* Posts by Graham Marsden

6899 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2007

French gov used fake Google certificate to read its workers' traffic

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"Trustwave"...

... run their website (that is responsible for ensuring people who take credit cards over the internet are PCIDSS complaint) using that well known secure piece of software, Flash...

Shivering boffins nail Earth's coldest spot

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Of course...

... if this was QI, klaxons would be going off and lights would be flashing, since the coldest place on Earth is actually in laboratories where scientists have reached temperatures only just above absolute zero (or possibly even below if you believe some claims!)

OMG, Andrex killed the puppey! Not quilty, exclaim bog roll boys

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Re: Online toilet paper lovers?

@AC If you're gullible enough to believe that bottled mineral water is "better" than tap water, I've got a great deal for you on Nelson's Column...

PayPal 13 plead guilty to launching DDoS attacks

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Re: @Scorchio!! - will the plea for clemency fall on deaf ears?

Just because you dress it up in big words doesn't meant that you're not (either intentionally or through ignorance) agreeing with the Daily Mail's default "Hang them and flog them" position of demanding harsh sentences because "that's the only way they'll learn their lesson and not do it again"

And they would, of course, also agree with you that "it is not the place of a business or organisation that has been on the wrong end of this kind of offensive behaviour to plea", but at the same time, they would no doubt consider that "victim impact statements" should be taken into consideration by the courts when determining the severity of the sentence.

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

@Scorchio!! - Re: will the plea for clemency fall on deaf ears?

"clemency will only encourage further offending"

The Daily Mail comments page is over there ->

Oi, Obama. Rein your spooks in, demands web giants' alliance

Graham Marsden
Holmes

Why do pots...

... and kettles come to mind?

"We're only snooping on everything to make you safer..."

"We're only snooping on everything you do to target ads at you..."

(In chorus) "It's for your own good!"

NASA invites you to sleepover: Stay up and watch 'FIREBALL RICH' Geminid shower

Graham Marsden

Or...

... go to the new Dark Skies Park in Northumberland... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-25260186

Astroboffins spot HOT, YOUNG GIANT where she doesn't belong

Graham Marsden
Alien

Anyone...

... spotted any Black Monoliths in the vicinity?

People's Bank of China bans Bitcoin over 'drugs and guns' trade fears

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

"could be used to fund terrorism"

Only terrorism? Dear me, haven't the Chinese Government and media discovered the scare-value of child porn yet...?

SHOCK! US House swats trolls, passes patent 'extortion' bill

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Did the Patent "Industry"...

... fail to buy bribe offer campaign finance to the right people...?

Accused Glasshole driver says specs weren't even turned on for traffic stop

Graham Marsden

Re: "nothing illegal to be wearing Google Glass"... yet.

So five downvotes to my post pointing out that a cyclist or motorcyclist doesn't have to put a foot down, but nobody has come up with anything to contradict that, apart from Steve Knox who asserts that "balancing a bicycle without rolling forward or backward is practically impossible" leading me to the conclusion that he doesn't ride a bicycle or motorcycle like myself and has never seen someone do (or done) exactly this.

To quote a document from the Insitute of Advanced Motorists:

"26. Misconception: At STOP lines the rider must place at least one foot onto

the road surface.

"There is no specific requirement for the rider to do so. The essential requirement is that a rider’s machine must come to a complete STOP."

I recommend that the downvoters take some Advanced Training (or they can just downvote me again to be petty...)

Graham Marsden

Re: "nothing illegal to be wearing Google Glass"... yet.

> Yup. STOP means STOP - worldwide As a cyclist that means "put your foot on the ground" - if you play that stupid game of wobbling and not quite stopping you can be ticketed

Really? I'd like to know where he got that idea from because the only requirement in the Road Traffic Act is that the vehicle comes to a complete stop before proceeding (ie the wheels stop rotating). There is nothing that says a cyclist or motorcyclist has to put a foot down.

IDS finally admits what EVERYONE ELSE already knows: Universal Credit will be late

Graham Marsden
Devil

So, once again...

... IDS is revealed to have lied to Parliament.

Naturally he will now resign his post in disgrace...

... and next week Satan will be ice-skating to work...

Brits won't have to pay for thieves' enormous mobe bills any more

Graham Marsden
WTF?

"We are ensuring hardworking families...

"...are not hit with shock bills through no fault of their own."

Err, excuse me, but exactly *what* relevance does how hard you work (or whether you're working or not) have to this?

Is she saying that if you're not (according to her) "hard working" that you have less entitlement to protection perchance???

French court: Google, Microsoft en ami must say 'au revoir' to pirates

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

So first...

... they ban searching for the websites...

... then they ban searching for workarounds...

... then they ban any search engines which won't comply with the ban...

... then all search terms have to be approved by a government flunky (your search results will be available in the next three days...)

Fancy Kim Kardashian's ... nose? 3D bio-printing boffin can help

Graham Marsden

PS

Of course you could go for the ultimate in style and have a gold one like Tycho Brahe.

Graham Marsden
Coat

Noses...

... pick your own...

... What?!

RIP Comet ISON: ???-2013. We hardly knew ye

Graham Marsden
Flame

Set the Controls...

... For the Heart of the Sun...

GCHQ was called in to crack password in Watkins child abuse case

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

@Lamont Cranston - Re: @AC 23:44

"could the arguement not be made that sexually graphic depicitions of minors in such media risks normallising the treatment of children as sexual objects?"

Sure, you can make that argument. Just like you can argue that GTA normalises beating people up and stealing their cars for fun...

Graham Marsden

@AC 23:44 - Re: Re AC @ 15:50

> In my opinion, the British came to a big fork in the road where reality took a left but they hung a sharp right.

And David Cameron is now going even *further* to the Right because he wants to criminalise "Rape" Porn so that *anything* which appears to be non-consensual (even if it's simulated and acted) could get you up to three years in jail!

Bravo, Call Me David, another Thought Crime for the statute books!

Why BURN Facebook after reading when you can 'save it for later'?

Graham Marsden

" free content ad network"

Why do I keep reading that as "content free ad network"?

Happy Thanksgiving, Apple. Now how about THREE more patent legal battles for dessert?

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Such original inventive steps...

... exactly the sort of thing deserving of patent protection...

Google: YouTube fights off HUGE ASCII PHALLUS MENACE

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Well....

.... another of Google's great ideas goes pear shaped because they completely failed to take *people* into account.

Whoever would have expected it...?

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Re: I stopped reading ..

Yes, who could use such as mis-begotten Americanism...

... erm...

You have a Skype voicemail. PSYCHE! It's just some fiendish Trojan-flinging spam

Graham Marsden

Yes and...

... Royal Mail Shipping Advisories and Barclays Transaction Notifications and Could Not Process your Online Submission from the Tax office and...

Of course if the default was that they were unzipped into a sandbox so they couldn't auto-run their payload...

Small software firm wins $28.4m after lobbing sueball at Lockheed Martin

Graham Marsden
Alert

It's not as if...

... Lockheed Martin has form for dodgy behaviour before...

*cough* Starfighter *cough*

Twitter mobs attack wrong celebrity Ian Watkins after child abuse case

Graham Marsden

Re: ah come on...

Whilst the story of Yvette Cloette has been blown out of all proportion, there was, much more recently, the case of Bijan Ebrahimi a mentally disabled man who was falsely accused of being a paedophile after taking pictures of local youths who had been destroying his flowers who was kicked unconscious and then burned to death!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/bijan-ebrahimi-burned-to-death-pedophilia_n_4209497.html

NSA spied on 'radicalisers' porn surfing so as to discredit them, reveals Snowden

Graham Marsden

@Vladimir Plouzhnikov - Re: Well

> any hypocrisy they can find and reveal.

Given that our elected politicians seem to be able to successfully engage in mind-blowing hypocrisy and yet, often, still survive in office, I doubt any such campaign by the NSA would have much effect on the "true believers"!

Hey, boffins, Google wants you to train your AI on video games

Graham Marsden
Coat

Re: Would you like to play a game?

The only winning move...

... is to cheat ;-)

VIOLENT video games make KIDS SMARTER – more violent the BETTER

Graham Marsden
Boffin

@Ledswinger - Re: Question:@ForthisisNotDead

> Board games used to be a family pursuit, until it was universally realised that the monkier was simply a mis-spelling of "bored".

That might have been true in the days when all the board games that were generally available were Monopoly, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit and the like which basically just involved rolling dice and moving a counter around a track.

These days there are games like Carcassonne, Alhambra, Settlers of Catan (now with a Star Trek themed variant!), Ticket to Ride, Discworld - Ankh Morpork, Stone Age and many more which are playable by the whole family and which are a lot more interesting and entertaining than the old Monopoly etc.

Go on to Board Game Geek, find a local gaming group or shop (or buy online) and try a few. You will discover that there's more to gaming than mashing buttons...

Microsoft bans XXXXBOX gamers for CURSING in online combat

Graham Marsden
Boffin

@Dan Paul - Re: No Such Thing as Profanity!

With the Right of Freedom of Expression comes the Responsibility to use it appropriately.

Would you use the same language you use in the company of your peers in front of your parents/ grandparents/ in a church/ on television/ in front of other people's children and, if someone objects, smugly claim that you're exercising your Right of Freedom of Expression?

Angela Merkel's phone was being listened in on by FIVE foreign powers

Graham Marsden
Trollface

Re: Take it as a compliment, Angela...

The N Koreans replied "Sorry, who are you?"

Graham Marsden
Black Helicopters

Take it as a compliment, Angela...

... after all, to misquote Oscar Wilde: "The only thing worse than being listened in on is *not* being listened in on"...

Google, please DRILL through Great Firewall of China with your HTTPS LANCE

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

I just want to say...

... I loved the video :-)

'MacGyver' geezer makes 'SHOTGUN, GRENADE' from airport shop tat

Graham Marsden
WTF?

@Matt Bryant - Re: Deterance, not theatre.

> To them, the big barrier is getting weapons onboard, for which the "theatre" is very effective in stopping.

Obligatory video clip of Adam Savage relating how he walked through airport security carrying two 12" long industrial razor blades http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3yaqq9Jjb4

Bravo, TSA!

The TWEET got me drunk, Conshtable, I SHWEAR IT

Graham Marsden
Holmes

What? People *tell lies*???

I don't believe that!

Facebook's Zuckerberg: US gov 'blew it' on mass surveillance

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Don't like the competition...

... bitch?

Reg man inhales the smooth, non-cancerous, taste of USB nicotine

Graham Marsden

@jake Re: One point that is often conveniently forgotten ...

I'd love to see a double-blind test where two people take turns to sit next to you, one smoking an e-cig and the other a non-nicotine containing water vapour emitter and see if you can actually tell the difference or whether it's actually just all in your head.

A point that I *do* remember is that I and my friends used to meet in a pub and even though we sat in the "non-smoking" area, I would always leave there with my clothes *reeking* of cigarette smoke. Now, with e-cigs, there's no such problem and also no "excuse me, just got to nip out for a fag..." hassles.

If people want to indulge in this sort of thing and it's not affecting me, why should they not be allowed to do it?

New NSA leak reveals invasion of the management consultants

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Bullshit...

... BINGO!!

Vintage wine laid down in 1600 BC was 'psychotropic'

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Re: "The 200 year old booze, which was the oldest ever found"

Ye gods! All I fucking well pointed out was that 200 years old was *not* the oldest booze ever found...

Graham Marsden

"The 200 year old booze, which was the oldest ever found"

Erm, excuse me, but during a dive in the Mediterranean, Jacques Cousteau and his crew found a *two thousand* year old amphora of wine that was intact. Thinking there would be others, they drank it (and found it tasted terrible!)

IIRC, however, they never found another one...

Guess which major US telco ISN'T cracking down on premium SMS spam?

Graham Marsden

Re: Funny thing there.

> In most of Europe, as far as I am aware, it is strictly "who initiates the call, pays for it."

In the UK there are "Reverse Billing" systems (generally for adult services) whereby you text a number and receive a certain number of texts back which can be charged up to £1.50 each IIRC. But it's not somethng that's forced on you, you have to opt in by texting them in the first place and you can opt out at any time.

Lead ONTO your pencil: Bill Gates pours cash into graphene condoms

Graham Marsden
Thumb Up

Hopefully...

... this will also stop bigotted African Bishops claiming that condoms don't prevent HIV!

Berners-Lee: 'Growing tide of surveillance' is destroying the internet

Graham Marsden
Mushroom

@Shrimpling

As part of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, they've rebroadcast the episode "Dalek" in which it "downloads the whole internet".

It's no wonder the Dalek self-destructed in the end...!

Sony patents LASER-FIRING Wi-Fi SMARTWIG with sideburn buttons

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Can I just say....

... What The Everlasting Holy FUCK???

Who in the name of sanity would ever want to use one of these things?!

Kiss goodbye to quiet skies: Now FCC ready to OK in-flight cellphone use

Graham Marsden
Unhappy

@GrumpyOldMan - Re: Oh joy unspeakable!

> at least they have a quiet coach on long runs

And we all know that *nobody* ignores the signs saying "don't use mobiles" on those. And the Guard is *always* walking through the train, so if they find someone using a mobile they tell them to stop and move and....

Fake X-rated Facebook scam vids of Selena Gomez: Man sued

Graham Marsden
Holmes

How dare he...!

... Doesn't he know that spamming everyone with crap is *our* job!

Of course maybe if we changed it so that users had the choice of whether a page can get access to their friends list, likes and shoe size rather than just saying "if you want to look at this, you've got to give us access to all your data..."

Nah, that's crazy talk.

No woman, no drive: Saddo hackers lob Android nasty at Saudi women's rights campaign

Graham Marsden
WTF?

@gurugeorge

Are you friends with amanfrommars1?

Firefox reveals new look: rounded rectangles

Graham Marsden
Coat

Firefox Nighties??

Oh, sorry, that's "night *l* ies"...

Google deletes Maps satellite photos of 14-year-old's unsolved murder

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

@ 5.antiago

"CCTV doesn't directly make you safer necessarily, it does help secure conviction against criminals"

ITYM "may occasionally look a bit like someone who possibly then might be recognised, if you're lucky".