Australian resident? Have a mobile? Fancy an iPod?

Mobile Survey

The trusty mobile phone isn't just about making phone calls anymore. We are interested in understanding how you currently use your mobile phone and what kind of services you would like to use in future.

Your input and comments are important and please be assured that all information is anonymous and confidential. By completing the survey you you could win a 20 GB Apple iPOD worth $449. Simply complete the survey and provide your contact details to be in the draw.

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Entry is open to all permanent Australian residents only. Employees of Fairfax Digital Australia and New Zealand Pty Limited, the promoter, and their immediate families are ineligible to enter. Only one entry per person is permitted.

Promotion commences on 10th October 2005 at 00:01 (EST) and closes on 6th November 2005 at 23:59 (EST). Promotion will be via the Fairfax Digital Network – www.smh.com.au and www.theage.com.au websites.

The promoter is Fairfax Digital Australia and New Zealand Pty Limited, Level 3, Wharf 7, Pyrmont NSW 2009. ABN 34 087 887 456 Australia.

Full Terms and Conditions here.

1. Infiltration:: spies, intelligence, espionage, Alias
2. Nice person:: well-regarded
3. Debt:: burning the candle at both ends
4. Settle down:: chastising children
5. Thomas:: a Thomas the Tank Engine activity set
6. Unforgivable:: extreme prejudice
7. Medicine:: raspberry-flavoured
8. A year from now:: 365.25 days later
9. Neighbors:: needs a U
10. Dripping:: beef & dripping

Unconscious Mutterings :: week 142

Be flattered :)

link via Stevie

The week before last I downloaded Opera 8.5 after my IE install became hopelessly corrupt (and refused to be corrected by reinstalling; a registry edit wasn't useful either). I had been resisting Opera for years - I didn't like the lack of configurability with regards to screen space (why couldn't I put the ad further up?) and I didn't like the idea they would track my net usage (where I go and what I do there is my business only). I would have been prepared to pay for an adless trackless version if I could have had a reasonable trial period without the flarping ad, but they weren't offering that, so I never bothered with it (did install 7.54 August 2004, but hated it and immediately uninstalled).

I have been trying for a week to install Firefox. I got it on a cover disc with an internet mag. I would start the install but after extracting about a third of the files it would hang and my puter would crash. This morning I finally managed to get it to install all the way through. And you know what? I hate it. I hate it more than I hated IE when it was popular. I loathe and despise this browser, its interface, the way it limits me. It's revolting. I therefore regret to announce that Opera is now My Preferred Browser ("MPB"), an honour previously held for many years by Netscape 4.x (4.5 and then 4.72).

I am still looking for an acceptable local email client. Opera's mail client doesn't behave in a way that suits me (I want to choose when I download my mail, tyvm; I do not under any circumstances want it downloaded automatically for me). Thunderbird, forget it. Pegaus, yuck. Seems for the time being I am still gonna have to use Netscape 4.72 mail. Which is okay, but I really wanted something more modern, ya know?

See also...

Kirstie Alley:
It had to happen sooner or later. New Idea and Woman's Day have finally given up all pretence of brand differentiation and just published the same cover. The same photo of the fined-down but still generous figure of the actress Kirstie Alley adorns both magazines, although in a daring act of novelty the Day has coloured her dress purple, as opposed to the royal blue she wears in the New Idea photograph.

Ooookay, she's bigger than the typical waif, she's older than the typical "popular" actress, but so freakin' what? Bloody tabloids, I dunno...

Brad & Angelina:
...NW and Woman's Day both carry photos of Brad Pitt playing daddy to The Harlot's adopted children, Maddox and baby Zahara, on a trip to a Canadian mall. The mags continue to speculate about a marriage, obviously on the cards now that Brad has been legally divorced for about five minutes.

If these people weren't famous, nobody would care. Except maybe Jen. Sheesh.

Pamela Anderson:
NW makes a valuable contribution to the literary canon by publishing an extract from Pamela Anderson's latest novel. Called Star Struck, the book is a sequel to the best-selling Star. It follows the adventures of, err, Star, an actress who plays a lifeguard in a world-famous show. As the book opens, she has just married a rock star in Mexico after a whirlwind courtship. Except Star can't remember the wedding, because she was too bombed. The book is a romance, obviously. It is probably fair to assume Pammy is drawing on her own experience in writing it.

Are they serious? Sounds like an autobiography to me.

Britney Spears:
None of the mags have yet nabbed any pictures of Britney Spears's spawn, the recently born Sean Preston. But that doesn't stop them from persecuting Britney for being a bad mother. As NW shows in full pictorial detail, the Britster has spurned the traditional new mother attire of milk-stained nighties and a wild-eyed look for a bikini, accessorised with a ciggie and a cocktail glass.

Awww, come on! It's not like she was chaste and pure to start with! (She shagged Justin, yeah?) And suddenly having a baby is a shock to the system, even if one is wanting the whole dowdy experience in the first place. Give the girl some slack.

All of the above from this page here.

Very Bad Karma:

A British court sent a mother of two to prison for six weeks for killing the family cat by boiling it in a washing machine ...

Holly Thacker, 34, decided to kill Fluffy after it scratched her, the court in Norwich in eastern England heard.

She denied cruelty.

What, she thought the cat would enjoy the experience, or perhaps learn something from it??? *aghast*

Admittedly I have on occasion thought of doing harm to a cat, but it was just one cat in particular and its behaviour was truly abominable (posing a serious health risk to my then-toddler daughter), and its owner refused to take responsibility. This was several years ago and I haven't seen that particular cat in a long time. Regardless, I did not harm said cat.

Jonathan Eales, prosecuting, told the court that Thacker's ex-husband alerted the national animal protection society, the RSPCA, following a conversation with her at her home on November 7.

"A conversation took place in which she said: 'I haven't got my cat any more'. He said: 'Why?'. She said: 'The cat scratched me so I put it in the washing machine'," Mr Eales said.

"She then laughed and said: 'I put it on a f#cking boiling wash as well'. She said: 'I am serious. Then I put it in the bin'."

I suppose we can be grateful she didn't just toss it in the gutter.

According to a veterinarian, the cat would have taken five to 10 minutes to die. Fluffy broke its claws trying to escape.

Why do they not know the gender of Fluffy? And why "Fluffy"? Icky name. Poor cat. No, seriously - poor cat.

Just because a document from a colour laser printer doesn't carry your name doesn't mean no one can trace it back to you, privacy advocates warn.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it has cracked the tracking codes embedded in Xerox's DocuColor colour laser printers. Such codes are just one way manufacturers employ technology to help governments fight currency counterfeiting.

Researchers found patterns of yellow dots arranged in 15 by 8 grids and printed repeatedly over every colour page, said Seth Schoen, a staff technologist at the San Francisco-based civil-liberties group.

Consider two documents, one carrying the author's name and one meant to be anonymous. By comparing the codes, it could be determined whether the two documents came from the same printer, even if Xerox reveals nothing about a customer's serial number, Schoen said.

Certainly, counterfeit currency (and other official thingies) is to be actively discouraged, but to put general privacy at risk in this way is quite horrific.

British American Tobacco, the world's second-largest cigarette company, has been secretly operating a factory in North Korea for the past four years.

BAT has never mentioned the factory in its annual accounts.

The anti-smoking group ASH said: "It seems that there is no regime so awful and no country so repressive that BAT does not want to do business there."

Asked about North Korea's human rights record, the [BAT] spokeswoman said: "It is not for us to interfere with the way governments run countries." She said BAT could "lead by example" and assist the country's development by meeting internationally accepted standards of businesses practice and corporate social responsibility.

The "altruistic" angle notwithstanding, it seems to me this is a nasty piece of hypocrisy (blatant capitalism capitalising, pun intended, on the vagaries of a non-capitalist society). All the little cows are disgusted.

Cattle belong to the bovine family. All domestic cows are descended from two kinds of oxen. Cows have hollow horns and come in a variety of colors. They feed on grains and grasses which they swallow whole and digest in several stomachs.

No, they don't. They have one stomach with multiple "compartments". Yes, it matters. :)

Cows at Becca's Workshop - and some examples of the lovely stuff to be found there:

Water falling from the sky!
My, oh my!
It makes the little cows cry
Because their undies aren't dry.