Why is this news?

OK, girl gets drunk at party with work colleagues (not a work party though) and has a three some with 2 guys and gets the sack because of it.

 

Now, her picture is splashed in the news paper and Carlie Streeter is given the moniker "Telstra's Party Girl".  (See story here)

 

Where do the media get off putting her name in the paper for 2-3 days and then posting a picture of her?

 

Will she ever get over this?  Its not like she's the first person to ever do what she has done...

 

Where is the ethics in the media these days?  Her photo is on Page 1 and Page 3 of the Telecrap and its all getting coverage not because of the legality of what her company did, but rather the titillation of the basis of the story.

 

Where does the Privacy Act and come into all this?

Blood Bowl World Cup

Whilst I wont be there myself, there is the first Blood Bowl World Cup taking place in the UK in October and I thought I would give a bit of a positive plug to "Team Oz" who are travelling over for the big event.

276 individual coaches in teams of 6 each representing either their entire countries (such as our guys) or some other location (lots of Continental Euro's and Americans and of course lots of English) are gathering for perhaps the biggest BB tournament ever.

Best of luck to the Aussie boys who are aptly Coaches 001 to 006 on the registration list.

Included in that list is Steve "thomsy" Thoms who plays in my league as well... do us proud!

Also, for those interested, there are Team Oz rugby shirts available... contact Babs on your local BB forum (AusBowl, EucBowl, NAF etc etc).

Tolerance... its a two way street

I cannot believe this article gets a run in the main stream press.

 

Pauline Hanson saying we should stop Muslim immigration and says "thar she will targeting Muslims in her campaign".  What the fuck is going o when this clap trap gets national press coverage?  Reverse it.  Say a Muslim man gets up and wanted to run for office on the basis of targetting Christians?

 

You cannot tell Muslims to be accepting of "Australian Values" and crucify (pun intended) them for standing by their beliefs when in return we get bigots like Pauline Hanson spruiking from the roof tops racial and religion based hatred.

 

It is only at election time that she gets a stage and that is only because the Howard Government has tolerated her because a) she takes a small number of votes off Labor and b) he has a preference deal to get her subsequent votes.  Essentially he is using racially driven agenda's to take a small amount of cheap votes.

 

If you want Muslims to be tolerant, then we need to hit back hard and denounce people like Pauline Hanson and stop giving her a vehicle for her vile views.

To USB or to not USB... that is the question

Wow... I must be busy... its Wednesday and I haven't had a chance to do a post in a while...  I have so many things spinning in my head at the moment, that its hard to know what to focus on.

 

Work is going good... I am extremely busy however and am already making plans to add staff to my humble department here at the office.  Without going into detail about work, it appears that I have replaced a person who used to have 3 staff but that slowly dwindled to just himself and he too left.  It wasnt the reason he left, it was all just bad timing... So whilst they have recruited his replacement ( i.e. me) they have made no attempts to recruit his other staff... so, I am in a great position to propose a restructure / re-hire of certain roles.

 

Unfortunately though it will take time and I will have to put all this on the backburner until possible 2008.

 

On the home front, I managed to get Kate's iPod working and am extremely happy that I was able to perserve and solve it.  Sure it took 4 nights of me cursing and Niki calling me "obsessive" but the truth is I have never really encountered such a problem on a computer before and I refused to let it beat me.  The answer - for those who have been following my angst in the forum - is that the front USB port doesnt seem to like direct connections to USB Drives (which an iPod essentially is).  I encountered this before with my PSP and use my PSP via the Sony SanDisk port but for the iPod its the USB or nothing...

 

I didnt fix the issue, but I worked around it and connected a USB Hub to the main port and the iPod to the Hub... now works perfectly, but I have no idea why it wont work directly.  I also dont believe the USB Port is a 2.0 USB connection either... not sure why it isnt as the box is only 8 months old.

 

You can see why Niki thinks I am being obsessive...

 

If anyone has any ideas on why this workaround works (i.e. sticking a USB Hub in as an intermediary device) please let me know... all I know is that it works.

 

 

Keeping It In The Family...

How embarrasement! (sic)

 

My uncle has turned his Elvis obsession upon the world!  (link)

 

LOL!

Weekend Wrap

A very big weekend!

 

Started on Friday night in which Niki and I went with friends Steve & Kate to see The Cure at the Entertainment Centre.  I hadnt been to the EntCent for so long given most things in Sydney happen at Homebush, but I tell you what - what a fantastic concert!

 

Robert Smith and co played for a staggering 3 1/2 hours and 100% of it was their old songs... nothing from the most recent albums and some very old songs dug up from years ago such as "Shiver & Shake".  Really good concert and much better than when they came out in around 2000.  We had B Reserve seats, which were right in the front and centre of the elevation above the floor and because we were right behind the mixing desks, we had perfect sound.  I have to say I was most impressed and Niki enjoyed it as well except a) they didnt play Love Cats and b) some of the grungier stuff from the Pornography album and the like didnt really sit with her.  However, the massive guitar song Kiss Me was a massive hit for me!

 

After dropping off Kate & Steve and checking out their new place in Dulwich Hill (which is very nice! Well done guys!) and getting the kids from Penrith at Niki's sisters and picking up the car at Penrith station, we got in around 2am... we are definately not as young as we think because when the alarm went off at 7:30am for Netball, Niki and I both struggled.

 

Netball was great though... I really enjoy watching Kate play and she was the star this weekend by breaking a 0-0 scoreline in the 3rd quarter when she scored a very nice goal.  The Sparkles went on to win 2-0 and only have one game to go before the seasons end.

 

Saturday afternoon, I played my Blood Bowl leagues Grand Final with my Elf team taking on Pete "Tribalsinner" Arentsen and his Dark Elves.  In a classic game of elf-ball, the score was 2-2 at full time, but I lost in overtime 5-3.  A staggering 4 touchdowns scored in OT... unfortunately 3 by Pete and despite being minor premiers, we went down.  Great game though and hopefully the turn around for Season 2 wont be far away.

 

Literally as the Blood Bowlers left my place, Mum & Dad showed up after their 6 week overseas trip... we had dinner at the local Indian place and they gave the girls a souvenier from NYC and Kate's belated Birthday present.  Which were some Nintendo DS games and an iPod Nano.  Kate was absolutely wrapped and spent the rest of the weekend glued to the Nintendo!

 

The iPod has proved problematic however, and I was up until 2am Sat night trying to get it to work and by 11pm last night I got the music onto the iPod however it will only play 2 of the 11 songs that I have on it.  The problem i think is the iTunes software not the iPod itself but I think I may have worked out what is the issue... I actually woke up at 3am this morning realising that the music I am copying from the CD is about 470MB for 11 songs... i realise that the music needs to be "ripped" into MP3 and should only be 10% of that size.  No wonder I have been getting Disk Errors when trying... I will revisit that tonight.  You would think iTunes would convert it into the compressed MP3 size wouldnt you???

 

Sunday we went up the mountains to Katoomba to ScenicWorld.  They had advertised it to be "Snow Day" with lots of fake snow and snow ball fights etc.  Well, if you remember the D Generation and "Piss Weak World" you will know what I mean.  The "snow" was a fake blow up snow man surrounded by crushed ice on the ashphalt carpark and given it was 22 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, that was simply melting away.  The advertised "blizzard" was a series of bubble machines blowing detergent into the wind and the "snow pit" was a white polymer soaked in water in which the kids could play in.  The white polymer had the same consistency as snow however it wasnt cold and the girl manning the entry point said proudly "its the same stuff they put in nappies to soak up moisture"... choice!

 

We did the ScenicSender and the ScenicRailway though and the kids had a good time.  We did ride on a double decker bus around the mountains to look at the sights and it was a good day out overall, but seriously, the Snow Day was pretty lame!

 

Tired after all that, still annoyed at the iPod but back at work :)

Net Content Filtering

This article has me stumped... why is the Internet treated as a special case in regards to appropriate access?

 

The government as some sort of election promise has pledged to spend $190M on providing parents with the tools to filter the online content that their children are exposed to.  One Hundred And Ninety Million Dollars.  That is a lot of money for something that will not work.

 

Parents of Australia.  The Internet does contain many nasties.  It contains pornography and violence.  But those items are available on TV, Videos, DVD's and in Music.

 

You have the tools already to manage this already.  These tools are called "Your Parental Supervision".  Set your net access PC that your kids will use in the open room.  Use your relationship with your children (yes, I mean TALK to them) about the internet.  About what is there, what could be there, what they can and cannot do and if you dont know, educate yourself first before you allow them onto the net.

 

For my readers who are parents would you:

a) allow them to surf the net alone in their bedroom?

b) allow them to us MS Chat?

c) allow them to have a MySpace or a Facebook page?

d) allow them to have access to BitTorrent technology?

 

If you don't know the answer to these questions then you need to find out and you need to educate yourself before you allow your children onto the net.  It is that simple.  Be aware of what is safe and what is not.  Be mindful of your own childs emotional maturity and allow them to slowly expand their internet interaction accordingly.

Do not leave it to the Government to protect your children... it will not work.