* Posts by Jon Thompson 2

32 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009

Faster-than-light back with surprising CERN discovery

Jon Thompson 2

Er...

Doesn't Special Relativity predict tachyons (superluminal neutrinos)?

Boffin melds quantum processor with quantum RAM

Jon Thompson 2

Shurely Shome Mishtake?

Von Neumann architecture? Surely Harvard....

Blighty's rocketeers gather for ballistic love-in

Jon Thompson 2

I'm surprised that...

...this wonderful event hasn't been got at by the dreaded Health and Safety nazis. Mind you, I'm still amazed that building and launching your own ballistic missiles is perfectly legal, while taking a drink of water onto a plane can get you convicted of "terrorism"...

Gov 'skunkworks' to develop e-petitions system

Jon Thompson 2

What is this UK "skunkworks" thing?

And where is it?

Fairlight: The Rolls Royce of synthesizers

Jon Thompson 2

A beautiful instrument

The Fairlight still looks like it's from the future. See also the Synclavier.

That's the frequency, Kenneth

Jon Thompson 2

Hmmm...

You know, you could have just looked this stuff up, or asked an electronics engineer.

Whose data is it anyway?

Jon Thompson 2

Stallman was right

Cloud computing *IS* a trap.

Palin claims webmail hack disrupted GOP campaign

Jon Thompson 2
FAIL

It's all her fault

She shouldn't have used such a bloody obvious password!

Conficker smites Oxford Brookes network

Jon Thompson 2

A couple of points...

amanfromMars 1: That's just a non sequitur with random capitals.

Tom 35: How come only a couple of machines were infected?

Jon Thompson 2

The Patch...

...to protect against Conficker has been available from Microsoft as an automatic security download since last October. Why are these infections still even possible?

Man on trial over £600k NatWest phishing scam

Jon Thompson 2

Oh dear

If the others have pleaded guilty, it doesn't look good for the main defendant.

To add to Duncha's comment., A Nat West bank manager I know says the cameras in cash machines usually don't work. That's why he always gets a receipt for his cash withdrawals.

Oz bottle shop falls for 'double your money' scam

Jon Thompson 2
Happy

Oh dear...

I think Derren Brown's next "Event" has just been rumbled!

UK Parliament website hack exposes shoddy passwords

Jon Thompson 2
FAIL

What do you expect?

Half of the government is still mandating IE6!!!!!!!

Government stamp of approval for fake weed

Jon Thompson 2

After asking a member of Da Yoof...

...I'm reliably informed that £20 is a bit steep for 3g of real dope.

Twitter goes titsup

Jon Thompson 2

Er...

"All those Twitter addicts will be doing something more useful instead," Cluley quipped.

Do you have any idea just how much Cluely tweets news that is out of date, sometimes by days?

Amazon sued for sending 1984 down Orwellian memory hole

Jon Thompson 2

Why the hell...

...are people spending serious money on these pointless devices when a paperback and pencil (for annotations) can be purchased for a couple of quid?

CIOs get £170k but helpdesk staffers settle for £6/hr

Jon Thompson 2

Shurely Shome Mishtake?

I keep seeing a TV advert that says you can go on a 15-day course. It also says the average salary is something like £36,000 "for an IT professional". Are these two facts related? I think we should be told.

Gov geek publishes 5000-word Twitter guide

Jon Thompson 2

5000 Words?

It sounds like someone was dodging a more boring assignment by being seen to be thorough at this one!

Barclays online banking borked

Jon Thompson 2

These things happen

Basically, get over it.

Amazon Kindle doomed to repeat Big Brother moment

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

Eh?

Isn't this rather lazy journalism? What I mean is, how is protecting the intellectual rights of the copyright owner "Orwellian"? In Nineteen Eighty-Four, that phrase would refer to Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth, re-writing history to make the pronouncements of Big Brother look like they came true.

NASA orbiter returns first shots of Apollo moon sites

Jon Thompson 2

Here we go...

Cue dozens of weak jokes about how they're all faked.

Would you leave your child alone with a cabinet minister?

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

Maybe it's time...

...to vet EVERYBODY!!! The police, the cabinet... even the people carrying out the vets! Then vet the people who vetted them. And so on forever. Think of the money it'll churn around the economy! We could be out of recession by September!

Seriously, I applaud Pullman's refusal to participate in something that says by default he must want to fiddle with kids. After hearing about the levels of abuse on TV last night, such checks clearly stop nothing. They merely say people haven't been caught.

Government defeats Tories in 'McKinnon' extradition vote

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

It's coming to something...

...when I side with the Daily Mail, but in my opinion too many Labour MPs are spineless jerk-offs. GROW A PAIR ALREADY AND DO WHAT'S RIGHT!

Kent Police clamp down on tall photographers

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

A WPC "felt threatened" by having her photo taken?????

Blimey! What's she like with the drunks at chucking out time on a Saturday night?

NASA promises 'greatly improved' Moon landing footage

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

The great tragedy

Looking through the TV listings, there's absolutely nothing on to mark the 40th anniversary of arguably mankind's greatest adventure. Sure, BBC4 had a few programmes on some weeks ago, but why put them on nearly a month early?

We've already forgotten how to get there; now it looks like the programme schedulers are trying to forget it ever happened.

Cops swoop on e-crime gangs after banks pool intelligence

Jon Thompson 2

Ah, at last!

Why has this taken so criminally long?

Bloke uses nail clippers to go roundhead

Jon Thompson 2
FAIL

What kind of madman...

...tries to do a DIY circumcision with nail clippers? Seriously.

Surveillance response 'inadequate', say Lords

Jon Thompson 2
Thumb Up

HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM

Next May, get up early, go to a polling station AND VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE!

Jon Thompson 2
Thumb Down

What do you expect?

Our government is hell-bent on watching us in ever more detail. The question is why. Is it to protect us ...or to protect them?

Escrow vital for banks choosing cloud computing, says provider

Jon Thompson 2
Unhappy

What the hell...

...are banks doing using something as insecure as cloud computing?

Twitter profile hack pwns Mormons

Jon Thompson 2
Happy

Such fun!

Maybe that'll teach them to hassle good, upstanding atheists on the street.

Mobile directory made legal threats to get personal details

Jon Thompson 2

Surely...

...swapping personal details like this breaks the Data Protection Act.

If I receive a message from them, I'll be making a DPA complaint. If we all do so, we can sink the bastards and get the law tightened up.