Posts by Banksy

Zippy one-liners, broken promises: Doctor Who on the Orient Express

Dear Doctor,

Since no-one else likes Clara could you drop her off at my house when you're finished with her?

Cheers.

Microsoft on the Threshold of a new name for Windows next week

Genius

Throw out your biggest brand name, essentially your identity, great plan!

MS just need to recognise that mobile and desktop are different and reinstate the desktop features from Windows 7. Then they need to tell everyone that it ISN'T Windows 8.

Instead they want to nail a stake in the heart of their business.

THE DEATH OF ECONOMICS: Aircraft design vs flat-lining financial models

The BBC told me it was fixed?

I think you're wrong about this because the BBC tells me every day that everything is hunky-dory and that we're better together?

More seriously at the start of the article you say that economics is broken and fails to spot problems because it is not a correct model and then say at the end that we should teach kids economic principles. Doesn't make sense. I agree with teaching them history though and how economists (largely) failed to point out the impending problems.

Also as Novex referred to a lot of people didn't start working for themselves. They said they were doing that so they could get working tax credits without being hassled and sanctioned by the Job Centre in order to get their job seekers' allowance pittance.

Microsoft's rumoured $2.5bn Minecraft gobble expected on Monday

Lunacy

Mojang has 'one hit wonder' written all over it, like Rovio or King, especially if its main creative force leaves post-buyout. There's not much to justify the valuation. And people love to desert anything associated with Microsoft as it's not 'cool'.

BOFH: The current value of our IT ASSets? Minus eleventy-seven...

He admitted he signed off documents under the pseudonym at the start. Here's your P45.

Termination charges drop smacks Vodafone and EE in the WALLET

EE - more committed?

T-mobile / EE lost me as a customer (of 10+ years) this year because they do not want 'more committed' customers. They want saps who will pay megabucks for their contract and/or switch to 4G. I said goodbye and moved to GiffGaff.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Ancient Fear of, er, a cheese-tastic title?

Ancient Fear

What of s****ing yourself? That's an ancient fear.

Bankers don't just blow cash on bonuses, they also spaff ££££s on IT

@Nuke: Yes, I understand that. I'm just pointing out the laziness of Lars' post. I've worked places where IT were in charge of the whole process end-to-end, others where they selected the kit but Procurement/Finance made the purchase/tender and still others where, like you say, where IT select the items but have to use preferred suppliers.

With this sort of variability you can't draw many conclusions from the study/article which doesn't clarify the situation.

No need for the facepalm.

@LarsG: What a load of rubbish. You could easily flip those comments around. Banks have IT departments, maybe the IT departments are in charge of the purchases, maybe they're the lazy, thieving gits? See? As Terry 6 says the article/research lacks too much information to do anything but draw lazy conclusions as you've done.

British trolls to face 'tougher penalties' over online abuse

Really?

Oh noes, someone on the Interwebs hurt my feelings. Put them in jail!

US govt: You, ICANN. YOU can run the internet. We quit

Icahn

Didn't read the headline properly and though Carl Icahn wanted control of the Internet too.

Worlds that could support LIFE found among 715 new planets

Re: Here's hoping

Don't forget the teleporters and Star Trek replicators.

Bonking boffins say bacon biters won't breed

Fire up the grill!

I don't want to be gettin' any hos pregnant so I better increase the processed meat consumption.

Forget hackers - storms and snafus are bigger threat, say infosec bods

Cyber attacks/cyberwarfare = the new yeti?

Seriously, I wonder how many truly damaging cyber attacks really take place? Info Sec professionals get all hot under the collar about hackers, lather on about Stuxnet but the amount of truly damaging attacks that take place seem minimal outside some high profile cases (RSA, etc).

It's almost as if there's an industry to support.

Bank man: System's down, let's have coffee. Oh SNAP, where's all the CASH?

Steve Todd: Yes, as you describe this type of situation would only work at badly organised institutions. In most places payments are set up by the customer or the customer service team taking a phone call/responding to a written instruction via the customer database/mainframe/whatever. The actual batch of payments would be relayed to and sent separately via a different application (Faster Payments, BACS or Chaps) by a different team with their own passwords for that application.

It would be extremely unlikely that from the transmission mechanism ('wire transfer application' as the article terms it) would be integrated with the customer database/mainframe in such a way that you could choose individual customer accounts and the amount of money you want to steal.

You could perhaps steal money from the bank's own accounts. Even that seems unlikely.

They already do that...

I bank with HSBC and if I want to send money from my online account to a new payee I have to use the token I have to log in with to generate a PIN. It'll probably happen with other banks if it doesn't already.

Beam me up? Not in the life of this universe

JimmyPage: Yes, that's the dilemma about the Star Trek transporters. Is it is the same person who comes out at the other end? Would you have continuity of consciousness? Could you rely on the report of the person who got out at the other end about whether they are the same person?

Re: just a thought

I don't think that's what Star Trek refers to. I think the technical manual refers to taking people apart atom by atom and I'm sure the neurotic character Reginald Barclay (and perhaps some other character) refer to not wanting to be taken apart.

I agree though the alternative is some sort of wormhole/manipulation of space-time which doesn't rely on the data side of things.