you!

I hope you find this information useful, if there are any other features of Gaydar you’re unsure about or need help with, hit reply and ask questions. We’re here 7 days a week, from 8am to 11pm (GMT).

At Gaydar we are committed to providing our customers with the best possible service. If you haven’t received the support you’d expect, please let me or any of the Gaydar Support Team know.

Play your way, enjoy Gaydar.

Simon Johnson
Marketing & PR Manager
QSoft Consulting Ltd

‘Bout a year ago there was a hullabaloo when Apple decided to force their Safari web-browser onto anyone who had other Apple software (for Windows) installed – like Quicktime & iTunes (which bazillions of Windows users have because they own iPods), by automatically pre-selecting it for installation amongst updates to the already-installed software.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise what they were aiming for – ordinary computer users (especially Windows users) don’t usually pay much attention to the details of such prompts, they’ve been dumbed down (by necessity) to just click yes to software update offers.  Next thing you know, you’re using Safari instead of whatever browser was the default before.  Nice one Apple.  As a sysadmin for several client’s networks, this is a friggen PITA at best – very few ordinary Windows users *ACTUALLY* invited you in.

In response to the justified outcry, they added a facility to exclude any offered item from current & future update offers.  Seems fair, right?  But to use said feature, you first have to UNtick the ones you DO want, TICK the ones you DON’T want, then drill into a menu to say “don’t offer me these updates again”, then then REtick the updates you need.  Are you fucken kidding me, Apple?!?

But wait, it gets worse – there’s yet another major disingenuous aspect to this new ‘feature’:

Apple Software Updater remembers your selections only on a per-user basis, not – as it should be – a system-wide basis.  So if a different user is in control when the scheduled check for updates next runs, all the unwanted software is offered again, ticked on for installation, by default.  Great… :(

I also suspect that when any product moves up a full 1.0 version increment, it’s again offered, despite previous instruction not to.  We’ll see very soon when Safari 4 comes out of beta…

You don’t fool me, Apple.  FUCK OFF with your insidious worming your way into my client’s systems.  It’s hard enough to administer flocks of “dumb users” without their default browser being switched out from under them (which can have major consequences for some sites – particularly intranet sites in business that require specific browser brands/versions), or MobileMe Control Panel or Bonjour being needlessly installed.

The deliberate cunning behind how Apple Software Updater for Windows works in its fine detail is a clear display of Apple’s uglier side.  Shame on you Apple, it’s just plain deceptive & dishonest, and very Microsoftish.  Mozilla worked their butt off to get Firefox to where it is in market share, and they earned every % of it honestly.

some feedback i just sent to Steve Gibson, the creator of Spinrite (v6) at www.grc.com :

Hi Steve,

I’m a long time Security Now! listener & Spinrite user, and today was one of those blue moon days where Spinrite saved our bacon.  No dramatic ‘Special Ops’ story here :), but satisfaction & gratitude abound none the less, and perhaps a new point of view on why Spinrite is so awesome.

Our Foxpro developer’s old Dell laptop which had been trucking along fine for years, suddenly wouldn’t boot this morning, BSODing during every boot attempt, and as usual Safe Mode was no help.  He’s usually a stickler for doing frequent backups, but when I asked how long since the last backup, I got back only an embarrassed sheepish smile.  Oh boy…

Recognising immediately that this was probably Spinrite’s cue to enter from stage left, I put it to work, and in about an hour it had completed.  Although there was no record of any bad sectors found or corrected, I did notice it churn away for several minutes on a few spots and suspected I was on the right track (no puns intended!)

Sure enough it booted right up, and so far all looks to be intact.  A backup has now been performed, and the impetus to replace the laptop very soon has been renewed!  Just another day at the office for Spinrite, but a significant potential loss averted for us.

Thankyou so much for such a legendary product.  I promise to buy another couple of licenses to reach  my ‘consultants license’ status ASAP.

BTW, while doing a bit of research into SMART a while back, I stumbled across a hard-drive data recovery expert’s site, which had a page recommending data recovery & utility software.  At first I was surprised not to see Spinrite at all (let alone at the top of the list where it should be!), until I saw a note where he explains that he (paraphrasing) “disqualifies Spinrite because it doesn’t take a copy of all the readily-accessible data before attempting restorative measures, and thus puts more data at further risk”.

I understand the logic behind this argument, and I agree that in rare circumstances a drive may degrade to such an extent (or have physical damage to the heads, for example) and not be diagnosed until it’s hanging by the proverbial thread, and thence Spinrite’s thrashing may snap that last thread.

But you know what?  Having used Spinrite myself since the early 90s, and hearing all your testimonials on Security Now! every week for 3 years & hear you explain how it & hard-drives work, I’ve come to realise that most hard-drive’s magnetic media failures don’t fall into that severe category, and that Spinrite’s approach offers FAR more ‘bang for my buck’ than data recovery specialist services.

Whilst he’s probably just taking a very conservative approach (understandable in that industry), someone more cynical than myself might suggest this guy’s wowser attitude is not in his customer’s best financial interests!  Even more cynical people might wonder if some of these data recovery specialists secretly use Spinrite to recover data from customer’s drives and charge traditional (read: exorbitant) data recovery prices for it…

I’m reminded of the race to decode the human genome in the 90s, with the ‘purists’ using a stubborn narrow-minded linear sequencing technique that was threatening to take forever, and Craig Venter’s maverick scatter-gun recombination approach – which won the race.  I see your unique and novel approach to tackling magnetic media failure in exactly the same light.  Simply brilliant!

Manhunt.net, a gay ‘dating’ site, recently chose Australians to beta-test their new site upgrade.  oh boy…

if they put up a localised blog with comments, they must want some feedback!  here’s mine… ;)

“

1) my login-failure solution:
after an unhelpful reply from tech-support (”be patient”) my patience wore out after 3 days unable to login, having tried clearing browser caches, restarting browser, rebooting, trying other PCs, all with no luck. UNTIL i clicked on the ‘English’ language link at the top, then bingo, able to login fine ever since. maybe it was just a coincidence of timing, but one minute no joy, the next i’m in.

2) ‘Private pics unlocked’ notifications incorrect:
i got one today, which said “xxxxxx has unlocked his Private Pix for you.”
but *I* am xxxxxx, it should (of course) say the name of the profile that sent/unlocked :). looks like a simple coding oops.

3) no search by postcode/distance:
the temporary removal of this feature before the site went live was a major tactical blunder – unless you had a REALLY good (undisclosed) reason to NEED to migrate to new servers before it was ready on the new version.

Manhunt is of limited _efficient_ use without this critical feature (i don’t care how many hapless users don’t use search, wasting time online is their choice!), and now with one amorphous mess of hundreds of towns (and several of my local inner city suburbs missing, inc Collingwood, Clifton Hill, North Fitzroy!!!), it’s even worse than the original Manhunt and postcode/distance search is still weeks away :(.

who wants to wade through endless “who’s online” lists containing everyone in the state? or wade through that amorphous mess to list who’s online one suburb/town at a time? i really think you need to somehow get sensible area groups in the list too (not just as a stop-gap until postcode/distance works). yeah i noticed you can now add a bunch of suburbs to a saved-search, which is great, but that only applies to search, not simple ‘who’s online’ lists.

4) the tedious logout/log-back-in shuffle to remain reasonably visible:
basing the ordering of lists according to how recently someone logged in would have to be one of the most brain-dead designs i’ve ever come across in this genre of site. i understand you wanna ‘reward’ those who remain active (rather than those who just login & walk away for a day/week like some on Gaydar!), but this logout/log-back-in BS is not (and never was) the answer – not for us, and not for your systems that have the additional burden of processing several/dozens(?) of logouts/logins per actual user session.

it is in fact a fundamental admission that you haven’t nailed that problem at all if i have to do the work for you on top of actually being an engaged user. that there is still no way for a user to select how a list should be ordered, other than your hard-coded ‘time since last login’ is probably the fundamental problem.

5) search flexibility
even if(when) postcode/distance search is reinstated, i still find the limitations of search feature to be quite frustrating – i can tick various attributes to be “yes, i want them to be into this”, or leave it un-ticked for “i don’t care what they answer here”, but there’s _still_ no way to filter on “i want them to NOT be into XYZ”, which is sometimes where the best filtering happens for some users/purposes (eg. guys4men.com)

i understand a single tick-box is nice n compact, and a 3 way choice (probably a drop-down list) on each attribute will take up alot of space, but for your ‘get on, get off (quick)’ mantra to be realised, there needs to be better ways to filter guys out to minimise results lists.

6) web programmers love making stuff in fancy AJAXy/fly-over/hover/translucent/auto-pop-menu/blahblah, and sometimes it works well, but not on the main menu, especially now that your auto-drop-down menus are across the top instead of down the left side – i’m finding they pop-down almost every time i move the mouse to/from the browser tab bar &/or other stuff on the desktop, which is incredibly frustrating, and utterly unnecessary. so what if i have to click the menu to drop it down?!? i’d rather that than have them getting in the way all the time when i had no intention of ‘clicking on’ the menus anyway! it’s web-designer wankery that doesn’t serve the user.

7) “he’s online now” lights
speaking of web-designer wankery, those new indicators to show if someone’s online are far less ‘readable’ with all that orange simulated LED bezel BS surrounding them. someone in the design department’s been drinkin way too much of the coolaid…

Manhunt, overall i like the new layout, and i dont mind ’silly bugs’ cuz they can be fixed, and i really appreciate that there’s this this localised blog to keep us in the loop & make feedback easy (and bypass the scripted robots in tech-support), but as you can probably tell, and as a paying customer, i’m pretty PO’d not only because a major upgrade to the site has left a critical feature missing for unspecified weeks, but much moreso that a major redesign has failed to address glaring limitations in functionality & usability.

i was questioning whether to remain on Manhunt after my current subscription, and unfortunately this ‘upgrade’ hasn’t done much to increase the site’s utility for me.

not only does the upgrade seem to have been rushed, with Australian’s used as beta testers like it or not, but too few improvements beyond a new coat of paint.

sorry to stick the knife in, but this seems like a classic case of an IT upgrade project mis-managed (too influenced by web-designers & not addressing core issues or features) and poorly executed from the user’s perspective.

“

* UPDATE:

Tim at Manhunt emailed to thank me for my comprehensive feedback, which may help nail a bug or two (as well as assure me that my thoughts were heard loud & clear ;), and a brief email exchange ensued.  I neglected to mention in my comment on their blog that much of what they’re doing is behind the curtain stuff aimed at achieving better scalability, and to that end, “more power to them”, it’s a complicated and major undertaking for websites of this size & 24/7 operation.  He assured us in further blog comments, and in his emails, that they’re flat out dealing with the cut-over, but that the postcode/distance search is the next cab off the rank, with several other popular issues including some i’ve raised as also high on their agenda &/or being (re)considered.  Perhaps there is hope yet.  One has to give credit for any organisation willing to put thier cock on the block in a public blog/comment forum and engage their customers ‘face to face’ rather than only through the arms-length of tech-support.  Thanks for listening & hearing, Manhunt, I’ll wait patiently for what’s around the corner, and perhaps beyond.

i’m really liking Daniel Eran Dilger’s clarity of thought & style:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/13/the-iphone-multitouch-patent-myth/

he simultaneously rattles the cages of the ‘journalists’ & echo-chamber bloggers with rather plain (and usually well deserved) vitriol, states his case clearly & rationally, educates his reader, and manages to come across as rationally pro-Apple without resorting to any of the usual MacFanBoi crap/tedium.

i read his post above immediately after reading Paul Thurrott’s post whining yet again about how stupid Microsoft is for allowing Google to be the 500th&something licensee of Exchange Activesync, seemingly still clinging to the notion that Windows Mobile has any significant future in its current fundamental form (as a shrunken Windows desktop, complete with Start menu, which smartphone makers with even half an ounce of style replace with their own shell).

viewed together, it’s pretty clear that what’s driving alot of anti-Apple/iPhone media coverage (past, present & future) is a failure to realise that what Apple is doing, the hard lessons they’ve learned from their behemoth competitors, and the impact it’s starting to have on Microsoft and others, is what Microsoft have done to countless others over the last 20 years.  maybe there is such a thing as karma afterall…

chalk & cheese, night & day.  good stuff.

this time the “do-gooders” are the Queensland police with their heads up their arses, with the way they’re *choosing* to enforce the law:

A Queensland man has been charged for re-publishing on a video-sharing site a viral video of a man swinging a baby around like a rag doll.  The video he uploaded to the site was reported to police by a Britton.

The controversial three-minute video had already been published widely across the internet and shown on American TV news shows. The clip can still be found online today.

Chris Illingworth, 60, a father of four from Maroochydore, thought he would share it with fellow users of Liveleak, a site similar to YouTube but focused on news and current events. In two years, he has uploaded hundreds of videos to Liveleak.

(source: theage.com.au)

the implications for ordinary internet users who propagate certain material is enormous.  in the minds of Do-Gooder Extremists, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re the subject in the video, the videographer, performing citizen journalism, or simply passing/soliciting comment on the subject – all seem to be fair game for those who charge themselves with the task of “protecting the children”.

as the article goes on to suggest, this year we have indeed reached hysterical levels of ridiculousness in efforts to combat child abuse and child porn (and yes, there’ve been some excellent wins, too).

just for the record, i abhor child abuse & child porn.

but for the love of god, is it too much to ask for you do-gooder maniacs put your efforts where they might actually MATTER and COUNT for what you supposedly stand for?

cuz from where i’m standing, these mindless shenanigans are just wasting my tax-payer money.

i can only hope(?) there’s A LOT more to this Queensland man that hasn’t yet come to light – other than being an ordinary netizen – to justify this crap.

“Clean Feed”?  WTF?  NFW!

i’ve sat on my hands long enough before weighing in on this topic, waiting to see if it was all just a bad dream and i’d wake up and the world would be a sensible place again.

yeah, ok, i’m awake now.

seems Senator Conroy has either lost his mind, or thinks we never had one.

i’m fed up with do-gooder Catholics who think they can save the world/us by hiding it from us, and parade it as “protecting the children” so they can hurl their intelligence-insulting “what?  are you against children being protected from bad stuff?” bullshit.

i vehemently reject his proposal for compulsory ‘net censorship in Australia.

you can read all about the bone-headedness of his plan here at nocleanfeed.com.

PLEASE contact your local MP, and Sen. Conroy himself.

i’ll try to be as polite as i can be in the face of such a stupid stupid man…

All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, on a PC that’s had no new software installed on it, no recent reconfiguration, or any observable signs of malware infection, mum & dad’s Dodo dial-up account stopped working last week – authentication issues _after_ a successful initial PPP connection.  And this isn’t the first time this’s happened…

Mum spent 4 hours on the phone to Dodo tech-support, except this time they weren’t able to resolve the problem.  Exhausted and beaten, she caved and said “OK, give me ADSL”. :-(    She’ll soon be on 256/64kbps, 500MB(peak)+500MB(off-peak) for $25/month.

I nearly flipped (as you can imagine from my earlier posts re Dodo!), but a quick run through BroadbandChoice.com.au confirms that Dodo’s $25/month ADSL (without bundled voice services) is about as cheap as entry-level ADSL gets, and that’s about as much as she wanted to pay.

Given Dodo’s ferocious telemarketing campaign to get their dial-up cusomters onto more modern services, people more cynical/paranoid than me might wonder if there really was a technical problem at all…

Touche Dodo, you won this one.

* Update:  i setup a new dial-up connection with somewhere else as a stop-gap until the Dodo ADSL kicks in.  it worked first time, further proving that there was no technical issue at the client end.  i feel myself becoming cynical/paranoid…

* Update2:  when i called up to cancel the dial-up account (i never used it, just mum & dad), the chook could see that i’d had technical problems, and offered to escalate the issue to *level 3* tech-support.  i wonder how many more hours they’d expect mum to spend on the phone trying to sort out their borked system?  (all the while she’d be running up & down stairs dozens of times because there’s no mobile (GSM) reception in their basement where the PC is).  thanks for the offer Dodo, but you’d already won, this particular chook just didn’t know it so had to run the pleading script past me…

http://www.theage.com.au/national/teen-shot-dead-by-police-20081211-6wtt.html?page=-1

” ‘This is a dreadful tragedy,’ Assistant Commissioner Cartwright said.

He defended the actions of the officers and said they had been trained to fire at the central body mass rather than shoot to wound.

‘The movies would portray that you can shoot to disarm people. That’s not our experience. These are events that are life-threatening, people are extremely nervous, agitated, scared,’ he said. “

WTF???  Well of course it’s “not your experience” if you train them to shoot-to-kill.  The kid was “up to 14m away” from the officers, but all three fired simultaneously, aiming – as trained – for the central body mass.  No wonder he’s dead.  And no more opportunity for a 15yo to learn why he frakked up…

Are police incapable of being trained to shoot the frakker in the legs instead of the central body mass?

Am I living in America now?  Someone pinch me please…

Target Earth (1998)
Seven HD, 12:30am to 2:20am
Sun, 7 Dec 2008, 110 minutes, M, Sci-Fi, Repeat

Oh, you know, the usual; alien invasions and all that.  They always have to drop the odd hint that they’re on the periphery of our planet and lurking with intent.  And why is it always a little girl who has the means of foiling them?  I’ll bet Meloni and Cross were happy to escape to TV land.  Christopher Meloni, Marcia Cross, Chad Lowe, John C. McGinley.

…told me everything i needed to know not to bother watching ;)

Dear Mr McFeely,

While reviewing the stack of election brochures from my letterbox before deciding who to vote for today, I came across yours.

Let me first say that I admire any citizen who decides to stick their neck out and run for local council.  Good on you.

But then I read your brochure.

At first things were going well, but then I read your proposals for cyclists and “The Tunnel” and couldn’t believe my eyes.

In my view, any would-be elected official who still doesn’t embrace long-term sustainable solutions, especially to issues that impact more than just “traffic”, but go much further to the fundamental impact of vehicular transport – safety/accidents, financial, energy consumption, environmental – is NOT one I will ever vote for.

Undertaking such a massive infrastructure project to add capacity as ‘The Tunnel’ proposal does, is ultimately only postponing the problem of growing vehicular transport, and all the “externalities” that brings.  Our collective efforts MUST be to reducing car usage, NOT encouraging it, and PROMOTING better alternatives. Spending a billion dollars on a new tunnel/road system is really just saying “not in our back yard” and sweeping the problem under the carpetsuburb.  As a local citizen who thinks about more than just my own back yard, I reject this “build more capacity” mentality.

Which brings me to your proposed policy to implement a license system for ALL bicycle riders who ride within Yarra City, WHETHER THEY LIVE HERE OR NOT.  WTF?  So, if other councils were to eventually follow suit, I’d need a separate licenses – that I presumably would have to pay for too – for EVERY council area I ride my bicycle in?  I think you can glean from my tone where I suggest you put that proposal.

Then you have the hypocrisy to call for a change to the “deep-rooted ‘town hall’ culture that has been allowed to fester over the years which has helped stem the flow of common sense”?  By wanting to implement an utterly unenforcable and irrational bicycle rider license system for all would-be bike riders whether they live here or not, “BECAUSE THEY DON’T DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE to any infrastructure…”?  Seriously?

My NOT putting another car on the road when I ride, and my NOT contributing to energy consumption and environmental burdens when I ride, and my contribution to the overall health of the citizenry FAR OUTWEIGH the few bucks you’d make from me for a ridiculous bicycle-riding license.

So on one hand there’s your pro-car/tunnel hammer, and in the other an anti-bicycle hammer.  I think you are certifiably NUTS, and my choice is clear.

Why am I not surprised that a man who’s almost singularly been unable or unwilling over so many years to lift The Peel from its musically indecisive, try-to-be-all-things-to-all-people-but-just-fester-as-an-ugly-dive-bar morass should propose such short-sighted, anti-sustainable, and utterly ridiculous policies?

Yours sincerely,

regular readers (do i even have any?!?) will recall my recent dummy-spit with Dodo when the 19yo idiot telemarketer found it inconceivable that i wasn’t prepared to sign up for a wireless broadband service right there and then that’s based on Optus 3G infrastructure when I (my parents) had already tried an ostensibly identical Virgin (aka Optus 3G) offering earlier this year but had zero coverage.

not content with my final statement (”Dodo, you can go forth and multiply, or go extinct, i don’t really care which, but those are the only two choices you have left with me.”), i received not one, but TWO more calls from Dodo.

it’s not clear whether they’d received and were acting upon my complaint letter; when i asked “did you not receive my letter of complaint last week?” he said “oh, this is just a follow-up call”.  ah, right.  the conversation descended rapidly from there, him pleading to explain, and me saying i wasn’t interested, and eventually having to hang up on him.

the second call was even shorter.  i quickly discovered that they have a ‘do not call list’, and i’m now on it.

we *were* going to upgrade to ADSL on Dodo, but i can think of plenty of ISPs to whom i’d rather that money go now.

techydude

In response to my tiraed to Optus, I received an SMS:

“Hi, received your letter.for coverage issues on iphone plz contact iphone tech support on 133713.have credited $59 as g/will.-Optus, Chintu”

Well, short but sweet.  Thankyou Optus, the credit is appreciated.  I’ll call that number next week and see what news I can get on my speed & coverage issues.

techydude

just got a cold-call from Dodo, trying to upgrade my dial-up internet connection (actually used by my parents interstate, not me, i just pay for it ;) to a wireless broadband thingy.

mum n dad have been talking about getting a faster pipe to the internets – frankly i don’t know how they’ve coped without broadband all this time, my life would collapse without it!  so i listened to what Dodo had to offer.  it was a ‘3G’ based system leveraging Optus’ 3G/HSDPA network.  oh boy… (see previous post!)

they’ve already tried a Virgin Mobile Broadband + HomePhone thingy earlier this year, and there wasn’t enough coverage for the box to even register their asserted presence in the area; so that box got returned and the service cancelled at no cost.  Dodo, like Virgin, are also resellers of Optus’s 3G network, so when Dodo came calling, i was more than sceptical at the salesman’s assertion that they had “full coverage” in their postcode, and i said as much.

not to be deterred, he directed me to their website where i could plug in their postcode and see in big bright friendly green letters that they did indeed have coverage there.  what was the point of that?  yeah, you’re right, i s’pose i shouldn’t be surprised that there’s such a mistrust of phone/mobile/broadband telemarketers and their predilection for misrepresentation that the average customer needs to pull the same answer from the same database as the telemarketer does…

he went over the details of the plan, 3.5Mbps (when i asked what the upstream speed is, he said it’s the same – yeah like hell it will be!), 70MB/month, excess charged at $0.17 (or was it .18?)/MB, capped at something like $25/month on a 2 year contract, same $9.90 i’m paying for the dial-up, we just pay $20something for delivery of the modem.  if it doesn’t work, a full refund & contract cancellation.  sounds ok as an introductory offer, right?

well yeah, but blind freddy can see this is only a drawcard plan.  almost everyone who moves from dial-up to broadband significantly (if not drastically) increases their consumption because it’s faster & much more tollerable than dial-up, so you ‘do more stuff’.  a realistic plan is gonna double that cost.  but that’s still ok.

what prompted this post is not only that this kid spoke so fast and slurred that i had to ask him to repeat himself several times, not only that he had a unmistakably cocky “i’ve got this sale in the bag” (despite the fact that the product probably won’t work in the location) tone to his sales pitch, but when i said “ok, i’ll have a think about it and discuss it with my parents” (and do a little more research, of course), he was totally flummoxed that i wasn’t ready to sign up there and then, seriously incredulously asking twice “what’s there to think about?”.  When i became a little terse toward his offensive sales tactic and asked “is it too much to ask that I discuss the matter with my parents?” he said “ok, bye” and hung up!

indeed, what is there to think about when it comes to navigating the snake pits of broadband plans and the half-truths and high-pressure or just plain offensive tactics used to sell them?

Dodo, you can go forth and multiply, or go extinct, i don’t really care which, but those are the only two choices you have left with me.

techydude

My complaint emailed to Optus 13/11/08.  They manually acknowledged receipt and advised they were forwarding it to the Small & Medium Business department responsible for my account.  No further reply as yet…

———-

” I wish to register my complaint about the 3G data performance I am experiencing on my iPhone 3G since I commenced using it on the Optus 3G network a few months ago.

At best I achieve an average 470kbps down / 270kbps up, often with latencies in the several THOUSAND ms – that’s several SECONDS, which is utter ridiculousness.  Often, like right now, i get ~120kbps/80kbps.

And too often I have no 3G connection at all.

My data speeds did not change at all with two firmware updates, whereas 3G phone call reliability did improve markedly, and other networks are achieving ’somewhat’ better results, which suggests this is not an iPhone issue, but a carrier capacity issue.

This is not “3G”, it is not the product’s implied performance (yes, I noticed your sales documentation furiously avoided mentioning anything remotely resembling an assurance of any particular bandwidth performance), it’s barely better than GPRS.

Clearly your 3G network is at a similar level of maturity as your GSM network was until the late 1990s, but little do your customers or prospective customers know they’ll be stepping a decade into the past when they “upgrade” to Optus 3G until they’re locked in for a year or two – something you neglect to mention in your sales material.

Because of this my iPhone 3G is rendered much less useful than it needs to be, and I’m also paying for a lot more bandwidth than I could ever hope to use in a month at these appalling speeds.

When I read in the IT press that Optus had achieved the global distinction of having the poorest 3G performance, I knew my patience for the normal early adopter teething issues had gone on long enough.  Even then it took me at least another month to draft this complaint and still no improvement or communication.

You’ve been naively optimistic either that your 3G network would cope with the iPhone 3G (and its emerging ilk) era, or that there won’t be a major customer backlash.  When did Optus become a classic Corporate Psychopath?

I’d estimate you’re verging on being in breach of the Trade Practices Act as regards “fitness for purpose” and all the ‘class action’ fun that suggests; and as an Optus customer of over 13 years whose been pushed too far this time, that’s a bandwaggon I’d be only too happy to jump upon.

However I’d rather hear some good news, that you’re on top of the problem, a bucket load of new capacity is on the way and we should be through this within the next few months, oh, and sorry for the disappointment, here’s some of your wasted money back.

But so far you’ve been silent.  Were you hoping I just wouldn’t notice?  Time to ‘fess up, Optus, or that $40M you’ve supposedly lost because of the iPhone 3G will only be the start. “

techydude

Just penned a letter to Leo Laporte & Paul Thurrott (who’re just as likely to ignore this novel as not :), so thought i might as well resurrect this blog:

Hey Leo, Paul,

Leo, I reckon I’ve got your next MacBreak Weekly episode feature topic.  I reckon Sneaky Steve’s slipped in the biggest ‘technologically disruptive’ Trojan Horse of all right under our noses while we were all ooh-ing and ahh-ing over something new and shiny.

You better grab a coffee, but I think it’ll be worth it :)

I just got home from my friend PJ’s place, who was one of the dedicated lucky ones to snag an iPhone 3G here in Melbourne last Friday.  He’s got an all-Mac setup (although iTunes on Windows PCs will all work the same): iMac in the study, MacMini connected to a 32″LCD TV & 5.1 sound system with the gorgeous Apple Bluetooth keyboard; AppleTV connected to same (or could be in a 2nd room); a Mac laptop (doesn’t matter which type); and now the iPhone (3G or otherwise) with software v2.  And for good measure lets also throw in an ‘AirTunes’-capable speaker system in the bedroom (or simply any sound system with any old or new Airport base-station with AirTunes audio output connected to it).

You’ve undoubtedly seen for yourself or at least heard by now about some of the capabilities of Apple’s new free iPhone app ‘Remote’ (top free download?!?), how it can control an AppleTV (or even multiple AppleTVs!), very sweet!  You might also have heard that you can control any other iTunes ’source’ with it – run iTunes on any Mac or PC and be able to connect to it remotely from the iPhone using the Remote app.  And you might also have heard how you can use the iPhone’s Remote app to control iTunes on that computer to send its audio output to any AirTunes audio output device, including the AppleTV (ie. the media is coming from the Mac/Windows desktop or laptop, but being played on the AppleTV or any other AirTunes audio system.  That’s all working right now, just seen it all with my own eyes, and clearly fantastic!

Stay with me here…

PJ’s also got eyeTV running on his MacMini working as a DVR for free-to-air TV, using Australia’s excellent IceTV EPG.  Pure simplicity!  But there’s also an eyeTV/IceTV iPhone app that lets  you not only program your eyeTV DVR remotely, but also stream your eyeTV-recorded media over Wifi to your iPhone!  Because with the eyeTV software, you can export a recording to any iPhone, iPod (any type) or AppleTV resolution/format, so you get a perfect fit for the specific device’s LCD resolution.

So, we’ve got free-to-air DVRd content, an AppleTV full of ripped, &/or rented &/or bought content, content on any other Mac or PC, playable on any audio or video device in the home, all remote controllable from a single iPhone – or multiple iPhones!  *With the near promise of real-time transcoding capability using the GPU instead of the CPU, perhaps even a MacMini could do this in real-time, skip the post-process.  Almost any other modern Mac certainly could.  This is all in our (Mac) homes RIGHT NOW.  Lets collectively call this state of the art in domestic mass consumer a/v “Version 1″.  If this isn’t already a techy’s wet dream with even more just around the corner, I don’t know what is!

But lets not stop there.  Think of the potential:

Steve made a very specific point at MacWorld about how AppleTV v1 (and everyone else) got it wrong.  AppleTV Take2 was all about untethering the AppleTV from the compulsory need for iTunes on a Mac/PC.  But of course this is just AppleTV software Version2.  The only way is up.  Hold that thought for a moment…

Just one next version of eyeTV (or a competitor) could totally usurp Slingbox and its rather expensive ilk, if they choose to rise to the challenge.  On a suitably powerful Mac doing the transcoding / up/down-scaling in real time*, could send that recorded, or live, TV out over the ‘net to your iPhone 3G, all remote-controlled via the eyeTV/IceTV (or competitor) app on your iPhone3G (or any iPhone or iPodTouch using WiFi).

And there’s no technical reason why Apple couldn’t similarly allow iTunes content to be streamed via the home LAN (WiFi or wired) onto the ‘net (perhaps even SSL encrypted?), over 3G into your iPhone, anywhere, if they wanted.

I’m not very familiar with the options available to you in the US, but I’m guessing there’s existing technologies/products for getting cable-TV content under similar control/availability.  Where ever you are with 3G or WiFi, there’s all your TV and media, without having to hold it on your iPhone.  No expensive Slingbox/etc box needed, it’s all potentially doable now with the devices we already have, with the very next generation of this collection of software!  Sure, 3G bandwidth coverage and/or cost is currently an issue in some places, but that, as always, is a rapidly improving issue.

Or how about this:

Apple have just sneaked into our homes – without any of us realizing it until it’s under our noses – a complete infrastructure for remote control of ANY device in the home that has a LAN connection (WiFi or wired).  This is the first reason why I’ve CC’d you, Paul :).  The whole gamut of Home Automation, and home security, if suitably equipped with LAN access, and adhering to a hypothetically open Apple Remote protocol standard, could all be controlled from your iPhone or iPod Touch, completely usurping an entire – and expensive -  segment of the Home Automation market: integrated control.  And, pending the license availability of the Apple Remote protocol (unless it is already?), all possible right now to anyone so inclined to design it in.

Whilst these HA devices could, if they wished, still retain the various techniques/protocols/proprietary-standards currently used to integrate them, they could also support the Apple Remote protocol, and open up their HA & security market not only from the sales growth potential brought about by the unprecedented ability to mix-n-match previously incompatible products, but also a broader target market more able to afford the product.

Have I just been smoking too much, or Is this not a HUGE opportunity, and threat, for so many players in the home media and home automation and home security arena?  All from just two cute little devices, and one deceptively adaptable OS?

Put the next AppleTV Take 3 (or oh-so-easily hacked AppleTV), or any Mac, back into the equation, with new apps, and you’ve got your media – anywhere you want, home automation, and security (including CCTV low-frame-rate video recording?) integrated, on your living room big-screen TV, remote controlled from your iPhone, potentially all with existing hardware (barring of course the cost of HA & security devices around the house, which runs a huge range of capabilities and prices).

Will Apple finally realise the much speculated potential of this little wonder-box?  Is the AppleTV Apps Store just around the corner, finally?  No more illegitimate hacks needed to bridge its gaps?  All the building blocks are now there.

First came the Apple Computer, then the Macintosh, then the iPod, then the iPhone, each almost universally regarded as revolutionary or at least extremely progressive leadership.  Has Steve Jobs just laid the foundation for his next coup – as well as those of many others thus far barred entry into these traditionally expensive up-market dedicated-hardware market segments (nirvanaish home media, home automation& home security) – right under our noses?  Has he just demonstrated yet again the repeatedly delivered promise of general purpose computers replacing multiple dedicated devices (and often closed/proprietary ones) at a fraction of the cost, size and user-complexity?

I don’t know if anyone else has published similar predictions for iPhone Remote technology and its potential capabilities, but just for the record (cuz he’d kill me if I didn’t ;), my friend PJ foresaw embryonic versions of many of these ideas (current reality and imminent possibility) well over a year ago when we first laid eyes on our AppleTVs.  So I wonder how much of this Steve Jobs foresaw before that, when the AppleTV was just a twinkle in his eye?  Or do these things almost inadvertently have a knack of growing into something far greater than their constituent contributors, with Jobs merely a pro surfer of the front wave of personal technology, rather than the hand of God pushing the wave along?!?  We do call it the Jesus Phone!

OK, RDF Mode: OFF, you can stop puking now :), but I labour the point, Paul, because I read your WinSuperSite blog a couple of weeks ago that was essentially a call to action/arms for Microsoft to wake up and pull their finger out, and I fully agree with it.  But, as (a) a long-time & rather techy Windows non-fan-boy, who (b) for the last 5 years has progressively been trying to elude the offensive mundanity of commercial broadcast TV in preference to “what i want, when i want it”: DVDs (purchased, and rented via Bigpond’s a-la-Netflix), podcasts, bittorrent, Joost, (etc. etc. etc.) and now finally in Australia iTunes TV & movie downloads, I’ve (c) just spent a difficult 12 months switching from Windows to Mac, based only in part on a whiff of the promise of “a better way of life” and the demonstrable surperiority-in-a-simpler-way in many ways (though not all) of the Mac / iPod / iPhone /AppleTV platforms.

Now I’m twelve months on from that leap of, erm… faith?, and now that we’ve reached this post-iPhone3G / AppleTV-Take2 point, I feel even more confident that I made the right decision ALSO because neither 12 months ago nor now are we seeing anyone or anything from Microsoft, let alone anywhere else, that suggests it has a hope of catching up to what we all (can) have right now.

But who would have thought all of this would come so far so soon?  It was only less than 4 years ago, with Australia’s beligerantly stupid 3 free-to-air commercial TV station oligarchy (who, seeing their writing on the wall, tried to sue IceTV, and failed) ensuring that the only way I could watch Battlestar Galactica was to  anxiously wait for someone on the other side of the planet to post it on ThePirateBay & download it via (comparatively slow) bittorrent, dragging my recliner arm chair into the study to watch it on my 17″ LCD monitor!

Now I can just press play on my AppleTV when it’s automatically downloaded.  They get their money, and I’m tickled digital.  Is this finally not win-win, a truce with the big-media industry?  Can we now just get on with it?

What of the next 4 years?!?  Maybe, finally, DRM will be gone completely, seen for the needless sham of scared old-media executives who for years resisted the inevitable, clinging to their unsustainable business models and brandishing thier lawyers club?  Yeah you’re right, probably not.

But we’re still living in awesomely interesting times!

Cheers, Anthony.
nocomply2007@gmail.com

Ribena’s damage-managementPR department have taken to the TV to try & salvage any semblance of respect they might once have had (albeit undeservedly). In an evening 30s ad-spot, GlaxoSmithKline Australia’s casually dressed MD, John Sayers, strolls through healthy-looking rural scenery to apologise for screwing their customers.

Their own product’s labeled nutritional advice didn’t stand up to the rigours of two New Zealand high school students’ science class experiment performed in 2004 to confirm the veracity of the product’s labeled nutritional advice, and thus drew their attention to other aspects of the product’s label – a long-standing claim of “4 times the vitamin C of oranges”.

These two high-school girls in fact found, using standard high school science lab equipment, that these Ribena Ready-To-Drink products had very little vitamin C, with the competitor products they expected to fare poorly actually containing 4 times that of Ribena (which doesn’t sound too hot either).

The girls approached Ribena directly by mail, but were ignored, then after a follow-up phone call were brushed aside with the glib response that the ‘4 times’ claim referred to blackcurrants vs oranges, not Ribena vs other juice products. So they look it to the media, and NZ’s TV ONE consumer affairs show “Fair Go” put it to air in late-2004, thus bringing it to the attention of NZ’s Commerce Commission (not to mention GSK themselves for the second time). Despite this, in 2005 Ribena proceeded with high profile advertising, including television, perpetuating its “4 times”claim.

Over two years later, the NZ regulator announced its findings a few months ago. GSK pleaded guilty to 15 representative charges (80 actual) of misleading consumers in both the nutritional information, as well as the claims of “4 times the vitamin C content of oranges”, ordered to pay $217 500, amend its nutritional advice to reflect reality & stop claiming the “4 times” bullshit.

GSK’s TV ad, and the accompanying www.ribenathefacts.com.au, has Mr Sayers claiming that “(our) testing method used to determine the level of vitamin C was unreliable” (how can one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world be less reliable than a high school science lab?), “and we were unaware of this at the time” (except for the 2005 ad campaign following the bad rap you got from ‘Fair Go’?), and that ‘vitamin C levels had deteriorated over time and didn’t meet that claimed on the label’. Who knows for how long Ribena’s Ready-To-Drink product quality has been “deteriorating”. Apparently they’ve now removed all references to vitamin C & amended their nutritional advice, and made amends in the NZ popular press.

Does anyone really buy the “we didn’t notice there was almost no vitamin C in the product we heavily advertise as having so much vitamin C” bullshit? GlaxoSmithKline’s Ribena fraud is a textbook example of Stupid Greedy White Men hard at work with their heads up their arses trying to make that extra buck. When any company (or individual) seeks to defraud its own customers, they create a climate of mistrust amongst consumers in general – one in which 14-year-olds, inculcated with such scepticism, seek to verify the labeled nutritional advice of innocuous fruit juice drinks, but find the truth lies elsewhere, thus reinforcing the climate of mistrust.

The end result? A company essentially drags itself through the mud & damages its own genuine good potential as a supplier of nutritional products, and takes us all a step closer to life as a consumer being such a risk/rip-off that we must test products ourselves – what a fracking drag! :-(

p.s. when i first saw the TV ad, hearing Sayer’s statements escalate, i was actually waiting for a punch-line like “but no!  our products in fact have FIVE times as much vitamin C!”.  but no such punch-line was to be heard.  see!  i can be an optimist, it’s just that i’m perpetually prepared to be disappointed by large corporations.  i wonder how that came to be…