Recent posts (page 2)
How to securely connect to BT OpenZone using VPN without installing the Cisco VPN software, on a Mac
Well, I figured it out, so I thought I’d post it. More after the fold.
Circus
Oh, man.
See what I mean? This is just gross... And you know what? All but one (which one? lol.) cropped out the encircling press photographers. What a fucking circus.
Seeing the full picture?
I can’t help seeing this image like this — a lone protestor doing something crazy and anarchistic surrounded by a semicircle of a hundred professional cameras — and wondering if this is anything like good journalism. Sure, this event happened. But it sure looks like a stunt for the cameras, rather than an organic protest event. Would this have happened were the cameras not there to see it?
Graph sketching
Oh god, I’m going to talk about maths for a bit. Ignore me. You might find this interesting if you know what a derivative is and what it means.
This is a curiosity that my friend Anupam came up with. I’m not claiming any credit for noticing it but I thought I’d still share it with y’all. It only requires very rudimentary calculus, but it produces a result which, the more I think about it, the less intuitive it seems.
UK stop and search powers are illegal
The Guardian reports:
The Strasbourg court ruled it was unlawful for police to use the powers, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to stop and search people without needing any grounds for suspicion.
The widely-drawn ruling said that not only the use of the counter-terror powers, but also the way they were authorised, were “neither sufficiently circumscribed, nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse”.
Clinton Cards
At least Clinton Cards now caters to the more Oedipal members of society.
Nude hardware
This is old, but it’s still absolutely fantastic.
Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
What? DARWIN is evolving!
I just gotta say... This is pretty intelligent design.
And it’s on a t-shirt!
Via Blag Hag.
Legal use of Terrorism Act 2000 44(2)
In follow up to my previous post. So I complained to the IPCC. After a number of initially dismissive letters back and forth, I started to get some thoughtful responses.
Misuse of Terrorism Act 2000 44(2)
I just watched the compelling documentary Taking Liberties, which prompted me to finally send my complaint to the IPCC, and finish off this draft.
I was travelling Oxford to Cambridge, and had missed my connection at Paddington Station, London. With insufficient money for a hotel, I decided to just sleep in the station and catch the first train back to Cambridge. It was a cold night, so I plugged my headphones into my iPod, switched it to Pseudopod, pulled my Warwick Atheists hoodie tight around me, and sat on a light for warmth. For the next hour or so, I moved between sitting on lights and sitting with my back to a lit sign on a stall, trying to get most warm and most comfortable. There were a few other people in the station — perhaps in similar circumstances, perhaps homeless and seeking shelter from the outside wind. After some time I was dosing and listening to Pseudopod still, when I was woken (about 01:45 am) by a couple of officers in uniform who informed me that they were conducting “random” stop-and-searches under new anti-terrorism regulations. They asked me why I was there, and various other circumstantial questions. They asked to look in my backpack (which contained clothes, university work, laptop, wires).