The monthly Australian Bureau of Statistics unemployment estimate is 4.9%* while the monthly Roy Morgan estimate is 9.3%. Which do you think is closest to Australia’s true level of unemployment – 4.9%* or 9.3%?”

The Results in

This special telephone Morgan Poll…with an Australia-wide cross section of 651 aged 14 and over

were stunning. Apparently

“Only 30% of Australians believe the ABS unemployment figure”

That would be “30% of Australian’s with a margin of error of…”? According to their own data, something in the region of 4% btw.

(As Stilgherrian says in his Podcast lionising Dennis Shanahan, if you don’t mention the margin of error in your poll, then you are a…well listen to the Podcast.)

Is a sample of 527 people – 124 of the people they talked to can’t vote – large enough to get a reasonable result without too great a margin of error? Is it satisfactory to accept the results of a poll and Roy Morgan’s supposed miniscule margin of errors when such a small sample is intended to represent more than 15 million Australians? That’s one person interviewed for every 23,000 Working Age Australians.

That they are surveying people about the results of another of their own surveys exaggerates the suspicion this survey was done simply to benefit Roy Morgan and the chooks they need to feed. Even the Onion would find it hard to parody that.

Perhaps it’s time for surveys to be instead reserved for something far more valuable?

Especially if you win a twenty one inch remote control television!

Reblogged from Bill Bennett:

Me speaking on stage at the IBM Partner Awards

For years I couldn’t speak in front of an audience. I was terrified.

Speaking informally to a small group wasn’t a problem; put me on a stage in front of a crowd and I’d freeze.

My voice would crack or go up an octave. I’d be muddled, confused and unable to remember what I had to say.

Read more… 235 more words

I too get a bit jittery when speaking in front of larger groups of people. It's easier with a nip or two down the hatch first, but that's mostly not suitable. This article from Bill Bennett gives some interesting insights into how you might start to conquer those fears. Maybe I should do that podcast I've been considering for some time...

Post 3-5 paragraphs re Open Web and point me to it. Top 2 entries win a FREE ticket to online #accessU summit! Lookit! environmentsforhumans.com/2012/accessu-s…

—
Molly E. Holzschlag (@mollydotcom) May 10, 2012

Despite having used Facebook to publicise events previously I firmly believe people and organisations shouldn’t solely use it to advertise their events ”just because everyone is on there”.

So I immediately responded to Molly:

@mollydotcom anything but facebook? (is that too short?

—
Gavin Costello (@franksting) May 10, 2012

Disappointingly, Molly confirmed my entry was too short. She did kindly favourite and retweet it. And, because Twitter and WordPress aren’t Facebook, I’m able to share this post and said tweets without first forcing you to login.

Tonight I noted Molly had followed up with the following gem:

The Web is Access.

—
Molly E. Holzschlag (@mollydotcom) May 12, 2012

It was a tweet which prompted some interesting responses. Many pointed out that “access” can mean many things. And it led to an interesting discussion on the topic.

I’m using her update to bulwark my response to the initial tweet. If I need to have an “account” or “login” to see content on the web, it’s not open. It’s clear some content requires restricted access for privacy and other reasons – but Public Events or status updates you otherwise share to 4 gazillion “friends”? No. They are restricted because Facebook needs to pay for Instagram and get a bajillion dollars in an IPO.

It’s possible that one day Facebook will no longer be the default location on the internet for a substantial percentage of the population. It’s even possible they’ll no longer try to corral everything within their “platform”. But until that day comes, I’ll continue to limit my use of Facebook to an ‘as needed” basis.

And when I invite you to an event, I’ll probably tweet, sms or email you a link to a file on my dropbox.

Management has to strike a balance between, on the one hand, encouraging and supporting their staff while, on the other, calling them out for their mistakes as they help to correct them. In both cases it’s also important to not be seen to be treating staff like children.

Bruce Belsham’s defence of Chris Uhlmann against Paul Keating’s criticism reminds me of a parent who celebrates their child’s most ordinary work. While I’ve no opinion on whether Keating is justified in his criticism, Belsham’s retort – especially with his allegations of bias – feels like it has come straight from the pages of Christos Tsolkias’ The Slap. Rosie, the aggrieved mother of the abused child would be proud of his no matter what defence. One only hopes though he doesn’t follow her lead and take it, Chris Mitchell style, all the way to the lawyers.

Tonight, Chris Uhlmann might just be embarrassed about all the attention. It might even be reminding him of the time the ABC forgot to pay the power bill for his Sydney apartment. While this time there appears to be no twitter evidence of any red wine drinking as there was the time he was left sitting in the dark, I still can’t get out of my head an image of him curled up on the floor surrounded by empty bottles of red crying “Why, Bruce, Why?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s glad his partner is back this month. Probably not to help him continue to learn on the job, as Keating speculated, but perhaps to share the walk from the front door to the studio. Fingers point, whispers carry. It’s easier to ignore them if you’ve got someone else to talk to after all.

Here’s a post I wrote about the Ad Network Detector Lookout have just released to help users be certain software on their Android devices isn’t doing anything with their personal information they’d prefer it not to do.

I was kind of Surprised to see two versions of the same Safari offered

So I deselected one and ran the upgrade. It seemed to complete okay and as usual ran another check. At which point I was presented with something odd

I never heard of iTunes Producer before, and judging by the description, it seems like something only content owners get access to, so I was surprised to see it in the standard Lion Software Update

Needless to say I installed it. Which seemed to go well. Upon launch however, I got this:

What’s iTunes Connect? Off to DuckDuckGo I went

And eventually ended up at the Apple Site for Content Providers

Which (as did any site under apple.com/itunes) kept refreshing and eventually gave me this

And a lovely crash report from Safari Web Content:

Process:         WebProcess [20467]Path:            /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/WebKit2.framework/WebProcess.app/Contents/MacOS/WebProcessIdentifier:      com.apple.WebProcessVersion:         7534.54 (7534.54.16)Build Info:      WebKit2-7534054016000000~1Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)Parent Process:  Safari [20044]
Date/Time:       2012-03-21 00:52:25.935 +1100OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.3 (11D50b)Report Version:  9
Interval Since Last Report:          1014 secCrashes Since Last Report:           16Per-App Interval Since Last Report:  1033 secPer-App Crashes Since Last Report:   16Anonymous UUID:                      1B08278B-0FAA-4437-8C46-60A82E82BD19
Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000008
VM Regions Near 0x8:-->     __TEXT                 0000000109ee4000-0000000109ee5000 [    4K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /System/Library/StagedFrameworks/Safari/WebKit2.framework/WebProcess.app/Contents/MacOS/WebProcess
Application Specific Information:objc[20467]: garbage collection is OFF
Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Because this crash also happens when I tried to edit a post here at WordPress.com, I decided to disable all my extensions, which has fixed the problem. Once I identify the culprit, I’ll update this post.

UPDATE: The culprit appears to be the extension Disconnect.

I say appears, because after resetting and turning on all Extensions, all the previously affected sites (Apple.com/itunes, Feedly and the Edit Post page in WordPress.com) worked initially. However after some additional testing, I could consistently get Safari WebContent to crash when Disconnect was turned on and I went to edit a post here.

So the questions are:

Has someone at Apple inadvertently released incorrect builds of Safari to Software Update?

Why did iTunes Producer appear in my Software Update – and is anyone else seeing it?

Source: Kerry Purcell on Twitter

With the newest technology, it’s part-trained minions are able to prevent the peace being breached, swiftly and without a drop of Roberto Laudisio’s blood being spilled.

Max Weber would be proud of their proof of his dictate, even being able to achieve the ultimate effects of their legitimacy without the use of lethal force.

Here are some more examples of the benefits to society from modern technology as it helps police officers remove any chance their use of legitimate force will be lethal:

Cole said that he used the taser because he “felt she was more susceptible to being injured if he attempted to tackle her.”
(The officer) is obviously taking this pretty hard. It was an unexpected and unhappy outcome
The last two jolts, delivered as police pulled Pikes from a patrol car at the police station, elicited no physical reaction because the suspect was unconscious
“We’re looking after the police and their welfare and at this point the police are very comfortable with the circumstances surrounding this incident”
Taking off his shirt was a sign of aggressive bravado

Meanwhile the manufacturer of these safe ECD’s continue to spruik the thousands of lives they’ve saved with nary a mention of the numbers they’ve killed, 90 percent of whom were unarmed.

Aren’t you glad you live in such a safe society, where, thanks to Taser, only the bad guys get executed?

The core point I took from the article is that there is a four factor authentication process before you can get to individual passwords:

• Get the Device (or the data file)
• Get the Security code on the Device
• Get the Security code or password for the app
• Get the Master Password

Which doesn’t preclude a user of an application like 1Password from;

• Making your Master Password strong enough
• Changing your Codes and Passwords reasonably often

Disclaimer: I user 1Password on my Mac and on iOS and have done since I originally got a free install  about 3 years ago. I have since then purchased both the Mac software (currently 3.8.17) and 1Password Pro for the iPhone. Both of which I use daily on both devices.

“It was completely wrong for me to have it on your show,” Daisey tells Glass on the program, “and that’s something I deeply regret.” He also expressed his regret to “the people who are listening, the audience of This American Life, who know that it is a journalism enterprise, if they feel betrayed.”

via Retracting “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory” | This American Life.

It’s hard to think of this as anything other than a massive failure by This American Life. UPDATE: especially considering Daisey’s prior admissions of fabrications and embellishments.

However, if there are a few things which can be learnt from this whole episode it’s that:

• A good, emotive story will often get you what you want, especially if you don’t allow facts to stand in the way of the preferred outcome, but
• Journalists really do need to check their sources
• News media could do worse than follow NPR and This American Life by giving at least the same amount of space for the correction as they had for the orginal
• There is still a need for tighter oversight in the way our shiny objects are created and by who