Dating website created fake profiles

 

One thing we pride ourselves upon here at http://www.loveonline.co.nz is the fact that we vet every profile posted before it is approved to go onto the members list of profiles.

We reject quite a few that we think are too sexual or suspect but here's a story in from Australia that should put the jitters amongst the huge amount of online dating sites that DO post "dummy' profiles in order to justify their charging fees to access their member base. We are totally Free so it's not an issue for us...read on.

"The operator of Mt Hawthorn-based dating website Red Hot Pie has been ordered by the Federal Court to disclose to its users that it operated 1371 of its own profiles on the website. The Federal Court found that Jetplace created fake profiles to send "flirts" and messages to users. The court declared that Jetplace contravened the Trade Practices Act 1974 by engaging in misleading conduct and by representing that membership of the website had benefits that it did not have. The court also declared that Jetplace directors Maxwell James McGuire and Mark Semaan were aware of the offending conduct.

Jetplace has been ordered to publish a corrective notice when each user of the website who registered between December 2004 and November 26, 2008 next logs on, and to send a copy of the notice to the email address of each user. Users can also apply for refunds if they can demonstrate that they were misled by the conduct into paying for membership of the website. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Graeme Samuel said the website operators had a legal responsibility to ensure the information they placed on the website was accurate.

"Had this conduct occurred after the introduction of the new Australian Consumer Law, it is likely the ACCC would have sought from the court civil pecuniary penalties," he said. "Such penalties can be up to $1.1 million for companies and $220,000 for individuals." Mr McGuire said the 1371 profiles were created over a four-year period for the User Security Suite and only "a small number" of those profiles were active at any given time. "This part of the Red Hot Pie User Security Suite was voluntarily deactivated in November 2008 following the identification of the ACCC's concerns," he said."This part of the site's User Security Suite would have been of minimal inconvenience to bona fide members of the site, and most will not have been aware of its existence or its passing."

www.loveonline.co.nz AAP

 http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

This is also a great video delivered by Steve Jobs, the world famous leader of Apple who make Ipod, Iphone, Ipad and ,of course, Apple Mac computers.

A very interesting philosophy on life in his speech to graduates at Princeton Uni. in the States...enjoy

 http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_conley_measuring_what_makes_life_worthwhile.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-06-29&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

this 17 minute video by successful man , chip conley, is an interesting angle on our relentless search for happiness...

 ******DICTIONARY FOR WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS******if you have a sense of humour read on



40-ish.........49

Adventurous.........Slept with all your friends

Athletic.........No boobs

Average lookingUgly

Beautiful.........Pathological liar

Contagious SmileDoes a lot of pills

Emotionally secureOn medication

Feminist.........Fat

Free spirit.........Junkie

Friendship firstFormer slut

Fun.........Annoying

Gentle.........Dull

New Age......... Body hair in the wrong places

Open-minded......... Desperate

Outgoing......... Loud and Embarrassing

Passionate......... Sloppy drunk

Poet......... Depressive

Professional......... Bitch

Romantic......... Frigid

Voluptuous......... Very Fat

Large frame......... Hugely Fat

Wants Soul mateStalker

Widow......... Murderer



WOMEN'S ENGLISH



1. Yes = No

2. No = Yes

3. Maybe = No

4. We need = I want

5. I am sorry = you'll be sorry

6. We need to talk = you're in trouble

7. Sure, go ahead = you better not

8. Do what you want = you will pay for this later

9. I am not upset = of course I am upset, you moron!

10. You're very attentive tonight = is sex all you ever think about?



MEN'S ENGLISH



1. I am hungry = I am hungry

2. I am sleepy = I am sleepy

3. I am tired = I am tired

4. Nice dress = Nice cleavage!

5. I love you = let's have sex now

6. I am bored = Do you want to have sex?

7. May I have this dance? = I'd like to have sex with you

8. Can I call you sometime? = I'd like to have sex with you

9. Do you want to go to a movie? = I'd like to have sex with you

10. Can I take you out to dinner? = I'd like to have sex with you

11. Those shoes don't go with that outfit = I'm gay



And finally.....

A recent scientific study found that women find different male faces attractive depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle. For example, when a woman is ovulating she will prefer a man with rugged, masculine features.

However when she is menstruating, she prefers a man doused in petrol and set on fire, with scissors stuck in his eye and a cricket stump shoved up his backside.

courtesy www.loveonline.co.nz

ABC opens the iPad app floodgates

ASHER MOSES

May 27, 2010 - 3:14PM

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Tale of two iPad tragics

Rahul Koduri arrived at least seven hours before anyone else to the Apple store in Sydney to get his hands on the first iPad sold in Australia.

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The ABC has unveiled its iPad app that will provide one-touch access to its news, radio and TV content and, in the not too distant future, live TV streaming.

As people began queuing outside Apple stores ahead of the iPad launch at 8am tomorrow morning, Australian companies including NAB, Borders and St George announced today that they would be among the first to have iPad apps available on launch day. Australian newspaper titles such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian, as well as local magazines including Sport & Style, Men's Health, Women's Health and GQ Australia, also plan to have iPad apps available soon after launch.

 

Click for more photos

ABC shows off its iPad app

The main page of the ABC iPad app, to be released within weeks.

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The ABC's free app was developed by a mobile team inside ABC Innovation and while it's still not quite finished, the public broadcaster said it planned to have it available on Apple's App Store within weeks.

ABC opted to create a whole new design from scratch to suit the iPad's large 9.7-inch screen, as opposed to simply scaling up its existing iPhone app. Users will be able to access national and local news, entertainment stories and selected programs from ABC Television and Radio. ABC's podcasts and 90-second news bulletins are also accessible from the app over WiFi or 3G connections.

Live radio streams of Radio National, News Radio, triple j, classic FM, ABC Dig Music, ABC Country and ABC Jazz are also available.

"If you go to one of our radio stations and then you decide to navigate from the radio content area to a new content area or to read an At The Movies review, you can continue to listen to radio [in the background]," ABC mobile producer Manuela Davidson said in an interview today at ABC headquarters in Ultimo. Davidson said her goal was to create a "brand new", "tacticle" user experience that took full advantage of the iPad's touch capabilities. The content is laid out in "film strips" that can be cycled through horizontally with the swipe of a finger.

Users are able to enter their postcode and then receive their local news, weather and ABC1 program guide information. Although extensive video will be offered through the app, users will have to wait a little longer for the full iView catalogue they enjoy on their desktops or laptops. Also coming in a future update to the app is the ability to stream ABC's television channels live. Davidson said this update would come closer to the middle than the end of the year but would not be any more specific.

"When we started working on the ABC iPad application we didn't even have our hands on an iPad yet," Davidson said. "The very first day it was released in the US our head of strategic development was queuing there - I think she was the fourth person in line in New York and she brought back two iPads for us.

"That changed everything for us in terms of how we should approach the user experience and navigation." Davidson said the ABC was in discussions with other manufacturers about creating apps for other platforms like Google Android. www.loveonline.co.nz

Answering a personal ad is like standing at a date's front door waiting to make that first impression.

With the right greeting, the door will be held wide open. Screw up, and the door will be slammed in your face. So if you don't want your nose working overtime as a doorknocker, follow these tips when responding to a person's profile.



When you respond to specific details in a potential date's profile it shows that you are paying attention and that person has piqued your interest. For example, if a person describes him or herself as, "A yoga instructor looking for a flexible mate" you could respond with, "My downward dog could use a little work, but I'll bend over backwards for the right person."



Mass emails are rude and people know the difference between a response written for you and one written for you and everyone else. Never reply all in capital letters, it's like shouting in someone's face - would you do that in person on the first date? And unless your first name is Fonzi, don't expect much response if you send out a one liner like, "Nice pic, call me."



Good grammar and proper spelling are just as important in your response as they are in your profile. Typos make as good an impression as bad breath on the first date.



If you respond to a profile with a picture, follow up by sending a recent picture of yourself, it shows you're not afraid to reveal who you are. For tips on what make a flattering photo.

See Picture Perfect



Humour is important when writing and responding to profiles. Unfortunately, sometimes wit and sarcasm can fall flat if people can't see the smile behind your words. Use emoticons so people know when you're joking and when you're flirting ;-)

If you're nervous about contacting someone for the first time, send a free smile from the site. You might get lucky, they could respond with some questions for you, making it easier to reply.



Well it shouldn't be. Just because you are communicating by email, it doesn't mean you abandon all your social skills. Talking incessantly about yourself won't get you very far in a date in the real world, and it won't do much for you in the virtual world either. Engage the other person in a conversation. Ask about their interests, their likes and dislikes, the point of this first response is to find out a little more about this person and encourage them to do the same with you.



Would you whip out your rubber outfit the first time you met someone in the real world? Unless a person mentions their sexual preferences and fetishes in their profile, keep yours to yourself until you get to know the person better.

and make sure you tell you friends that it's all FREE here at www.loveonline.co.nz

By Jacqueline Brasfield

Flirting online is a liberating experience for many people. The anonymity of the web makes us bolder than we might be if we were meeting someone face to face. Gone are the worries about what your hair looks like or if you have spinach in your teeth.

However, it's also hard to tell just how effective you're flirting, since you can't rely of body language, eye contact or other non-verbal signals to gauge the other person's interest. And here's a chilling thought - you could be making a terrible first impression without even knowing it!

Minimise the chance of becoming a flirting failure by avoiding these common mistakes:

	Giving the wrong impression Know your intent before you flirt with someone and tailor your tone accordingly. If you're only interested in starting a friendship, don't lay it on thick. Light banter between friends is fun but make sure you're not suggesting anything deeper. You'll risk giving the wrong impression and unfairly building up the other person's expectations.
	Unloading your problems You've just met this person - don't turn them into your therapist. If you've had a bad day, wait until you're feeling better to start flirting. Call up a friend to share your tale of woe and come online once your mood has improved.
	Smothering with sleaze Most people (thankfully) wouldn't stick their tongue in someone's ear five minutes after meeting them. Sending sexually explicit messages to someone you've just met is the online equivalent. It's tacky, tasteless, and a good way to get a virtual door slammed in your face.
	Being cheesy "Hey baby, what's your sign?" works about as well online as it does in a bar. One-liners, cheesy jokes and smarmy compliments will not help you make a good first impression.
	Getting heavy It can be easy to open up to other people over the internet and sometimes inspire an artificial sense of intimacy or closeness. Always wait until you've met someone in person to check the chemistry before you announce your feelings. Calling someone your "soul mate" before you've met them could send them running.
	Spamming While you may be eager to get to know someone, sending too many messages at once could make the other person feel overwhelmed or pressured. Give them time to respond to your message before you send another one and pace yourself to avoid coming on too strong.

Dating Tips, Dating Advice and Dating Help for Online Dating

GETTING STARTED SAFELY AND SUCCESSFULLY

Online dating will be a fun, fulfilling and potentially life changing activity if you take a few precautions to ensure your safety and success. Use our online dating tips to get started safely and successfully by finding the right online dating service, setting yourself up for safe online dating and maximizing your chances of meeting your dream online date!

Computer Security

Before you start dating online, ensure your computer is 100% secure and does not put you and your information at risk. 

Password Security

Choosing a good password is essential. An easily compromised password could result in your account being hijacked and worse still, the hacker could use your details for ID theft as well. Take note of our password security tips to ensure you choose a good, well thought out password for your accounts.

Email Security

Set up a new email account for online dating that will be separate from all personal and work accounts. That way you'll keep track of online dating communication and be able to easily isolate any unwanted or inappropriate content. Make sure your real name isn't included in your email address and check that any signatures are switched off for maximum Email Security.

Choosing A Reputable Dating Service

A reputable and reliable dating service will provide you with additional safety and security. Do your research and choose a dating service that not only meets your needs but provides you with a certain amount of peace of mind as well. 

Honesty Really is the Best Policy

When wanting to portray the best possible image of yourself it’s tempting to change a few personal details such as height and weight. However it’s important to remember that while online daters will be interested in your appearance hardly anyone is looking for the next Kate Moss or Brad Pitt. The vast majority of people use online dating to find someone with similar interests and attitudes so don’t feel the need to ‘tweak’ information about your age, height, weight or occupation. Telling little white lies will only be detrimental in the long run by making you feel uncomfortable about getting to know someone or meeting them in person.

What Are You Looking For?

Be clear and confident when describing what you're looking for in a partner. The millions of people using online dating services all want to meet someone but don't want to waste their time or yours. If you're looking for particular attributes such as ethnicity, religious persuasion or an interest in sports then say so! To maximize your chances of finding that special someone through online dating make sure they know you're looking for them!

any probs.emails us at contact@loveonline.co.nz

Inside Sydney's secret nightclubs

May 21, 2010

Comments 62

Inspired by the Hamptons, Beach Haus has just opened where Barons used to be.Photo: Marco Del Grande

Want to see where the celebrities and A-listers party? Dan Kaufman pounds the pavement - and braves the door policies - to unveil Sydney's most exclusive nightclubs.

Secret passwords, hidden revolving walls and underground passages: these might sound like elements from a spy thriller but they're actually part of Sydney's members' club scene. Just when you thought bars couldn't get any harder to get into, there's a whole new level of nightlife where looking glam often isn't enough for entry. Instead, you need to be a celebrity, a friend of the owner or a serious mover and shaker - or, like us, up for a challenge. Here is the Metro's guide to Sydney's most exclusive clubs.

White Revolver

 

Secret door ... James Hudson, owner of the White Revolver. Photo: Domino Postiglione

Corner of Curlewis Street and Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach. Seewhiterevolver.com

 There's an innocent-looking wine bar on Bondi Beach calledThru the Grapevine but all is not what it seems. Look carefully and you'll notice akeyhole in one wall that, when unlocked, revolves to reveal a passageway leading underground to White Revolver, a late-night club decorated with antique furniture.  According to James Hudson, White Revolver's co-owner, membership is free but can only be obtained through personal invitation. ''A lot of people do get angry … that they can't get in but it's not about wanting to deny people; it's about wanting to create a space we want to be a part of,'' Hudson says. ''It is to ensure our core followers and guests are well looked after. For our celebrity friends, Revolver is not a place 'to be seen' - rather it is a place not to be seen. [It's] somewhere intimate where they can let their hair down without the prying eyes of the paparazzi.''

Non-members can sometimes come in but entry is at the discretion of the door host and costs $20 upwards, whereas it's free for members. I was allowed in without any problems - but the two glamazons on either side of me helped my cause.

Tatlers

169 Darlinghurst Road, Darlinghurst. See tatlers.com.au

 It's not a members' club but Tatlers is one of the hardest establishments to get into. I have spent years failing to get past its wrought-iron gates and the reason, according to the owner, is that you can only get in if you're part of a private party - and the party organiser has been vetted in person. Parties range from birthday bashes to private functions - however, Tatlers regulars can often join in. ''Once we get to know you, then there is no problem arriving at the door without notice, unless it is a unique style of party taking place,'' the owner says.

Shh!

Mansion Lane, Kings Cross. See shh-speakeasy.com

Held at the back of Le Panic, an upmarket Kings Cross club on Bayswater Road, Shh! has its own entrance at the end of a dingy back alley. There you'll find a seedy red light, a bolted door and an intercom - and if you don't have the password the owners SMS-ed you, then you're probably out of luck. Despite acquiring the owner's mobile number from an acquaintance, I still couldn't get the password. Expecting rejection, I turn up on a Saturday night anyhow and strike it lucky - there's a private party winding down, leaving the place empty. The bouncers quiz me on my intentions, look carefully at the attractive woman on my arm and finally decide to let us in if we pay $20 each.

Inside we find ourselves in a quiet and classy looking bar with a '50s Rat Pack feel, complete with curtained-off alcoves, paintings, antlers hanging from the red walls, a padded bar counter and a reality TV chef who passes us on his way out now that the party's over.

Beach Haus

5 Roslyn Street, Potts Point

 Inspired by the Hamptons (think blond wood-panelling and staff wearing '50s-style country club uniforms), Beach Haus has just opened where Barons used to be. The entrance looks like it belongs to an apartment building and members are given swipe cards to get in (membership costs aren't finalised but will be about $50 a month).

The upstairs area feels like a hotel lobby, albeit one with a DJ and cocktail bar. Instead of being dark and moody, this is relatively bright and features pastel seats, white lounges and hostesses delivering drinks on trays. For those with money to burn, a crystal ''drink vessel'' and set of platinum straws (custom-made by a jeweller for the nightclub) valued about $5000 that will soon be available for purchase. Otherwise, settle in with a giant conch-like metal cocktail cup that serves two. As for getting in: to be honest, I only managed it by talking to the publicist first.

Level 6

Level 6, 330 George Street, Sydney

 

It's hard enough to become a member of its Pool Club but now Ivy has Level 6, a more exclusive spot with a $5500 annual membership fee that's invite only. I know I won't be let in but, in the name of journalism and voyeurism, I sneak up to level 6 of the Ivy building and knock on a dark door. A man in a tux opens it and, when he realises I'm not invited, politely refuses to let me in despite my squeals. As the door closes in my face I quickly glimpse what I imagine Hugh Hefner's apartment would have looked like before he built the Playboy mansion.

I later contact Ivy, who say Level 6's members are mainly corporate types, although some celebrities (most recently Lady Gaga and George Michael) go there as well. They also say there's a strict no media - and no Metro - policy in place.

De Nom

231 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Designed to look like a room from the Palace of Versailles, complete with silk-tented ceilings, velvet day beds and gold gilt-edged mirrors, this was once arguably Sydney's most exclusive club. Charging $10,000 a year for membership (which includes access to a private room hidden behind a revolving bookcase), this was a common after-party locale for celebrities.

These days De Nom has wound down a little: it's only open on Friday and Saturday nights and it's no longer offering memberships, although existing members are still treated like VIPs.

www.loveonline.co.nz bringing you all the top spots..even if they are in Sydney?

Sixties libertine returns to critique sex lives of today's scantily-clad young

SAFFRON HOWDEN

May 22, 2010

AT THEIR age she was comfortable naked in a room full of desirous men, but Catherine Millet does not approve of today's scantily-clad young women.

''For me, how you are dressed is something like a signal,'' the French author and art critic, 62, said. ''They learnt a lot from feminism and it's why they know exactly what they want to do. ''They know exactly their power and what they can accept from men and what they can refuse and they are much more sure about themselves than we were.''

 

Millet, whose best-selling The Sexual Life of Catherine Mcandidly detailed her body's journey through orgies and swingers parties in the 1960s and '70s Paris sexual libertine underground, has returned to Sydney for the writers' festival this week. Two years ago, she publicly confronted another private topic inJealousy, a book inspired by the emotional ''crises'' she battled after discovering her partner, Jacques Henric, had lovers. She explains how over years she was forced to grapple with the apparent contradiction in her own proclivity for multiple sexual encounters and her covetous feelings about her partner.

But she sees no incongruity in her disapproval of today's raunch culture - ''you won't find any low-cut or tight-fitting dresses in my wardrobe'', she proclaimed in The Sexual Life - and her autobiographical writing. ''They are much more puritan than I was when I was a teenager,'' she told the Herald. ''They show more … but I think they do less. They can be very sexy [but] that doesn't mean to a guy 'come to me'. To be [almost] naked in the street is, for me, 'I'm ready to make out with you'.'' Ms Millet, who describes herself as a moralist, feels compelled to tell the truth. ''It's a writer's duty … and [in doing it] you have to tell about the intimacy.''

But the Paris-based founder of Art Press magazine says she could not have led the same life now. ''I hope I would have done the same but I'm not sure of that because … I think society is less permissive than in the '70s because a lot of people are afraid of … the pornography industry.'' Despite a public and personal life dominated by sexual activity, she said she is at peace ''doing less'' in the bedroom. ''Of course I'm older, of course my body is not like it was … But in my mind and my heart I feel much better. That's the benefit of age; I'm freer.'' www.loveonline.co.nz

 SEX, DRUGS AND CLASSIC RECORD COVERS

Love online shopping? Two Australian online shops have exciting news

Women want nookie as much as the next bloke: online poll

EAMONN DUFF AND SARAH WHYTE

April 18, 2010

''We're both pretty similar in what we want'' … Olivia Nicolson and Chris Grady have been together for four years and admit they have a very healthy sex life.

WOMEN crave sex nearly as often as men, according to a survey that also suggests the art of seduction has vanished from modern romance. Almost 10,000 Australian men and women, aged between 25 and 45, took part in an online survey of what they think about sex.

The results, published in Men's Health and Women's Health magazines, show that when it comes to love, lust and good old-fashioned romance, the genders aren't that different. The study found that almost 33 per cent of women want sex every day, compared with 40 per cent of men. The reality isn't quite as exciting, with 25 per cent of women having sex once a week while one in five get lucky just once a month.

Olivia Nicolson, 25, an events manager, and Chris Grady, 25, a forensic officer with NSW Police, have been together for four years and have a very healthy sex life - engaging in sex three to four times a week - with both of them initiating it. ''We're both pretty similar in what we want,'' Mr Grady said. ''I probably want it a little more than Olivia, but on the whole we just really enjoy being with each other.'' Ms Nicolson said she often wanted sex every day. ''When I'm not tired from work I would say that I would want it almost every day,'' she said.

When it comes to a date most likely to put us all in the mood, a romantic dinner was favoured by a third of both sexes but according to 61.8 per cent of men and 52.4 per cent of women, there is nothing quite like a cosy night in to ignite passion. Dancing is the unanimous winner for both sexes when it comes to activities most likely to turn us on, with 65.9 per cent of women and 50 per cent of men preferring a boogie over outdoor pursuits and pub-based pastimes such as pool.

As for sex itself, the survey suggests we're all stuck in a bit of a rut. Rushed foreplay was named as the biggest issue for 37.8 per cent of women while 35 per cent of men complained women never initiate sex. More than half of both sexes said the one thing they really wanted, above all else, was to be seduced more often.

Sex therapist and clinical psychologist Janet Hall said sex was often reduced to soulless hook-ups. ''The attitude towards sex is now about the outcome, rather than the journey,'' Dr Hall said. ''People aren't making love now, they're just having sex.'' ''Girls are not telling the guys what they want and as a result the whole art of seduction is just not there any more.''

More than two-thirds of both sexes said they would be open to watching porn or engaging in sexy role play games in order to spice things up.Ms Nicolson said: ''We don't need to mix it up all that often. But we have watched some porn and I sometimes dress up in lingerie. Sometimes we like to visit www.loveonline.co.nz also " she said!'

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald

Online dating: the rules

DOMINIC KNIGHT, SUNDAY LIFE

March 22, 2010

What does it take to make RSVP's top 100?

How do those looking for love online attract hits? A photo with a big smile and plenty of flesh helps, as Dominic Knight finds out. Whether we're reading glossy magazines, listening to breakfast radio or even chatting to mates at the pub, how to make ourselves attractive to the opposite sex is a constant topic for discussion. Men are mainly interested in appearances, popular wisdom has it, so women should slap on some make-up and show a little leg. Whereas women aren't nearly as superficial; they primarily want to find nice guys, so men should open car doors and talk about their feelings.

Endless surveys in the media generally confirm these stereotypes. The UK's Daily Express recently reported that the majority of men check out a woman's cleavage before even looking her in the eye, while the author of Sex Lives of Australian Women, Joan Sauers, found in her survey that most women want guys who are good communicators and willing to help with housework.

But surveys only find out what those interviewed think they want, not what they actually go for. So, to get some more honest evidence, I turned to the place where humanity displays all its ugly honesty: the internet. After all, dating sites are almost as ubiquitous on the net these days as amusing photos of Lady Gaga. So I visited Australia's most prominent singles site, RSVP (which is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of Sunday Life), to discover what Australians look for when they're clicking anonymously on photos of the opposite sex.

RSVP publishes a top-100 chart that lists its members who have received the most contact in the past 24 hours, and I spent a week tracking it. Given the stereotypes, I expected the list of top-ranked women to resemble a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar, and the male chart to be full of average-looking blokes with kind eyes and wonderful relationships with their mothers. But what I discovered was that there are five golden rules that apply equally to both sexes. Could it be that men and women are more similar than we like to think?

1) If you've got it, photograph it

Australia's obesity crisis does not exist on the RSVP charts, where buff blokes and skinny-waisted babes abound. In fact, I could only find one chubby guy, and he probably snuck in by accident. Among the males, singlet tops are popular, while some guys go shirtless, like the confident "JnrDoc", who is not only bronzed, but a doctor - a combination that's usually possible only on ER. Similarly, the photos of women suggest that flashing cleavage is a sure-fire short cut to the top 100. In some well-ranked photos, the ladies are even pictured bending forward enticingly. One member, "KCvip", was apparently photographed while picking up her dropped front door keys.

2) Smile and the web will smile with you

Almost everyone in the top 100 is grinning. Even if they spend most of their spare time weeping, the big smiles in their photos project the impression that their life is wonderful, and that anyone would be lucky to become part of it. One highly ranked member, "Tacking82", was grinning so widely that she could well have been auditioning for Alvin & the Chipmunks, which leads me to a secondary rule: have good teeth.

3) Have hair, and make it long

The vast majority of top-100 women have longer-than-shoulder-length hair, with barely a pageboy cut to be seen. That said, the division between blondes and brunettes is roughly even, putting paid to theories about what gentlemen prefer. Female tastes were clearer: recession is as unwelcome in a gentleman's hairline as it is in the economy. There were virtually no signs of thinning hair in the 18-to-30 and 28-to-40 charts, and even in the 38-to-50 bracket, only a few men had receding hairlines or even signs of greyness. There were a few shaved heads, which may mean ladies now associate that look with jolly chocolate-maker Max Brenner rather than Lex Luthor.

4) Choose an intriguing handle

On internet dating sites, only the foolhardy use their real names. The members of the top 100 have generally adopted monikers that make them stand out from the crowd, such as "Heythereoverhere" and "timeforsumfun1", or are witty, like "iOpenJars" and "BudgieStruggler". Note that, unlike most other rules, the intriguing handle one is not followed slavishly: it's apparently okay to have an arrogant nickname if you're as model-handsome as "GreekSensations"...(you want to see some we get at www.loveonline.co.nz ?)

5) Have a drink in your hand

As blokes can tell you, it's never been a crime to like a drink and many of RSVP's most popular members have pictured themselves holding a beverage to display their Beastie Boys-like commitment to partying. Glasses of champagne are popular with the ladies (although "Youwanttokissme" is holding a huge mug of beer). For the men, a wine glass is a classy option, but some RSVP hotties are even shown clutching a good old-fashioned tinnie.

Everything I saw on RSVP suggests that when it comes to finding love, women put just as much of a premium on the physical appearance of their potential partners as any FHM-reading male. And while this news may distress those of us with non-buff bodies, short hair, and an aversion to drinking, it should really be cause for celebration. While we may seem equally fixated on the physical, at least there is now one area in which men and women have achieved genuine equality.  www.loveonline.co.nz

FBI seeks new 'friends' on Facebook

March 17, 2010 - 3:50PM

The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalising glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI. The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that US agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips. Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree — people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars — can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, obtained the Justice Department document when it sued the agency and five others in federal court. The 33-page document underscores the importance of social networking sites to U.S. authorities. The foundation said it would publish the document on its Web site on Tuesday. With agents going undercover, state and local police coordinate their online activities with the Secret Service, FBI and other federal agencies in a strategy known as "deconfliction" to keep out of each other's way. "You could really mess up someone's investigation because you're investigating the same person and maybe doing things that are counterproductive to what another agency is doing," said Detective Frank Dannahey of the Rocky Hill Police Department, a veteran of dozens of undercover cases.

A decade ago, agents kept watch over AOL and MSN chat rooms to nab sexual predators. But those text-only chat services are old-school compared with today's social media, which contain mountains of personal data, photographs, videos and audio clips — a potential treasure trove of evidence for cases of violent crime, financial fraud and much more. The Justice Department document, part of a presentation given in August by top cybercrime officials, describes the value of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other services to government investigators. It does not describe in detail the boundaries for using them. "It doesn't really discuss any mechanisms for accountability or ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly," said Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the civil liberties foundation.

The group sued in Washington to force the government to disclose its policies for using social networking sites in investigations, data collection and surveillance. Covert investigations on social-networking services are legal and governed by internal rules, according to Justice Department officials. But they would not say what those rules are.

The Justice Department document raises a legal question about a social-media bullying case in which US prosecutors charged a Missouri woman with computer fraud for creating a fake MySpace account — effectively the same activity that undercover agents are doing, although for different purposes. The woman, Lori Drew, helped create an account for a fictitious teen boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages to a 13-year-old neighbourhood girl in his name. The girl hanged herself in October 2006, in a St Louis suburb, after she received a message saying the world would be better without her. A jury in California, where MySpace has its servers, convicted Drew of three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorisation because she was accused of violating MySpace's rules against creating fake accounts. But last year a judge overturned the verdicts, citing the vagueness of the law.

"If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal activity'?" the document asks. It doesn't provide an answer.

Facebook's rules, for example, specify that users "will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission." Twitter's rules prohibit its users from sending deceptive or false information. MySpace requires that information for accounts be "truthful and accurate". A former US cybersecurity prosecutor, Marc Zwillinger, said investigators should be able to go undercover in the online world the same way they do in the real world, even if such conduct is barred by a company's rules. But there have to be limits, he said.

In the face-to-face world, agents can't impersonate a suspect's spouse, child, parent or best friend. But online, behind the guise of a social-networking account, they can. "This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most personal relationships," said Zwillinger, whose firm does legal work for Yahoo and MySpace.

Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico. Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last year after learning that federal agents were investigating the alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo on Facebook. While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. Assistant US Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the US.

The Justice document describes how Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have interacted with federal investigators: Facebook is "often cooperative with emergency requests," the government said. MySpace preserves information about its users indefinitely and even stores data from deleted accounts for one year. But Twitter's lawyers tell prosecutors they need a warrant or subpoena before the company turns over customer information, the document says. "Will not preserve data without legal process," the document says under the heading, "Getting Info From Twitter ... the bad news."

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment for this story. The chief security officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam, said MySpace doesn't want to be the company that stands in the way of an investigation. "That said, we also want to make sure that our users' privacy is protected and any data that's disclosed is done under proper legal process," Nigam said.

MySpace requires a search warrant for private messages less than six months old, according to the company. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company has put together a handbook to help law enforcement officials understand "the proper ways to request information from Facebook to aid investigations." The Justice document includes sections about its own lawyers. For government attorneys taking cases to trial, social networks are a "valuable source of info on defense witnesses," they said. "Knowledge is power. ... Research all witnesses on social networking sites."

But the government warned prosecutors to advise their own witnesses not to discuss cases on social media sites and to "think carefully about what they post". It also cautioned federal law enforcement officials to think prudently before adding judges or defense counsel as "friends" on these services.

"Social networking and the courtroom can be a dangerous combination," the government said. www.loveonline.co.nz

How to work when you're tired

ALI HALE, FORBES.COM

March 9, 2010

Comments 1

Coping with little sleep ... There are strategies you can put in place to get through the working day.

All the tools you need to stay focused throughout the day. Up late last night? Couldn't get to sleep, or woke up just to stare at the ceiling for hours in the middle of the night? Or are you just plain tired?

We all have days when we just don't feel energetic and with it. But when you've got work to do-whether in your job, building your own business or around the house-you can't simply go back to bed. You need to stay alert, make the most of your day and avoid getting distracted or making silly mistakes.

Here's how to work when you're tired: Be clear about what you want to accomplish

It's always a good idea to have a clear goal in mind, but especially when you're feeling tired or otherwise sub-par. Sit down and think about what you need to get done today. If you're working on a big project, what exactly are you going to get done? The next chapter? That section with the statistics you need to look up? Even if you're spring cleaning, don't just do whatever catches your eye-make a plan. It's very easy to start meandering into lots of unrelated tasks, if you don't have a clear focus on what you want to accomplish. I'm sure you've had days where you've looked back and wondered where your time went-well, this is how to make sure you spend your time on something worthwhile.

Get ruthless about distractions

Again, this is always good advice-but when you're tired, it counts double. Stay out of your email, don't log into Facebook and don't keep taking breaks from the task at hand. It's easy to get distracted when you're not focusing well, and falling prey to diversions only makes it harder to concentrate. You know what it's like to "just check Facebook" and spend the next hour looking at your cousin's holidays snaps. Every time your attention wanders, direct it straight back to what you're supposed to be working on.

Drink plenty of water

Dehydration saps your concentration, so make sure you're sipping water regularly when you're tired. Although caffeine can supply a temporary boost of energy, try to go easy on the coffee: you'll only crash otherwise. Ditto for sugary sodas. I like to keep a bottle of water on my desk, within easy reach: because it's next to me, it's easy to remember to drink from it. And because the bottle has a screw cap, there's no chance I'll accidentally tip it into my computer's keyboard.

Keep moving around

If you're feeling sleepy, the worst thing to do is to sit down somewhere warm and comfy-you'll almost certainly nod off! Instead, make sure you move around frequently: get up and stretch, go for a brisk walk, get your body temperature up a bit. This is an especially good idea if you get that mid-afternoon slump: walking around will shake it off.

Take a shower

Getting into a shower will really wake you up when you're feeling sluggish. If you're struggling to even get out of bed, head straight for the shower. As soon as you're under that running water, you'll feel considerably more alive. If you work from home, a mid-afternoon shower can be a great pick-me-up when you're tired. If you're in an office, splashing your face with cold water is a good refreshing alternative.

Perform easier tasks

If you're feeling really tired but you still need to get some work done, try doing your more routine tasks: things like replying to emails, filing documents, making minor website updates and so on. Often, your energy will naturally pick back up while you work.

Ali Hale is a London-based professional blogger and post-graduate student of creative writing. This column originally appeared on the blog, Dumb Little Man.  www.loveonline.co.nz

Wine good for waistline

March 9, 2010 - 1:35PM Sydney Morning Herald

Comments 4

Waist away ... moderate red wine consumption found to be slimming.

Light to moderate alcohol consumption, especially red wine, is not only good for a woman's heart, it's also good for her waistline, according to a study reported Monday. The study started out with nearly 20,000 trim middle-aged and older women. Over time, women who drank alcohol in moderation put on less weight and were less apt to become overweight compared to non-drinkers. This was true even after taking into account various lifestyle and dietary factors that might influence a woman's weight.

Red wine seemed best at keeping weight in check, but white wine, beer and spirits also had some benefit. "Our study results showed that middle-aged and older women who have normal body weight initially and consume light-to-moderate amount of alcohol could maintain their drinking habits without gaining more weight compared with similar women who did not drink any alcohol," Dr Lu Wang from the division of preventive medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, noted in an email to Reuters Health. Many prior studies have suggested that moderate drinking - usually defined as a drink or two a day --can be a healthy habit, particularly with regard to heart health, while heavy drinking can harm health.

The new study, published in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine ties between alcohol consumption by a normal-weight individual and the risk of becoming overweight or obese. The women were all at least 39 years old when the study began. About 38 per cent said they did not drink alcohol; 33 per cent said they drank less than 5 grams daily (a standard drink has about 10 grams of alcohol); 20 per cent drank 5 to less than 15 grams daily; 6 per cent drank 15 to less than 30 grams daily; and 3 per cent downed 30 grams of alcohol or more daily (about 2 to 3 drinks per day or more). Over an average of about 13 years, the women generally gained weight. However, the teetotalers gained the most weight, with weight gain decreasing with increasing amount of alcohol consumed.

Women who did not drink gained an average of 3.63 kilograms compared with 1.55 kilograms for those who consumed 30 grams of alcohol or more each day. During the 13 years the initially normal-weight women were followed, 41 per cent became overweight or obese. Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams per day had the lowest risk of becoming overweight or obese, which was 30 per cent less than that of non-drinkers.

Put another way, Wang said an initially trim woman who did not drink alcohol had about a 43 per cent chance of becoming overweight or obese over 13 years. Her risk fell to 33 percent if she drank 15 to 30 grams of alcohol a day. Women who drank higher amounts of alcohol were generally more physically active, weighed slightly less at the outset and were more apt to be smokers, than other women. However, the association between drinking and less weight gain and risk of becoming overweight or obese remained strong after accounting for these factors. This suggests that alcohol may independently affect body weight beyond its relationship with diet and lifestyle factors.

There are several reasons why alcohol might help women stay trim, Wang told Reuters Health. In the current study, women consuming more alcohol ate less, particularly carbohydrates - a finding seen in other studies. Moreover, it's been shown that women tend to expend more energy after drinking alcohol - more so than that contained in the alcohol. "Taken together, regular alcohol consumption in light-to-moderate amount may lead to a net energy loss among women," Wang said.

Reuters     www.loveonline.co.nz

Jobs market booming - now for the bad news

PETER MARTIN  Sydney Morning Herald

March 10, 2010

AUSTRALIA'S jobs market has turned white hot, with newspaper job ads being placed at a rate not seen since the onset of the financial crisis and as many as one in five employers planning to take on staff as business confidence climbs to an eight-year high.But the flipside is that Australian home owners face steep interest rate rises this year, the chief economist at ANZ, Warren Hogan, has warned.

ANZ says job advertisements are being placed in The Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph at a rate approaching 3000 a week, numbers not seen since the dying days of the mining boom in November 2008. ''Don't get me wrong, it's a good problem to have, but it is actually dangerous to have the jobs market rebounding so quickly,'' Mr Hogan warned.

A near-record extra 207,300 jobs have been created since June at a rate approaching 1000 per day, pushing the unemployment rate down from its peak of 5.8 per cent to 5.3 per cent. Mr Hogan says the February figures, to be released tomorrow, should add a further 30,000 jobs, continuing the blistering pace of about 1000 new jobs a day. Mr Hogan is worried the surge of employment offers will push up wage offers and inflation. ''We are beginning this upturn with inflation at the top of the Reserve Bank's target band rather than the bottom, as would be typical,'' he said. ''If you wait for the official figures to tell you you've got an inflation problem, you have already missed it. That's what the Reserve Bank did last time around. They won't make that mistake this time, and that's why we could see much higher interest rates by the end of the year.''

The National Australia Bank, whose survey yesterday showed business confidence hitting its highest point since May 2002, is forecasting an unemployment rate of 4.75 per cent by end of the year and close to 4.25 per cent by late 2011. It found one in five employers are planning to hire in the months ahead and only one in every seven planning to cut back. So fast does Mr Hogan expect employment to grow that he believes the budget could be back in surplus within two years. ''We haven't done the final numbers but this year's budget deficit could be down to $30 billion, rather than the $46 billion official forecast. Next year it could be close to a balanced budget. In fact, we can see surplus in 2011-12 quite easily.

''That's because conditions will start well ahead of what was expected. The unemployment rate will have a five in front of it rather than the eight originally forecast and corporate profits will do far better than expected, especially in the banking and resources sectors. ''The really big growth in job ads is in Australia's central-west: South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Things are good everywhere, but it's the big resource projects in the west that are sucking up workers and will drive economic growth,'' Mr Hogan said.

Although the ANZ index does not record the type of jobs that are advertised, the competing Olivier internet index, now known as the Advantage Index, finds big growth in the eastern states in accounting, administrative, legal and information technology jobs. ''Newspaper ads are a more reliable indicator than ads on the internet because people have to pay for them, or at least the cost is higher,'' Mr Hogan explained.

ANZ's measure of internet job advertisements has risen 25 per cent since June      www.loveonline.co.nz

 MILLENNIALS: TATTOOED, PLUGGED IN, OPEN MINDED

High Voltage Rock'n'roller

An old Toyota helped Brian Johnson land his gig with AC/DC and he now keeps a stable of superb cars.

Brian Johnson is in his Sydney hotel trying to decide on his next supercar. The AC/DC lead singer is a car nut. But he’s clearly not a member of the more-money-than-sense club. Back in Florida where he lives, he has a garage full of cars, each carefully, if somewhat randomly, chosen. There is a twin-engined Vespa car, a 1928 4.5 litre Bentley, race cars which he pilots with aplomb, an Audi R8 and a Citroen DS23 Pallas – possibly the most beautiful car ever made. There’s also a giant black Rolls-Royce Phantom of the kind that graces the cover of his recently released automotive autobiography Rockers and Rollers.

“I am after something really … special,” he says as he flicks through a glossy American luxury car magazine looking for inspiration. “The Ferrari 458 is pretty. I like the new Merc SLS [Gullwing] too.”

Click for more photos

Top gear ... Brian Johnson in the Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe, which he drove for a film of his travels.

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Johnson has enjoyed international stardom for the past 30 years grace of his involvement with one of the most successful rock bands of all time, his love of cars has recently earned him his own place in the spotlight.

After an appearance on the BBC’s Top Gear last year in which he revealed his long association with all things automotive, he found his legion of fans expanding outside the traditional AC/DC base. “Jeremy [Clarkson, Top Gear host] and the boys were fans of the band and their producer called up one of our guys to get some tickets for a gig,’’ he says. ‘‘They came back stage and we were talking and Jeremy literally just asked me if I’d fancy going on Top Gear. I said I’d kill to get on Top Gear. It’s me favourite show.”

As with all guests, Brian lapped the track in a cheap family saloon. But with some serious race experience under his belt (he competes in a sports car series in America),  he blew the doors off the car and the top off the celebrity lap time board. “I had a ball,” he says later as he sits behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe for a driving tour of Sydney. “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d come anywhere near the top and to get ‘the fastest man of 2009’ award was just icing on the cake for me.’’

Not that the reward for taking the top honour was that impressive. ‘‘It must have been the cheapest trophy in the shop,’’ he says. ‘‘They spelt me name wrong and there was an ice hockey player on the top. It was awful. So when I was speaking to the guys, I said, ‘I’ve got a special place to keep this forever and that’s in the loft.’ No really, I unashamedly have it on my pub bar at home. It has pride of place, and it’s so awful that it’s brilliant!” Frustratingly for someone who loves driving, Johnson’s lifestyle and touring commitments mean he can go weeks or even months without getting behind the wheel. Transport to gigs usually comes in the form of a police-escorted convoy. “But if I had to drive the band to a gig, it would be in a Rolls,”  he says. “Imagine driving this on the road to Perth across the desert. The boys had an old tour bus in the early days and it took forever to get there and the sun was always in your eyes and the heat and that’s where [former lead singer Bon Scott] came up with the words to Highway to Hell. Little bit of Australian history and AC/DC history there for you…”

As well as his concert commitments, Johnson is using his visit to Australia to make a three-part film on his travels. The project sees him drive in three countries. In Sydney he cruises through the city to Bondi Beach, in the UK across the north of England, and in the US through the Deep South. “Why we picked this drive to Bondi and around Sydney is because the city is just so beautiful and it is the birthplace of the band,’’ he says. ‘‘The sights and scenery that you have here. And you’re right in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world so it might strike people as strange, but bollocks – that’s what I like.”

Johnson tillers the Rolls from the Park Hyatt hotel round under the Harbour Bridge. Tourists making the Bridge Climb spot the car, then the star, and holler down. Johnson is not the only star beneath the bridge. Fellow car nut Ronan Keating is out making his own film. The two singers and their entourages have an impromptu pow wow. Keating wants to know how come he is walking and why Johnson is in a Rolls. “For years and years I never bought one because people might think I’m showing off,’’ he says. ‘‘Then I thought, ‘Do I want to be sat on my deathbed thinking that the one thing I wanted to do in life was buy a Rolls-Royce but I didn’t because I was afraid I’d look like a prat?’ Bollocks! These cars are great and if you win the lottery, buy one.”

Johnson says a car also played a part in him landing the gig with AC/DC after the death of Scott. Called up for an audition, he had no way of getting to London from Newcastle until a friend lent him a chocolate brown Toyota for the journey. Despite a puncture on route, and a surprising choice of Ike and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits as his audition, Johnson got the gig. “The car got me the job,” he laughs.

Then, when his first pay cheque came in, it’s no surprise he spent it on a car. His first new car after years of secondhand models.“The cheque was for $30,000 – my house wasn’t worth that.  It was crazy.  I went out and bought the daftest thing. A Chevy Blazer.  I loved it.  It was big. The only thing like it was the Range Rover. It was black and white...the same as Newcastle United’s colours.”

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald

Train kills three teens crossing bridge

February 22, 2010 - 6:39AM

Three teenage girls were joking around and taking pictures on a narrow bridge in a Florida town when they were hit by a train, killing them as a friend watched helplessly, US police and a witness say.

The girls and the fourth teenager, a boy, had been hanging out in Melbourne's downtown area - known for its shops and nightclubs - when they decided to cross the trestle about 6.30pm on Saturday, Lieutenant Curtis Barger said. Their parents had dropped them off at a mall, and then they took a bus downtown, where they were "just goofing off", he said on Sunday. The boy yelled for the girls to run when he saw the train approach, then told them to jump, Barger said. Crane Creek, about six metres below the bridge, is slow-moving and about three metres deep. The girls did not have enough time.

Bruce Dumas, 53, said he was fishing in Crane Creek under the bridge when he saw the teens walk onto the trestle around sunset. He warned them to be careful, but he said they didn't pay much attention to him. "You know how kids are," Dumas said. "They probably wanted pictures of themselves on the track."

The girls were about midway across when the train barrelled down the tracks, blowing its whistle continuously, he said. Dumas said he could hear the sound of the brakes. After the impact, he heard a girl screaming and crying. "I think the train was on them so fast they froze and didn't know what to do," Dumas said. "It's crazy to watch a young life snuffed out like that. They didn't have a chance to live yet."

The teens could have jumped onto an old, rusty trestle next to one they were on, though it was unclear why they didn't. Barger said all the teens were from the area, but their identities weren't likely to be released until Monday, after officials can compare dental records.

John Vallee, 54, lives near the trestle and was watching TV when he heard a loud screech. He told the Florida Today newspaper he went outside and first thought he saw a blanket tangled under a rail car. Then he realized it was a person. "It's going to be hard for me to get to sleep," Vallee told the newspaper. "I can't get it out of my mind."

Authorities in Melbourne, a city of about 77,000 nearly 80km southeast of Orlando, are investigating. The track is owned by the Florida East Coast Railway, which operates about 560km of track along the state's east coast.

AP   www.loveonline.co.nz

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlWXj2-b-I&hd=1

Check out this amazing visual display as the finale at the Onya awards at Webstock 3 day convention in Wellington Feb.19 2010...www.loveonline.co.nz 

It's hard to tell if Andrey Ternovskiy is on the cusp of something really big or whether his ChatRoulette website is just another in the long line of online playgrounds catering to narcissists and voyeurs. The 17-year-old Russian, who outed himself to The New York Times as the teen behind the latest internet sensation, says he created the website for fun late last year and was amazed when it suddenly took off and went viral.

"I was and still am a teenager myself, that is why I had a certain feeling of what other teenagers would want to see on the internet," he told the newspaper's website.

Andrey Ternovskiy, creator of ChatRoulette, and some of the site's users.

ChatRoulette users switch on their webcams, press "play" and are then randomly connected to other users doing the same thing. If they like what they see, users can either begin chatting using text or with a microphone. It's like using Skype, only you have no idea who you are connecting with. Part game, part social networking site, ChatRoulette breaks all the rules about not talking to strangers on the internet - which is possibly why it has attracted so much attention.

Ternovskiy told the newspaper that he came up with the idea for ChatRoulette after he and his friends became bored with using Skype to talk to the same group of people. "I think it’s cool that such a simple concept can be useful for so many people," he said. "Although some people are using the site in not very nice ways – I am really against it." The Muscovite said he had been working with computer code since he was 11 and it was no big deal for him to set up ChatRoulette, which is hosted on servers in Germany.

Although Ternovskiy says he never intended to turn the site into a money-making venture, his project had attracted the attention of a prominent US venture capitalist. In a post on his blog yesterday, Fred Wilson said he would invite the teenager to visit him in New York. "I'm still not sure if this is something we should invest in, but I'd sure like to meet this guy," Wilson wrote. "He reminds me of many great young entrepreneurs we've worked with and his story sounds so familiar."

Despite warnings about the unsavoury habits of some users, we took a tour of the site in the early hours of this morning to get a first-hand look at what all the fuss is about. The raunchiest we saw was a brief glimpse of someone's boxer shorts through a pair of unzipped jeans, although we caught several fleeting glimpses of guys showing off their well-muscled torsos before they pressed "next".

All of the female users we encountered quickly skipped on to the next user. In our 90-minute tour, we ended up having dialogue with just five blokes. The first was a Korean student and his two brothers.

The next was a Chinese guy in an internet cafe. The chat went like this: > Connected, feel free to talk now

You: hi

Stranger: Hi

Stranger: You are there

You: china?

You: ni hao

Stranger: I am a Chinese of you that

Stranger: yes

You: I am in Australia

Stranger: hao

You: beijing?

Stranger: o

Stranger: Am glad to know you

Stranger: YES

You: shanghai?

Stranger: beijing

You: beijing hao

Stranger: Good

You: bye

We had a similarly aimless dialogue with another Chinese cyber cafe patron before an interesting encounter with a Swiss man eating a bowl of spaghetti. And then the screen froze and this message appeared: "Chatroulette is currently undergoing technical maintenance. We will be back shortly."

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald

( all sounds a bit pointless to us. LoveOnline.co.nz can do live webcam, video upload and all in a secure environment )

Going to the limit

OWEN THOMSON

February 12, 2010

Andy Green on the body of the Thrust SSC car. Photo: AP

Not content with holding the world land speed record, Andy Green has a new goal. Be honest now. We all know the very real dangers of speeding but chances are at some stage in your life you've found yourself on a quiet, desolate country road and planted the accelerator to the floor. As the speedo crept up and the wind whistled past, it felt just for a second like you were riding a rocket, right? Well, imagine how it feels to be Andy Green.

The Briton is the current land speed record holder, a title he earned by steering a jet-powered lump of metal through the Nevada desert at speeds 10 times the freeway average. His 1997 achievement was to hit just under 1228km/h, so becoming the first person to break the sound barrier on land. As if breaking the record once in his life was not enough, Green now hopes to top that achievement by going not one hundred, not two hundred but 382km/h faster. In an effort scheduled for 2011, he aims to break the 1000mph mark, achieving a speed of 1609km/h. "There's no point in us going slightly faster than last time," he says. "We hold the record and it's arguably still the most impressive ever because it was the one that proved you could go supersonic. "What we're trying to do is push the boundaries of technology to explore what's possible."

So how does one become the fastest man on the planet?

For Green, it helped having a background as a pilot. He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford, with first-class honours in mathematics in 1983 and then began full-time flight training with the RAF. He qualified as a fighter pilot on F-4 Phantoms and F3 Tornadoes. He applied for a role with the Thrust SSC team - who were chasing the land-speed record - after reading a newspaper article in 1994.

"These guys were looking to recruit somebody to drive a twin-jet, supersonic, 10-tonne vehicle, which is outside anybody's normal experience. Where are you going to find somebody qualified to do that? And I'm actually sitting there, on a fast-jet base, with twin-jet supersonic fighters sitting outside. I thought: 'Actually, if I'm not qualified to do that, who would be?' I got picked as the driver in '95 and it's been life-changing since." Despite the risks, Green says breaking the land-speed record was probably more fraught for his crew than himself. "Doing anything for the first time ever has to have a certain area of uncertainty," he says. "And when it's going supersonic on land, a lot of world experts said: 'No one will ever survive, someone's going to get killed but you can try.' "There was a degree of psychological challenge in overcoming that. But as curious as it might sound, if it all goes horribly wrong the driver actually doesn't have to live with the consequences. Real long-term courage has to come from the team."

Green says he recalls the record-breaking ride vividly. "Being strapped in a small cockpit, you sort of have a sense that the car is an extension of yourself," he says. "There's an awful lot of noise but curiously not from the jets in Thrust SSC. Most of the noise came out of the front at slow speed and at the back at high speed. Then, of course, as we started to go supersonic, as the shock wave formed over the cockpit, it transmitted the sound into the cockpit and the noise levels were very, very high. "You really do have the impression you're going at an unimaginable speed. Until you've seen it, you cannot imagine how fast the land is going past."

For Green to crack the 1000mph mark, he is pinning his hopes on the Bloodhound SSC - a new 12.8-metre-long, pencil-shaped, rocket- and jet-powered vehicle. He hopes the endeavour will inspire future mathematicians and physicists. "[The idea is] to get kids all over this country and indeed all over the world - because that's what the internet offers now - involved in the science and the technology," he says. "It's difficult to make science and technology sexy in schools nowadays and we're trying to produce a project that will do that."

So given his experience of high speed, is Green more or less likely to put his foot down on the road? He says he drives slower these days. "It doesn't matter whether you drive at 50km/h or 100km/h - when you've done 1200km/h it still feels slow," he says. "In the real world there's a whole bunch of hazards you have to deal with, so it would be stupid to get killed in a 50km/h accident because I was going too fast, or indeed get stopped by the police. And I've met a whole bunch of police [since the record] who have said: 'It'd be great to stop you and give you a ticket."'

Race is on to starting line

Andy Green will have to beat an Aussie challenge if he wants to take the 1000mph record. Perth man Rosco McGlashan (below) is also preparing a vehicle to break the record, a seven-metre steel missile on wheels called the Aussie Invader 5R, which is powered by four rocket thrusters. He hopes it can accelerate from a standing start to 1000mph (1609km/h) in just 20 seconds. The race is now on to see which car will be ready to roll first and break the record. "Our car is beautifully simple," McGlashan says. "Theirs is obviously a nightmare, with three different engines on it." www.loveonline.co.nz

 Aussie relationships psychologist John Aiken says in his latest book titled Accidentally Single, that there are indeed 15 reasons as to why so many of us are still single ...

1. You're only attracted to unavailable types.This seems to be an issue of contention with many women across the globe and, while it seems the norm to date a rake, cad or bad boy who refuses to meet your mates, let alone hold your handbag, it angers me to see so many gorgeous, intelligent women hankering after men who either have a girlfriend, are in serious relationships or are married! Seriously, if you're going to bonk a guy who is doing the dirty on his partner, what makes you think that he is not going to do the same to you? In addition to that, women are increasing gravitating to emotionally unavailable men. But that's not the only problem. Aitken says that women are going for men who are "too young or too old; travel all the time or work too much; party too hard" or more commonly, "they're only interested in sex". And even if he's telling you he loves you while bonking you senseless, we all know by now that sex does NOT equate to love, or even a second date.

 The Days of any CV will do, are gone !

courtesy Sydney Morning herald  Write a killer CV

Say cheese 

Putting a photograph of yourself on your CV is one of the bells and whistles that Little thinks is worthwhile. With a photo CV, a candidate becomes a person, not just words on paper. It also adds a type of graphic icon, he says. "I've sat on government recruitment panels and the number of times people refer to 'That one, or those two with the photo' is amazing. People remember a photo."

Buzz words 

After resumes are entered into a recruiter's database, they are usually revisited using a keyword search. If a job specifies auditing, this will be entered into the database and all CVs that contain the word will be listed. Little says you should scan job ads in your sector and see what sort of terminology recruiters are using. Then find ways to incorporate the buzz words into your resume. But what if you don't have relevant industry experience to draw this jargon from? "If you're an accounting graduate, you get the jargon, such as management accounting and auditing, in by making sure your [university] subjects are listed." Another tactic is to put down your planned studies, such as a bachelor of law degree, starting 2007. "This will at least help you rise to the top in a database search," he says.

Covered with care 

When it comes to a cover letter for your CV, the trick is to tailor the letter to the employer and the job. "Generic cover letters are no more use than writing your resume on a scrap piece of paper. Large organisations spend millions on their reputation. They want to attract the best quality customers, suppliers and staff. So tell them why you want to work for them," Little says. "Talk about [your] similar values and their mission statement. All this is easy to find out these days - just do your research. Then, if you like the sound of them, tell them. This almost invariably results in an interview."

How to get started 

"The first 10 seconds of someone picking up your resume is critical," Little says. He gives these tips for success:

• Think about what your CV says, how easy it is to read and the order you put it in.


• Be dynamic in how you present your work history and skills.


• Use positive language about yourself.


• Make sure there's a well-designed front page.


• Put a photograph of yourself on the first page of your resume.


• Put your name in colour


• Present it in a good quality binder.


• Remember, you get only one chance to make a good impression.


• www.loveonline.co.nz

This minx is child's play

KIM MACDONALD February 6, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald

Sex workers, contraceptives and lingerie are part of a new website for tweens, writes Kim MacDonald.Kasma Booty enters the cocktail bar, her breasts partly concealed by burlesque nipple pasties and a red leather jacket. Four young men who looked like they've stepped out of boy band line up at the bar. She tries her hand. ''No business for you tonight,'' she is told. She ducks off to a plastic surgeon for a breast enhancement, downs a gin and tonic, adopts a couple of trophy orphans from Cambodia and sells the photo rights to a newspaper. This time ''Cameron'' takes her home. She'll buy a morning-after pill tomorrow.

Kasma Booty is a cartoon avatar in an online game aimed at tweens called My Minx, which its creator originally billed as ''Barbie meets Chanel''. The Barbie-esque figurines on the lolly pink home page were replaced this week with a more adult theme after controversy in Britain and questions locally over its brazen bid for the tween market. But the content remains the same, and with web links to other tween games such as Hannah Montana, Bratz and Scooby Doo, the site has attracted the attention of children as young as seven.

Tweens are using Twitter and MySpace to spread the word about this tawdry virtual world where players dress their avatars in sexy lingerie, buy contraception and attempt to hook up in ''Style City''. Far from the innocent online dress-up games on other websites, parent groups and child psychologists fear My Minx is pressuring children to grow up too quickly. The website does not have any age restrictions, and even this technologically challenged journalist was able to figure out the pay-by-text system.

Players can set up a basic account for free, but for more interesting fashion and lifestyle options, they must buy ''pink pounds'' by sending a text message to an eight-digit number, no area codes necessary. Four dollars and four seconds later, my account was credited with 6000 pink pounds, almost enough for Kasma to get a virtual orphan or a red tracy dress. Kasma, created purely for research purposes, started her journey as an androgynous dummy. From there, I chose her pink curly hair from a range of styles and colours. The more outrageous options cost money. Kasma then went to a lingerie store, specialising in burlesque underwear, a vintage clothing store and a glam rock store.

Her trip to the plastic surgeon saw an upgraded chest and poutier lips. The happiness level on her profile page automatically adjusted from 86 per cent to 100 per cent with surgery. The job centre offered her a choice between training to become a stripper or dog handler, and the adoption centre offered a range choice of Third World orphans. Then she entered the cocktail bar, where she approached four young men by clicking on their photos.

When she is rejected with comments such as ''No business for you tonight'', and ''No clients'', I realise that my avatar is actually a prostitute. But in the My Minx world, rejection is nothing that money won't address. Advanced players - probably those who pour in more than the $30 I spent - get press opportunities and can earn ''pink pounds'' by finding a ''generous lover''. The more often avatars buy and use condoms and morning-after pills, the higher their IQ is rated. One ''consumed'' condom can add as much as 50 points to the IQ rating.

Kasma's IQ is 53. So my avatar is a dunce too. Great. An Edith Cowan University child psychologist and cyber expert, Julian Dooley, said websites such as these were bad for children's self-esteem, and created negative impressions about women. ''This sort of site sexualises women, which can create negative body images, low self-esteem and unhealthy ideas about women's roles in society in terms of sexual behaviour,'' said Dr Dooley, the scientific director of ECU's Cyber-bullying and Child Health Promotion Research Centre.

''Some older children can assess such sites critically, while younger ones can just take it on board and normalise these ideals as their own. Older children are likely to grasp the irony and social commentary aspect but younger children are unlikely to do that. ''If they are involved in it, they are more likely to be involved in it in a real sense - not that they think the characters are real but that this sort of behaviour is normal. ''The extent to which exposure to this sort of content affects their offline behaviour remains to be seen, but what is clear from other areas of research is that this sort of highly sexualised content creates unhealthy attitudes about sexual behaviour and intimate relationships. For example, it may lead to expectations that you need to be well-endowed or wear skimpy clothes to be popular. ''If I had a daughter, she would not be allowed anywhere near My Minx.''

Dr Dooley said the site took to a new extreme a trend which had been happening since Barbie got her first corvette. The Bratz doll brand were found in a 2007 review by the American Psychological Association to have an objectified adult sexuality, with their busty bodies, short skirts and highly sexualised behaviour. Dr Dooley said the social impact was likely to go beyond body image and sexualisation by affecting general opinions. He said the My Minx adoption centre, for example, trivialised the responsibilities of parenthood by portraying orphans as little more than fashion accessories.

And the 7000 pink pound adoption fee - less than the cost of some of the virtual dresses - devalued orphans as human beings. The game's creator, the Blighty Arts director Christopher Evans, insisted that the My Minx game was ''harmless, tongue-in-cheek entertainment''. Evans said the website was targeted at late teen users. "We find it insulting to our 30,000 regular users to suggest they cannot make their own distinction between a game and real life," he said.

Evans told a British newspaper that children should be allowed to grow up making their own decisions about games. ''We try to protect children too much from the real world for too long in this day and age. They cannot be wrapped up in cotton wool. ''The contraceptives and morning-after pills are only one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to take them, just reflecting real life.'' Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, author of Real Wired Child, said parents need to develop a "digital spine" by putting an end to inappropriate online activities.

Carr-Gregg is counselling a growing number of children with what he calls ''problematic net behaviour''. ''I am from the generation everyone said would be destroyed by television. That didn't happen, and computer games won't destroy this generation. But like all things, it has to be monitored.'' www.loveonline.co.nz

 

Be nice and tell her she's dreaming February 2, 2010

Comments 5

To keep me quiet as a child, my parents fed me a diet of Disney movies. These beautifully animated stories taught me a lot about life: that it's possible to live completely platonically with seven single, short men; that a really nice guy can be completely covered in beastly hair; and that spaghetti can be eaten from both ends with romantic results. And that, if you wait, true love will come along and you'll live happily ever after.

Of course, in Disney fairy tales, the hero and heroine have to experience all kinds of difficulties before they finally get together. So, when at 17 I started to experience strange and horrible symptoms (racing heart, anxiety), I knew exactly how to diagnose the problem: I had fallen in love. The fact that the object of my desire had no idea of my feelings didn't worry me. I knew that to snare the guy, all I had to do was wait for him to overcome his many obstacles. I employed all the tricks of modern romance: late-night instant messaging (with plenty of emoticons), turning up unexpectedly wherever he was and being witty and charming at all times. But unlike the stories of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid, my love story did not have a fairytale ending. I had fallen in love unilaterally, and the man of my dreams was certainly not dreaming of me.

In my love-crazed mind, the fact he hadn't said anything meant he just hadn't realised the depth of my feelings. I developed the need to know exactly where he was at all times, and stalked him over the internet. It got much worse when I realised his friends all knew and were laughing at me. I knew I had to do something, but getting over unrequited love is not easy. Even buying the book He's Just Not That Into You didn't help. The grieving process took years.

But when the same thing happened to a friend, I knew I had to tell her the truth: that like mine, her misplaced love was unreciprocated. Even though it was obvious to everyone around her, the guy had no idea he had any responsibility to talk to her about her feelings. He was too busy flirting with other girls to realise the damage he was causing.

So, men of Australia: when it comes to unrequited love, you need to man up. If there's a girl who wants you so badly she'll consider stalking you, and you know you're not the man for her, then tell her. It may bring short-term pain, but will spare her from years of heartache.

Michelle John courtesy Sydney Morning Herald 

www.loveonline.co.nz

Cougar hot spots prove happy hunting grounds

CAROLINE MARCUS

January 31, 2010

Having fun ... Laetitia Elfassy, 35, (left) and Tali Jatali, 43, at the Sugarmill bar in Kings Cross. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

The so-called cougar phenomenon - older women who seek younger partners - is growing. Figures show the trend has increased in Australia due to an oversupply of single women aged 40 to 54 compared with men in the same age bracket.

There were 568,000 women aged 40-54 who were not married or in a de facto relationship, representing more than a quarter (27 per cent) of that age group, according to the 2006 census. The number of single men in the same age range was just 479,000, or 24 per cent of that population. In 1986 there were 234,000 single women aged 40-54, representing almost one in five of the age group (19 per cent).

One Sydney bar is cashing in on the growing number of older single women by hosting a ''Cougar Hunting'' night on Valentine's Day for older female patrons to meet younger men. Demographer Bernard Salt singled out Elizabeth Bay as a ''hot spot'' for cougars in Sydney, with 68 per cent of women aged 40-54 living in the suburb identifying as single. ''It is the antithesis of the 'burbs, which is probably where these women spent their 20s and their 30s childbearing and rearing,'' he said.

Mr Salt said cougars were a product of female empowerment over the past 20 years. ''These women are educated, they are successful in life and work and they are not afraid or shamed to be single as I think was the case, unfortunately, for men and women in the 1980s and earlier. ''There are not enough single men to go around is the point and I think that's the reason why we have had this phenomenon evolve. Women are taking a leaf out of the men's book and considering partners in the older … and younger demographic.''

The group marketing manager for Keystone Hospitality, Ted Helliar, said the trend had inspired the cougar evening planned for the Sugarmill bar in Kings Cross on February 14. He said many women had already inquired about the event despite it not having been publicised. Organisers expect to attract up to 200 guests.

Matchmaking service Fast Impressions has been running its Toy Boy speed-dating nights since 2006 for men aged 25-35 and women aged 45-55. They have become their most successful functions, said event manager Carolyn Clydesdale. ''Usually, the match rate for speed dating is 80 to 90 per cent of people in attendance, but our Toy Boy rate is 90 to 95 per cent. It's amazing.''

Fashion designer Tali Jatali's last boyfriend was 11 years her junior, but was ''more serious'' than she was. ''Older guys are boring and they're going bald and have got a lot of baggage,'' said the 43-year-old from Bondi. ''If you want to get married and have seven kids, then go for an older guy.'' Laetitia Elfassy, a 35-year-old business development manager, also from Bondi, has a pattern of dating younger men. Her boyfriend Pete, who is five years younger, is ''one of the oldest I've been with for a long time'', she said.

''I don't get along with guys my age. A younger man makes you feel like you're 20 all the time. They have a lot of energy … that just says it all, right?''

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald  www.loveonline.co.nz

Stop looking for Mr Right and marry Mr Good Enough

AMY WILLIS IN LONDON

January 26, 2010 - 2:10PM

Comments 18

Are women's expectations being raised by television shows like "Friends"?

Women who have failed to find their perfect partner by the age of 30 should give up their search for Mr Right and settle instead for Mr Right Now, an American author has claimed. Older, single women often deny themselves any chance of finding happiness by failing to downgrade their expectations, says author Lori Gottlieb.

Women are being fooled by happily-ever-after films, television programmes and books - from Friends to Jane Austen novels - into believing marriage is about finding The One. Instead, she argues, women should be realistic and understand that marriage is not a "passion-fest" but instead a "partnership formed to run a very small, mundane and often boring non-profit business". Gottlieb also claims women's search for Mr Right could leave them unhappy and alone in the long-term as they shun perfectly good partners.

The subject has already inspired interest in Hollywood after her new book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enoughwas tipped for a movie deal. Gottlieb, a 40-year-old single mother, wrote from her own experiences, saying she wished she had settled for Mr Second Best. She said: "My dream, like that of my mother and her mother, was to fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. "We grew up idealising marriage, but if we'd had a more realistic understanding of its cold, hard benefits, we might have done things differently. So we walked away from uninspiring relationships that might have made us happy."

She added: "Every woman I know - no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure - feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried. But marrying Mr Good Enough might be equally viable, especially if you're looking for a reliable life companion." Gottlieb also warned: "What makes for a good marriage isn't necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship."

But Prof Cary Cooper, a psychologist at Lancaster University, said women unable to find their dream man should not see themselves as settling for second best. He said: "No man or woman has all the characteristics you would look for; it would be a miracle to find your number one. "You have to find somebody with as many good characteristics as possible. The main problem is that many people haven't worked out what those characteristics are. People need to sit down and work out what they want and then go looking for someone who at least ticks some of your top priorities."

Prof Cooper also said: "I sometimes wonder if women who say they are waiting to find Mr Right, are actually just avoiding a relationship or committing to a relationship. Finding someone should not be so complicated."

The London Daily Telegraph courtesy Sydney morning Herald   www.loveonline.co.nz

Any lingering stigma about finding true love online seems to be fading, particularly among older adults, researchers found.      

In a study of 175 newlywed couples scientists at Iowa State University said those who met through online dating agencies, or social networking sites, tended to be older than other couples who met through traditional ways offline.      

They were also less likely to be marrying for the first time and had shorter courtships before tying the knot - 18.5 months instead of 42 months. 

    

"In many cases, there are real structural forces that encourage the support and use of these technologies," said Alicia Cast, an associate professor of sociology at the university.     

"And one of them is just structural constraints on people's time - such as people who have kids, or have full-time jobs, or work long or extensive hours," she added in a statement. 

    

But the online spouses were as attractive, intelligent and had the same self-esteem levels of the offline couples.     

Online dating agencies have gained in popularity and acceptability. A recent survey by Forbes.com that named New York as the best US city for singles found it achieved the No 1 position because it has more people with active online dating accounts than any other city in the country. 

    

US-based eHarmony, which launched in the United States in 2000, claims an average of 236 of its members marry every day in the United States as a result of being matched on the site.    

eHarmony is also available in Canada, Australia and Britain. 

    

Cast and her graduate assistant Jamie McCartney studied data on the couples over a three-year period. Twenty five couples in the study had met online.   

"My understanding is that there are very few studies that have been able to simultaneously get access to a source of couples who met through more conventional means, along with those who choose to meet people online," said Cast.

One-man cannabis van raises queries of legality

TIM ELLIOTT

January 26, 2010

Crusade ... Tony Bower supplies his medical cannabis tincture (left) from the back of his van to chronically sick customers seeking relief from their pain. Photo: Melissa McDonald

AUSTRALIA'S first medical cannabis dispensary is operating from the back of a van in a car park at Nimbin. ( for those that don't know, nimbin is hippy territory in northern new south wales near byron bay  www.loveonline.co.nz ) For more than a month Tony Bower, of Kempsey, has been dispensing 25-millilitre vials of his therapeutic cannabis tincture free to anyone who can produce a medical certificate confirming their condition.

His chronically sick patrons, who include those with AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis, number in their hundreds. Mr Bower is an Aborigine and said it was against his culture to refuse to help them. The problem is that it may be illegal, but it is hard to tell. "It's a grey area," Debra Sands, Mr Bower's lawyer, said. "It's complex, and it's incredibly political. Tony wants to bring his product to market, but has been repeatedly frustrated by the health bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the police don't seem to want to know about him."

Cannabis has been shown to relieve pain and nausea in those with HIV, cancer, inflammatory bowel diseases and migraines. Its anti-spasmodic properties have proved useful in treating spinal-cord injuries, multiple sclerosis and Tourette syndrome. The medicinal use of cannabis is legal in Canada, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Italy, and in some states of the US. In Australia a synthetic cannabinoid known as Marinol has been available for 10 years. Last year the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the use here of a British drug called Sativex, a mouth spray made from botanical material. However, to get either of these products doctors must apply for a special authority from the Federal Department of Health.

"It's incredibly bureaucratic," Mr Bower, 55, said. "And meanwhile people are in pain and suffering, and I have a product that works." He makes his medical cannabis tincture from marijuana he grows himself. Caught for cultivation 12 years ago, he went to court in Kempsey, but emerged with what amounted to an exemption to grow cannabis for medical use.

As some people did not want to smoke, he developed his oil- and alcohol-based tinctures. They do not get you "stoned", but have noted anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. Mr Bower has registered his company, Mullaway's Medical Cannabis, and has applied for a drug manufacturer's licence from the TGA. But before the TGA can act, approval to produce and research his cannabis must be granted by NSW Health.

A NSW Health spokesman said Mr Bower had failed to supply enough detail of his project, a claim Mr Bower denies. Debra Sands intends to take Mr Bower's case to the Supreme Court. "We want to challenge whether people like Tony can provide this product and why NSW Health won't test it … Tony is pushing the envelope."

Lawrence protector of Corby

TOM ALLARD

January 24, 2010

Schapelle Corby speaks and laughs with fellow convicted drug mule Renae Lawrence at Bali's Kerobokan Jail. Photo: Jason Childs

The gruff, no-nonsense Renae Lawrence has become the protector of an increasingly child-like Schapelle Corby, tormented as her prospects of release from Bali's Kerobokan prison have faded. When visited by The Sun-Herald last week Corby looked unwell, noticeably ageing with her skin covered in acne, possibly the result of her medication.

But despite her disdain of the media - she threw a bottle of water at reporters who had tried to talk to her two weeks ago - the convicted marijuana smuggler was happy to speak. She was upbeat when approached but clearly has mental health issues. 

Schapelle Corby (right) speaks and laughs with fellow convicted drug mule Renae Lawrence. Photo: Jason Childs

''Oooh, it's Superman,'' she cooed, then started giggling hysterically. ''I think there's a phone box outside. Why don't you go outside and get changed and come and rescue me?'' Lawrence, a heroin mule, then came over and did the rescuing, gently putting her arm around Corby and leading her away.  

Just moments earlier, Lawrence angrily denounced a book by Corby's biographer Kathryn Bonella as ''full of lies''. The book alleged Lawrence - who is gay - had orgies in her ''queen-sized bed''.  Mercedes Corby said her sister spent much of her time in a strange fantasy world.  ''Everyone Schapelle sees, she thinks they are some kind of character,'' Ms Corby she said. ''She has bad days and days that are better, but she has no good days. She needs to be in a mental health facility.'' Indonesian authorities have dismissed the plea.

Lawrence seemed weary but, in contrast to Corby, has accepted her fate and made the best of things, even wearing a distinctive shirt with her name emblazoned on it to signify her status as a leader of the prison population.

courtesy sydney morning herald   www.loveonline.co.nz

Sex, crime and vengeance: why the world fell in love with Larsson

January 21, 2010

Comments 10

Do you suffer from freckles?'' asks the ad. Pippi Longstocking marches right in and tells the shop lady "No." "But my dear child," responds that fount of rectitude, "your whole face is covered with them." "I know it," says Longstocking. "But I don't suffer from them. I love them. Good morning."  Like half of humanity I spent Christmas tied hand and foot, as it were, to Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. And I can tell you this. Lisbeth Salander's dysfunctionality may knock Pippi's into a cocked hat but this tiny, tattooed curmudgeon of a hero is Larsson's Longstocking. She's his take on how Sweden's child-anarchist-of-choice would deal with a modern, adult world.

And boy, does she deal. In one astonishing sequence - astonishing because it works - the elfin Salander is surprised at a deserted cabin by two hired assassins programmed to "tear her apart and stuff her in their saddlebags". Within minutes she has hobbled one, sent 50,000 volts through the other's testicles and roared off on his Harley-Davidson with (the final indignity) his treasured bike club insignia padding her helmet. Another especially satisfying scene has Salander tattoo her vengeance - I am a sadistic pig, a pervert and a rapist - across the bourgeois belly of her tormenter.

This stuff makes Swedish critics grizzle. "Larsson's books depict a dark and violent Sweden, brimming with state and family secrets." But to non-Swedish tastebuds, the trilogy's dominant flavour - against which Salander makes stark counterpoint - is a low-church Ikea blond; prose so unvarnished, values so lofty and characters so cartoon-simple as to imbue an oaten plainness, more Amish than Witness. How, then, did this high moral tale, swiftly plotted but clunky and arrhythmic in its prose, get so big? How did this uber-simplistic feminist diatribe from a socialist militant (whose only written will was a 30-year-old document leaving everything to the Umea Communist Workers League) become a world best seller?

There are theories. Dying is good, as an authorial ploy. I'd try it myself, if I could stand small spaces. And dying as Larsson did - weeks after submission of your final, government-fingering manuscript and in a manner that makes everyone look around for the poisoned brolly - now that's class. But it's not the reason. Nor are the sexy titles - though switching Larsson's earnest Men Who Hate Women to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was decidedly a good move. No, clearly the books themselves have touched some nerve. Let me count the possibilities.

There's the sex. Quite a lot of it (which Larsson said he included reluctantly, on advice). And terribly grown up it is too, in that sensible, birch-veneer Nordic manner. There's also Salander, that taciturn, pierced, brilliant avenger with David-and-Goliath appeal. Journalists were always going to adore Blomkvist, indefatigable writer of books, spotter of crooks, lover of women and outer of evil; action-man, sex-symbol, master detective and all-round nice guy. While nerds, cyber geeks and design-types could be expected to love the hackers-for-a-truth parable and the way Larsson, himself a graphic designer, makes objects carry his characters' political baggage.

(At first I took the endless minute detail about Ikea bookshelves, Apple laptops or Kawasaki bikes for shameless product placement; an uncomfortable fit, I thought, on socialist shoulders. Then I saw it was really semiotics. Like the way Larsson's free-thinking good guys are umbilically joined to their state-of-the-art iBooks but when Berger makes a career move from edgyMillennium to a major right-wing daily, we recognise her mistake before she does because the job brings with it - oh no! - a Dell.) But there are deeper reasons for Larsson's success. One theory is that readers identify with Salander because we, too, feel hurt; betrayed by a system that deceives us into wars we don't want and environmental crises we could avoid.

The second reason is more surprising. Feminism. Larsson was an active and lifelong feminist, partly for personal reasons but also because he saw that ending gender slavery was as crucial to next-stage evolution as ending race slavery was to the last stage. It's a noble fight, not least because the various fundamentalisms threatening Western democracy are united in their urgent need to re-cage women's sexuality. Larsson's female characters are therefore universally clear thinking, resourceful and good. They defend themselves and each other, define their relationships without regard to social norm and staunchly uphold principle. Untrammelled by such petty concerns as children, love or money (Salander, like Longstocking, is fabulously self-financing) they have sex in whatever form, methodology or company they choose. As comic book fantasies go, it's pretty compelling.

And there's another thing. Larsson's was the Vietnam generation. He met his partner Eva at a 1972 rally. And in part, the books' appeal is their creation of a world where little guys can still know and fight for what is right, and occasionally win. Where truth exists and exposing crime in high places will reliably shake society and topple government. Larsson's entire saga turns on this idea. Me, I'm filled with envy. Not for the money, but for this capacity for public shock. Set the same tale here and you'd get, what, government crooks? Mate, tell us something that matters. We don't suffer from crooks, we love them. Good morning. ( The girl with the dragon tattoo.. is currently showing in nz cinemas to rave reviews..www.loveonline.co.nz)

 

excellent commentary by Elizabeth Farrelley 21/01/10 Sydney Morning Herald

IE security threat : Australian experts

ASHER MOSES

January 19, 2010 - 11:13AM

Comments 48

Switching would be "security through obscurity" ... Sophos's Paul Ducklin. Photo: David Tease

Australian computer security officials believe France and Germany are jumping the gun in advising citizens to ditch Internet Explorer. The advisories, from Germany's Federal Office for Information Security and France's Government-owned Certa cyber threat agency, said all versions of IE were vulnerable to attack and people should switch to Firefox or Google's Chrome.

They came after it was revealed that recent sophisticated cyber attacks on Google and 20 other businesses exploited a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft's web browser. The code needed to exploit the hole was published online over the weekend, leading to fears that regular consumers could be at risk of having their computers infected with nasty viruses. Microsoft has yet to issue a patch. But Australia's computer emergency response team, AusCERT, which compiles the cyber threat alerts for the Government's Stay Smart Online website, says the threat has been overblown.

Although Microsoft has yet to issue a patch to fix the issue, AusCERT has published instructions allowing people to greatly reduce their risk of being attacked by changing settings and installing a temporary fix . "It doesn't remove the problem. It just stops the exploit from working properly," AusCERT senior information security analyst Zane Jarvis said. "IE 6, 7 and 8 are all vulnerable to the exploit but those customers running IE8 have built-in protections, which is called data execution prevention, and it's also on by default in Vista Service Pack 1 and later."

On the Government's Stay Smart Online website, AusCERT says those who do not wish to install the "temporary fixes" should "consider using an alternate web browser until an update becomes available". Paul Ducklin, head of technology at computer security firm Sophos, said abandoning IE might give people some security, but "it would be security through obscurity". "Your chosen replacement browser might itself turn out to contain a vulnerability. Then what? Are you going to switch again?" he said.

The attack on Google targeted the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. It led Google to announce that it might withdraw from China, from which it said the attacks originated. Google is now investigating whether one or more employees might have helped facilitate the attack, Reuters reported. Jarvis said that, in order to be affected by the security flaw, users would need to visit a compromised website. This was echoed in a report released by McAfee this week. "What would happen is you'd visit a website, some malware would be installed on your computer using the exploit and run silently," Jarvis said. "And then that would start stealing your login details to your banking websites and your email account, which is likely what happened with the Google Gmail issue."

Microsoft has recommended that people switch to Internet Explorer 8 or, if using Internet Explorer 6, adjust security settings to "high". However, Jarvis said the IE6 "fix" was not good enough as setting security to high disables Javascript, which most websites now depend on.

Sydney Morning Herald 20/01/10    www.loveonline.co.nz

'Cannabis clubs' open in NZ

January 17, 2010 - 9:15AM

Kiwis have one the highest rates of pot smoking in the world, and soon they will have ‘‘cannabis clubs’’ where they can indulge in their pastime. Pot dens, where people can smoke, buy or even formally study the illegal drug, are poised to open throughout the country this year.

The first so-called ‘‘cannabis connoisseurs club’’ opened in Auckland more than a year ago. And given that police have turned a blind eye to the operation, the owner has now announced plans to open a club in every big city.‘‘We have demand from virtually every city in the country,’’ Dakta Green, who founded the Daktory, told New Zealand’s Sunday News. ‘‘I would expect to see in the next 12 months Daktories in every major city in this country, every city should have at least one - 2010 is the year people within our culture are demanding changes throughout the world.’’

It is a big boast in a country where dedicated police forces aim to crush the supply of cannabis - commonly known as dak - with widespread plantation raids and dealer tracking.But the statistics suggest there is enough pot fervour in New Zealand to support it. According to OECD statistics, Kiwis top the cannabis use charts, with 22 per cent of the population aged over 15 having sampled it at least once.Australia came second with 17.9 per cent. ( looks like we're a happy bunch of stoners here in the land of the long white "puff" ?..www.loveonline.co.nz )

It is easy to see where Green, who changed his name from Ken Morgan by deed poll, gets his confidence. The doors of his den were open 14 months before the first police raid. His 2000 members - made up, he says, of many doctors, lawyers, court officials, business people and school teachers - pay their monthly memberships to hang out in Green’s spacious warehouse in peace.

The club motto is ‘‘live like it’s legal’’ and reports of bongs scattered across coffee tables and plants being grown on a sunny window sill suggest they do. The den sells almost 20 different forms of cannabis and plans to offer ‘‘degrees in daktology’’ later this year, formalised study on all aspects of the cannabis industry including hands-on cultivation techniques.

AAP 

Global slap in the face for being bold but not so beautiful

January 16, 2010

Didn't meet the criteria ... Richard Jinman. Photo: Natalie Boog

Need a boost? Don't try this at home, writes Richard Jinman.

The email arrived at 2.28pm. ''Dear Richard,'' it began. ''Unfortunately, your application to the BeautifulPeople Network was not successful. The members of BeautifulPeople did not find your profile attractive enough.''

My audacious attempt to join BeautifulPeople.com, the social networking site for the hottest people on the planet, had failed. Its 550,000 members had spent 36 hours examining my photograph and delivered a unanimous verdict - No! Nein! Non! Niet! Eew!  The decision was painful, but not entirely unexpected. Why did a bespectacled, unbuffed journalist in his 40s think he could join this parade of youthful pulchitrude? A site that saves you from ''filtering through unattractive people on mainstream sites'' by barring uglies, and which made international headlines recently by sacking 5000 of its members for putting on a few kilos over Christmas.

''Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded,'' the site's founder, Robert Hintze explained. Sadly, my face also seemed to pose a threat to Hintze's business model. Minutes after uploading my photograph the internet shook with Beautiful indignation. As the votes poured in, the needle on the spunk-o-meter on my profile page swung hard left into the red band of rejection and stayed there for a day and a half.

To take my mind off this massive global knockback, I perused the site's Top 50 listings. There were plenty of Australians on the site, the vast majority very young. A bikini and a rictus of pure rage is a popular look for the women; the men tend to go for bed hair, a bare, hairless chest and an expression that suggests either mystery or chronic indigestion. As well as dating each other, the Beautiful People send each other messages. ''Sup?'' is a popular greeting. Or ''Hi everyone, iam from Iraq!'' Someone called Svea-Runa Svensson told us ''I am on hunt for a funny and beautiful MAN!''

In my 36 hours on the site I was befriended by just one person, a Texan brunette called Rose. It turned out she was also trying to gain membership and wanted me to vote for her. The most frequent visitor to my profile was an Eastern European man who we will call Viktor. His photograph showed him adopting a Mr Universe pose in a pair of tiny white swimmers on a charmless, possibly radioactive, beach.... (Think we rejected him at www.loveonline.co.nz )

Did he want to be my friend, or was he merely fascinated that someone who looked like me was trying to breach BP's inner sanctum? I will never know because Viktor and I will never meet. Sure, I can reapply to BeautifulPeople - ''perhaps with a better photo'' as they suggest - but I don't think I'll bother.

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald  16/01/10

Gadgets for pets

January 13, 2010 - 10:24AM

The internet world offers a huge range of gadgets for animals - some useful and some bizarre. Photo: AFP

As humans, we love our gadgets. From solar- powered laptop bags to Bluetooth dongles, there's always something fun and new to futurise our lives.

Don't let your pets miss out; the internet world offers a huge range of gadgets for animals - some useful and some bizarre.

Go Dog Go

Throw after throw, dogs never get bored with playing fetch. If you've developed lopsided bicep muscles from overuse of your throwing arm, here's a way to automate your dog's exercise regime.

Go Dog Go is an automatic ball- throwing machine that lets Fido play fetch all by himself. Remote controlled with three modes, Go Dog Go can manually propel a tennis ball on the press of a button, or automatically shoot them out at seven or fifteen second intervals. The launcher holds 15 balls, and can be adjusted to shoot them up to 10 metres. While it can also be plugged into a power socket, Go Dog Go will continually run for about five hours on a set of D batteries. With a little training, you might even be able to get your dog to put the balls back in the launcher - meaning your sunny Sunday afternoons can be completely sedentary and your pooch doesn't suffer for it. Available from Godoggoinc.com.

Panasonic Pet Cam

Scarlett Johansson made the Nanny Cam - a security camera system for spying on children's caregivers, carefully hidden in a stuffed teddy bear - famous in the 2007 film The Nanny Diaries. Inspired by this notion of "seeing when you can't be there", Panasonic has developed Pet Cam for keeping an eye on your beloved pet. Marketed as a way to feel like you are a part of your pet's life while you're away from home, the Pet Cam plugs into your broadband router and can be viewed and controlled from any web browser.

Is the dog sleeping on the new couch? The cat ripping up the new leather chair? Find out from your desk at the office, or an internet cafe at a Pacific Island resort. The image quality is surprisingly high at 250 frames per minute (320 x 240, standard image quality), and the viewing angle can move up to 53 degrees horizontally and 41deg vertically. The company also keeps a website, SeeMyPetCam.com where users can post their favourite videos.

Model IP Pro BL-C101CE mentioned, available atPanasonic.com.au and leading electronic stockists.

Pet Emergency Evacuation Jacket

When the apocalypse is near, don't leave the cat behind. During an emergency evacuation, pets are often on the top of the must- take list, however their behaviour can become skittish and hard to manage during a crisis. Whether it's an earthquake, fire or flood, it's a panic-fuelled time for all involved. To pre-emptively plan for an emergency-stressed pet, the Emergency Evacuation Jacket should be bought. Made from the same material used by Japanese fire fighters, this flame-retardant pet suit protects from heat and carries all of the tools and supplies they might need when away from their home comforts.

Stealthily contained in the jacket is a food bowl, muzzle, hermetically sealed odour control bag, protective rain hood and rubber booties, freezer gel packs (to control heat), a bell and a waterproof ID capsule. So while you're frantically packing your life up in preparation for The Day After Tomorrow, the Pet Emergency Evacuation Jacket will have Fluffy covered. Available from Japantrendshop.com.

SunSpa

 

Who knew that Seasonal Affective Disorder - aka SAD - affected pets as well as their owners? Basking in the sun all day long is an essential pastime for most cats and dogs, so when the weather doesn't allow for taking in the rays there is SunSpa. Powered by a 150-watt light, this pet cushion is essentially a tanning bed for animals - without the dangerous UV effects, that is.

Offering the same warmth and relaxation properties as the sun, SunSpa is advertised as a safe, mood- improving must-buy for pets that can't live without their daily dose of sunshine. Surprisingly unobtrusive, SunSpa won't look terribly out of place in the lounge, and can maintain a warm laying area for up to 5000 hours. Sure beats flying the animals to the Bahamas with you every winter. Available from Paradiseimage.com.

Dogbook

While not a physical gadget, the Facebook application Dogbook is a fun, interactive innovation of tech for pets. Dogbook allows you to create a profile for your dog, tag your dog in photos, find dogs in your area, and even suss out which parks are frequented by dogs of the same breed as yours. Read about your friends' dogs' preferred chow and favourite hiding places, and send each other alerts in the form of bone-shaped pop-ups. Like the "poke" function on Facebook for humans, Dogbook lets you "pet" other dogs, as well as offering the ability to post photos, videos and other forms of promotional doggy pride.

Other animal lovers can rejoice - Dogbook isn't the only Facebook application for pets: Catbook, Horsebook, Rodentbook, Ferretbook and Fishbook are all available. Available free on Facebook from apps.facebook.com/dogbook. 

The Press     www.loveonline.co.nz                                                       

Home alone: mainly male, middle aged and struggling

ADELE HORIN

January 11, 2010

FROM sad-sack widows to young and sexy city dwellers, the image of people who live alone has flip-flopped over the years. But new data shows the face of the solo householder is increasingly middle aged and male.

Men in their 40s and 50s are the fastest growing part of Australia's living-alone population due to more never having married, and many more getting divorced but not living with their children. And unlike the elderly widows, the sexy young things, and the middle-aged women living alone, many of the men are struggling.

An analysis of data from the 2006 census by David de Vaus and Sue Richardson shows a huge increase since 1986 in the proportions and numbers of Australians living alone. Most of those interviewed as part of a related La Trobe University project said they enjoyed solo living, although they hoped it would be transitional. About 2 million people lived alone in 2006 or 13 per cent of the population aged over 20 compared with 9.3 per cent two decades earlier.

''The growth is not where people would have thought it to be,'' said Professor de Vaus, executive dean of the faculty of social and behavioural sciences at the University of Queensland. ''A lot of people think it's elderly people but the growth is among the middle aged, and middle-aged men in particular.'' The proportion of people aged 40 to 49 who live on their own has risen 75 per cent from 5.2 per cent to 9.1 per cent. People in their 40s are now more likely to live alone than those in their 20s or 30s.

There is also big growth in solo living among those aged 50 to 59. The analysis, Living Alone in Australia, shows that for people under 60 living alone is mainly a male phenomenon, and the men have become older. ''This is not because young men had become less inclined to live alone but because men in their 40s and 50s were becoming more likely to live alone,'' the paper says. Professor de Vaus and Professor Richardson, from Flinders University, said the middle-aged men were on average less well-off, less educated and in lower-status jobs compared with middle-aged women living alone, or other men.

They also tended to say they were lonely. ''They are considerably more socially disadvantaged,'' Professor de Vaus said. ''It might be they find it harder to partner, or re-partner.'' The research also shows that people in their 60s and 70s are becoming less likely to live on their own because husbands are living longer and widowhood is being pushed into the 80s.

Even here the news is positive: the increasing proportion of 80-year-olds living alone is due to more of them staying out of nursing homes.

courtesy Sydney Morning Herald 11/1/10 www.loveonline.co.nz

Dye v Hawkins: a fatuous argument over slim women

CLEM BASTOW  6/1/10

Bianca Dye, who posed naked for Madison magazine, has claimed Jennifer Hawkins is no natural role model.

Radio host Bianca Dye is upset at Jennifer Hawkins for raining on her ''real women'' parade. Both women have recently posed nude and relatively un-retouched - Dye for November's Madison, and Hawkins