This weeks links (2011-12-26)

In brief:

* Paramedic dies trying to winch canyoner out of trouble on NSW south coast (2011-12-24) [Herald Sun]
A NSW paramedic has died trying to rescue an injured canyoner on the NSW south coast.
The paramedic died during the rescue at Carrington Falls after being called to rugged location about 5pm (AEDT) yesterday.
Thoughts with Mick Wilson’s family at this time. These rescue guys do an amazing job and it is with great sadness we hear of a death while helping other adventurers.

Some reading/listening:

* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – Kindle eBook $0.00
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge’s ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.

I am sure that traditionally ‘White Christmas’ is not referring to hail!

Six massive storm fronts swept over Victoria on Sunday; with huge hailstones and flash flooding destroying the train line between McLeod and Hurstbridge and grounding flights, at one point the BOM had a tornado warning listed for Melbourne.

”I think it affected a far bigger part of metropolitan area [than the storm last March], there was large hail and flooding in many suburbs and three severe storm cells that came across and very significant wind damage as well.
”It’s just a miracle people didn’t drown … particularly in the Eltham and Hurstbridge area.”
Flash floods upturned cars and several people needed rescuing in Eltham, where there were 175 SES call-outs.
The Eltham Retirement Centre, home to 200 residents, was hit by a wave of floodwater when a nearby railway embankment burst. It sent water up to a metre deep into 40 units at around 7pm when some residents were settling in for the night. Centre spokesman Mark Sketcher said while 30 residents needed evacuating it was lucky that no one was injured.
Wild day’s trail of destruction (2011-Dec-27) [The Age]

And the bells were ringing out …

♫ The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day ♫

“Fairytale of New York” is a song by the Celtic punk group The Pogues, released in 1987 and featuring the British singer Kirsty MacColl. The song is an Irish folk style ballad, written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan, and featured on The Pogues’ album If I Should Fall from Grace with God. It is frequently cited as the best Christmas song of all time in various television, radio and magazine related polls in the UK and Ireland. [wikipedia]

[phish] BBB processing

From: Mike simpson [mailto:Joan@premiumconcepts.com]
Sent: Thursday, 22 December 2011 6:40 AM
To: mike.simpson@tigercomms.com
Cc: A cast of thousands
Subject: BBB processing

RE: Case # 17140717
2011/12/21

Attn: Owner/Manager

The Better Business Bureau has been filed the above mentioned complaint from one of your associates on the subject of their dealings with you.
The details of the consumer's concern are explained in attached document.
Please give attention to this issue and inform us about your point of view.
We kindly ask you to open the ATTACHED REPORT to answer this complaint.

We look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely yours,

Stacie Nieves

Dispute Counselor
Better Business Bureau

1.) As you will have already picked up, there are too many cc’s for a legitimate email of this type
2.) The links go to http://www.joudebs.com / 824bc9 / index.html (a compromised server, don’t go there the download will not be good for you)
3.) And several other give away layout issues

Verdict: A very simplistic phishing email, BBB processing? –> Best Brought-to Bin processed

Google: let it snow

In case you haven’t seen it yet, Google’s “Easter Egg” for this Christmas

In your Firefox or Google Chrome browser, visit Google’s Search page and perform a search of the words Let it snow to see snow fall and fog up your display (You can even write on the fogged up display).

Firefox 9.0

Firefox v.9.0, was offered to release channel users on December 20th, 2011

What’s New in Firefox 9 [3]
The latest version of Firefox has the following changes:
* Added Type Inference, significantly improving JavaScript performance
* Improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion
* Added two finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion
* Added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript
* Added support for font-stretch
* Improved support for text-overflow
* Improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS
* Fixed several stability issues
* Fixed several security issues

Fixed in Firefox 9 [4]
MFSA 2011-58 Crash scaling to extreme sizes
MFSA 2011-57 Crash when plugin removes itself on Mac OS X
MFSA 2011-56 Key detection without JavaScript via SVG animation
MFSA 2011-55 nsSVGValue out-of-bounds access
MFSA 2011-54 Potentially exploitable crash in the YARR regular expression library
MFSA 2011-53 Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:9.0)

Vulnerability ratings: 4 Critical, 1 High, 1 Moderate
Affects: Windows, OSX, Linux, Android …
Evaluation: Upgrade to a dot zero release, but beware and take note of which plugins will cease to work.

Note: Automatic updates for Mac OS X and Linux have been disabled while Mozilla investigate a possible issue affecting a small number of users. The issue is unlikely to impact new users.

LINKS:
[1] Firefox Updated: Firefox 9 (2011-Dec-20) [Mozilla]
[2] Firefox features [Mozilla]
[3] Mozilla Firefox 9.0 Release Notes (2011-Dec-20) [Mozilla]
[4] Security Advisories for Firefox [Mozilla]

John Hattie Lecture – The Future of Measurement

DEAN’S LECTURE SERIES 2011
Professor John Hattie Lecture
The future of measurement
Measurement invades so many aspects of our life, particularly in our schools. Indeed schools are awash with test data. Most of these tests look like those of 50 years ago. During the past ten years a new revolution has been occurring leading to fascinating new ways to think about measurement. These include the use of technologies, changing conceptions of how to assess the qualities of tests, the measurement of progress, assessing cognitive processes and the globalisation of measurement. This lecture will outline this revolution, showing how many of these advances can be included in a reporting engine accessible to teachers. These assessment reports can make learning more visible to the student and the teacher.
– MGSE Dean’s Lecture Series 2011

John Hattie is Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. His areas of interest are measurement models and their applications to educational problems, and models of teaching and learning.

Professor John Hattie – The Future of Measurement

* The Future of Measurement: Making learning visible (PDF)

[Trailer] The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey – Official Trailer

Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit, journeys to the Lonely Mountain accompanied by a group of dwarves to reclaim a treasure taken from them by the dragon Smaug.
Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: J.R.R. Tolkien (based on a story), Fran Walsh (screenplay)
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Luke Evans and Elijah Wood

** Preview THE HOBBIT [trailers.apple.com]

Map Art

MAP ART – The artwork

MAP ART – An aerial view of region that the artwork is located

MAP ART – Compare the art to the aerial view

MAP ART – look familiar?

Music Monday #086 – Storm

Clean up operations are underway across Victoria following heavy rain and flash flooding late yesterday.
Very high rainfalls were recorded as a storm moved across the state’s west and central districts.
Terry Ryan from the weather bureau says Halls Gap got 90 millimetres in just 20 minutes.
– ‘Amazing’ rainfall totals from overnight storms (2011-Dec-19) [ABC News]

And now for some music …