Category: Uncategorized

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Committee to Protect Bloggers

BBC News: Global blogger action day called

Tags: liberty

That is the US navy’s new submarine the USS Jimmy Carter is on it’s way to Washington state where it will based out of Kitsap.

Heavily Armed USS Jimmy Carter in Fleet

By CARA RUBINSKY, Associated Press Writer

GROTON, Conn. – The USS Jimmy Carter entered the Navy’s fleet Saturday as the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and as the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War’s final years.

The $3.2 billion Jimmy Carter was commissioned Saturday, the first named after a living ex-president. Carter, himself a former submariner during his time in the Navy, was on hand for the ceremony signaling the end of an era in submarining.

The 453-foot, 12,000-ton submarine has a 50-torpedo payload and eight torpedo tubes. And, according to intelligence experts, it can tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them.

More…

Tags: security

Police have released CCTV footage of three men they are still trying to trace following an attack which left a 23-year-old man with facial injuries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4233289.stm

I guess they must be the Earth 2 versions of the superheroes.

Tags: comics, crime

The BBC’s Culture Show is clearly behind the times and trots out the now cliched report on how comics ain’t just for kids. Look here Middle England there are things called Graphic Novels and they deal with real issues in a serious way using a garphical format.

Graphic novels get real
Far from being stuck in an adolescent fantasy world, the latest trend in graphic novels is autobiographical and intimate. We look at Epileptic, the latest book by David B and trace the history of the real world in comic book form.

Random House website: Epileptic

The one British example of this ‘realist’ style of graphic novel that they present is the When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs which was published over 20 years ago in 1982. This strikes me as bizarre given that there has been a slew of critically acclaimed British comic writers that have come to prominance in the intervening period such as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.

These writers may have come to prominance mainly due to their superhero comics written for American comic companies but they have also produced great work in the ‘realist’ style. Alan Moore’s From Hell is on the surface a lurid penny dreadful about the Jack the Ripper killings but in my opinion has actually greater depth than anything shows like this normally present as graphic novels that might appeal to the middle classes such as Maus or Palestine.

Even moving into the more fantastical arena for this is where comic books can surpass all other media formats we have superlative stories which should be attracting a wider audience despite the distain that the intelligentsia seems to have for comic books. The satire of the now departed Transmetropolitan is very relevant today and to return to Moore the dystopian vision of the future in his V for Vendetta now seems to have become our reality. But where is V to save us now.

Tags: comics

A confused customer unwittingly lead me to a discovery about Amazon.co.uk a couple of days ago.

She was an American lady that now lives in the UK who had enquired in the past about the possibility of our cinema doing a screening of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She had been told that there wasn’t a print available of the movie in this country.

She obviously got hold of the wrong end of the stick and thought this to mean that the movie was unavailable in any format in the UK and so asked a relative in the US to send a DVD copy of it from there.

She proudly presented me with said DVD and explained the whole saga of the events to me. Unfortunately it isn’t as simple to show a DVD as she thought and I had to tell her that it wouldn’t be possible. Firstly there is the compatibility issue we would have to find a player that could project a region 1 DVD then in order to screen it to the public we would have to sort out the rights for a public screening with the film distributor. We could have done a private screening for her but that would have meant she would have had to hire the screen which would have been very expensive.

Anyway her claims that there was no copy of the movie in this country piqued my curiosity; surely she was mistaken so I searched for it at Amazon. I did of course find it and at a very reasonable price of £7.97 on DVD.

I also noted that it was available from Amazon Jersey at the lower price of £5.63 (plus £1.24 for delivery).

Amazon Jersey!

I didn’t know there was an Amazon Jersey. Apparently Amazon has decided to exploit a loophole that allows purchases of less than £18 to be imported to the UK without having to pay duty on them. As Jersey does not currently impose VAT, small value items can be thus be purchased for a lower price from Amazon Jersey.

Tags: cinema

Boy brings encyclopaedia to book

A schoolboy has uncovered several mistakes in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica – regarded by readers as an authority on everything.

Lucian George, 12, from north London, found five errors on two of his favourite subjects – central Europe and wildlife – and wrote to complain.

The book’s editor wrote back thanking him for “pointing out several errors and misleading statements”.

I think this is quite ironic given the article written last year concerning the lack of authority of the Wikipedia by Al Fasoldt and former Encyclopædia Britannica Editor in Chief Robert McHenry’s views.

I have to say that the following statement made by Lucien’s father Gabriel George comes as a bit of a surprise to me.

Gabriel, who works as a publishing editor, was not surprised by his son’s discoveries.

He said: “I know how easy it is to make mistakes. Hopefully they can be corrected.

“The encyclopaedia cost me £700 [$1,320] and it’s nice to know you can rely on it.

“It’s a huge work and is full of fascinating information on virtually everything. The other night we had an argument about the depth of the English Channel and all the facts were there.”

I would have thought that he would be quite aggrieved given that he has paid hundreds of pounds for an encyclopaedia that has mistakes that his son discovered in an area where he has some expertise and who knows how many mistakes that his son hasn’t discovered in areas that he has lesser knowledge of.

I’m not sure how he can be sure he can rely upon it now that he is aware of the fact it contains mistakes, or how any argument can now be settled by facts contained within concerning the depth of the English Channel.

This of course does nothing to solve the problems of the Wikipedia but it does undermine the Encyclopædia Britannica’s claim of superior authority.

Tags: books

Mystery twister crytpo challenge

Solving the Enigma of Kryptos

Tags: cryptography

I came across this late as it was written a few years ago.

Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? a brilliant spoof advisory for parents that is made even more hilarious by the numerous comments from supposedly intelligent people that have failed to get the joke.

This article is the biggest crock of sh*t I’ve ever read.

I could argue every point, but let’s just say that being argumentative and surly in social behavior does not make hackers… it’s a behavior of everyone. I’m 22 and STILL act like in such manners when IDIOTS make comments like this and generalize about people without ANY sense of intelligence.

As far as AMD processors and upgrading to new technology…. People always want their systems to be FASTER so they can get more done in less time… not because it helps us break your computer faster. Oh and I *did* buy my AMD at a local computer shop NOT by ordering online.

As for academic ability… well, let’s just say I graduated in the top 5% of my class. Nevermind my appearance which has radically changed as I matured from baggy jeans to more professional work clothes and parted hair-cut to something more modern.

And what the heck is Lunix? Do you mean Linux the Operating System designed to compete with Windows? And oh my god let’s not talk about Quake, the popular game that kids like to play online with friends.

Oh and as computer technician and network administrator… I spend more than 10 hours on a computer per day.

As for the hacking manuals… yes I do read them… I like to know how to protect my systems, so people AREN’T stealing my data.

If you wanna call these behaviors hacking… by all means do so… just don’t expect the INTELLIGENT people in the world to be blinded by your ignorance and generalizations.

Aaron M. Hall

You may have graduated in the top 5% of your class but as you didn’t understand that it was a spoof Aaron M. Hall I suspect you have an autistic spectrum disorder such as Asperger’s Syndrome.

Tags: games

We keep hearing that irony is dead, and that we must embrace a new age of sincerity. Supposedly, the current world climate is such that irony is a luxury we can’t afford.

But maybe when they say that — you know, “they” — they’re being ironic. It’s hard to tell; maybe they’re just really deadpan. Maybe what they’re trying to tell us by proclaiming the death of irony is that tough times require us to be even more arch, and even more suspicious of the seemingly benign. And maybe a statement decrying irony should be interpreted as meaning the exact opposite!

If so: yay! We love irony!

Or, we don’t, and we’re being ironic.

I also [heart] Charlize Theron as Aeon Flux.

Tags: love

Adverts have been appearing in the run up to the switch over to chip and PIN.

Keep forgetting your PIN?
It’s easy to change with chip and PIN.
To something more memorable like a birthday or your lucky numbers. You can change your PIN at the cash machine. Easily. Or by simply contacting your card issuer. The new chip and PIN cards will make life easier and safer. If you haven’t received one yet, you soon will.

I have my doubts about the whole switch to chip and PIN especially the message they are peddling that it will make life easier and safer. It isn’t really fundamentally any more secure it just changes the threat model and offers no increase in security for the card user at all.

Plus as Ryan points out about the advice in the advert

Right, so when the thief steals my wallet, the first PIN combination they are going to try is DDMM or MMYY of my birthday, which is on my driving license and they are now also telling us that we can change our PIN by phone!

I believe it probably will cut credit card fraud in the short term until the fraudsters come up with a new strategy and inevitably I think it will lead to customers forgetting to sign their cards and that will result in further avenues for fraud.

Tags: computer security, identity theft, security