Posts by Blofeld's Cat

Does this mean that...

The first few hours of a Martian expedition will consist of two people wrestling with a collection of assorted aluminium poles, material and tent pegs, while their companions stand around offering "helpful" advice.

Any news on the compulsory disposable barbecue yet?

Solution in search of a problem?

There are a lot of advantages to the collection of bits of metal and printed paper you already have in your pockets.

- Almost universally accepted in the UK.

- No need to register or top up.

- Quick to use.

- Retailers don't need a terminal or to give the bank a percentage.

- You can take payments anywhere.

- Cash doesn't suddenly stop working at inconvenient times. (I'm on my 3rd Oyster card).

- You can easily check your balance.

- Banks and governments dislike it.

But...

I thought money only disappeared from bank accounts because naive customers handed over their details.

At least that's what the bank told me when somebody skimmed my card.

Shirley some mistake...

Meanwhile ...

At 32.58N 35.18E there sits a figure on a pale horse talking into an iPhone.

"Did nobody make the cut then Boss? Oh I see... Postponed until 21 October... Going for the Big Bang rather than the steady burn... OK I'll tell the other three."

ID Cards: Reloaded

If the US Government require any assistance with this project, we have a lot of ex-Ministers over here in the UK that are very keen on this sort of thing.

It's the one with the "Spartacus" name tag.

My suggestion didn't make the cut but...

That's my reading list sorted out for the next year or so.

Looking forward to the Top 50.

Oh dear...

"It will be to digital what the Queen's Coronation was to analogue".

So it will be hacked together at the last minute from kit dragged in from everywhere, and only kept running by a combination of luck and ingenious boffins.

I believe the original coronation service was: "Right then, I've killed the old king so I'm your king now. Any of you lot want to argue with this two-headed battleaxe?"

How about...

"The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, if only for the mechanical computers.

"The Locusts"

Well my first thoughts were "oh dear", but I hope I am wrong.

The episodic nature of the book, will need quite a bit of work to be turned into a single narative. The temptation to expand the "action" parts of the book may be just too strong.

Done well this could be spectacular, but I suspect it will become a "Red Avatar", with stories like "There Will Come Soft Rains" lost in the process.

Oh and please spend the money on the screenplay, not 3D effects.

Careful now

A company I worked for used to write a regular piece for a trade magazine. This was put together in an hour or so by somebody in the sales office.

The MD, without consulting anyone, decided that this person's time should be paid for, and sent an invoice with the next piece.

The magazine responded by sending the company a proforma invoice for their "advertisement".

Flying Sub?

Please tell me that the mother-ship will be called "Seaview."

A "hastily arranged" lunch with the Queen...

That phrase conjurers up pictures of Liz, dressed in an apron, rooting through Tupperware boxes at the back of a fridge.

Liz (sniffing suspiciously at contents): "I hope he likes smoked salmon."

Phil: "Bloody fellow probably only eats cabbage and beetroot anyway."

Gran: "We've not got any vodka - will gin do?"

Liz: "If we'd had more notice I'd have sent the kids out to get some caviar."

Fifty years on and the main route to space is still sticking people on top of an ICBM. Where's my space-elevator?

Sesame Street?

Surely you are not suggesting that McAfee are a bunch of muppets.

Well, well, well

A politician lying, and then denying it when he was caught out.

Whoever would have thought it?

Call me cynical but...

You could think that our political leaders had some sort of personal connection with the banks.

Book or iBook?

Perhaps my reading comprehension skills are fading with age, but could Doc's paper not be summarized as:

1) Teenagers get depressed listening to music or vis versa.

2) Teenagers like the sort of music I hate and vis versa.

3) Everything else may or may not be OK.

4) Can I have another grant please.

I shall now go back to reading "King Lear", and listening to "Tosca", to cheer myself up.

Publicity

Presumably the main media outlets will now be covering this story with the same lurid headlines and prominence as the original one.

I look forward to reading their headlines and the four page spreads about this acquittal.

Will we get to see the police officer concerned being led away under a blanket, as outraged locals bang on the sides of the van speeding him away.

No doubt the BBC are flying thirty correspondents to the scene as we speak, and the road outside his house is filling with satellite trucks.

I could be wrong, of course.

Royal Male?

So somebody in the Niue P.O. is discovering that, in royal circles at least:

"Philately will get you nowhere".

Excellent!

I can now start targeting my "boost your privacy" scareware ads much more effectively.

Can we have an evil genius icon please.

Hmm...

Samsung, Visa, Vodafone and the IOC working together - interesting.

It's the one with the large aerial coil stitched into the lining.

"Every block of code is a journey into the unknown"

I thought the UK Government IT guidelines were covered by the Official Secrets Act.

If these things are broadcasting data...

How difficult is it to make a transmitter/receiver to tap into the signals?

Maybe it suits THEM to let these things continue squarking away. I mean who needs a search warrant or a wiretap when you can just park your van a couple of streets away?

We need an evil genius icon.

Ah, yes, but.

"I am certainly not part of the problem and I would contest that the corporate industry of this country has caused the problems."

Unfortunately most government IT is not done by "the corporate industry of this country", but by the corporate industry of other countries.

Perhaps that's the problem then.

EULA

"I have full controll over your Computer and i can do everything I want, and you can do nothing to prevent it. "

Sounds like Apple's standard terms and conditions to me.

The cake is an unpatriotic lie

Can WE ban Jamie Oliver and the rest as well please.

Apart from Heston Blumenthal of course, anyone who considers vacuum chambers and liquid nitrogen as catering equipment has my full support.

Gizmo?

Perhaps I'm getting cynical but I suspect the problem is more that some junior sub-editor has been desperately trying to get program details, and/or a sign off, from her "superiors" so she can send out the emails promptly.

Just in case anyone else hasn't mentioned it yet:

Gizmo? Sounds like they've got gremlins.

I was told that...

Apparently somebody typed in "SW1A 0AA" and the system tried to return a number greater than MAX_INT.

It has the expenses form in the pocket.

Pornography?

Does this mean it will now be illegal to describe the fate of William Wallace north of the border?

The poor bugger was hung, drawn and quartered in a particularly grisly manner, and then had his tar-dipped head stuck on a pike over London Bridge.

As if that wasn't enough, 690 years later he was portrayed by Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

Frying tonight

As an elderly relative of mine said when her husband shuffled off the mortal coil:

"I'm having the old bugger cremated. It'll give him a chance to get used to the heat."

Tags

Full marks for the tags - even though no other article seems to use them...

... yet.

Diplomats and Swiss bank accounts

I wonder how many names appear in both sets of leaked documents.