* Posts by Graham Marsden

6899 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2007

Scientists to IPCC: Yes, solar quiet spells like the one now looming can mean Ice Ages

Graham Marsden
Boffin

@Brian Miller - Re: Baked? Frozen? It's the weather.

"Back in the 1970's, the scientists were screaming that we'd be under a sheet of ice by now"

No, they weren't. See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/ for facts.

Missing Brit SPACE HEDGEHOG RISES from the GRAVE

Graham Marsden
Coat

"test how everyday objects will survive on Mars"

Well unless they're going to get run-over by Curiosity...

ZERO-G DINOSAUR made from bits and bobs by space station flight engineer

Graham Marsden
Coat

She didn't make it...

... it's just Bob the Dinosaur who's been hiding behind the furniture!

Fondling slabs during takeoff WON'T end in a fireball of death - report

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Let's get some perspective here...

Have a look at the figures cited by the Air Crashes Records Office here.

Note that, for instance, in 2012, there were 119 accidents and 794 deaths. That's the *GLOBAL* figure.

Now compare that with the approximately 1.23 *MILLION* road deaths last year

But aircraft crashes are big and spectacular and make for great TV news, so we keep worrying about the wrong thing because too many people can't see the bigger picture.

That's a money spinner: iPod wheel patent bout bags bod £2m from Apple

Graham Marsden
Trollface

So...

... Apple have failed in their attempt to patent the wheel...

WET SPOT found on MARS: NASA rover says 'high percentage'

Graham Marsden
Alien

I'm sure...

... I saw someone saying something about The Waters of Mars recently.

Now Who was it?

Boris Johnson's ex-right-hand man's right hand lands johnson in web slip

Graham Marsden
WTF?

@jake - Re: Pix or it didn't happen.

"The scary part is that the fucking moron is involved in policy & procedure decisions in a nuclear state ..."

FFS, exaggerating much? He was a Deputy Mayor, not someone who's got their finger on the Big Red Button...!

15% of Americans still holding off from this newfangled interweb thing

Graham Marsden
Devil

But how many...

... won't use it because it's the Spawn of Satan and a Sign of the Coming of the Anti-Christ and a Symbol of the Corruption and Decadence which their Once Great Nation has fallen prey to with all those Commie Left Wing Fags controlling all the News Media (apart from that Last Bastion of the Truth, Fox News) and Goddamn Pinko Democrats especially the one who sits in the White House...

Space truck Cygnus left idling outside ISS after data format snafu borks docking

Graham Marsden
Alien

I hope...

... they didn't leave the engine running, otherwise some chav might take it for a joyride...

The NSA's hiring - and they want a CIVIL LIBERTIES officer

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

The only reason...

... they want a Civil Liberties Officer is to make sure that they have a "cut out" should anyone try to exercise their Civil Liberties and try to find out just how much inforamation the NSA are holding on their own citizens.

The job of the CLaP Officer will be to endlessly repeat variations on "I'm sorry, we cannot discuss that for National Security reasons..."

Firms fined $350,000 after yogurt sting uncovers review rigging

Graham Marsden
Devil

I had an e-mail recently...

... from a company I'd never heard of, thanking me for my custom and inviting me to put a review on their site.

The e-mail was sent to <company name>@mydomain, however the company name in the e-mail address was a different company (I use this to see if someone is selling my e-mail details), so I took great delight in giving them a one-star rating and a comment slagging off both the original company and the one who asked for my review whilst salting the review with plenty of keywords to help it appear if someone searches for either business!

Graham Marsden

Re: Just a drop in the ocean

I looked at doing some work over the summer via services like Textbroker.

However not only does it only pay a derisory 1p per word, some of the assignments were inviting you to write blog posts praising products you'd never used or, even worse, saying how you'd made loads of dosh through a Make Money Fast scheme!

Michael Gove: C'mon kids, quit sexting – send love poems instead

Graham Marsden

Hmm...

Roses are red,

Violets are blue.

Show me your tits,

Fancy a screw?

USB 3.1 demo shows new spec well on its way towards 1.2GB/sec goal

Graham Marsden
Black Helicopters

I'm surprised...

... the US hasn't demanded that this be banned because it lets whistle-blowers illicitly download files even quicker....

Mini-Me, stop humping the 'L-A-S-E-R': New 3D tech can make a Mini-You

Graham Marsden
Happy

@Don Jefe - Re: Inferior

And, as the old joke has it, it was produced by unskilled labour :-)

TPG flashes cheeky 'down under' CAPTCHA

Graham Marsden
Devil

This reminds me...

... of many years ago when a local computer shop had a Hangman demo program written in Basic.

It was dead easy to go in, edit the word list to include certain *other* words that appealed to my schoolboy sense of humour at the time, and then wander off to the other side of the shop whilst keeping an eye on the next person to give the game a go...

Apple iOS 7 remote wipe: Can it defeat the evil scrumper scourge?

Graham Marsden
Pirate

Incoming text...

... Your iPhone has been infected with a virus. Send $500 to this anonymous e-mail address or we remotely wipe it...

Obama Zucker-punched: 'NSA PR bungle whacked public trust in web giants'

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

@noominy.noom Re: Great Moral Compass, There

"He's just saying that people didn't care about FB privacy cock ups."

No, he's saying that Facebook doesn't care what people think about their privacy cock-ups.

Remember these are the people who change all their your privacy settings on a whim and, when you complain, say "you can always leave Facebook..."

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it ... Win Phone 8? No, it's APPLE'S iOS 7

Graham Marsden
Pirate

Arr!

Bravo me buckos!

Leaked docs: NSA 'Follow the money' team slurped BANK records, CREDIT CARD data

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

"we are not aware of any unauthorised access to our network"

Hmm, nice bit of Double-speak there from Visa! What about *authorised* access (which, of course, being a US company, they're not allowed to talk about...)

Angry Brazilian whacks NASA to put a stop to ... er, the NSA

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

What next...?

NiSA supermarkets?

Want to sit in Picard's chair while spying on THE WORLD? We can make it so – ex-NSA man

Graham Marsden
Happy

There was a line...

... in one of Tom Clancy's stories about the Security Services complaining that TV Shows and Movies had better control centres than they got in real life...

Do you trust your waiter? Hacked bank-card reader TEXTS your info to crims

Graham Marsden

Verifone VX 670 withdrawn

I used to take card payments with a VX670 I got through Streamline, however they were withdrawn earlier this year.

I don't know if it has any relevance to this story, nor what they did with the old ones, but I thought I'd mention it.

Nokia quiz: Do you know what a phablet is?

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

I couldn't...

... give a phuck!

Australian pub to serve beers for bitcoin

Graham Marsden
Coat

Is that...

....at the University of Woolloomooloo, Bruce?

Bother! Breakdown busts bloke's bold boffin-blasted briny boat balloon bid

Graham Marsden
Mushroom

Re: Why don't they just fuse some Hydrogen into Helium?

Sure, no problem. There's just a bit of a waiting list.

30 years the last I heard.

Of course there is another way, see icon, but it's a bit tricky to collect it aftewards...

Dominant web ad giant (Google) possibly 'weeks' away from Euro slapdown

Graham Marsden
Thumb Down

@Dan Paul - Re: So where is the "abuse of dominance"???

I wouldn't have downvoted you if it wasn't for the fact that companies from other countries get similarly "boned" by America's thinly veiled protectionist nationalism.

Shop-a-suspect web security system: 'We've helped cops nab 100 suspects'

Graham Marsden

Re: Graham Marsden Graham Marsden @Matt Bryant - MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

Matt, do you really think such childishness adds anything to the (lack of) validity of your arguments?

Still, feel free to down vote me and call me some more names if it makes you feel better. I'll even let you get the last word in since once again you've shown there's no point in trying to have a reasonable argument with you....

Graham Marsden
Boffin

Re: Graham Marsden @Matt Bryant - MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

Oh dear, Matt, resorting to ad hominem attacks again.

There are parts of London (and other cities) where it is virtually impossible to avoid being within range of CCTV cameras yet, astonishingly, crimes *still* happen in those areas!

You may be happy to have the State monitor and observe and record your every movement and journey and phone call and e-mail and web access, but, please, don't assume that because you "have nothing to hide", you have the right to decide that we should be happy with it too.

Graham Marsden

@Matt Bryant - Re: MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

And from 2010: "Number of crimes caught on CCTV falls by 70 per cent, Metropolitan Police admits"

"Prosecutions linked to CCTV have fallen in parts of Britain, raising questions about the true impact of the security cameras."

"Scotland Yard sources suggested the fall was because officers deciding only to mark down an involvement of a CCTV camera if it had formed part of the investigation. Previously officers had recorded if a camera was in the vicinity of the crime scene.

"Campaigners suggested that this change meant that the effectiveness of CCTV as a crime fighting tool might have been exaggerated by the previous figures. "

" Last summer an internal Met Police report concluded that for every 1,000 cameras in London, less than one crime is solved per year"."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6867008/Number-of-crimes-caught-on-CCTV-falls-by-70-per-cent-Metropolitan-Police-admits.html

Still, let's keep on having Big Brother watch us and snoop on our every move and journey and e-mail and phone call. After all, giving up essential liberties for a little temporary security has always been a good thing, hasn't it?

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

And what...

... is the False Positive Rate? How many people were arrested and then found *not* to be criminals?

Or don't we get told that because it makes their scheme look less good in the media?

Verizon finally drags FCC into court fisticuffs to end one-speed internet for all

Graham Marsden
Holmes

"Internet providers want the extra dosh to...

"... improve their bottom line and boost their bosses' bonuses"

Fixed that for your.

Boris Johnson floats idea of 'London visa' to attract tech talent

Graham Marsden
Facepalm

Oh great...

... so there's going to be even more Londonization, concentrating people and jobs in the capital whilst the rest of the country is treated as somehow second class or second rate.

Should Nominet ban .uk domains that use paedo and crim-friendly words?

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Newspeak...

... Double-plus good, Proles!

Google scrambles to block backdoors

Graham Marsden
Black Helicopters

Why does this sound...

... like the online version of Security Theatre?

"Will this make us safer?"

"Well, no, but it will make you *feel* safer, so don't worry your pretty little head about it.!"

Jail time promised for false tweets in China

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

Listening to rumours...

... is Treasonous, Citizen!

- Your friend, The Computer

Brit and Danish boffins propose NSA-proof crypto for cloud computing

Graham Marsden
Big Brother

"your data will remain secure even if everybody else is compromised"

Great, but who are you going to tell...?!

400 million Chinese people can't speak Chinese: Official

Graham Marsden
Happy

Re: Lìngrén jingyì!

Shiny!

Kamikaze Moon mission on track as NASA grips its tumbling LADEE

Graham Marsden
Coat

Re: 622Mb/sec. From the Moon.

I bet their roaming charges are out of this world...

Ofcom's head Ed may yet run the Beeb: UK gov 'mulls axing BBC Trust'

Graham Marsden

Do I hear the sound...

... of axe grinding...?

Assange fails in bid for election to Australian Senate

Graham Marsden
WTF?

@jake - Re: Gee, you think?

Have you *looked* at the people who are being elected to office in the US or the UK or several other countries too?!

They're not just deluded, some of them are bat-shit crazy!

And you don't get a choice of candidate, you just get whoever the other nutcases tell you you're getting because they think the same way...

UK investor throws £14.8m at firm that makes UNFORGEABLE 2-cent labels

Graham Marsden

@cornz 1 - Re: Hmm... little pins and a physical test, eh?

Now try the following experiment: Print a load of pages with OEM black ink. Then print a load with compatible ink. Spot the difference (hint: check your wallet).

(PS Oh, and yes, now you can get cheap B&W laser printers, but I have an inkjet that's about 6 years old and still works fine, so I have no need to change it)

OK, forget the 3D telly fiasco: 4K is gonna blow you away - say tech giants

Graham Marsden
Boffin

All that resolution....

... won't make a crap programme any better!

Reports: NSA has compromised most internet encryption

Graham Marsden
WTF?

Presenting - The Ghost of Senator Joe McCarthy

"the nature of the connections was not described in the document."

Hmm: "Are you, or have you ever been connected to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, or have you ever watched a documentary about them on TV...?"

Australia's anti-smut internet filter blueprint lasts LESS THAN A DAY

Graham Marsden
WTF?

As has recently been achieved in the United Kingdom...

... really? Did I miss something? Exactly when was the following achieved?:

* involve mobile phone operators installing adult content filters on phones which will be switched on as the default unless the customer proves he or she is at least 18 years of age; and

* involve major internet service providers providing home network filters for all new home broadband services, which will be switched on as the default unless the customer specifies otherwise.

Unless by "achieved" they actually mean "comprehensively demonstrated to be utterly impossible to introduce or enforce"...

Hunt's 'paperless', data-pimping NHS plan gets another £240m

Graham Marsden
Holmes

*Every* day...

... is National "Overspend on Government IT Projects" day!

Gov IT write-off: Universal Credit system flushes £34m down toilet

Graham Marsden

Fixed that for you...

"one can't help but HOPE that Duncan Smith will be the latest and most high-profile victim of the Universal Credit catastrophe."

Boffinry breakthrough OF THE DECADE: Teens 'influenced' by friends

Graham Marsden
Alert

@frankl ly - Re: Time for some social engineering

Reading books *while* crossing the road?! ;-)

Forget Mars: Let's get someone on the Moon – NASA veteran

Graham Marsden
Alert

Re: Great idea!

Just as long as it's not an Illudium Pu-38 Explosive Space Modulator.

We don't need any Earth-shattering Kabooms!

Graham Marsden
Coat

" we were told to stay away from it by the aliens..."

... I thought that was Europa?