locked-in man

Published July 19, 2010

A fascinating story is on BBC News just now that a man suffering what is known as locked-in syndrom (essentially paralysis of pretty much everything except the eyes) is seeking clarification on the guidance for mercy-killing prosecutions. Potentially likely to bring the whole right-to-die argument back into the media once more, this time with a different tac to it. The claim here is that others are able (physically) to commit suicide should they decide to. This chap is not, because of his condition. So does the existing law over mercy killing infringe his rights?
I would find it hard to argue against him. He’s clearly sound of mind and has been able to express his wishes. A quirk of law prevents him achieving his objectives. Should society force him to stay alive? I for one am not convinced that it should.

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Layout changes

Published July 8, 2010

I’ll be doing some experimenting with the site’s theme over the next week or so so please excusse anything that stops working for a bit.  :)

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A Fuss About Nothing

Published July 7, 2010

Or, in this case, a fuss about the captilization of WordPress.  In case you’re running WordPress and haven’t yet noticed this gem, you can’t spell WordPress with a capital W and small p any more, as version 3 filters this behaviour.  This filter crept into the release practically unnoticed, but the subsequent issues and community backlash has been fairly strong.  All sorts of things from trademark protection, through conspiracy theories and the impact of off-shore oil drilling have been mentioned around it – personally I’d have been happy if it were a plugin and people at least had some warning, so they knew what to fix when their images start breaking…

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Tech support cold call scam

Published July 7, 2010

PC Pro website has an article on a scam that’s currently targeting UK residents.  The scammers cold-call unsuspecting marks and claim that “Microsoft” has found a virus on their PC, and they’ll help to fix it.  Mark is told to download some software.  At this point the article is a little hazy, but it would seem that the downloaded software probably is a virus, and the chap on the end of the phone will then “fix” this problem.. for a small fee. 

As usual, this scam requires the marks to be generally ignorant or, at least, pretty trusting of the random guy who has just called (who also has somehow magically determined their phone number based on their computer and has the ability to remotely determine that you’re affected by a virus, but can’t fix it for you.) so generally it’s praying on the weak, but then that’s what sorry-ass scammers do, isn’t it?

So be careful out there, and if someone phones you claiming to be able to sort out a computer problem that you don’t even know you have, well, play them at their own game and cost them a bit of money by leaving them on hold whilst you make dinner / go to a movie / play your favourite game.

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Longest recorded tennis match

Published June 26, 2010

I thought I would note this one down – after a week of sunny Wimbledon tennis (normally quite a sporting event on TV here, but largely eclipsed by the World Cup this year) – we’ve got Andy Murray still in as the last Brit standing, and we’ve experienced the longest tennis match ever recorded. 

Both John Isner and Nicolas Mahut looked completely drained in the third day of their match, basically playing on autopilot.  The American Isner was the eventual victor, wining 6-4 3-6 6-7 (7-9) 7-6 (7-3) 70-68 (yep, 138 games in the last set) after a playing time of over eleven hours.  Eek!  Kudos to both players on their grit and determination to take it that far.

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