BaSH PR0MPT

Inflammatory title, would you expect any less from me? But this is what I have put to the RTA in questioning their motorcycle standards (S28) on the modification of bikes, etc, which practically outlaw tens of thousands of manufactured stock motorcycles.

The requirements actually don’t serve any purpose. It’s nothing to do with safety, at all. For example, handle bar height. Ape hangers are illegal, but sure maybe some of them are too silly high and dangerous, right? Well no, my stock cruisers handle bars are too high, they came that way from the factory, as are almost all Harley Davidson’s, Yamaha’s, and Honda’s in the cruiser division.

Mud flaps are super important to your safety, aren’t they? No? Of course they’re fucking not. Even rock protection isn’t needed given the fact physics and aerodynamics are on your side, but those standards make all choppers and bobbers illegal, and even most cafe racers.

The standards in S28 outlaw pretty much every classic design of bike you think of when you think of a bad ass bike. Beyond a sewing machine sound from your exhaust, dinky handlebars, and Tron light cycle style fenders and mud guards your bike is probably illegal.

So, I wrote to them, albeit I didn’t convey my point too well as I wrote it in the middle of the night while nerd raging at their idiocy. But here it is below, I’ll update this post with any reply I get.

Hello. I’m writing to you in relation to the inconsistency of law held by the RTA towards motorcycle riders. VSI28 outlaws choppers, bobbers, cafe racers, and most other classic designed motorcycles beyond contemporary cruisers and sports bikes, etc. for transportation. It outlaws ape hangers, outlaws modified exhausts beyond that of the sewing machine sound of a stock 8 baffled exhaust (which, if you value fuel economy, is one of the first things you open up) and other generic things that one thinks of when they think of motorcycles, classic or roadster types.

I was wondering whether this is some round about way to punitively harass outlaw motorcycle gangs and by proxy is causing grief to legitimate riders in NSW? The laws of this new standard serve no engineering benefit, no safety benefit, and no logical benefit besides outlawing things for the sake of outlawing them.

Having a mud flap has absolutely no purpose on the rear, for example, and most classic bikes like choppers and bobbers lack them, or have small duck tails. You cannot be struck by a rock from the rear due to, well, physics and the way the wheel moves. You cannot even be struck by mud at the rear given the aerodynamics of the wheel. In all probability, at a speed above a fast walking pace, you cannot even be spritzed with water.

Thus, what is the purpose of outlawing tens of thousands of motorcycles and making more criminals on the road (as the RTA oft. seem to do) beyond allowing a whole new surprise tax threshold of ‘customers’? By that I mean, is the RTA making these absurd pointless standards requirements so that they can then send out the police tyre biters to raise more state revenue? Because that is all it is doing.

Another issue, ape hangers. 38cm is the maximum height you can have the highest point of the handlebar above the steering yolk. Now I ride a cruiser, it’s little. Very little. In fact, most people would call me a punce for riding it. It’s completely stock, mind you. And yet the handlebars are 45 cm risen above the yolk at the highest point, 65 if you include the mirrors which are affixed thus part of the assembly. So basically I bought an illegal bike, and yet, every Yamaha cruiser manufactured in the last forty years is also illegal according to these standards.

That brings me to my final point. Most of the modifications listed in the Standard I am referring to are things most bikes have breached from manufacture. In fact, you can walk into ANY bike shop in NSW and find multiple bikes for sale all of which breach multiple entries of this standard. There’s six bobbers for sale and one chopper down at Penrith Yamaha right now. Four bobbers and one chopper at Campbelltown. These are all registered motorcycles, that have roadworthy ceritifcation.

So I put it to you that either the RTA’s farcical standards which have no impetus beyond making more riders criminals and potential tax collection points of state revenue are not only inconsistent but seem to turn a blind eye to the tens of thousands of motorcycles imported every week you can buy from a shop front perfectly registered and in stock condition that already breach these laws, leaving the rider open to harassment and fines by police.

Why would the RTA want to do this to the road users who obviously are the entire purpose the RTA have the pleasure of existing? These standards affect nothing, beyond making more criminals, and more fines, and more revenue for the state.

So, Ben Skeezy the slacktivist who embezzled millions of dollars in travel expenses to save children from a monster who left Uganda six years ago and hasn’t been heard of since has fired his counter shot after the broadside bloggers gave him (Myself, proudly, being one of the first noted by News Ltd.) and it fell short.

It’s spent very little on the people it’s claiming to protect, as the San Diego hipsters are found in various photos floating around weilding RPG’s and looking smug–albeit as fragile as Bambi in a bull pen–amongst a bunch of Ugandan soldiers. The irony lies in the fact that those who helped put the message out, are those most critical, and those firing afforementioned broadsides at these craptivists.

To add insult to injury the fuck knuckle admitted that the vast majority of missing funds on ‘transport’ also contributed to flights all over the world to help 3,000 people view his shitty videographical piece. 3,000 people got flown. To see. His shitty movie. If you’re not outraged by that more than by Kony baby-fucking his way through Africa and conveniently not being anywhere to seen when a bunch of ad hoc film makers who profess that ‘daddy catches bad guys for a living’ to their children and other vacuous lumps with the IQ on par with their retarded hipster babies, then you really need to unplug and gtfo the internet, as you really shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery.

And yes, if you’re that doltish, a computer is totally heavy machinery for your brain.

So, what can you do about this? Not much. RT articles pointing out what charlatans they are. I’ll look into possibly contacting a few people stateside to get their charity audited, yet beyond that even I’m pretty much powerless to stop shysters conning people for sympathy (and sadly money).

Although this has been a good lesson in why you need to think critically. You’ll notice in my propogation of the message (after watching the full video and doing a bit of internuts research thereafter) that I was cynical albeit skeptical in my approach but thought that it may be a worthy cause.

It’s just a shame the huge media giants and news companies out there aren’t as intellectually gifted and switched on as a mildly retarded gamer and tech blogger, huh?

“Here the high-waisted trousers no longer know what they are!” states one sassy anti sexpresso public servant. I don’t know what’s more amusing. Women bawwing that their husbands and boyfriends are going to a cafe with a scantly clad barista or her personal fan website’s horrible translation into English.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s made the news almost globally, that women of a certain town in Italy have b& their boys from visiting a specific cafe. The barista, Laura Maggi. works in a little cafe in Bagnolo Mella, near Brescia, and decided to spruce up business by wearing slutty outfits.

From PVC (ew, thrush factory!) to lacey underwear and even down to tassle-tittied pasties, she has a keen business acumen of how stupid desperate men will do anything for a bit of T&A. But aside from her slutty photos (which can be found all over the internets) the translation of her website had me in tears.

First and foremost, here are some links to her more provocative photos. (NSFW obviously)

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Laura+Maggi&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsuo&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1y9IT_uVOpCuiQeyw8SADg&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1680&bih=949

And more raunchy ones at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105339/Sexpresso-Wives-ban-husbands-visiting-Italian-cafe-busty-barmaid-serves-drinks-skimpy-outfits.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

But seriously, this part had me cacking myself. I love bad translations, it really is brilliant how batshit insane things can seem if translated, or worse, translate something from English to, say, Chinese and then back again. Go on, do it, I dare you. Either way you’ll probably get something more coherent than this (translated by Google Chrome on the fly):

PHOTOS – And Laura knows to be fair. Even more. Post all your photos on Facebook, before I hang them in his restaurant. And business is booming more than they say they are even tripled in the last year. Business is business? Do not you agree the mayoress of Bagnolo Mella. Indeed, ironically: “Here the high-waisted trousers no longer know what they are,” accuses the Mayoress Christine Almici. “Now the country is only known from the sexy bar. Here the towns furious, have even turned to the police. ” Really? “Sure. Ms. Maggi has been summoned to headquarters. It warned verbally. ” Someone has even given permission to work until late at night. “Permission has it, but I knew that would serve cocktails dressed like that? Give me time, I’m thinking of a measure. Here the public has gone to hell. “

I know a lot of you have been following this for the past month and a half, and I’ve gotten a few comments demanding an update since the install didn’t go trough yesterday so here goes.

Basically the tech was a no show, I sat around like a dick until 6, then spent the rest of the night trying to find out why.

After several hours on hold with intermittent conversations with the off shore call centre, I got absolutely no answer, and waited / spoke to them until my home phone went too flat to make it through another long hold period.

One tech was so terribad that I had to spell my username 8 times, 3 of those were phonetics (bravo alpha sierra hotel papa romeo zero mike papa tango!) to the point that I had to give her my old Telstra account details so she could copy paste my username and replace the o with a zero.

That call was the furthest I got, and once she began to realize it was a hard work call, she did what I’ve had two Telstra outsourced staff do so far, hung up on me. A well documented feature of whatever the call centre Telstra outsources to in the Phillipines.

(Check Whirlpool for hundreds of examples, although there’s no point filing official complaints because they can simply say the line died or the user hung up or some such, along with stupidly fake names, this outsourced call centre is a glorified answering service, if your problem is beyond year 7 computer science trouble shooting they’ll have an actual tech support worker from Australia (or Egypt, those guys are really good!) call you back ‘within 2-3 business days’) to address the problem!)

I was chasing it up by 8:30 this morning and pretty much spent the entire day waiting again. Thankfully a bloke named Russ chased the issue up, and after a run around himself told me that the technician ‘rang the customer on their mobile’ but ‘couldn’t get through’.

Now I don’t know about you, but if you book me as a plumber to install a hot water heater, and I know you don’t have one and have taken 1.5-2 months of fuck ups to finally book me that on the day when you lose a day of work sitting there, if I can’t get you on your mobile, it doesn’t mean you suddenly changed your mind and don’t want a hot water heated installed.

Fuck, calling is a courtesy, but I would rock up and do the fucking job, because that’s what the customer and every sane person would expect.

What’s more, the idiot didn’t even ring THE PRIMARY CONTACT NUMBER FOR THE ACCOUNT, he rang a secondary / emergency / technical contact not the primary.

WHO DOES THAT?

Either way, I pointed out yesterday that if the wait is another month, or even a week, it may be more prudent not to go ahead with the service transfer of all things to Telstra.

I pointed out to Russ that on completion I’ll be publishing my Optus logs, revealing how terribad they are, and giving a solid well documented consumer point of view like lots of bloggers do these days (hell, half the way I decide on purchases of goods and services is based on contemporaneous consumer notations of customer experience.

However at present my Telstra logs are now bigger than my Optus log and I’m not even officially a customer of theirs yet at the new house! So if this is what goes on when they haven’t got you yet and should be doing anything they can to court your business, what happens when I’m locked in a contract for two years?

This afternoon Russ emailed me and told me that I’m rebooked in for the 27th, which is one week after its due date and thus falls into my ‘if it’s another two months or hell even if it’s another week’ deal breaker term. I pointed out the time is a bit much and asked if there’s anything sooner. So we’ll see if Telstra can redeem itself.

I have, however, also tweeted @ InterNode and iiNet letting them know I’m open to courting if their VIP management teams want to grab another high profile gamer and blogger. I’ve since received contact from iiNet yet nothing from InterNode, yet.

I’ll wait for Telstra’s next response before getting into too much conversation. But while I’m theoretically locked in contract, I have at all times stressed expediency is the most integral element of this deal, and have had provision made to me that they understand and will act accordingly.

This is enough, in a consumer situation where you’re being fucked around, to be able to exit from the contract with no breaking fees, even AFTER installations take place, etc. So thanks to the fact Australia has good consumer protection, unlike our poor chaps over in the US who pretty much have no rights, there is still course for resolution.

Anyway, there you have it, now stop asking! :)

I’ve tried to humor the OptusNet connection at my new place, but it’s become absolutely intolerable. After several technician call outs, I found their tech support department more often than not didn’t give a shit, and were a glorified outsourced answering service who’d then send a real technician or organise a call back from one, after asking you stupid questions about your home computer (which if you have four laptops and three PC’s plus two tablets and three iPhone’s running in the house, both cabled and uncabled, all manifesting the same problem, is moot, but DON’T TELL THEM THAT, you confuse them and they go into a loop of death).

After a day trying to talk to their social media team to no avail, I rang their outsourced answering machine and spoke with ‘Snita’ (pronounced saneetsa), explained the problem and was told that it’s the $300 NetGear 3000 they sold me three weeks ago after claiming it was the NetGear 2000 they’d sold me several months prior. I wasn’t going to humor another modem purchase and politely called bullshit and explained that the waveform of speed tests run indicate a fluctuation in line quality dB and nothing to do with the modem (all diagnostics showed it was fine) but she didn’t understand.

She told me that ‘NetGear and Optus are aware of this problem and are working together to fix it as soon as possible, so if the problem is still happening in a few weeks’ I should call back. Again, politely called her out on it. She ran through a bunch of pointless diagnostics, which I humored (I actually did, to my chagrin, I even rebooted my modem and PC and hard wired up) only to have her say ‘I’ll connect you to a NetGear technician.’ and I was like no no no dude, I don’t want NetGear, I want a linesman. Again I broke another Optus outsourcer by asking them to think outside the square, she fell into circular reasoning and speech and again went on about ‘I asked earlier if you had another modem (she didn’t actually) because we could get you to use that for a few weeks until the problem is fixed, but if you don’t we will have to call NetGear’.

I again stated that the modem is absolutely fine, the line quality is so terrible and slipping out of band from the infrastructure outside that even the cable television is affected (both use the ‘black sausage’ coax that SingTel Optus services run through in Australia) and there was dead silence for about ten seconds, maybe more, then a click and the busy signal.

Yes. An Optus tech supporter did what the Whirlpool forum is full of statements of Optus tech supporters doing. Fucker hung up because the problem was too hard and she couldn’t be fucked dealing with it.

I called back and escalated to a L3 TL or floor manager and explained everything again in painful detail, he ordered a lines man to come around on Friday, and wanted to chase Snita up, but I pointed out all she has to say is ‘The line died.’ or ‘The user hung up.’ and there’s no way to prove the contrary so it’s pointless.

I asked if there’s a feedback email for Optus I could have, nope. I asked if there’s a complaints department, sadly it’s only open 9-5 because it’s like the only department Optus haven’t outsourced yet. I’ll give them a call tomorrow and link to this.

But in the meantime, I want to stress as much as I can, if you use Optus, Optus anything, don’t. Just @Telstra and link to this article and they’ll do you a good deal to swap over to them. Replacing two Optus TV hook ups, an Optus phone and OptusNet cable has me saving about $30 per month AND I’m getting full proper HD (no laggy fucking press a button and six seconds later the channel changes too!) along with a 100 mbit down 1 mbit up (I’ll admit the 1 mbit up is utterly moronic and restrictive, bringing the 100 mbit down to around 70 mbit down usable) along with a ping that is realistic, Optus the best I got was just under 100 ms. I got that on an ISDN in 1996.

Another problem you’ll find with OptusNet internet is that they cache all big sites like YouTube, etc. So you’ll be pulling 10mbit+ on a speed test, yet you can’t stream a 240p YouTube video without letting it butter for three times the duration of the video. One way to prove they cache YouTube specifically is, download the same video or movie you’re watching on YouTube from a torrent site, if you’re getting 25 k/s down on BitTorrent or higher, that’s about 1 second of footage every 0.75 seconds of download, thus enough to stream. Then go to YouTube and grab the same content, at the same resolution, and watch it have to buffer over and over again.

Mind you if you ask them about this they plead ignorant, or if you call them out on it they duck and run.

Worst part is, they always insist you use some shitty in house speed test (speedtest.syd.optusnet.com.au) which is a total scam. If you don’t believe me, disconnect your modem completely after loading the page, then run a speed test. You’ll get a 10ms – 20ms ping from the Optus server. A server that it cannot possibly communicate with because the coax is removed. You’ll also find it’s speed measures usually 10mbit down higher than ANY other industry standard speed testing medium and 2-3mbit up higher than the same.

Anyway, I’m fucking done. I tried to be patient, I tried to work with them. I’m going to demand a refund for the past months we’ve been having problems, demand a refund for this stupid fucking useless modem they forced us to buy, and if they don’t pay the fuck up I’m going to go to the TIO and Department of Fair Trading and make them hurt. Just filing with those two companies forces the investigated party to have to pay a high administration fee for the pleasure of having their arses investigated for being douchebags.

After waiting ten minutes to connect to a Battlefield 3 server only to get maybe 20 seconds game time before a drop out hit, all fucking day, wasting my only real me-day this week, I’m fuming.

Anyway, enough ranting for one post. Don’t use Optus. They’re ALMOST as bad as TPG. Almost.

Ok, you know I hate being a cynical arsehole who points out blatently obvious things in an intellectually arrogant way and rubs a companies face into it to humilitate them for your pleasure and amusement, dear reader, but I must.

I’ve noticed how easy it would be if I use bit.ly as my main shortening site, and then anyone who gets a random combination of six or so random letters and numbers can just add in the rest in their browser, especially given how much content I put out in peak periods.

I realised however that the more I did that, the more I’s and l’s, or O’s and 0′s, and other such things can become confusing with various fonts of various phone operating systems through SMS (text messaging, for my mentally handicapped friends) and that if they were removed, and say, a seventh slot added, it would expand the variability of URL’s to allow more traffic from their end, along with eliminating you sending your mother to a lolcat only for her to accidentally be URL hijacked to goatse.

So, I have blogged, and I shall email this blog post to them, and update you all with the reply I get.

Edit: Almost one month and no reply to my email to Blacktown City Council, or their pound, and no reply from the @blacktowncc social media team.

Note to Blacktown City Council’s PR department reading this: There is a note at the end of this so you understand just how horrible a mess you’ve got yourselves in.

My cat disappeared for a night a couple of days ago, but reappeared in the middle of the night. The next morning, she vanished again. Turns out she was abducted by some moron who thought she was a stray, from our front yard, and taken to their home where she caused a fuss until they let her go the first night, assumedly, and the next time they took her to the pound. Now, I’m not saying they’re dickheads, they probably thought they were doing the right thing in some twisted bunny boiler bizarre way, but .. well, they’re dickheads.

But the biggest dickhead of this entire encounter is Blacktown City Council. The Companion Animals Act 1998 has provisions for animals born before the date it came in, which includes my cat, however on arriving at the pound they insisted I fork out $350 or there abouts, for ‘Lifetime Registration’, microchipping, and her stay. Now these are things I didn’t ask for, and if it weren’t for the negligence of the idiot who catnapped her in the first place, and these are things I wouldn’t have to do per the act. However, I was directed to the usual scabby print outs on walls of misquoted legislation you get at places that deal with people who might not be too impressed getting surprise blackmailed for their pets. It cited a subclause of a clause of a regulation of an act,[1] whereas the ACT itself said she is exempt. The parenthetical terms that they based their entire ransom on was ‘including a council pound’.

Now statutory interpretation is a very fickle fiend. That’s sarcasm, it’s written in plain English and is pretty simple to understand, especially if you apply a purposive evaluation of the legislation or look to extrinsic materials that were used in the framing period such as reading speeches. Either way, unless an act states that it is retroactive it isn’t. So my argument that the act didn’t apply to her was valid. The regulation on the wall was also invalid, even if it were valid it would be a stretch.

The problem with this situation is, you’ve lost your pet, you’re in a tizz, you heard from a neighbor that some dickhead took it, then suddenly you’re at a front desk desperate to get your pet out and they’re telling you all these things and costs you have to do and pay which always include extortionate fees from the state government in the way of the constant ‘surprise taxation’ I keep telling my international viewers about. To resolve this situation I would have to had gone and gotten an injunction from the local courthouse, which would take a week, or I have to pay the ransom and let them hurt my elderly cat who’s just recovering from a very, very serious operation which was extremely touch and go, most of you might remember that.

I had booked in to visit my vet, he asked to bring her to him if she had to be chipped, so he could do it under anaesthetic to lessen the trauma and injury. This wasn’t accepted. I understand the people there were doing there job, and they were very empathic to the situation, but the bottom line is this is a disgusting and inappropriate act. We are the only state in the country, and one of two countries in the world where it’s mandatory to chip or register, and I understand the purpose of it, however it could be resolved with an ear tattoo, or a collar and tag, registerable online by the owner, bringing the entire administrative costs to $0 and the physical cost incurred to a few bucks. If the PURPOSE of this rubbish is to ensure animals are registered and reduce lost animals / increase returns, this would be the approach, as I guarantee you every owner would do it, breeders, stores, and adoption agencies could foot the $2 bill and give them away, hell I’d even throw a few grand into a public fund to launch such a scheme.

But I truly and utterly don’t believe the purpose of this is so Blacktown City Council, or the NSW Government, can look after the well being of companion animals, and believe beyond any doubt it is just another underhanded little fee that adds to the entire most-taxed-nation-on-earth along with compounded surprise taxes along the way.

Microchipping is a cool idea, but it’s cruel, painful, and uneccessary (the latter as I outlined above), it uses a 12-14 guage needle, and is done without anaesthetic, even when I asked if anaesthetic could be used, and offered to pay extra, I was told they can’t and aren’t taught to do it that way. I discussed it with a staff member there, who assured me it’s not very painful to the animal and they don’t show pain. I countered that that’s because the animals are all shitting themselves because they just got shanked by a stranger in a strange place so they’ll just go limp and take whatever is done to them or flip out, the latter often being put down to circumstance.

He was reassuring and very professional, I must say, although I did challenge him and ask if he’d microchip himself. He explained that it’d hurt him, and if he got stabbed in the neck with it he’d be hospitalized and probably need stitches. I pointed out that whilst I believe he believes they don’t feel pain, 80+ years ago we believed animals don’t feel pain at all because they have ‘no soul,’ and pointed out that common sense would say a giant piece of steel piercing your flesh will hurt like a bitch. I also pointed out that while he’d be scared of getting stabbed with it, it’s 20 times larger for a cat who’s 20 times smaller than a human, so it’d be like getting shanked with a bayonette.

The reason I’m making a big deal out of this is because I have been ambushed by the system, had my cat ransomed to me, and it was all done in a way that assured I did not have access to legal remedy in a way that I could take my cat and we could settle the matter civilly at a later point, the fact their rules and regulations force you to have to either do as they say to get your pet then chase it up later, or abandon your pet for a week to a month (by which point it may probably be up for adoption or destroyed) is utterly ridiculous in a civilised nation in 2012.

Blacktown City Council, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, as should the NSW Government or any body supporting this nonsense. I spent the car ride home covered in blood, trying to settle an injured animal down that was bleeding profusely (I’ve only just finally stopped the bleeding, an hour later, and she’s in serious discomfort and pain from it) all because some dickhead decided to try and steal my pet. You’ve made a victim of crime a victim of the system, without reason, rationality, or common sense applied anywhere therein. You’ve taken away my constitutional right to legal remedy by holding my animal ransom. And you’ve pissed off the wrong nerd.

Note: The people at the animal holding facility were fantastic, professional, and did Blacktown Council more justice than they should have, so I don’t want this in any way to reflect badly on them. They were obeying idiotic internal rules and regulations enforced on them by some desk jockey twenty miles away who has no idea of the internal running of the facility, and clearly has no common sense. It just makes me disgusted even more that such fantastic employees have to also suffer this idiocy. The entire costs came to approx. $200 as she was desexed, etc, etc, but could have exceeded $350 as I was first appraised on the phone including holding and sustenance.

[1] Companion Animals Regulation 2008 (3) 23, which also is not retroactive and thus still not valid to the animal in question if it was born prior to 2008. Meaning they don’t need to be registered or chipped if they were born before 1998, and the ‘once they turn up here they have to be’ part doesn’t apply if they were born prior to 2008. This doesn’t mean that the regulation itself isn’t completely moronic and just good old New South Wales revenue raising.

Email sent to Blacktown City Council on the issue, to see what kind of escalation I can get about their horribly moronic practices:

Dear Sir / Madam,

Just touching base further to our conversation today when I picked up Mang (now known as Prisoner 00546) relating to the Companion Animals Act 1998. I wish to have this issue looked into and escalated, and hope to at least provide some form of systemic change to allow staff members, who are clearly experienced in animal management, to have the right to discretion in these matters.

I investigated what I had said about the Act not being retroactive, nor the Regulations, and on returning home and examining the regulations in full on AustLII I found that it isn’t retroactive. Meaning any animal born before the end of 1998 need not be forcibly microchipped and registered, and the parenthetical of the subclause of the clause of the Regulation of the Act on the wall is spurious at best but could only be applied to animals born after 2008.

The purpose of the legislation is obvious, and the reasoning for it not including animals born before X date is to prevent having to register an animal that is probably on it’s last legs anyway. With statutory interpretation, common sense rules. Our laws are written so the average person can understand them, and if it were meant to apply to animals before a date, it will say so. In a situation like this, I was left with the alternative of seeking my constitutionally afforded access to legal remedy but at a cost of not having my animal released into my custody for the duration of the matter, which could be weeks to months. Or to agree to what I am told and do as I am told to get my pet back.

The logical way of handling this in the best interest of the animal, the owner, and most definitely the pound itself–given that my address, and contact details, and registered state identification were surrendered in the retrieval process and that chipping and registration were to occur at my private vet at a 2PM appointment–would be to release the animal into the custody of the owner pending resolution of the matter.

Most people will not follow these situations up because they’re just thankful and relieved to have their animal back, but that is how horrible and unjust issues fly under the radar and go so long without being repealed or remedied.

I do strongly wish to stress however that your staff were extremely professional, courteous, and patient in handling this matter and I commend this thoroughly. You have done Blacktown City Council more justice than they deserve on this issue. But the whole matter becomes even more disgusting when staff members’ hands are tied by desk jockeys who have only a pen and paper understanding of the running of the facility.

On leaving this morning, my cat has yet to cease showing signs of extreme discomfort from the implant, and is walking crouched (as they do when they have something stuck to their fur) and growling if touched or approached, all extremely out of character for a super friendly, loving, affectionate animal that behaves more like a loyal dog than a cat, inclusive of obedience to commands or even hand signals. It took me half an hour to stop the bleeding.

On a brief review of chipping practice, local anaesthetic appears to be (and rightly so, it’s illogical not to) the norm for everywhere but Australia, with most private vets seeming to opt for it also, given that it would be the equivalent of a human being stuck with a bayonet on a size based ratio with a pager being shoved under their skin between their shoulder blades.

This practice could be averted with a collar and tag, or ear tattoo, costing a few dollars, with owners filling out the registration on line at a central database. I’d even hazard a guess that adoption agencies, animal welfare groups, and animal rights organisations would give collars and tags with e-registration methods away free of charge. If the purpose of registration and chipping is in the interest of animals and owners, then the current system is not the way as people will only do it when forced to. I honestly believe the purpose of registration is revenue raising by the state government, as from my reading on the matter none of the funding goes into the hands of the pound or to companion animal care.

The practice itself is something that cannot be resolved at this level, and I am aware of this, but the manner in which the practice is meted out while animals are held ransom is inappropriate in a civilised society. The fact that staff are not given the discretion to waive this issue, or handle it within their professional judgment being persons who are on the front lines and dealing with the reprocussions of silly policies is even worse than the practice itself.

Note to Blacktown City Council: My blog has a demographic reach of in excess of 40 times your cities population. It provides more exposure than a prime time television advertising campaign operated for in excess of a month on Australian television. The demographic includes many celebrities, influential people, and people you really don’t want to look like a complete dick in front of. Congratulations.

In another example of why I often ask why I live in this police state of Australia, we have a ridiculous incident, on par with the constant police chases that lead to OUR deaths chasing petty criminals, through to Victorian Police’s not forgotten reputation of shooting dozens of people a year who are entirely unarmed ‘by accident’.

This is a good example, a bunch of kids hold a party, it gets ‘out of control’, the cops rock up and no one wants to talk to them, so the police try and force entry, the kids lock themselves indoors, then the cops call in the entire Tactical Response Group in the middle of the night for a ‘tense six hour stand off’, fuck knows what was tense about it, you’ve got body armor wearing goons with MP5′s versus unarmed 16 year olds who’re terrified and don’t want to move let alone talk to the cops.

This entire operation would have probably cost us tax paying fools tens of thousands of dollars of misappropriated police funding, aside from the fact we’re the only country in the world that, for an extremely low crime rate, arm our police with assault weaponry, handguns, chemical weapons, electrical weapons, melee weapons, body armor, the most expensive encrypted radio network in the world and heavily modified luxury sports cars that break in at $120 a pop which they then proceed to use to hoon around for no reason or do doughnuts in up near the old drive-in theatre in Blacktown.

Anyway, read the article, you’ll be QQing at how the media even tried to pretend this was legitimate news and not a shocking and disgusting example of police over-reaction and typical thuggery of a law enforcement culture that thinks it’s NYPD versus crips when our crims are so low key and laughable … well, the UK has 8 times our crime rate, 40 times our population, and their cops aren’t even armed!

A TENSE five and a half hour siege in Melbourne’s west has been ended peacefully by police today.
Heavily armed police surrounded a Deer Park property, in Melbourne’s west, after a group of teens locked themselves inside and refused to come out.

Police were called to the scene about 3.30am when neighbours complained that a party had got out of control with windows broken and damage caused to neighboring cars and houses.

Police had been told a gun had been brandished at the party and were today still investigating the claim despite not finding one at the property this morning.

When occupants of the house – aged between 16 and 20 – refused to leave the house to speak to police Special Operations Group officers, uniformed police and the dog squad blocked off the suburban street and ordered about 11 people out of the house.

Using megaphones, police coerced several people out of the house and took them away one by one in hand cuffs for questioning.

But it was not until just before 9am that the end finally ended when the final person surrendered to police as officers threatened to storm the house at gunpoint.

Several charges are expected to be laid in relation to the siege which came a day after a 23-year-old man was charged in relation to a siege at Werribee.

This is a binding and open declaration regarding my comments on various networks which I frequent to donate all digital currencies transferred to paypal account (bashprompt [at] ymail [dot] com) to the Golinski family, should Matt Golinski not make it, to the burns unit that treated him and to assist with the funeral funding required for Matt, his wife, and children.

For those who have not heard of this Christmas day tragedy, there is an article below related to it. It’s possibly one of the worst fucking things I’ve heard of someone going through in my life, so I feel it only right to use my social network presence to attempt to provide some relief financially to Matt Golinski or those who are currently trying to make sure this tragedy doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

THEY were childhood sweethearts and best friends.
By all accounts, Matt Golinski and his wife Rachael always put their marriage and children first – never compromising on the importance of family.
“I’ve known Matt for a decade (and) he’s the embodiment of a family man,” friend and fellow chef Alastair McLeod said.
“It was an extraordinary and profound relationship that they (Rachael and Matt) had . . . it really struck me just how loving they were and what a lovely husband and father he was.”
A blaze, which erupted at the couple’s Sunshine Coast home about 3.30am yesterday, claimed the lives of Rachael and daughters Starlia, Sage and Willow.
Mr Golinski was left in a critical condition with burns to 40 per cent of his body.
McLeod, who works with Matt on TV show Ready Steady Cook and is executive chef at Brisbane restaurant Brett’s Wharf, said to put your family first and cook for a living was like “an oxymoron” but that Matt had made it work.
“He’s proudly parochial, a real staunch advocate for the Sunshine Coast and all the produce of the Sunshine Coast, but he does put his family first,” he said. “He’s a lovely man and my heart goes out to him.
“There was no bombast with Matt, no ego with him, (he’s) a real gentleman.
“I’ve had other chefs from around the country call me today just (to say) ‘anything we can do to help’. There’s a lovely fraternity that exists, but it also just shows the regard in which Matt is held.
“It’s just an absolute tragedy, an absolute tragic end, real harrowing stuff.”
Residents of Jacaranda Place – a normally peaceful cul-de-sac brimming with palm trees and kids having fun on trampolines and in pools – were struggling with the enormity of the tragedy.
Neighbours such as Gary Saljic rushed to help when they heard an explosion in the early hours of yesterday.
They grabbed hoses, moved cars and warned those who lived closest to evacuate.
Others tried to help the badly burnt Mr Golinski as he lay screaming in pain waiting for paramedics to arrive.
Unfortunately, with the three-bedroom timber and Colorbond home an inferno, there was nothing that could be done to save Mrs Golinski and the girls.
Mr Saljic, among the first on the scene, said not being able to do anything to save the family would haunt him: “There was nothing anyone could do.”

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/chef-matt-golinski-lived-for-the-love-of-his-family-rachael-starlia-sage-and-willow/story-e6frfkvr-1226230880085#ixzz1hf5qNAxk

I’ve got to say, Reddit came up top in the ‘link crap to friends’ circle during the early 00′s, but the main detriment I’ve found, and a reason I find myself using it less and less (and equally giving less and less of a shit about it) is the fact that if you do use it, actively engage in it as a community, you just can’t fucking do anything.

What do I mean? Well, you post a few comments, maybe (heaven fucking forbid!) get into a conversation with someone, and next thing you know you get a warning in angry red text of: You are doing that too much, try again in 8 minutes.

I mean, what the fuck? Isn’t the point of a circle jerk cool-stuff-on-the-internet type website to engage your viewers and have them actively participate in the circle jerking wasting precious hours of their finite existence? I’d say yes, but apparently the idiots at Reddit HQ don’t seem to think that’s the point.

I’m posting this out of sheer frustration, and because I have a 10,000,000+ reader demographic through all social network cascading of this post, and direct surf-in views of my blog, and I really, really hope that if enough of us complain, we can maybe, just maybe, get them to remove that bullshit. I mean, sure, have some form of count down to prevent spammers, but EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES? In 2011 8 minutes is practically a lifetime on the interwebs!

Go here and upvote if you agree: http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/nhwt8/dear_reddit_please_remove_this_its_full_of_dicks/

As you may, or may not be aware, a couple of days back Christopher Hitchens died. Journalist, philosopher, and all around original troll, he challenged secular (religious, for religious folks reading this, I know you guys don’t understand big words) society and morality in many public debates, and always won.

Lots of YouTube videos show great examples of this, and lots of try hard religious nuts try and pull his arguments apart with stupid anecdotal claims.

One of his seminal works (really important book, for religious types) was named God Is Not Great, he, like I, is a fan of the provocative title line and slug. It’s actually a very good read, I recommend grabbing a copy.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. It became a trending topic on Twitter. Within hours, religious nuts started to rage, threatening atheists with death and physical violence, threatening Twitter demanding it be taken down, and just all around proving that religious people aren’t just mentally handicapped, but psychopathic.

Twitter, disgustingly, bowed to their pressure and removed the topic along with #Hitchens. One of the greatest minds of the 21st century was censored into oblivion by their cowardly management. I can’t even express my rage on the issue, censorship is abhorrent, it’s one thing filtering out anything involving Bustin’ Jeeber, but seriously, what the fuck?

Anyway, here are a few great examples of replies that were tagged with the #GodIsNotGreat hash tag from theists: -

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/25-dumbest-reactions-to-godisnotgreat

This is pretty embarrassing, as an Australian, to see our environment minister tuck his balls between his legs and sing soprano. Keep in mind when reading this that the Japanese ‘coast guard’ (which is weasel words for ‘navy’, but they’re not legally allowed a navy after WWII, but a brief google-fu will show you they act like, are trained like, and operate like any standing navy (swimming navy?) in the world. And for the last few whaling seasons, the Japanese whalers’ coast guard detachment have shot several anti-whalers (google again for the ACTUAL footage from gun shot to removal of bullet from vests) and made attempts on several anti-whalers lives, as well as fired live ordnance flash bang grenades (which was whitewashed as ‘pyrotechnic distraction devices’ and claimed not to be exclusive for military and law enforcement use) as well as other stupidity.

tl;dr: Tony Burke is a tosser for jeapordising lives and not enforcing our laws on our oceans to protect our citizens. He should be ashamed of himself, and international readers, trust me when I say this, this guy is NOT a typical example of an Aussie, in fact he’s shown all of the qualities we’d deem unaustralian.

Captain Paul Watson spoke personally to Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke while attending the Australian Antarctic Expedition’s 100^th year anniversary dinner in Hobart on December 1^st.

Captain Paul Watson: Mr. Burke will you be sending a ship to keep the peace this year?

Tony Burke: That’s not going to happen.

Captain Paul Watson: I think it would be the responsible thing for Australia to do considering the potential threat from the whalers who have indicated they intend to be far more aggressive this season.

Tony Burke: Look, Japan requested that we send a ship to protect their ships from you. If we turned them down it’s only fair that we deny your request also.

Captain Paul Watson: Well, except for one thing. Our ships carry Australian citizens on our crew and we will be in the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters and it is your duty to protect Australian waters and Australian citizens.

Tony Burke: (shakes Captain Watson’s hand) It’s nice to meet you and stay safe down there.

Captain Watson said after that conversation, “I wonder what the Minister will say if the Japanese injure any Australian citizens in Australian waters? I think this is grossly irresponsible of the government to refrain from due diligence in keeping the peace. Australia has stated that Japanese whaling is illegal and they recognize that it is being carried out in waters claimed by Australia. They know that Australian lives will be at risk and yet they refuse to get involved.”

I’m kidding. Anyone who supports the death penalty is a pathologically disturbed fuckwit who needs psychiatric help, no level of rationalisation or anecdotal commentary can ignore the fact that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime, and offers not a societal betterment, but a blood-revenge for angry victims and family. Yes, I’m openly saying if you support the death penalty you’re a fuckwit, know why? Because only one first world country still practices it. I’m looking at you Americunts.

Now, that being said, here’s a story about a fat hairy man in short shorts: -

Shahram Forozandeh is being prosecuted by the Transport, Energy and Infrastructure Department over an alleged breach of the state’s taxi driver uniform standards.

The department claims he wore blue jeans “with orange stitching” but the Passenger Transport Act requires him to wear dress pants.

In another case this week, a driver was charged for allegedly obscuring his white dress shirt with a jacket.

Yesterday Bill Gonis, manager of public transport for the State Government, said uniforms were an important part of driver compliance.

“It’s especially important at this time of year that the public has confidence that taxi drivers are properly accredited and professional in the way they present themselves,” he said.
“Wearing proper uniform is one way to ensure a driver is complying with the regulations.”

Mr Forozandeh, 44, of Brooklyn Park, has pleaded not guilty to one count of failing to wear a uniform as specified.

Giving evidence yesterday, Senior Transport Compliance Safety Officer Larry Cutufia said he issued an on-the-spot fine at Victoria Square on January 20.

“I knew they were jeans because of the colour, the material, the studs on the pockets and the predominately orange stitching on the seams,” he said. “That’s not wearing the proper uniform (of) navy blue, brown or black business-style trousers.”

Mr Cutufia said Mr Forozandeh claimed his work pants “had been ripped” and declined to step out of the taxi to be photographed.

Mr Forozandeh, representing himself, challenged Mr Cutufia’s account.

“You cautioned me that morning, you did not fine me on the spot … I did not receive the fine until May,” he said. “You cautioned me, I took a fare to Darlington and you decided to fine me after I left.”

Outside court, Mr Gonis said compliance officers were not required to meet a fines quota.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/cabbie-in-court-for-wearing-denim-jeans/story-e6frfkvr-1226217443144#ixzz1fvl2bkqj

Typical puff piece, it amazes me how retarded the press are (especially News Ltd.) when it comes to anything digital. They’ll call anything a cyber attack, virus, or hack. They really don’t think before they write. This is a puff piece on … I don’t even fucking know anymore. I know they waffle about Stuxnet a lot, which was the biggest non-event in digital history.

Also, clearly none of them are Battlestar Galactica fans or they’d know the cure is to not use networked computers, duh. Schooled, Edward James Olmos style.

The fact everyone pulled their diplomats out of Iran, and then the US UAV drone was shot down on the border, I think we all know what middle eastern country we will be ‘liberating’ and ‘bringing freedom’ to next. ._.

Anyway, here’s the puff piece: -

THE CIA is the chief suspect behind a computer virus dubbed the world’s first cyber “super weapon” that attacked an Iranian nuclear plant.
Experts believe it was so sophisticated it could have only been invented by designers with the backing of a nation state.
The launch of Stuxnet in 2010 marked the transformation of viruses into weapons of war.
It was purpose-built to attack Iran’s Busehr nuclear plant, overriding and controlling circuits inside the plant to cause physical damage.
“With Stuxnet we have opened a new chapter in human history,” says Ralph Langner, the security expert who unravelled the attack.
“There is now no way we can stop or control the proliferation of cyber weapons.”
The sheer sophistication of the attack dazzled experts. It exploited four separate vulnerabilities in Windows to penetrate and override industrial control systems designed by Siemens.
It would have taken experts months to design.
The Stuxnet attack was proof that the software in many industrial plants was vulnerable to attack.
Since then, there has been increased interest in the idea both from researchers and potential attackers.
Other software has “copied” Stuxnet, raising the alarming possibility of attackers simply downloading such weapons and unleashing them at will.
Nations across the world have long warned that future wars will include cyber assaults.
Potential targets include power plants, pipelines and air traffic control systems.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/cia-suspected-for-super-weapon-attack-on-iranian-nuclear-plant/story-e6frfro0-1226216902746#ixzz1fvS9VELZ

This article disgusted me enough I am breaking my tradition of trying to stay light and fluffy to bring it to you.

I don’t know why us westerners like to pretend we’re ‘liberating’ middle eastern nations from evil batshit insane muslims when we just put equally batshit insane muslims in their place. From Iraq to Afghanistan, Libya and Egypt, all deposed leaders are ‘tyrants’ allegedly, and are replaced with an islamic counsel of equally sociopathic tyrants, just more of them cashing in that leadership pay cheque now.

Most of you know my regular saying; where there is poverty, starvation, death, mass murder, rape, hunger and disease, there is islam. Coincidence? I think not. It’s the same blight like cancer eroding human rights as christianity was in the dark ages; although we should know better now, with most people having no real belief system aside from the token gesture one they’re born into (and most definitely very few people of higher education having any faith at all) we really ought to be more enlightened to human rights and liberties.

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of a woman who was jailed for adultery after being raped – but she now faces having to marry her attacker.
The move came after some 5000 people signed a petition for the release of the woman, named Gulnaz, who has served two years in prison after a relative raped her at her home.
She has been raising the child she had by her attacker in a prison cell in Kabul.
The case again highlights the poor state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, 10 years after a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban who were notorious for their harsh laws against women.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan today, it emerged that a teenage girl and her family were sprayed with acid after apparently rejecting a marriage proposal for her.
Following the outcry over Gulnaz’s case, Mr Karzai called a meeting where judicial officials decided to pardon her, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi said today.
But the officials also said that Gulnaz should marry the man who attacked her, due to fears she could be in danger if released because of the stigma surrounding her attack in ultra-conservative Afghanistan.
She consented to the union, Mr Faizi said.
“She agreed to the marriage but only if his (the attacker’s) sister marries Gulnaz’s brother,” the spokesman said, explaining that this was a way to try to ensure Gulnaz was not attacked by the man in future.
Mr Faizi insisted that her release from prison was not dependent on her agreeing to marry the attacker.
Violence against women in Afghanistan appears to be increasing rather than decreasing, despite billions of dollars of international aid that has poured into the country during the decade-long war.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2700 cases for the whole of 2010.
Some 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the charity Oxfam.
Last week, the United Nations said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had only been used to prosecute just more than 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.
In the acid attack, a 17-year-old girl called Mumtaz was seriously injured when caustic liquid was sprayed on her face by masked gunmen who broke into her home in the northern city of Kunduz on Monday, her father said.
Her mother and four sisters also suffered burns in the attack after they were splashed with the acid aimed at Mumtaz, Sultan Mohammad said.
“It was midnight,” Mr Mohammad said from his hospital bed.
“They entered my home by force, they started beating me and put me in a big bag. They moved in and started beating my wife and daughters and before leaving, they sprayed acid on my daughter’s face.”
Mumtaz, who is hardly able to speak and is also still in hospital, said: “First they beat me, they beat my mother and sisters and then they threw acid on my face.”
Mr Mohammad blamed a former militia commander who had proposed marriage to Mumtaz but was rejected by the family.
“A man asked for her hand. We rejected (him) and our daughter was engaged to someone else. I suspect that man might be behind this,” he said.
The attackers fled the scene before the police arrived.
Afghan Interior Minister Bismullah Mohammadi has “personally ordered” police to investigate and “administer justice to those responsible”, his office said.

On earth we use a network of sattelites in orbit to operate our global positioning systems. Most people know by now that those sat’s are reaching the end of their lives and ceasing to function or being burnt up as orbits decay. The US Government put the GPS in place for their military originally, so I understand their reluctance to replace it when their opposing forces often use their own GPS network against them for targeting of smart devices or navigation. Whilst the European space association is already begining to roll out a new network that is mean to be accurate down to the meter, another issue popped into my mind regarding the future of space travel and deep space investigations. How will satellites like Voyager 1 & 2 communicate back to earth when they’re half a light year away?

Radio waves are a very inferior form of technoloy compared to–say as was suggested in Project Longshot, a proposal to fly a space craft to Alpha Centuri (4.3LY)–a laser to transmit data. It was proposed that: -

“The reactor would also be used to power a laser for communications back to Earth, with a maximum power of 250 kilowatts. For most of the journey this would be used at a much lower power for sending data about the interstellar medium, but during the flyby the main engine section would be discarded and the entire power capacity dedicated to communications at about 1 kilobit per second.”

This brings into question the degree of accuracy of targetting a laser over such a vast distance as well as the dispersal of the photons over their travel back home, which would use the diffraction limited Airy disk, an angle of 1.22 times the ratio of the wavelength of light–lambda–to the diameter of the aperture–d–leading to a feature size of 2.44 * lambda/diameter * distance. This means with current technology of lasers over a 4.3LY distance you end up with an estimate of around 3M Kms bathing a large region of space in our solar system with the output.

The manner in which this can be mitigated, signal quality can be enhanced, and the overall chances of an aimed shot over such a distance of data being sent would be significantly improved with a series of SOLAR orbiting craft that act as detectors and relays of the information, cross-referencing material that is sent back to earth by a much more accurate and concentrated aimed shot with their onboard lasers to a reception device (or possibly a geo-orbital satellite to retain quality of downstream) on earth. Whilst this is a ‘not happening any time soon’ kind of matter, it is essential that such a network of communication relays be put into a solar orbit if we are to have any hopes of deep space exploration at any point in the future beyond the quality and means that radiowave communication can avail us; as it is there’s significant delay using radio waves even to astronauts on space stations, so utilising my favorite constant, c, would mean that it would be the fastest means of signal transfer, and with such a system in place, the most accurate and conclusive.

I was reading Wikipedia like you do. It’s not often I learn something new. But this is something I wish I could unlearn. Only read ahead if you’re fine with perpetually being grossed out forevermore.

“Most species evolved as the climate in Africa changed, to adjust their thermoregulation to the intense UV and sunlight at the equator, mostly by panting. Early hominids likely possessed fur similar to other large apes, but about 2.5 million years ago they developed a greater distribution of sweat glands that enabled them to perspire over most of the body. It is not clear whether the change in body hair appearance occurred before or after the development of sweat glands. Humans have eccrine sweat glands all over their bodies.[24] Aside from the mammary glands that produce a specialized sweat called milk, most mammals just have apocrine sweat glands on their armpits and loin. The rest of their body is covered in eccrine glands. There is a trend in primates to have increased eccrine sweat glands over the general surface of the body.[24] It is unclear to what degree other primates sweat in response to heat, however.”

You drank your mothers boob sweat! What’s more, you’re drinking cow crotch sweat right now as you sip your tea or coffee reading this. I never put two and two together, but they’re right! Fucked up? Yes. Very. D:<

CANNOT UNLEARN :’(

This is a written complaint in the way of a customer experience. I hope Xbox Australia actually read it, because they should be ashamed of themselves and the sub par service they offer, most companies do follow social network call outs, but given how difficult they make everything I won’t hold my breath.

(For social network henchmen of both companies, who don’t know who I am, My social network and readership of my blog and demographic reach is pretty epic, my webbie award nominations put me ahead of folks like Ellen Degeneres, hell I even trumped Stephen Fry, and we know how prolific a social network whore he is. So, to Xbox AND Playstation, don’t miss the opportunity to thumb around my numbers and figure out just how much having me as a customer is worth and let’s talk.)

Many years ago, I registered my email address, and when it asked where I was I listed Australia; at some point it nagged me to move my files to the Australian Live servers, I didn’t want to, and left them in the US. When I bought my Xbox and made my account, it accepted my billing info to pay my XBL subscription but rejected any attempt to buy or do anything as I was apparently in the United States.

This took several days worth of messing around to rectify, and rather than fixing it their end, Xbox made me abandon my gamer tag and adopt a shitty variant of it (xBaSHxPR0MPTx) and I can’t even paid gamer tag name change it, not that I should have to as it was their own incompetence.

I’ve had many, many troubles between then and now, but this is the kicker that has me about to step off as an Xbox player.

In July Lullssec hacked Xbox Live and posted a tonne of accounts online. Xbox claimed it was a lie and were all DOODLOL NO SRSLY. It wasn’t a lie, they had been hacked.

I hadn’t logged into the account they forced me to make since the day I opened it, and recently after trying to GIVE THEM MONEY to buy something and them rejecting ALL of my payment methods (including new ones I added that do work) I went to their billing site to edit it on my PC because I was sick of using a controller to type.

I couldn’t remember the account name, so I had to search it in my Xbox, on logging in I had a message saying that my account was suspended (the email, not the XBL) and I had to give them a mobile number for them to send a four digit code to.

I did so, and the SMS directed me to a website that wasn’t the website I was actually on asking for the confirmation. I disregarded this as yet another unprofessional Microsoft negligence of oversight, with all their thousands of sites all interlinked with no passport like they claim to provide for universal access, I just punched in the numbers.

155 emails. All in Mexicanese or something. Apparently I was Darby Eldred though, not a very Mexican name. No fucking idea. Two people were on my MSN messenger though, which was interesting as I had never used it, ever. I asked both of them if they knew who Darby Eldred was, or why they were on my MSN, they replied in moonspeak so I gave up. I resecured my account, then went back to the Xbox site.

I refreshed all my billing details (mind you my XBL gold membership comes out monthly with no problem at all) and kept being met with (aside from server lag on their site): Your payment instrument could not be authorized. Please contact your provider, or try a different payment option.

I entered every credit card I own to get the same message, I even entered two paypal accounts. All of the CC’s are fine and work elsewhere, as do the paypal accounts, but nope, no joy.

Either way, over the years I have wasted several days of my life chasing them up to fix their own fucking mistakes. The fact they deny that any accounts were hacked, and yet clearly my account was, and the date the emails started were conveniently the same month, is more of a sign of their inability to 1. offer a legitimate functional service, 2. make life easier for the consumer, 3. tell the truth.

So, I’m finally done. I’ve had enough of their shit, and I encourage any of you who are wondering why people prefer PC games over console games to seriously consider whether you play your Xbox enough for your subscription. If you don’t, cancel it. Every dollar you starve them will make them realise that their service dropping off will yield players dropping off also.

So, Xbox Australia, the ball is in your court. You can contact me at bashprompt@ymail.com or on +6145 003 BASH (2274) and tell me why you’re a big bunch of jerks who can’t run a business, fix my gamer tag back to what it should be, and fix my account so I can give you my money for your stupid products that are all overpriced in Australia (for international readers, over here we pay anywhere up to $150 per game, whereas you pay $20-30, and our Australian dollar is much stronger than the US dollar so there is absolutely no reasoning why) and a bloody good excuse as to why you make my life so hard.

If you choose not to, I’ll give you 31 days to give it a shot, then I’m open to communication from Playstation. Use the information as above, make me an offer, and win me as a gamer.

Round one. Fight!

If ANY supernatural powers existed, they’d be $1,000,000 richer courtesy of the James Randi Education Foundation who are still offering the same cheque since the 1970′s, unclaimed. So, if you know ANYONE who pretends they have powers, call them out, expose them, make them uncomfortable. It’s 2011, we shouldn’t suffer that kind of barbarity of the mind.

Psychic Sally is a scam artist. This is no surprise. Psychology Professor French writing in the Guardian exposed this behemoth she-beast and her exploitative ways the other day, I reproduce it here for your reading pleasure:

According to her website, Sally Morgan is “Britain’s best-loved psychic”. She is certainly a very successful psychic – she has just released her third book and is currently filming the third series of Psychic Sally on the Road for Sky LIVING. But an incident that took place a few days ago may cause a few of her fans to wonder whether Morgan is deserving of their adoration. Could it be that, like so many self-professed psychic superstars in the past, Morgan is nothing more than a self-serving con artist?

Let me describe what happened so that you can make up your own mind. On Monday 12 September, a caller named Sue phoned the Liveline show on RTÉ Radio 1, an Irish radio station. Sue said that she had attended Morgan’s show the previous night at the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin and had been impressed by the accuracy of the readings she made in the first half of the show.

But then something odd happened. Sue was sitting in the back row on the fourth level of the theatre and there was a small room behind her (“like a projection room”) with a window open. Sue and her companions became aware of a man’s voice and “everything that the man was saying, the psychic was saying it 10 seconds later.”

Sue believes, not unreasonably, that the man was feeding information to Sally through an earpiece attached to her microphone. For example, the voice would say something like “David, pain in the back, passed quickly” and a few seconds later Sally would claim to have the spirit of a “David” on stage who – you’ll never guess – suffered from back pain and passed quickly.

A member of staff realised that several people near the back of the theatre were aware of the mystery voice and the window was gently closed. The voice was not heard again.

Sue speculated, again not unreasonably given the history of psychic frauds, that the man was feeding Sally information that had been gathered by engaging members of the audience in conversation in the foyer before the show began. This is a technique widely used by psychic fraudsters, as audience members will naturally discuss with each other who they are hoping to hear from “on the other side”, how their loved one died, and so on.

Subsequent callers to the radio programme supported Sue’s account.

The theatre’s general manager, Stephen Faloon, claimed that the voice heard by the audience was actually the voices of two members of staff working for the theatre, not someone supplying information to Sally. Sally Morgan Enterprises also denied that the medium was being fed information during the show.

This episode is reminiscent of the exposure of faith healer Peter Popoff by James Randi in 1986. Popoff would wow his audiences by giving specific and accurate details of their medical problems before claiming to cure them with his divine powers. This information was, according to Popoff, provided to him directly by God. It was certainly an effective technique, as at this time Popoff was raking in around $4m per month (tax-free) from his poor, sick and uneducated followers.

Randi, with the assistance of investigator Alexander Jason, convincingly demonstrated that Popoff was actually receiving the “divine” information from his wife via a hearing aid. Following his exposure on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Popoff declared bankruptcy in 1987.

In a more rational world, that would have been the end of Popoff’s career as a faith healer. Sadly, we do not live in a rational world. Popoff is back, earning more than ever by fleecing his flock using exactly the same techniques that Randi exposed, plus a few new ones, such as the sale of “Miracle Spring Water”. According to ABC News, Popoff’s ministry received more than $9.6m in 2003 and more than $23m in 2005. In that year, Popoff paid himself and his wife a combined total of almost a million dollars (not to mention two of his children receiving more than $180,000 each).

Since the heyday of mediumship during the Victorian era, exposure as frauds has typically done little to diminish the popularity of alleged psychics in the eyes of their followers.

It is important to realise that many self-professed psychics, possibly the majority, are sincere in their beliefs that they possess a “gift”. Such practitioners are probably unintentionally using some of the same techniques used by so-called cold readers to convince themselves and their sitters that they are tapping into some paranormal source of information. Because the cold reading technique is not being exploited deliberately and systematically, such readings are usually unimpressive to anyone except hardcore believers.

But con artists can use cold reading to convince complete strangers that they know all about them. It relies on the clever use of language, careful observation, intelligent guesswork, and the production of vague and ambiguous statements that the sitter interprets (and remembers) as being more specific than they actually were. In a skilled practitioner, cold reading can produce much more impressive results than the rather amateurish readings produced by most psychics.

Even cold reading has its limits though. If a psychic reading is full of very specific and accurate details, produced on the basis of very limited interaction with the sitter (as in Popoff’s case), it is more likely to be the result of “hot reading” – information collected prior to the start of the reading.

While the activities of performers like Popoff, who deliberately and knowingly exploit their vulnerable followers and are motivated by nothing more than personal greed, would be condemned as immoral by most reasonable people, the moral issues are not quite so cut-and-dried when it comes to deluded but sincere psychics who may not even charge for their services.

The fact is that many bereaved people are comforted to receive “evidence” that their loved ones are waiting for them “on the other side”. Some may feel that even if Morgan is deliberately conning her audience with fraudulent techniques, this is outweighed by the comfort that she brings. However, given that tickets for her sell-out Dublin show cost €40 each and there were reportedly brisk sales for her books and DVDs, this appears not to be her only motivation.

Phone-in caller Sue, who believed that Morgan had psychic powers before her experience at the theatre, described herself as being “totally disappointed” and insisted that she would not be attending such shows again. Maybe some of her friends and others sitting near her that evening will follow suit. Sadly, however, history suggests that most of Sally’s followers will continue to adore her and pay the high prices demanded to see her in action.

I just realized I didn’t know something. I usually store tomes of irrelevant information and can answer almost any question someone can pose. But I didn’t know this. Not often that happens so I read up on it.

I was warming the shower water up and I thought isn’t it weird how in cold countries pipes burst from freezing? Then I realized, hot rises cold sinks, right? Why do icebergs float?

Hot is less dense, cold is denser! So, if hot expands and cold contracts … why does water get larger when frozen?

It’s because the O is negatively charged and the two H’s are positive. Water molecules roll over each other forming hydrogen bonds that break due to molecular energy in the water, but as it approaches 4C it slows significantly and water gets denser and heavier like other materials but when it hits 0C the energy preventing hydrogen bonding isn’t present so the charged atoms attract to one another and bond to form a magnetic crystalline hexagonal lattice, a strong supportive structure allowing the frozen water to expand outwards.

This is also the reason snowflakes have a peculiar shape that one sees in crystallization.