Picture quality wise, it’s a perfectly dark picture, full of contrast. Put the superseded Samsung LCD next to the LED and for my money there’s a big difference. And not just in the price, because they’re really running those LCD tellies out cheap at JB Hi Fi. Sadly not cheap enough. Because look at them side by side and you can’t kid yourself. There’s a noticeable difference in picture quality. The speakers are exceptionally good for what they are and how slim the TV is. One downside is though that it only has optical audio out, which doesn’t work with my stereo system of choice. Aside from 3 HDMIs and a USB, you only get one composite port and a high definition composite port. So this may mean upgrading your DVD player etc to the latest spec equipment.

Feature wise, we contemplated getting the higher spec Series 7 or Series 8 TVs. Primarily because the have internet capabilities and can play videos from your media library using DLNA. These didn’t really stack up as who wants to watch grubby Youtube clips on a wide screen TV and I already have the capability to watch files from my media library. The Series 6 is more than enough.

If you are interested in LED, don’t be put off by the player haters. Apparently it’s not a true LED TV and is only back lit with LEDs. Count everything in the room and square root it by the number of fingers and toes you have, and that’s how little I care about that fact. Many places aren’t interested in selling these TVs yet, probably because they’re still stocked up with older models gathering dust. If you can wait they will get cheaper, great. I’m told they will be much cheaper at Christmas time. But you will be no closer to the end of the rainbow for waiting. There a great quality TV and well worth the investment now.

So I’m told, the two robber chicks were caught in the act at Crown Casino, probably in between purchases. They had a notorious history of credit card theft and one may have been on probation. Unfortunately a very sobering reminder never to let your guard down. And while Fitzroy bars aren’t the blood baths there were decades ago, every now and then the clientelle are still a little bit dodgy. Watch your back out there ladies!

Acrassicauda are a band of four Iraqis in their twenties who have suffered such a plight. They were Iraq’s main if not only heavy metal band to have endured right through the war. A war which sent them from Baghdad, to Damascus in Syria, to Istanbul in Turkey and finally safe refuge in the good old USA. That’s a rough six years.

Their lives were documented in the movie Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Far from being just about metal music, this movie covered far more home truths about the madness and suffering of the Iraqi war than most docos of a political discourse. Moving from one place to another, they struggled to find a place where they could earn an honest living, let alone a venue for a gig. At one point they had to sell their instruments to pay the rent.

Given that only a few thousand Iraqis have benefited from refugee status in the US since the war began, it’s pretty miraculous. You’d like to think it was perhaps the magic of Obama, but the arrangements must’ve started while Bush was still in office! Frankly it’s reassuring to see that people aren’t forgotten right now.

Now the boys are in New Jersey. They can grow their hair as long as they want, listen to whatever music they like and lose the Islamic garb. As if that wasn’t enough, they managed to get backstage at a Metallica gig. Now it’s not often you see a war veteran metal head light up like a Christmas tree. But when James Hetfield walks in unannounced, gives them one of his guitars and signs it with ‘Welcome to America’ words can’t describe the reaction. Hetfield had a pretty big arsed smile on his face too. It’s just brilliant stuff to watch.

While my heart goes out to the victims of the local bush fires, their loss and the tough life decisions they’re making now, refugees are a constant. Acrassicauda have suffered irreconcilably for the best part of a decade and yet they’re truly lucky. You only have to see the movie to see what they’ve been through to survive, let alone to play their music.

I saw Heavy Metal in Baghdad a few months ago, and strongly urge you to do the same. The last I checked on the band, they were stuck in Turkey penniless broke. Let’s hope that America works out for them. And when it comes to acts of god, don’t just make the big conspicuous donation now. Keep it coming and make sure other burnt Aussies, and indeed forsaken refugees get their lives back.

P.S. One such charity is the United Nations High Council of Refugees (UNHCR). Reading this article, it looks like they’ve done at least something to help Acrassicauda in their plight. Which makes those monthly donations I’ve been making for several years quite worth while.

At the best of times a Hummer compensates for something. For the Vic Police it must be actual cops on the streets.

They asked ‘did you notice the extra police presence tonight?’ At first I thought ‘yeah sure’. Then it occurred to me, Chapel St is chock a block full of cops every Friday and Saturday and changed my answer. They setup a police truck and have cops by the dozen flanking it; usually next to the KFC near Commercial Road. Especially on a hot summers night. If anything, there were actually LESS COPS out tonight! But they did have police out on horseback for a change, which was unusual.Not to mention the roadworthy spot checks and booze buses they’ve been doing for years behind Chasers nightclub.

The next question was something like ‘do you feel safer with the extra police around?’ My response was an resolute no! By this stage it was clear that the ladies were more than likely coppers themselves (decent looking and nice to talk to too!). Public opinion was taking its toll on them.

For a start, they’d copped (no pun intended) a bunch of flack for the massive V8 police cars patrolling in 40 kph urban zones. And particularly the fact they’re always en route to somewhere or in police stations that basically resemble military barracks (most in the south eastern suburbs virtually are).

Interestingly one of the ladies, cop or not, and I got talking about experiences in Peru. In Peru it was typical South American stereotypical stuff. Two cops would be reclined all day in a Landcruiser parked in the centre of town. Usually napping behind the heavily tinted glass. You might think this is bad. But when you needed a cop, you could always find one and bang on the window. It keeps bad guys in check too knowing they might wake up a copper if they’re too loud.

And they were always in a public place keeping one eye out. Even if the other one was being rested.  She kind of conceded it’s better to have cops on the street, maintaining a visible presence. Sometimes they stood around in jack boots with automatic machine guns, but they were nice guys. And it wasn’t the gun that made me feel safe. It was the fact they were physically on the street.

Then I thought of Japan and how in their major metropolis’, they have tiny police boxes everywhere. More like a kiosk than a police station, scattered amongst vending machines and bike racks. Some big enough to situate maybe 4-6 police. This puts police right in the public eye. And there’s always somewhere safe to run to. Many modern day slaves of the Yakuza conned into being prostitutes have made a mercy dash for the police box and been saved. Where are our permanent police boxes in Melbourne? Damn right, they don’t exist.

So before this gets to AM talk back radio, I’m gonna wrap this up! For police even to conduct such a survey, something is pathetically wrong. They have become like a spoilt only child with Hummers, V8 Holdens and horses and bright, shiny vests but forgotten what they’re here for.  Not to play with their toys, but to protect us.

Now to prove I’m not all AM radio here, frankly I know nothing about policing. So by all means, comment your heart out. Set me straight! I don’t mind and I’m certainly not anti-police. I only know when I do feel safe. And despite the first/third world contrast, at times I felt safer in Peru knowing at worst a cop was a few hundred metres away. In Melbourne, I have absolutely no idea.

So put the bling Hummers to rest, polish up those boots and start walking the beat. Setup a deck chair in the centre of town and maintan a presence. For fucks sake, have a kip in your car! But get out in the cold hard light of day and become a part of the community again.

Before you mention it, yes I did send in an audition tape, so bag it all you like. That has no reflection on the comments I’m making here. Simply areas that could be improved because this genuinely has the potential to be a kick arse show.

Perhaps the first show was a bit struck for time, particularly since they need to cram commercials into their 1 hour slot. Because they didn’t get time to explain their test track. In the original Top Gear, they explained the purpose of each corner, who designed it and how it was a real car killer. Especially since the Aussie test track looks like it’s extremely tight, it would’ve been good to know why they decided on that layout.

When you saw the Porsche go round the test track, it looked almost idle through some of the corners! I’m at a loss to understand why they made some corners so tight if it’s no so compelling to watch.

Also they didn’t really get stuck into the cars during the review. The Porsche review was great. They took on the very challenging task of explaining the double clutch gearbox and succeeded, but there was none of that knife edge criticism of what’s good, bad and ugly about the car that you know is for all intents perfect. That’s what I love about Top Gear and they could definitely use more of.

The beach to snow review of the soft roaders was as close as they got to criticism of the cars. But again they didn’t really explain the purpose of the sand dune test or get the Stig involved in it to up to the ante and provide a benchmark for the bravado. But hey, they beat the crap out of some soft 4WDs so that is always welcome!

Finally the Maybach review wasn’t actually a review at all. For all the expense of closing down a highway (it was probably the new Eastlink filmed before it was opened to the public who knows…), it didn’t go anywhere at all!

What was surprising was that they took in a great deal of Australia: South Australia, Melbourne, Tassie. Clearly geography is not an obstacle to TV production thank god. This should be good for getting an international audience for the show at least. Which let’s face it, it’s the difference between Ford and Holden now. If you don’t have exports, you’re dead and buried!

With the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car, they just assumed everyone knew Vince Collosimo and his work in Unberbelly. What’s the deal there?! Again it felt a bit rushed and it was hard to tell if he was brilliant or rubbish because we knew nothing about the track.

All in all, now they’ve got the rush of steam out of their system and all that anxiety of the debut, I can’t wait to see it at normal pace. Congrats on a good debut guys. Keep it coming.

This Jakel Marshall from Missisipi (source: Google) looks far too well adjusted to do email scamming.

Well somehow this message got around Hotmail’s spam filter. Perhaps because every message was sent from a different email address! The first one was from an address at Missisipi University from a guy called Jakel Marshall. The picture (left) and accompanying link claim he’s a model, but he’s also a model rip off merchant IF it’s the same guy. Frankly I think it isn’t. But at least the Nigerian e-mail scammers are getting a bit more aspirational with their identities.

So anyway the first email I get was as follows:

** Reply Requested by 9/6/2008 (Saturday) **

From: Jakel Marshall

My Private email: jakel.marshall@live.com

This is for your attention Through some discreet search from my local
chambers of commerce and having
obtained your contact from the internet. I contacted you because you
bear the same surname identity.

Presently in my bank here in the United Kingdom we have an estate,which
has remained unclaimed since 1999. And the estate will be converted to
UNCLAIMED DEPOSIT and therefore forfeited if nobody comes forward to lay
claim to the deposit before the end of this financial quarter, as is the
practice and also indicated in the European Union banking guidelines.I
wish to notify you of a Deal between You and me to put in claims for
payment with your name as the beneficiary to the total sum of
US$5,500,000.00 (Five million, Five Hundred Thousand) in the intent of
the deceased (name now withheld since this is our second letter to
you)As I mentioned earlier, I contacted you because you bear the surname
identity and therefore can present you as the beneficiary to the
inheritance
since there is no written will.

All the papers/documents will be processed on your acceptance to partner
with me. In your acceptance of this deal, we request that you kindly
forward to us your letter of acceptance, your current telephone and fax
numbers, your private email address and a forwarding address to enable
us file necessary documents at our high court probate division for the
release of this sum of money in your favour.

Yours faithfully
Jakel Marshall

Anyway, I’m a big fan of rattling cages. So here’s my response:

Er, I’ve never seen a first email from you. Who is the deceased? And why is your reply email from Mississippi college?

Cheers,
Matt H

And the response, from a different email address:

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your response and for your williness to handle this deal and before I proceed any further, let me make it clear to you that God is my witness that this deal will be done under funds reguratory laws, the transfer will be in accordance to both local and international laws and everything will be completed within ten Banking days provided you follow my instructions very well

Once again I am Mr Jakel Marshall, an internal auditor with Hsbc Bank Plc.During our last auditing exercises, as the head of the team, I discovered a dormant account valued $5.5 Million dollars. Further investigation about the account revealed that the account holder died since 1999. And up till date, nobody has come forward or put application for claim. During my private search for the relative recently your name and email contact was among the findings that matches the same surname as the decease name who died interstate with no Will or next of kin.

Like I did mentioned in my first paragraph , the death of Mr Derick Walker Hayward ,was abrupt and without a WILL covering this sum mentioned to you. This leaves me no choice but to appoint you as a beneficiary. As the Residuary beneficiary, I have the responsibility to sort out the administrative details on his death. LET ME MAKE IT CLEAR TO YOU THAT IT IS OF TRUTH THAT YOU ARE NOT A RELATIVE TO LATE MR DERICK BUT I CHOOSE TO NOMINATE YOU BECAUSE YOU SHARE THE SAME SURNAME WITH HIM AND WITH THAT, I WILL BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE OFFICIAL PAPER WORK TO LEGALIZE THAT. THIS SECRET WILL BE BETWEEN YOU AND I ONLY. Note that things like this happens every now and then in all banking industries.

However, I cannot make claim to the inheritance as a staff of the bank and by the same laws I am prohibited to do so. So I needed a beneficiary to be nominated within the United Kingdom otherwise these funds become that of the crown and will be decleared unclaimed deposit.
I will be acting as partners with you in achieving this goal and I will be getting you one of the bank approved Attorney to act before the probate in securing the relevant legal documents on your behalf. In all of these, the most important thing is for us to be able to obtain the grant of letter of Administration from the Probate. This is an official document, issued by the court, which allows you (as administrator) to administer the estate and this will be getting on your behalf through bank approved Attorney.A Grant of Letter of Administration is obtained by person(s) entitled according the rules of the court when the deceased dies without leaving a Will or “intestate” The situation where a person dies without making a will fully disposing the assets. The administration of “intestate” estate is governed by the Administration of Estates Act 1925. The Administration of Estates Act 1925 sets out for who can act as an administrator – that is, who has the legal right to deal with the affairs of the person who has died. To enable us proceed,
send me the following details.
1)your full name and address
2)Direct cell phone and fax number
3) Your age and occupation
4) Your private email address
The amount in the account is $5.5 Million dollars, as mentioned in my first paragraph I will offer you $1,500,000.00 Million as your share, 5% set aside for expenses.
After the transfer of the $5.5 Million has been made to your account, I will come over to meet you for my share and to discuss further with you on how to invest part of my share in your country under your suppervission.
Please handle this deal with all your heart and please keep it secretly and let this be between you and I only untill the transfer of the funds is done to your account.
Please respond to me with the above informations as early as possible so we can progress.

Call me on my direct private line +44 702 408 5###.
Best Regards,
Mr Jakel Marshall

Clearly, this guy doesn’t work at a bank, especially the HSBC. and check the way he spells supervision. Anyway I Googled a few parts of the original, like the figure “Five million, Five Hundred Thousand”. Guess what! There were a few Nigerian bank scam emails with the exact same figure, and highly similar wording to this email. When you think about it, if he was in dear old England, why is he providing a dollar figure? Is it USD or AUD? Stupid really.

Secondly, I have posted both these messages verbatim. See how he’s clearly working from a template from the first one because the grammar and spelling is of a much higher quality. The second is frankly woeful. Looks like not many people ever reply.

Anyway, this just has to be a scam. Either way, I’m not stupid enough to risk all my money in ‘admin charges’ and legal fees to get $5.5M that doesn’t exist. So if you get a scam message from Matt Hayward, it ain’t me. Some arse hole has scammed my email address.

If you are from an authority that can duly handle these clowns, i’ll be more than happy to forward on the original email. If you get any of these messages yourself, please leave a comment.

Whether or not this is a con or not depends on your moral disposition. It is a con if you don’t like people lying to you or being grossly ripped off. Some of you seem to think that this is the essence of capitalism. The culprits of this scam probably go with the Israeli bit because of poor old Israel always getting bombed in the news and what have the Jews done to anyone (a hem, MOSSAD! But let’s stick to the point). In this sense it is a scam. It’s highly unlikely that they’re Israeli. They’re just backpackers. And because of the all the bohemian Israeli hippies that travel the world (we saw a bunch in Peru), it’s a lovable and harmless persona for some unsuspecting homemaker cooking dinner to be surprised by.

The other way is it’s guaranteed not student art – Jewish or otherwise. They are reproduction paintings of more famous art, made in a factory probably somewhere in China. What is consistent is at poor quality canvases and very inferior inks are used. They’re typically not going to look great forever. Just think, Ford could paint your car with crappy paint, but what would it look like in 5 years? You wouldn’t want to drive it, and you certainly wouldn’t want a dull, faded painting on your wall either.

Perhaps the student thing justifies the cheaper materials. Then again, what student wouldn’t experiment with different materials and better quality to improve their art.

Someone in the comments eluded to the fact you can buy these prints direct from the manufacturer online. The price we got one for was $145 Australian. But the cost price must be about $20 – $50 each in reality.

For all of you that said pathos and bullshit aside, these people are doing nothing illegal, to some extent you’re right. Door to door sales or art isn’t legal. If bullshit wasn’t legal then no politician could ever get elected. My point is, even if it is quasi legal, it’s certainly not ethical. There’s no refund policy, no consumer affairs to ensure a level playing field.

Let’s face it, if you knocked on someones door saying you were a Palestinian/Iraqi/Syrian/Lebanese or whatever Arabic student, this would be all over the media. The US terror threat would be yellow, lilac or puce or something like that. Hence the Israeli + student persona. Clearly it works at least some of the time.

These guys, male and female need to tell a story to make you feel like you’re helping out students to give you a warm fuzzy feeling. Make no mistake, it’s absolute bullshit. You’re helping a local backpacker pay for their trip to the big banana or whatever local attraction in your area. And some local rich guy is wheeling it in. It’s the big easy for someone.

So whatever you do, don’t let your heart swell with pride and buy ten of them, thinking you’re helping out some aspirational creative types. Especially don’t get greedy and think the art is by some dazzling future prodigy that will make you wealthy. Because the only one getting wealthy is the local rich guy, giving these backpackers paltry commissions to bang on your door when you’re eating dinner!

But what if you like the art? Well there’s one piece of advice. When the offer to frame the art for you (and they will), my advice is go for it. Because any professional framer worth a pinch of salt will tell you their framing is worth ten times more than the so called art you just brought. So cheap art necessitates cheap framing. Just don’t give them anything more than a mobile number. Chances are it won’t go sour but who knows.

So how do you sum this up? If you get offered any paintings door to door, the sky isn’t going to fall down. They’re not MOSSAD agents infecting your pets with ebola virus or bugging your apartment for some bizarre Israeli intelligence purposes.

My advice to you is to kid the kidder. If you like something you see, be frank with them with the fact that you know the whole thing is bunk and offer them a crappy price for their mass produced paintings. Do everything cash, no credit or cheques and tell them you’ll call the cops if they don’t piss off sharpish.

Basically they’re talking about a terrorist like event online. Such an event would be used as a catalyst to introduce legislation that would greatly reduce our freedoms and functionality online. Not that’s it’s without precedent. Call me far out, but without Pearl Harbor, the US would never have entered WWII; without 9/11, there’d be no Patriot Act I or II. Yes sir, there’s speculation of an iPatriot Act. Yet another example no doubt of how you’d have to sacrifice a little more liberty for freedom. Which was in 2001, and still is now an absolute contradiction in terms.

The comment itself was made by Laurence Lessig. Yes I’m sure you’re thinking big pedophile beard and ugly glasses, but he’s a Stanford law professor and was instrumental creative commons licensing for internet content. This is the really sensational comment though:

“Remember that after 9/11, the government dropped the Patriot Act in about 20 days, and it was passed, and the Patriot Act is huge. I remember someone asking a Justice Department official, how do they write such a large statute so quickly? The answer was, it’s been sitting in a drawer at the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event that would allow them to drop it.”

What makes me a bit skeptical is that while the internet was a US invention, it’s not governed solely by the US. Some massive level of international co-operation would be required to make such an act happen. Well you heard it here, or there, first. Don’t you love living in a world where the only way politicians can stay in office is to ensure you’re terrified and they can protect you from a situation they’d very much envisaged coming? Bugger.

Etax is not a new thing. I have been using it for at least five years now and I find it’s simply getting harder to download (e.g. navigating the ato.gov.au web site) and slower to download. Not the actions of a clever country.

At a time when the Australian federal government is talking up a nation-wide broadband network, is it little surprise they’re still coming up a little short online? What am I talking about? If you do your own tax return and you’ve submitted it by now, you’ll know what i’m talking about. Downloading eTax from the ATO web site is hideously, painfully slow. Seriously it takes about how long it took to download back anything back in 1995 when Mosaic was about the only browser around it and Netscape 1.0 wasn’t out yet. It may have been on a 24K modem, I can’t remember. What I can remember is how in 10 years, I thought ridiculously long download times for an 8 meg file would be a thing of the past. Clearly not.

So have I benchmarked my claims? Well yes. On an ADSL 2+ connection not more than 800 metres or so from the exchance I was downloading the eTax program at a transfer rate of around 6K per second. On a 3G HSDPA connection, alternating between3G and HDSPA speeds, the download is averaging 2-3K transfer rate per second. This is the speed of third world nations. By contrast, I can download the Firefox web browser at around 60K transfer rate per second. Updates for my Mac, around double that.

Sadly the ATO web site lacks the necessary bandwidth to handle the demand of people downloading eTax at once. One solution is that they massively upgrades their servers and throughput at the tax office, spending hundreds of thousands. But there are very simple solutions. Why don’t they make the downloadable eTax file available through sites designed to facilitate for quick downloads like Rapidshare or Yousendit? Better still provide a torrent, so you could download it over the peer to peer network, something that’s NOT illegal! You could even put it on a web site like CNET or TUCOWS that have mirrors with bigger, reliable ISPs all over the world!

These alternatives are not quantum physics or rocket science. They involve simply uploading a file and posting the link to it on the eTax website. Instead I have to waste and hour of my time on a Sunday. Because that’s how long it’s going to take to download this mundane file. Quite literally for a simple tax return, it will take longer to download the file than to complete the return.

So I put it to the government peeps who are going to take several months to chew the cud on tenders for the new Aussie Broadband network, is all that bandwidth going to make bugger all difference when you can’t organise downloads off of government web sites properly? I doubt it.

So to the bean counters at the ATO, pull your fingers out of your collective arses and do something about it. It’s not good enough. I had faster downloads in Cusco in Peru for crissakes! Who wants to bet I get audited next year….

Note: This is probably a really important time to mention that .1 releases (as in the 2.6.1 that I’m eagerly awaiting) always have bug fixes like this. So don’t blow your load too soon with new releases like I did!

1. Log into your CPanel if you have one

2. Scroll down to ‘Databases’ and select ‘PHPMyAdmin’. For the lay, this is a database browser/admin tool

3. PHPMyAdmin should load in a new tab/window.

4. On the left hand side, you will see a list of databases installed on your web site. Select the database that runs your Wordpress. It usually has ‘wp2′ in the name.

5. The screen will refresh displaying all the tables in that database

6. From the left hand side, select the wp_terms table.

7. You should see a screen with the following rows in the table listed term_id, name, slug, term_group

8. To view the table in a bit more context, select the ‘browse’ tab

9. If you had the same problem that I did, this whole table will be all but blank. Maybe the ’slug’ column will be a bunch of minus twos, e.g. ‘-2-2-2-2-2′

10. Anyway name is your category name and slug is the directory for it e.g. ‘cars and stuff’ as a slug would be ‘cars-and-stuff’ because you shouldn’t have spaces in a web directory name.

11. If you have a backup of your categories, then the term_id field should be all you need to identify our categories. Just open up your SQL backup script in Dreamweaver, search for a category name and you should be able to find the original categories. Now you can cut and paste them into the new database using PHPMyAdmin.

If not, go to the ‘wp_term_taxonomy’ column and yes the names will be blank, but it will have the post counts for the categories. That should help you work out which category is which by the number of posts there.