* Posts by Graham Marsden

6899 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2007

Polaroid enthusiasts unveil new instant film

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

JPEGs future proof...?

But not proof against lossy compression and pictorial artifacts...

Man could face prison over six second 'extreme porn' clip

Graham Marsden

Saw etc...

Those films are legal, because the law specifically excludes anything that's been classified by the BBFC.

However it *includes* extracts taken from such films if a "reasonable person" would assume that you owned those clips for "sexual arousal"!

In other words owning a whole film is fine, but an extract from it isn't.

Paging Mr Kafka...

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

The Thought Police are here!

The original idea of this law was, supposedly, to stop another death like that of Jane Longhurst by Graham Coutts who had, apparently, thousands of images and visited sites like Necrobabes repeatedly (despite the fact that JL admitted to a friend who later testified in court that she'd willingly and consensually played erotic asphyxiation games with Graham Coutts).

But it seems that if this so-called "Extreme Pornography" is so dangerous and corrosive that just watching *six seconds* of it is likely to result in someone committing an act of violence or murder and justifies locking them up, clearly it doesn't go far enough and we should now adopt the plans that Scotland has to include (simulated) rape images and whilst we're at it, introduce Baroness O' Cathain's proposed "Extreme Writings" law so we can't even *read* about such things in case we do them!

Obviously we are all such weak minded and impressionable idiots that we cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not and can't figure out for ourselves whether doing something "extreme" is actually excessively dangerous, so the Nanny State must step in and take all this nasty stuff away from us and make us sit on the Naughty Step (or a jail cell) for even daring to *think* about such things...

Pandora plus Endor: Multi hab-moon motherworld discovered

Graham Marsden
Headmaster

Erm...

... Given that a parsec is a bit over 3.2 light years, you'll be waiting a bit more than 280 years.

Try about 3000 years!

Brown creates one UK.gov website to rule them all

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

And of course...

... to access our wonderful new system, you'll just need to sign up to our new iDcard...

Dodgy BitDefender update bricks systems

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Why don't they test these things properly first??

A recent AVG 9.0 update didn't brick systems, but it's still incapable of working nicely with Zone Alarm and caused browsing problems for a lot of people.

The only way I found to get it working properly was to re-install it but remove the Link Scanner.

Once again I think updates should be released to the staff of the companies first, so they can properly Beta test it!

Pirates of the Caribbean say 'narrr' to Bulgarian airbags

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

Pirates of the Caribbean IV...

... The Quest for More Money?

... Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel of Rum?

... From the Depths of Davy Jones' Locker?

... Flogging a Dead Squid?

Loud sex ASBO woman back on the job

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Breach in Human Rights?

And what about the right of her neighbours to enjoy the peaceful occupation of their property whcih she has repeatedly infringed?

She and her partner can have as much nookie as they want, they just have to keep the bloody noise down!

Computer glitch prompts 50 raids on elderly couple's home

Graham Marsden
FAIL

"Err, Sergeant...

"... Haven't we been here before and found a harmless old couple?"

"Shut up, Officer Liberal, and get that battering ram ready!"

PayPal enables cash-by-slap

Graham Marsden
Coat

And you thought...

... that that Lap Dancer was just being very enthusiastic...

And now - new stealth jumpjet makes first hover landing

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"jumpjets have had to land on other ships than carriers in the past"

Yep, like this one from 1983: http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1983/1983%20-%201110.html

Court bars charges against teen who posed semi-nude

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Bravo the Appeals Court!

At last someone is starting to apply a little common sense to this "problem" and realising that criminalising kids for doing what kids do (you show me yours...) helps nobody!

Facebook faces Home Sec over lack of 'panic button'

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

Gamble's Empire Building again...

Jim Gamble (the man who brought you Operation Ore) wants to get Facebook to sign up because it will make his CEOP Empire a bit bigger since he can then say to everyone else "Well Facebook have signed up to this, so if they can do it, you can too, and it's For The Children!"

He probably won't be happy until every site that a child might access has a "We love CEOP" button on it and then he'll know his job is secure because they'll be inundated with thousands of spurious reports which they'll have to investigate.

Perish the thought that we might actually try *educating* children about the online risks instead of just passing more stupid legislation which will protect nobody...

Muso turfed off train for 'suspicious' set list

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Once again...

... it's not Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty, but "presumed guilty unless you can prove your innocence"...

Vote Fascist...

Home Office, EHRC rap top cop knuckles

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Insert obligatory....

... Vote Fascist for a Third Glorious Decade of Total Law Enforcement!

SNCF website announces major train disaster

Graham Marsden
Paris Hilton

"trial to test crisis management procedures"

Well now they've got a media crisis to manage, so I guess it sort of worked...

Paris because... ;-)

LibDems drop net blocking, blame activists

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"the government advised....

"...that the proposal would be legally unenforceable."

Wow! There's a first time for everything!

Oh, but, hang on, what they meant was that *someone else's* proposal would be legally unenforceable, not one of their own...

ID cards have three databases, says minister

Graham Marsden
WTF?

If you don't vote you can't complain when things don't go your way.

Balderdash!

I recently had an election missive through the door from the Tories. In it there was a mini-questionnaire which said "Which of these Tory policies do you support?"

Err, excuse me? Where's the option for "None of the above"? Where's the option to say "Just because I may have voted for you does not mean I support all of your policies"? In fact where is there *anything* that lets us do more than vote for a particular coloured rosette but which allows whoever gets the most seats to claim that they now now have a mandate from the people to do X, Y and Z because one vote covers *everything* in their manifesto.

Representative Democracy? Not in this country!

Graham Marsden
FAIL

"people who are "socially disadvantaged"

That would be all the people who are now unemployed because of El Gordo's inability to understand what happens when you try to fund Growth through Debt without actually *producing* anything...

Graham Marsden
Coat

Has anyone tried explaingin databses to _civil servants_?

"It's all done by magic pixies"

"Oh, ok...."

ICANN delays decision on pornography domain

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Bad idea if (when) taken too far...

> all people have to do to keep porn off their machines is block all .xxx domains. If, as an existing "provider", you don't nab the .xxx when given the shot you lose the ability to resolve the site.

And, once again, I ask what happens to adult businesses like mine which deals in leather bondage gear and, thus, has adult content, but does not deal in "porn"?

Not forgetting, of course, the massive rush there will be to register sex.xxx or xxx.xxx etc, plus the cyber-squatters getting in on the act who will no doubt try to register affordable-leather.xxx and sell it to me for a hefty commission because I own the .co.uk version of it.

Lib Dem candidate admits to unnatural vice

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Now I am six...

So, six years ago, she supported Labour. Big deal.

Perhaps we could see some comments about Edward McMillan-Scott who was once the leader of the Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament, who has recently defected to the Lib Dems...?

Oh, but of course, people there are too interested in sniggering like like school boys.

Pathetic.

Female porn director turned pol grabs Kent by the ballots

Graham Marsden

I think you'll find...

... that she *was* a Labour supporter until they started turning into the Thought Police and banning anything that they didn't like simply because they didn't like it.

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Best of luck to her!

Perhaps if we have a few more people with actual real world experience in Parliament instead of the current clueless bunch of toffs and lawyers and ex-activists we might actually get some sense out of the place.

Clinton report warns human rights are online too

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

It's one of those "irregular verbs"

We protect freedom,

You infringe rights,

They repress people.

HMRC may get hands on missing bank data

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Let's not forget about the accounts being used for...

... perfectly legal and legitimate purposes.

Once again we see the classic argument of "let's treat *everyone* as potential criminals in the hope that we'll catch a few wrongdoers in our widely spread net".

Of course all that happens is that the wrongdoers go somewhere else, meanwhile the innocent have their liberties and privacy trampled on (something which people fought a war to prevent!)

Bravo.

'Health and safety killjoys' kill cheese-rolling race

Graham Marsden

It may be dangerous...

... but so are a lot of things.

At what point should the Nanny State step in and day "No, you can't do that because it's too dangerous for you"?

Home Secretary swats away calls for Mosquito ban

Graham Marsden
FAIL

I'm 44...

... and because I never blasted out my eardrums at discos etc, I can hear the damn things too.

Thank the gods there's none of them around my area, otherwise I'd be walking into shops "protected" by them and informing them that they've just lost my custom!

Blighty surrenders to Street View

Graham Marsden
Badgers

I can see my house from here...!

Well, I can see what anyone walking or driving past my house can see.

And even though I have very strong views on civil liberties (or perhaps that should be because) I don't see anything wrong with allowing people to take photographs in a public place.

Do you? (See "I'm a photographer, not a terrorist" on facebook for more details)

UK.gov urged to slash DNA retention plan

Graham Marsden

Re: Nothing to do with democracy

You got the title right, our current system has *nothing* to do with democracy! As you say: "you delegated to them the authority to vote on your behalf. Only problem is that they rarely do..."

MPs are supposed to *represent* the views of their constituents in Parliament, unfortunately what most of them tend to do is represent the views of their Party Leaders and Whips to their constituents and basically say "that's how it is, like it or lump it".

Cameron and his ilk are currently campaigning on an effective slogan of "Vote for us, because we're not them" and telling people that voting for anyone else is a vote for another 5 years of Gordon Brown which sounds like desperation coupled with a lack of anything that makes them actually worth electing.

IMO the only hope we have of getting any representation back into our electoral process is to tactically vote for a Hung Parliament so one party doesn't have a "majority" (even when they only got a minority of the vote) giving the ability to force through whatever legislation they like.

Man of God backs Beverley porncoder

Graham Marsden
FAIL

HDM obviously hasn't heard of the maxim...

... when you're in a hole: STOP DIGGING!

Mystery of alleged MI6 traitor's data theft

Graham Marsden
Alert

What's the betting...

... he found the data left on a train...?

Dibble gets mobile dabs checker

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"can take prints from suspects"

As far as I understand it, unless I have been arrested or believed to be committing Anti-Social Behaviour or am driving a car, I am not required to identify myself to a Police Officer.

Being "a suspect" isn't enough for them to demand my identity, let alone my fingerprints!

Anti-binge drinking ads add to binge drinking

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Another statement from the Department of the Bleedin' Obvious

Most people don't like emotionally manipulative adverts and "guilt trip" messages and thus such things fail to achieve their aims.

Who would have believed it...

US 'Anubis' stealth assassin robo-missile nearly ready

Graham Marsden
Welcome

May I be the first to welcome...

... BOOM!

Hull Daily Mail exposes depraved local porncoder

Graham Marsden
FAIL

Wow...

... the people of Hull must be feeling *so* happy that they have got a newspaper like this selflessly defending them from perversion!

(The fact that their Classified Ads section contains ads from Escort Agencies is an irrelevant detail, of course...)

Street View spymobiles invade CeBIT

Graham Marsden
Coat

Probably just a co-incidence...

... but the registration starts H2G2...

(Mine's the one with the towel in the pocket)

How FBI, police busted massive botnet

Graham Marsden

Ok, but...

... what have the Police done (if anything) to inform the owners of those 12 million computers that their systems have been compromised?

Forget SETI, this is how you find aliens: Hefty prof speaks

Graham Marsden
Coat

#include.std

Monty Python Universe Song Quote here

Google Maps boss to Germans: 'We don't want to invade you'

Graham Marsden
Boffin

@Danny14

If you have a nice car in the drive or a TV that can be seen or whatever, I suggest you contact your local Crime Prevention Officer who will tell you some simple measures which will help prevent you becoming a victim of crime instead of sticking up a sign saying "I've got expensive stuff, rob me!"

It makes no odds whether the crooks walk past and eyeball your place or use Street View if it can be seen and they're more likely to physically walk past because for the Street View images become more out of date with every day that passes.

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Don't read this post!

This post is private, you do not have my permission to read it.

The fact that it's in a public forum and visible to anyone who cares to look here is irrelevant.

In the same way you're not allowed to look at my house, neither is Google because you and they will be invading my privacy.

Oh, and I think that that the Police should be allowed to arrest anyone who takes a photograph of my house without my permission or a picture of me walking down the street.

Of course if they should arrest me for taking a photograph of a public landmark because they think I might be a terrorist, well, that's ok too.

Isn't it...???

Brass necked suspect swallows USB evidence

Graham Marsden
Coat

"mag strip dumps"?

No, that will be in three or four days...

Internet Explorer 8 still not mingling well with 2,000 highly-visited sites

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"[...] incompatible with Internet Explorer 8"?

Why does this remind me of the comment by the guy from the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide:

"His feet are the wrong size for his shoes."

Typing merely by thinking - plugless brainjack kit invented

Graham Marsden
Coat

Brainjack?

I need one of those like I need a hole in my head...

(Mine's the one with the mirror shades in the pocket)

German court rejects police data snooping store

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

It's a start...

... now we need to see this sort of sensible thinking extended over the rest of the EU (and eventually Britain) so all the unnecessary, represessive "Big Brother Is Watching You" laws brought in to "protect us" from the Terrorist bogeyman are rolled back...

Buzz Aldrin goes Dancing With The Stars

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

...alongside cream-splattered beach strumpet Pamela Anderson.

I'd vote for that! (It would certainly make at least one part of the show worth watching...)

Oz watchdog nips Pammie Anderson's bikini-clad ass

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

"Sexual intercourse..."

"... was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema."

George Orwell - 1984

Secret documents: The Truth about MoD's UFO files

Graham Marsden
Alien

You'd better pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space...

... because there's bugger all down here on Earth!

- Monty Python.

MPs get ready to grubby hands in 'wash-up'

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Wonderful...

... So more rubbish legislation gets passed without adequate examination, let alone proper debate by our elected representatives, instead it's the Party Elite who decide what's best for the country based on what will make *them* look good in the polls.

The real "wash up" that Parliament needs is someone to clean out the Augean Stables and get rid of all these crappy "nod and a wink" established procedures which have damn all to do with any democratic process.

Sexy is as sexy does: UK.gov struggles with sexualisation

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Remember, Nanny Knows Best!

Now don't you worry your pretty little heads about all this dirty filth and smut out there, Nanny's going to wave her magic legislative wand and make it all go away!

And don't worry that other people might get caught by this, obviously they're just perverts who obviously can't be trusted and we'll be getting around to them soon...