Filed under Geektoys …

Nov 23 2005
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Geektoys, Politicking

A serious one

Software patents are bad. If you don’t understand why, visit the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. If you do, then vote for The Campaign for Creativity as Europe’s worst lobbyist (they’re a Microsoft front posing as an NGO and lobbying in favour of restrictive IP controls) and vote for FFII founder Florian Muller for silicon.com Man of the Year. Incidentally, if you vaguely give a monkey’s about IT, you could do worse than reading Silicon.com – it’s not a bad site, albeit not quite up there with El Reg.

Nov 19 2005
1 Comment
Geektoys

Tesco incest shock!

This is very wrong.

Nov 07 2005
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Geektoys

Bandwagon-jumping

No, train geeks: that isn’t going to work…

Nov 03 2005
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Geektoys

Electric cars are for gays

Yeah, the headline pretty much sums it up…

Nov 02 2005
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Geektoys, Yanks

The 18:46 Virgin train to Cuba

This is a brilliant story. It features a triumph of 1960s British engineering (seriously – Class 47 trains are still running here…) combined with a triumph of Castro-aiding Yank-fucking-off skullduggery. What’s not to like?

Oct 24 2005
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Geektoys

Neologism of the day

Pediaphiles: lovers of dodgy open-source misinformation and lies.

That’s not entirely fair: the Guardian’s expert test found that most specialists broadly rated the information provided in Wikipedia, if not the writing quality. The exception was the appalling fashion bint who slated the perfectly reasonable haute couture entry; this says more about the pretentious arseholosity of people in the fashion industry than it does about the Wikipedia.

Wonder what she’d make of the Profaniwiki?

Oct 21 2005
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Crime & Punishment, Geektoys

Sleep securely

For ten years, the leading British retail banks didn’t notice the fact that one banks’ IT staff were massively on the take, and stole large numbers of PIN numbers alongside huge amounts of money. And now with Chip and PIN, you’re liable for all money nicked using your card…

Oct 15 2005
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Geektoys

Sweary web haven

Roger’s Profanisaurus is one of the best things known to humanity. Sadly, Viz’s online presence is a steaming pile of shit. Happily, the Profaniwiki exists. It’s an open-source, Wikipedia-esque dictionary of swearing.

At the moment, the entries vary substantially in quality. Viz works because the writers are intelligent and articulate and sweary; far too many Profaniwiki entries are inarticulate and illiterate nonsense. But it’s a wiki, so you can change that – and I strongly recommend that you do.

Oct 15 2005
1 Comment
Filthy foreigners, Geektoys

Desktop spycam

Google Earth is an excellent thing. Not just generally, but also because of its amateur espionage properties. Only a generation ago, military facilities were considered so secret and important that they were kept off maps; now anyone in the world can view hi-res photographs from their PC. This is progress (and like most progress, it’s happened despite the efforts of politicians and pompous fools to stop it).

Oct 06 2005
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Crime & Punishment, Geektoys

TraceRT is not a crime

Everyone responsible for maintaining the UK tsunami appeal website (along with a sizeable proportion of police computer crime experts and CPS lawyers) should be summarily hanged. As should every MP who voted for the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

Libertarians would agree here, on the grounds that the website transferred money out of the pockets of British consumers as retailers approached the tough time of January, and instead gave it to ill-deserving ex-colonials. Indeed, they’d probably cite detailed economic surveys showing that if you really want to help poor people in the Third World, you should steal all their money and sell them into slavery, and that Third World poverty would have been solved long ago but for bleeding heart liberals like William Wilberforce.
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