Darryl Smith @ Radioactive Networks

2008-02-22T15:25:00.002+11:00

I just got the following comment on my blog... it really irritates me to read quotes that are so blatantly wrong. No web page in WA sells RADAR JAMMERS. We sell RADAR DETECTORS and LASER JAMMERS. There is no broadcast law against LASER jammers. This is a public frequency of 904nm. You can check out the legalities of this at http://www.radars.com.au But in your article you mention "laser jammer" but then go on to talk about radar jammers. Two completely different things.

I have a few comments on this...

1. According to the Radiocommunications Act 1992, a radio emission is any emission of electromagnetic energy less than 420 THz, regardless of if it is an intentional or not. 904 nm is about 332 THz, so a 904 nm transmission is a RADIO EMISSION. Section 6 of the act notes that a RADAR device is covered under the act specifically. And therefore also a LASER RADAR operating at 904 nm is still a RADAR.

2. Except in an emergency, a person may not operate a radiocommunications device (such as a RADAR or LASER) except if it is Authorised by... A Spectrum License, An Apparatus License or a Class License. Therefore the frequency is LICENSED.

3. The 304 TGz band is covered under a CLASS LICENSE. The license is here

4. Section 4(1)(b) states that the device must not cause any iterference to the operation of any radiocomminication service.

Therefore... there is a broadcast law against LASER JAMMERS... Just as there is against RADAR JAMMERS in the 10-24 GHz Range.

Copying Policy

2007-10-25T08:18:00.000+10:00

The Federal Election is about a month away. For a number of reasons I will probably vote Labour. This is not only because of the Liberal's Work Choices legislation, but also because of things such as the Copyright Amendment Act or 2006, certain aspects of Telecommunications Policy and certain aspects of the Australia-USA Free Trade Agreement. It is also related to the fact that I believe that good government requires a good opposition, and the best way to ensure that is to ensure that the opposeition is in governement periodically.

With this in mind, I have a good friend who gave me a challenge. The challenge was to design a piece of clothing to support the Liberal Party - something that was all my own work. I was not permitted to copy it at all. How boring, but them there is the rules. The challenge was put in a way that I really did not have much choice but to accept.

I came up with a number of designed - the remainder of which are already on this Web Site. When I described the concepts to the challenger, there was one clear winner. It appears below. There is some context to this - when Kevin Rudd released his Taxation Policy, it was about 91.5% identical to the Liberal Party policy released days before. So I got thinking... What if there was some Liberal Party policy that Labour was able to copy without causing the Liberals any problems.

And I found one - the Liberal Party 'HOW TO VOTE' Card. Of course the example on the T-Shirt is a fake, but the concept is there. It contains a personal member to the leader of the Labour Party - STEAL THIS POLICY! I DARE YOU!

2007-10-24T17:28:00.000+10:00

Right now I am pretty happy... Things are looking fairly good at the moment - everything just seems to be getting better at the moment. Of course spanners have a known perchant for getting thrown in the works, but frankly I can cope with the odd small spanner.

2007-10-22T08:26:00.000+10:00

I was challenged by a friend to produce some pro-John Howard fashion for the 2007 election. I came up with two T-Shirts. The first is based on Hogan's Heroes from the 1970's, and the second is based on the Coalition's Kevin Rudd Debate Bingo. This first design is simple - black on white, with the list of cast members. I have changed one name - John Winston as Colonel John Howard. The others are real people with real parts. Colonel John Howard is obviously Colonel Robert E. Hogan.

This second T-Shirt has a subtle copy of the 'Kevin 07' slogan on the back, with the coalition's Bingo card on the front.

2007-10-15T13:21:00.000+10:00

I stayed in the Holiday Inn Suva in October 2007 for a few nights on a holiday. Whilst I enjoyed the hotel there were a few issues that would have improved my stay.
One of the first things I looked for when I checked in was a guide to the hotel. Is hotels around the world you find a guide to the local attractions and services in a draw or on a table somewhere. It took me a day to find the guide to the hotel services. It was in the wallet that contained my room key. By ‘In the wallet’, I mean it was the wallet. There was not much information inside – it did not make mention of what hours the pool operated from, nor did it say what to do with towels. Certainly it did not say how to get to any of the local attractions.
When I had booked the room I chose the hotel because of the facilities that it offered – in terms of Internet access. The Web Site stated that Wifi was $0, and that there would be a charge of $5 for wired Internet. When I got here I found that the wired internet was $0.60 per minute, with a maximum of $36 per day. By ‘Maximum’, I mean it was $36 until you got to 30 Mbytes and then it was $0.40 per MByte. This is a bait and switch in the extreme.
I suspect that the Web Site is not accurate, but that is not my fault. I have since discovered that the same Web Site lists each room as having a PC. I somehow do not think that this is what they intended. This is not some two-bit company we are talking about here offering to book rooms. This is the OFFICIAL WEB SITE for the Hotel!
I have emailed two different email addresses, and also made an online complaint about this issue and I have heard nothing. Thankfully I am protected, since the Holiday Inn has a ‘Hospitality Promise’ which states that if I am not completely satisfied with anything it will be free. I am intending to use this ‘Promise’.
The pool at the hotel is nice, and the water is warm. Being on Suva Harbor there is no beach. The hotel butts onto the ocean, but the land was a former mangrove rather than a beach, meaning it is more suited to fishing than swimming.
There is no gift shop in the hotel – at least not that I could find. This is rather unique when it comes to hotels in my experience. Normally they are trying to stop you from going outside to discover the real world. Not here.
Another thing that is missing is the wall filled with self-serve brochures showing what is on where. There are a few at the tour desk, but that is all. The only way that I got a map was to visit the main desk and ask where the museum was. The person gave me a map that showed where the tourist centre was. Even the tourist centre was not really set up to handle tourists.

The staff at the hotel were all friendly, wanting to open doors for you and help you when they could. Sometimes this was a bit pointless, such as when I got a soft drink at the bar and was taking it to a seat 5m away. After 2m the waiter insisted on taking the drink and carrying it to my seat. Still, service was good.
Outside the hotel I found some good restaurants. One Chinese establishment offered a Rum Steak for $7.45, including salad and chips. I got two pieces of steak, adding up to about 300-400 grams I would guess. They were rough cut and seasoned, making them tender and juicy. Cheaper than a club meal in Oz, and not subsidized either.
The hotel is on the southern outskirts of the commercial district, meaning that some walking is needed to get to all the shops. Or a Taxi Ride. Suva is a strange collection of one way streets and alleys. I went looking for a set of shops that I had visited the day before. And I could not find it. I did find the garment and fabric district but not the shops I was looking for. And I found Dick Smith Electronics too, the story above the Gloria Jean’s coffee shop. I knew Dick Smith needed to be nearby since I had seen a reference to it in the listing for an arcade a few streets away.
Once more I have no idea if the Hotel has a minibus, as they do not have a guide for the hotel. But given the price and availability of taxis, I am guessing that they are not really needed.

2007-10-10T11:47:00.000+10:00

I am sorry to tell you that this first photo was taken just after breakfast this morning, just before I went for a swim. The water was beautiful, and just look at the view!!!

I actually took this next phot last night looking out towards the bay. The photo does not do the scene justice.

I suppose that this next sign sums up part of the world. It is one that I would expect to see on The Simpsons.

I am not quite sure what this is, but it appears to be some type of boiler or something similar. It is hidden next to the hotel.

One of the local churches. It looks like a concrete castle, parapits and all. The problem is that concrete discolours in this climate making it look a bit run-down.

This is the clock tower next to the museum.

2007-10-08T16:33:00.000+10:00

This photo is taken from the Hotel a few minutes ago. I am not enjoying this place and I want to go home.

Yeah, sure! And this is a photo of my hotel room. I guess you can say it is acceptable.

This is of the Vodafone Stadium in Suva from the air. Not a bad flight...

And this is Nadi, or one of the suburbs of Nadi...

Of course I had a few issues getting from Nadi to Suva. This is a view from my seat in the plane, looking forward. The view was just as good in the air!

Thankfully the flight to Nadi from Sydney was a bit bigger...

And this is a view of the basic conditions in last nights hotel.

2007-10-08T10:57:00.001+10:00

7-October-2007
I have made it to Nadi. I am pretty sure that this is Nadi, but it really is hard to tell, given that it is most definitely night time. The flight across the Pacific from Sydney was relatively uneventful. The boarding of the 747 consisted of :-
Would all business class passengers, and passengers with children under 10 like to begin boarding
Would all other passengers like to board the plane.
Obviously this is not how this sort of thing normally happens. What tends to ensure is a massive fight as people try to firstly get onto the plane, and then those at the front of the plane stop those at the back getting on. This is what happened.

The meal service was a bit interesting, with the options being fish or chicken. The chicken was actually a chicken and sweet chilli stir fry, but I can assure everyone that this was not hot in either sense of the word. It was warm in temperature, and did not tang my taste buds at all. AirPacific seems to ply alcohol like Qantas plies Coffee. They were even giving out cans of beer, and kept going around the cabin with bottles of wine. Us poor people who do not drink Alcohol were left a little short changed.
Back in Sydney I changed some money, getting about $420 Fiji dollars for $350 Australian dollars. I have yet to find out if this is a good deal or not.

Getting to Nadi airport was not too bad. Imigration was fairly quick. Surprisingly I heard my name called in the crowd by one of the other passengers. It was a woman who I had worked with at Pacific Power, and whose daughter had been one of the subjects of mum’s Doctoral thesis. And I had mentioned her to a couple of people in the last couple of weeks - so actually seeing her again, IN FIJI was surprising.
Collecting my bag seemed to take an eternity, but was probably only 15 minutes or so. There were bags on the carousel, but it appeared that they were unable to put more bags on until people had removed their bags. And people needed to clear immigration to get their bags. And that was the holdup.
Finding the shuttle to the hotel was a bit hard, and I waited for about 10 minutes on a minivan before the hotel decided to send me and three others by a Taxi. Not sure why that happened. Just the mysteries of the universe I guess. The taxi seemed to have had far better days, but given that it was a Toyota I am guessing that it will last a lot longer before needing replacing.
The journey to the hotel was uneventful. It seemed like a bit more than five minutes but not much more. The countryside reminds me of the road about 30 minutes outside Bangkok.

The hotel is not what I would call five star. I only needed something for one night, and it was cheap and offered a shuttle from the airport. My room is fine, but has no guidebook of the services of the hotel or the local area. The shower recess does not really have concealed pluming, and there are not enough power points. Right now I have unplugged the TV so I can have the laptop connected on the desk. I would have placed the Laptop on the beside table, but the alarm clock is firmly attached to the table. I am guessing that they don’t want anyone stealing it.
But the hotel suits my purposes. Tomorrow I fly to Suva and then stay at the more up market Holiday Inn.

October 8, 2007
I didn’t sleep particularly well last night, so I am a bit tired right now. I organized a wakeup call for 6:00, on the advice of the hotel. They gave me to the wakeup call early, at 5:45, and then the Bus to the airport came just before 7am. Not bad for a 8am flight. Arrived at the airport about 7 minutes later, and walked straight to checkin. Too easy. Then grabbed some breakfast.
Unfortunately soon an announcement came saying the flight would be delayed. And delayed again. This time they told us to go to the cafeteria to get whatever we wanted for food and drink. Then they came and said the plane would be leaving in 20 minutes or so. They forgot to say it was leaving Suva then. We eventually boarded about 10:30 or so.
But not before being asked to go back to the checkin counter with our hand luggage and stand on the scales! They wrote our weights on our boarding passes and then allowed us to board without passes. The plane had been changed to a Twin Otter which was much smaller than they plane we were going to fly on. I must say it is interesting to see safety cards with the different exits highlighted by the callsign of the plane!
We were allowed to sit anywhere, and I chose a seat up the front next to a window and with a view of the cockpit. I will upload my photos later, but it was sort of cool. The flight was uneventful, and so was getting into downtown SUVA. The hotel looks really nice

2007-10-07T11:13:00.000+10:00

There is something rather civilised about the Qantas Club. For me it is a business expense as it is an office whenever I am on the road. I guess you could also call it a fringe benefit that makes flying more enjoyable.

Right now I am sitting in the Qantas Club in the International Airport. I have a seat with power and phone line, and a panoramic window overlooking the Sydney CBD. I have taken a photo with my camera phone, but I dont think I have a cable to download it the photo with me.

Right now, apart from writing this message, I am having a snack - some fruit juice with gormet sandwhiches, fruit and cheese. The seat is comforatble, and there is no problem leaving a bag unattended to go to the bar, or to get a coffee. In essence, it is quiet but not too quiet. Internet is available here either through the computer room or via WiFi. Wifi is not free though. Thanks to my vodafone card I have no problem with internet access anyway.

In a moment I am going to watch some DVD's on my laptop whilst I wait for the phone. Life is good.

International Space Station

2007-10-04T07:47:00.000+10:00

I contacted the International Space Satation today from my car on the way in. The log is below, so is the location of where i was when I did this. Two way text messaging too. This was so fun! And today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik too!

04/10/2007 07:09:52 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAR,VK8ZMA-0:>ARISS - International
Space Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:13:52 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAo,VK6MJ:>ARISS - International Space
Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:15:53 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:>ARISS - International
Space Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:16:07 VK2TDS-1>SST5U2,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'OZul
6K\]"53}
04/10/2007 07:16:38
VK2TDS-1>SST5U0,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'OZ}mplK\]"58}
04/10/2007 07:16:58 VK4TEC>APU25N,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK2TDS-1
:Hello via ISS{55
04/10/2007 07:17:41
VK2TDS-1>SST5T4,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O[AnfiK\]"52}
04/10/2007 07:17:52 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:>ARISS - International
Space Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:17:57 VK2TDS-1>SST5T2,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O[Ln
iK\]"5*}
04/10/2007 07:18:04 VK4HW>CQ,RS0ISS-4*,qAo,VK3JTM-5:=2735.26S\15245.29ES73'
>From VK4HW Via ISS Satellite {UISS51}
04/10/2007 07:18:23 VK4TEC>APU25N,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK2TDS-1
:Hello via ISS{55
04/10/2007 07:18:27
VK2TDS-1>SST5T1,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O[Wl>rK\]"5&}
04/10/2007 07:18:58
VK2TDS-1>SST5T1,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O[an\K\]"5%}
04/10/2007 07:19:08 VK4TEC>APU25N,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK2TDS-1
:Hello via ISS{55
04/10/2007 07:19:41 VK4TEC>APU25N,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK2TDS-1
:Hello via ISS{55
04/10/2007 07:19:46 VK2TDS-1>SST5U9,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:'O\
m+;K\]"4u}
04/10/2007 07:19:52 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:>ARISS - International
Space Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:19:53 VK2TDS-1>SST5U9,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:'O\
m+;K\]"4u}
04/10/2007 07:19:53 VK2TDS-1>APK101,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK4TEC
:hi{2
04/10/2007 07:19:53 VK2TDS-1>SST5U9,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:'O\
m+;K\]"4u}
04/10/2007 07:20:16 VK4TEC>APU25N,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK2TDS-1
:Hello via ISS{55
04/10/2007 07:20:19 VK2TDS-1>APK101,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5::VK4TEC
:ack55
04/10/2007 07:20:22
VK2TDS-1>SST5V7,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:'O\.m?0K\]"4s}
04/10/2007 07:20:54
VK2TDS-1>SST5V9,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O\3l{'K\]"4r}
04/10/2007 07:21:04 VK4HW>CQ,RS0ISS-4*,qAO,VK4TEC:=2735.26S\15245.29ES73'
>From VK4HW Via ISS Satellite {UISS51}
04/10/2007 07:21:25
VK2TDS-1>SST5W1,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:'O\;l\}K\]"4q}
04/10/2007 07:21:52 RS0ISS-4>CQ,SGATE,qAO,VK4TEC:>ARISS - International
Space Station (BBS/APRS on)
04/10/2007 07:21:56
VK2TDS-1>SST5W2,RS0ISS-4*,SGATE,qAo,VK3JTM-5:'O\Hn4{K\]"4p}

Rack Cabinet

2007-10-02T12:44:00.000+10:00

I have designed a Rack Cabinet for my servers. Unlike common installations I have designed the cabinet so that it will not need Air Conditioning. It is located in a cool area with a large thermal mass that is at room temperature, and will be rather hard to heat up.

The cabinet is designed to allow for natural seperation of air. Most computer racks pull cold air from the front and push it to the back. So I have designed the air to come into the rack from the front, right at the bottom. The exhaust air is at the back at the top. This means that hot air will rise helping cooling. I have baffles front and back to assist with the segregation, and I have ensured that the rack is full. Not with equipment, but with panels.

This seems to be working really well, although I have just been looking at the rack now that things are starting to warm up. I have had some heat building up at the top of the front of the rack. Opening up one of the vents helped this, and significantly reduced the temperature of the rack metal. At the back I only have two 4"x6" exhaust vents, and these are not connected to anything but natural ventelation. I have just found that this is not providing the cooling I need - so I have put a 4" fan on one of the outlets. I will see how that goes over the next few hours. I expect that this will help a lot.

I have included insulation inside the cabinet for noise, but this is insulating from heat too. I might need to monitor things over Summer, but given the thermal mass I doubt that I will have too many issues. Worst case I will wheel the rack into an air conditioned area.

Citizens Electoral Council of Oz

2007-09-21T10:39:00.000+10:00

I got some SPAM today from mediareleases@cecaust.com.au which is the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia. This is a group of loonies who believe that they are exempt from the SPAM ACT because they are a political party. Sure, their rubbish is Commerical in nature, but it is UNSOLICITED. That makes it SPAM. They are supporters of Lyndon LaRouche who has been convicted for his past activities. Their wiki page is here and more fun stuff is here

2007-09-19T14:06:00.001+10:00

I took mum to the haematologist yesterday for her checkup, and got her blood tested. The blood test results were not too bad, although the platelets were still down a bit. The red and white cell numbers are down a bit - but the platelets are in the 70's whereas 150 is in the normal range. This is an improvement on last tuesday when they were 6, but still a bit low. Mum's kidneys are still not 100% either, but this is a known issue, and mum just needs to keep up her fluids at this stage. The doctor decided to not do any more lumbar puncture chemo for the moment, and has put mum on weekly blood tests just in case. She is thinking that the results are caused by the chemo.

I was due to go to a conference in the USA over the last weekend this month, but given the results I will not be going. The problem is that the conference is west coast USA, and so there is close to 24 hours from catching the first flight to arriving at the hotel at the other end. So if something happened with mum back here it would be a real problem to get back in an emergency - both with the time for the journey and also the availability of flights.

But I will take a little time off - most likely to Fiji and New Zealand. Still working that one out.

2 Clix sues Whirlpool...

2007-09-12T17:16:00.000+10:00

To me, as an interstate non-lawyer I have some major issues with the Statement of Claim that was submitted to the Supreme Court.

In the claim at the top of the document, the solicitor claims 'Damages for Injurous Falsehood in the amount of $150,000.00 PER MONTH'.

In the summary of relief, the solicitor is claiming 'Damages for Injurous Falsehood in the amount of $150,000.00'

I am guessing that this little oversignht is going to cost 2 Clix a LOT of money, if they win. [They will not of course, but that is another matter] I suspect that if this actually gets anywhere that the Statement of Claim will be amended.

In addition, the solicitor has failed to show that the comments made are 'False and Malicious'. It is very difficult to prove to a court that a persons PERSONAL OPINION is FALSE. Without proof in any way suggesting that the opinions listed in the document are made up, I suspect that those claims will be thrown out. The problem is that the statements are perported to be both 'False' and 'Malicious'.

I can just see the court case now where the people quoted are asked about the basis of their statements, and the case will be thrown out.

Simon Wright has not published the letters from 2 Clix, and has taken some time to let the people on Whirlpool know. Therefore I suspect that what has been happening is that 2 Clix has been using this court case to attempt to leverage Simon - firstly threatening the court case, and now actually submitting the paperwork. 2 Clix must be really annoyed by now since it has cost them a signicicant amount of money to get to this point. And it will only get worse.

It would appear to me that the lawyer has put in just enough detail to make this threat credible, but not enough to actually hold a hope of winning. That would have required a LOT more work, showing how each statement quoted was False and Malicious. That also suggest that 2 Clix is after the threads being removed, and an undisclosed settlement to make it go away.

In Summary: The solicitor stuffed up and is really only claiming $150K rather than $150K/Month. Also the solicitor has only done enough work to use the claim as a leverage for a financial settlement.

2007-09-07T19:42:00.000+10:00

This post relates to THE CHASERS WAR ON EVERYTHING, and how they entered the restricted zone of APEC. Eleven people were arrested when the CHASER comedy team set up a fake motorcade and drove past the security checkpoints, and were only caught when a member of the team got out just near the George W Bush hotel dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

The APEC ACT is an interesting read.

Paragraph 19 is entitled 'Offence: Entering restricted area without special jurisdiction'
It states that 'A person must not, without special justification, enter a restricted area or any part of a restricted area.'. This is really simple. There is only one issue. They defined Special Justification.

Paragraph 37 is entitled 'Special Justification'.
It states that 'A person has a special justification to be in an area if:
(c)the person is required to be in (or pass through) the area for the purposes of the person's employment, occupation, profession, calling, trade or business or for any other work-related purpose'.

Therefore regardless of wether the person had a security pass or not, they were permitted to be in the area because they had a reason to be there because their employer wanted them there. All they need to do is to be able to prove this as part of paragraph 38.

2007-09-06T16:54:00.000+10:00

I found a cute Pizza Recipie link

2007-08-31T08:50:00.000+10:00

I have been programming PIC18F8720's for the last few days. And things have been going OK. But I have been working with some TIMER code, and I did some calculations, and what I found was that the timer was being called a heap more than it should have been. In the example code it was being called 240 times more often. 240 times.

TIMER_INIT:
    PR4 = 195
    IPR3.3 = 1
    PIR3.3 = 0
    T4CON = %01111111
return

And then in my main loop I compared PIR3.3 and called the timer handler if it was HIGH. This code was fairly simple

LOOP:
    if PIR3.3 = 1 then GOSUB TIMER_LOOP ' Timer has elapsed. Therefore Do It
    gosub check_serial
goto LOOP

But the code was running a heap more than it should have. I worked out I needed to INIT the timer every time through the TIMER_LOOP. The code below shows the GOSUB. It now works.

TIMER_LOOP:
    Gosub TIMER_INIT
    TimerCount = TimerCount + 1
    if timercount > 10 then
        LED = 1 - LED
        timercount = 0
        LCDOUT $FE, $C0, "Now :", DEC LED
    endif
return

Music: Tina Cousins

2007-08-27T21:48:00.001+10:00

Recently I was at a family event, and I found that many of my relatives were on Facebook. So I decided to join Facebook. It is an interesting community. You can see the university free speech basis of the site. And I am amazed at the amount of information you can see there. Birthdays, moods, names, workplaces. So much information.

In many cases all you need to do is to join a country based network, and so much information is available. And the name of friends is almost always available no matter what. And these friends often leak tons of information... Stuff which can be seen on the details of the events screen. It is amazing how few people even look at the Privacy settings in Facebook...

2007-08-27T20:24:00.000+10:00

There are some TV ads for SmartTraveller.gov.au, which is a Web Site for people going overseas. The TV ad tells that in many places it is illegal to take photos of some government buildings. I have just looked at the site above, for the USA, and find that there is no mention of the taking photos of some federal buildings having photography prohinited. Oops

2007-08-20T10:09:00.001+10:00

I have just started a new business called InLocality which is intended to work in the space of Indoor Tracking.

2007-08-19T07:11:00.000+10:00

A short update. Firstly mum is continuing to get stronger. She has driven her car a couple of times in the last week, and has felt strong enough even to walk up the front stairs without anyone home in case she falls. Her lumbar puncture went well last week too, and did not cause any problems. They did a blood test, and found that her platelets were still a bit low, but that was really not that great a concern at this stage.

I also had a blood test on tuesday to see if I am a match to be a Stem Cell donor. I imagine that we will find this out this coming tuesday when mum has ber normal checkup at the haemotologist.

Now some sad news. My grandmother (my fathers mother) died this morning after a long illness. I had a call from dad in Abu Dabi (UAE) a couple of hours ago saying that his brother had just called with the news. Not sure when the funeral will be at this stage. Given the distances involved, it is likely that Dad will be unable to attend the funeral, but he did get the oportunity to record a eulogy before he left, which will be used in the funeral.

Bad Telemarketer

2007-08-16T15:18:00.001+10:00

I have just had a phone call from The Equity Group based in Erina, here in NSW. They were calling from a PRIVATE caller ID number, probably from India. It took me a LOT of time to find out that their phone number was 1300 799 258. They were calling from India I think. Their ACN is 123 882 842.

Now, why am I suggesting that this is a bad telemarketer, and also suggesting that it is wise not to deal with them? Well, first, they seem to be offering financial advice, but have no AFSL. An AFSL is required to offer financial advice in this country.

Next, their telemarketing call. The call was made from a PRIVATE number. This is not permitted with telemarketing calls. The company who rang were unwilling to give me their company name. It took a lot of work to find that the company they were calling from was THE EQUITY GROUP from ERINA. I had to convince the telemarketing company to give me their phone number to work this out. Then when I informed the telemarketing company that the call was not legal, they told me that my number was not on the do not call list. It was. Even if it was not, they were requrired to stop marketing to me at that point, and they should have used a public caller ID for the call.

Right now the ACMA and ASIC have been contacted over this matter.

2007-08-16T08:22:00.001+10:00

Last night I went to the Bob Dylan concert with a couple of other members of the list.

Let's start with the support act. Unlike most concerts they were competent and their sound was mixed fairly well. The exception was that the mixing desk had a few issues with the violin, and made it feel like horrible feedback. The support act I think was THE FLAMES, from Ireland, and started at 7:30 on the dot, and went for about 30 minutes. Our seats were off to the side, directly in line with the front of the stage, overlooking the mixing desk. The three rows of seats in front of us were empty, and it was cool to see the staff of the Entertainment Centre keep them that way. Throughout the night there was a steady stream of people coming forward and sitting in those seats until security told them to get lost.

The main problem with the support act, apart from not knowing any of their songs was that one of the stage varilights tended to be pointed right into our eyes. We coped with that. The act had interesting concepts for their songs, engaged with the audience, and generally played well. The mixing seemed to break the support act rules (it was competent), and the band was not pretentious. All in all probably the best support act I have seen since either the Warumpi Band (with Midnight Oil) or Joe Calaleri (with Bob Dylan last time).

Once the support act finished, there was a major effort to get the stage ready for Bob Dylan. Probably 10-15 minutes packing up cables, equipment and the like, and getting set for Bob Dylan. Just before the show started at 8:30, we were amused to see a person get a blow torch out. You heard right. They set what looked like a rolled up newspaper smoldering on the end. As the roadie then placed it near the back curtain we worked out it was a large bunch of incense sticks. Thankfully they did not get too smelly...

The singing of Bob Dylan was different from last time I heard him. That time he was almost talking the lyrics. This time it was almost a fast talking/singing of the lyrics, where you could get two lines of lyrics in the music for one. With the horrible reverb/echo of the Entertainment Centre and the drawly American accent, it was rather difficult to work out the words. Bob was not engaging the audience, basically just playing and singing. I don’t think he spoke to the audience until after the encore.

Musically things were good, with 3-4 guitars. A double bass at times, a xylophone and some other instruments. The band looked like they should have been members of the Blues Brothers with their hats and black suits. The stage arrangement was set up so that he had is synth at right angles to the front of the stage. And since most of the time he was playing this, most of the time he was back to us. I physically did not see him playing the harmonica, but he did, and did a better job than I was expecting. I think only the first song was sung looking to the front of the stage. And he only looked our direction once, after the encore.

I actually cannot remember many of the songs that Bob Dylan sang. I know there was Hard Rain is Going to Fall, and Highway 61. And there were some others too that I knew. There were some that I did not know.

After all that, I think I am glad that I went, but I do not think this will be a classic concert that will be placed onto DVD (bit hard without video cameras, but you get my drift).

SatNav Issues... A Japanese Invasion

2007-08-10T11:18:00.000+10:00

In what must be one of the more 'Unique' product placements ever, Hitachi has used a US map for their SatNav systems. Look at the following graphic for the MMP-501. If you lool carefully you might just be able to work out where it is from. The Web Site for the product does not have this issue, but the manual most certainly does.

This photo is from my camera phone so I am sorry for the quality. Now look at the following map from Google Maps.

Guess where this is from? Pearl City. So, where is Pearl City? It is in Hawaii, on the shores of Pearl Harbour. I am sure that a Japanese company like Hitachi could have chosen a better destination for a SatNav system.

2007-05-28T16:27:00.000+10:00

I have just spoken to Mum. Her doctor came to visit and filled her in on the Stem Cell blood tests. Whilst the indicator tests were OK, it would appear that the Stem Cell count was not really high enough, and the numbers do not seem to be rebounding as fast as they should. If they are not high enough tomorrow they are looking at sending her home and then giving her some more chemo after the Long Weekend. At that time they would then try giving her StemGen generate the Stem Cells.

The chemo after the long weekend would be less severe than the chemo she has had to date - probably CHOP. The side effects for the StemGen seem to be slightly nasty, but certainly nothing compared to Chemo itself.

Once the Stem Cells have been collected she will be out of hospital for 1-2 months, and then go back in for the implantation. When she is back she will be in for about a month.