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Author: Adam

Q. What have The Tudors, Game of Thrones, and Webhamsters got in common?

17/08/2011

A. Henry Eddard Beecher

Henry

Now I have to sleep in the same room as two people, one of whom grunts, groans, squeals and quacks with terrific might to achieve massive, forceful, gusts of wind; followed by whimpers of release and delight; and accompanied by barely suppressed shoulder-shaking giggling from me; all because burping isn’t yet in the repertoire.

Henry’s grand though.

Delicious Links 15/08/2011

15/08/2011
  • Attackers have advantage in cyberspace, says cybersecurity expert Another great commentary by Bruce Schneier. Basically, nothing has changed, nothing is secure, there’s no magic bullet, and there’s an awful lot of cyber-bullshit. Of course the mainstream media have their fingers in their ears when Bruce speaks, because it would mean they’d have to cut back on the fancy panic-graphics.
  • Ruinous banks won’t apologise or even explain I have AIB chasing me for missed biz CC payments at the moment, despite the fact that they always go through on the next draw, because it’s “not policy” to change the DD date to accommodate how my customers pay. Some of these customers already have me on 3 months payment terms, I can’t afford to get ahead into next month. But despite the fact that AIB, in part, are the root cause of this situation, they won’t budge on a simple accommodation. Fucking assholes.
  • NYT: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich By the super-rich Warren Buffett. Dear Govs US and IE — if you’re not listening to this man, you’re not doing your job properly. He /wants/ to be taxed. Fucking tax him already.
  • Colour pictures of the Blitz
  • World War II: The Battle of Britain – In Focus from The Atlantic

UPDATE 19:53: On AIB above, I should point out that the branch staff have been absolutely brilliant, in stark contrast to BOI. They sent me the letter, but only in response to word from on high that credit policy needs to be tightened. Only fault I can find is that, again like BOI, the person responsible didn’t provide a name, just a squiggle. Please people, have the balls to sign your letters.

Suppressed Report Found Busted Pirate Site Users Were Good Consumers

22/07/2011

Next time a pol cites studio or label guff, they should have their noses pushed in this, like a mongrel that crapped in the garden.

TorrentFreak: In fact, the study also found that Internet users treat these services as a preview, a kind of “try before you buy.”

This, the survey claims, leads pirate site users to buy more DVDs, visit the cinema more often and on average spend more than their ‘honest’ counterparts at the box office.

“The users often buy a ticket to the expensive weekend-days,” the report notes.

In the past similar studies have revealed that the same is true for music. People who pirate a lot of music buy significantly more music than those who don’t.

Obviously it would be of great interest to see the report in full, but it appears that is not going to be possible. According to an anonymous GfK source quoted by Telepolis, the findings of the study proved so unpleasant to the company that commissioned the survey that it has now been locked away “in the poison cupboard.”

Delicious Links 22/07/2011

22/07/2011
  • Google Killing Labs Seems very odd to me, some of Google's best work has come from Labs. It looks like Google+ is part of a wider refocussing in Google. Not that there's anything wrong with G+ per se, it's a massive improvement on Facebook and Twitter, despite it's failings.
  • RIP Brendan Kehoe I only met Brendan a few times, but he was one of those fellas you instantly put in the "nice guy" category. It really does seem sometimes that only the good die young.
  • How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet Follow up to the Kaspersky interview, good overview of Stuxnet.
  • Interview with Evgeny Kaspersky Pretty typical stuff from an AV vendor, but interesting nonetheless.

James Mackey’s Quantum Entanglements

13/07/2011

Letter to the IT in response to James Mackey’s frankly mind-boggling opinion piece on Tuesday. His entanglement of evolution and quantum truly is actually more bizarre than quantum entanglement itself. Links added by me for reader reference.

Sir,

If “Dawkins’s case against religion creaks at every joint”, then James Mackey’s case against Dawkins (July 12) is splintering and cracking at the seams like a cheap stool under a fat man. He doesn’t appear to have a functional understanding of evolution theory, never mind the quantum theory he is bizarrely tacking on to it; which has about the same logical sense as saying “creationism is true because cows fart”.

If your readers would like to learn the basics of quantum theory, I’d suggest “The Code Book” by Simon Singh, which breaks quantum down in a wonderfully simple way in the context of an overview of “The Evolution of Secrecy”. Mr. Mackey may need to look up “quantum” in the dictionary beforehand.

Yours faithfully,
Adam Beecher
Killeagh, Co. Cork

Poor Owl!

13/07/2011

A woman returned to her Cumbrian home to find a near perfect imprint of an owl on her window.

The bird had apparently crashed into the window of Sally Arnold’s Kendal home, leaving the bizarre image – complete with eyes, beak and feathers.

Experts said the silhouette was left by the bird’s “powder down” – a substance protecting growing feathers.

Mrs Arnold said she could find no sign of the owl, so assumed it had flown off without serious injury.

via BBC News.

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