Wednesday 28 January, 2004 at 11:47PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (3)  ::  trackbacks (1)

Ok a couple of things to rant about. A while ago I posted here and here about the ticketing spree the NYPD had been on to [presumably] try to generate more cashflow... well it's been on Fox5 News again tonight.

In one case a lady on the subway placed her handbag on the seat next to her rather than on her lap or on the floor - instant ticket. The reason? I wouldn't have a clue.

Another case involved a little kid about 3 years old who was playing with a balloon. The balloon popped. Guess what? Instant ticket for disturbing the peace or something ridiculous like that. Can you believe that? And yet it's quite ok for a police vehicle to blast their siren at 3 in the morning when they're driving down a completely empty street.

Now I realize that the police involved are being forced into this by their superiors because apparently they have ticketing quotas they have to meet, but hell, that's just getting ridiculous. Perhaps the police involved in these cases were just trying to prove a point that you shouldn't have to give tickets out just because you have a quota to meet, and ticketing extreme cases like these would give the message to their superiors that these ticket quotas are ridiculous. That I could relate to.

Think about it. You're a cop and you've been doing your thing all day and not a single person has done anything wrong. Good, right? Nope, that's bad, because you have to give out tickets to meet your quota or [presumably] your job is at risk. What do you do? Well, these cases are the answer to that question. To whoever is responsible for forcing the street cops to resort to these measures, pull yer head in and get a reality check. If cops aren't having to give out many tickets, that is a good thing, it basically means society is law-abiding. This extreme ticketing just causes resentment, and that in turn just makes the job harder for the cops in the long run when they need help from the public.

Ok next rant. Spammers. Yup one of my favourite topics. Spammers have a lot to answer for. I wrote a little while back about spammers and how one guy was recently arrested and jailed/heavily fined for sending many thousands of spam emails. On that post somebody commented that the authorities should spend more time busting 'real' criminals like robbers and drug dealers and stop wasting time busting someone for just sending email. I have to disagree in some ways, and I'll tell you why.

Because of spam, millions of dollars have been spent developing anti-spam software, and many millions more has been spent by companies and individuals paying to enlist the use of these anti-spam utilities. Thousands of hours of work time is wasted every day by employees having to sort through the spam in their business email boxes. Communications sent are not always received due to spam filters inadvertently shooting legitimate email into junk mail folders (I personally have missed jobs because of this). Spammers are jeopardizing what is probably the most significant communication tool in history, and they deserve to be dealt with harshly.

I can no longer rely on email getting to the person I send it to. During Christmas I sent a mass email message to about 30 people. As it turns out, nobody I've spoken to since then received it, presumably because their email filters saw it was a mass email and immediately sent it to the junk email box. Your writing style can also cause an email to be sent to a junk box. Ever wonder why some of these spam emails appear to have really bad english or a paragraph of seemingly random words? It's an attempt to get past spam filters that target certain phrases.

Not content with just sending email, spammers have moved on to targeting websites, particularly weblogs like this where they can leave comments. The intention is to leave a comment with a link to their site selling whatever their product is. The more links they can get, the higher they will place on search engine listings. I have had to employ a number of protection methods on this site as a result to try and combat this spam, and even so I had some loser post 127 comments on here yesterday that didn't even have any links on it, they just posted a few lines of random text characters each time, I guess out of frustration that I had protection in the first place so they couldn't spam their website links. What is amusing is that it took them nearly an hour to post 127 messages, and it took me about 15 seconds to delete them all.

Ok I had more to write about the effects spam has had on email but I think this post is long enough already and it's really all been said before anyway. I've got it out of my system for now anyway. We had over 8 inches of snow last night. Groovy. *waves*

redesign ..again

      Saturday 24 January, 2004 at 6:32AM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (16)

Ok it's on its way.. bear with me for the next hour or so..

Right, all done ..I think. I like this layout a whole lot better than what was up for the last few days. I'm really tired, so have a sift around the site and please let me know if you find any broken links or pages that just don't look right or pages that are not what you expected etc.. just note them on the comments for this entry. Also tell me what you think of this layout! Go on, do it!

The guestbook has not been updated yet, I'll fix that later. you should still be able to use it in the meantime though ..it'll just look a bit spaz. Oh, it was my birthday last Thursday btw :p

surfing as a valid course of study

      Friday 23 January, 2004 at 6:00PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

This rocks. Tairawhiti Polytechnic in New Zealand (polytech is basically a university but for more technical courses) has developed an Applied Surfing Option in the Certificate in Leisure and Sport. This innovative programme offers a stepping-stone into a career in the sport, leisure, fitness & surfing industries and includes a NZQA accredited surfing course. This offers surfers an opportunity to focus on the physical application of surfing, including computer aided tools, meteorology, an introduction to surfing techniques - plus heaps of SURFING! Successful completion of the certificate cross credits to a portion of the Bachelor of Sport & Leisure Degree at the University of Waikato.

How awesome is that! Damn I'd be right into that if I was back in NZ. That just rocks hard. Click here for further information and contact details from the polytech.

relativity

      Tuesday 20 January, 2004 at 5:56PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

Here's something funny I just read on the NZ Surf forum:

Subject: TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME DAY....

1. GIRL'S DIARY
Saturday 22nd November 2003.
Saw John quite late in the evening and he was acting really strangely. I'd been shopping in the afternoon with the girls and I did turn up a bit late so I thought it might be that. The bar was really crowded and loud so I suggested we go somewhere quieter to talk. He was still very subdued and distracted so I suggested we go somewhere nice to eat. All through dinner he just didn't seem himself; he hardly laughed, and didn't seem to be paying any attention to me or to what I was saying. I just knew that something was wrong. He dropped me back home and I wondered if he was going to come in; he hesitated, but followed. I asked him again if there was something the matter but he just half shook his head and turned the television on. After about 10 minutes of silence, I said I was going upstairs to bed. I put my arms around him and told him that I loved him deeply. He just gave a sigh, and a sad sort of smile. He didn't follow me up, but later he did, and I was surprised when we made love. He still seemed distant and a bit cold, and I started to think that he was going to leave me, and that he had found someone else. I cried myself to sleep.

2. BOY'S DIARY
Saturday 22nd November 2003.
The All Blacks lost to the Poms.
Positively one of the worst days of my life. Got a root though.

don't like it

      Monday 19 January, 2004 at 5:56PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (4)

Ok I redesigned the layout and I prefer how it looked before (although I'm still playing around with how the weblog posts appear). The reason I changed it was because nobody was really looking at anything other than the weblog (except for the few people who came in via search engines looking for something specific). I figured the reason for this was that the site navigation was very inconspicuous, so the main point of this redesign was to have an obvious site menu on the left, much like the general 'standard' weblog layout. However, I like a clean-looking uncluttered site, and I'm afraid this new design just does not meet my own standards. I'll probably revert back to something similar to what I had but with a more obvious and expanded horizontal site menu along the top.

It's been friggin freezing here over the last week, with temperatures hitting near record lows of 1°F/-17°C, and windchill hitting nearly -30°F/-34°C on one night. That's getting dangerous.. I believe when windchill gets colder than around -40°F your skin can freeze in just 1 minute, and that ain't good I'm sure. We've had a fair bit of snow too, although today freezing rain and wind overnight have left everything really icy. For the first time since I've been here (over 2 years) I arsed over on the ice this afternoon while walking to the shops. I recovered well and managed to land in a kind of lop-sided on-one-bended-knee stance, but it's still a wipeout in my book. bah.

I was just looking at my referral stats and noticed someone had reached the site by searching on google for "sulfur+charcoal+salt+peter", which many people know are the basic components for making gunpowder. The entry they arrived at on this weblog was back in July 2002 where I wrote about Guy Fawkes Day in New Zealand and some of the mischief we used to get up to blowing up letterboxes and a public toilet etc with [censored] bombs (or [censored] bombs if we didn't have enough components for the [censored] ones). I included in the entry the % of each component required, where we got hold of them, and how we made the ..err ..extreme firecrackers - basically the full instructions of how to obtain the materials and construct the bangers. I then had a rather disturbing thought.

I recall (and wrote) a while back that some dude who ran a popular political site (that usually criticized the US govt with some controversy or another) was arrested and fined big $ under that Orwellian terrorist act under the guise that he was providing methods for creating explosives which could then be used to overthrow / destabilize the US govt (actually he was jailed too). While a [censored] firecracker could do neither of these things in anyones wildest dreams, I have to wonder if I should censor that post since we were writing about virtually the same thing. hmm. Yes I think I better do that. Just another example that freedom of speech in the US is becoming history. Yeah sure you can speak, just as long as it's not about a subject that 'the authorities' deem as anti-establishment, which in reality could be construed as pretty much anything if you put your mind to it. It's sad to see. I will add that I don't really oppose the anti-terrorism act in essence and what it was supposedly intended to achieve, but I do oppose it being abused like it has been under the guise of national security. End of rant.

fark it's cold today!

      Friday 9 January, 2004 at 3:08PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)

Today has just got steadily colder and colder. It was about 30°F at 9am, and had dropped to 17°F/-8°C by midday even though it's a 'nice' sunny day. Tonight is predicted to get down to 8°F/-13°C with windchill at -11°F ..that's a nasty -24°C for you kiwi visitors! Unreal, might as well be living in Antartica. And guess what? Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder. I think back to summer not so long ago and temperatures of over 100°F/37°C ..crazy friggin city.

unclaimed us$162m lottery win

      Wednesday 7 January, 2004 at 3:04PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (10)

Yup that's right, US$162million. On December 30th 2003, someone who purchased a ticket at a lotto outlet in South Euclid won this massive jackpot, but the holder of the winning ticket did not immediately come forward. This prompted the lotto organizers to ask people in that area to recheck their tickets. Of course with that amount of money at stake it's not surprising that someone had to try and scam it.

In the news shortly after came the story of Elecia Battle, who claimed in a police report that she dropped her purse as she left a convenience store after buying the ticket and only realized after the drawing that the ticket was missing.

"My ticket was lost. I do recall all the numbers. They are all somehow family related. No one can tell me what I did and did not play. I did it honestly and I have no doubt."

Shortly after this news item broke, the holder of the winning ticket, Rebecca Jemison of South Euclid, fronted up with the real ticket. She also provided another lottery ticket bought at the same time and had a ticket from a previous drawing with the same numbers. Proof positive if you ask me.

"I was angry at first, but not worried at all,'' Jemison said. "I knew what I possessed."

On Tuesday (yesterday) Rebecca Jemison was declared rightful winner of the Dec. 30 drawing, qualifying her for a lump-sum payment of $67.2 million (after taxes) ..damn! I think the govt should buy their own friggin lotto ticket! (In NZ lottery winnings are tax free).

Later on Tuesday Elecia Battle sued, asking a judge to block the lottery from paying Jemison. What has now come to light is that Battle has prior charges of credit card fraud and assault. Police are now investigating whether she lied in the police report - a misdemeanor punishable by 30 days to six months in jail. When questioned about her past, Battle was defensive:

"I'm done with that,'' said Battle, "I paid the fine. That's end of story. It makes me look like I'm a bad person. Everybody has bad in the past. I'm not even worried about that, really. I never did any jail time for that.''

Oooo-kay. Yup we've all committed assault and credit card fraud in the past, right? Wrong. This person needs to admit when she's been caught out, because it's pretty damn obvious, especially when the winner provides supporting evidence of a ticket from a previous drawing with the same numbers as well as another ticket bought at the same time as the winning ticket. Trying to sue the rightful winner now and not backing down is just digging her own grave. Regardless of the evidence, the lottery ticket is a bearer note, which means whoever turns in a valid ticket is legally entitled to the winnings, end of story.

Nice try, but no cigar.

welcome to 2004

      Tuesday 6 January, 2004 at 12:27PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)

Hope everyone had a great New Years Eve! Nothing bad happened here regarding the raised alert staus, which is all good of course. Our New Years Eve night was pretty quiet; just two weasels and a bottle of stolichnaya (vodka - of which we only had a couple of drinks from in the end).

Other than the two early dumps of snow in December it's been uncharacteristically warm here despite the farmers almanac predicting otherwise. When I say warm, I mean most days have been hitting highs into the low 50's°F (which is 10+°C), but that looks like it's all about to change. For the rest of this week, the temperature is not supposed to go above the high 20's°F (which is below 0°C) with some days the high barely reaching 20°F/-6°C. The lows are supposed to be down to 11°F/-11°C, and add into that wind chill and you're looking at some seriously cold weather. Probably some snow later this week too.

Not much else to tell. The other weasel is helping me re-learn some of the mathematics I've forgotten from school back in NZ as I will need to do an exam before I go to university here (I've been accepted already, just need to do what they call 'placement exams') so that's kewl. I'd be lost in it without her help, so thanks babe! hmm. ok, have fun and don't do anything I wouldn't do ..which kinda leaves you wide open really.

« December 2003 | current entries | archive index | February 2004 »