Smoke... and mirrors.

The Hootsman on Sunday gleefully reports: "Smoking's hidden death toll revealed"

SMOKING causes hundreds of thousands more deaths each year than previously thought, dramatic scientific research has revealed.

Dramatic? This must be the first time I have heard scientific research being described as that, so whilst my bullshit detector and bogometer have both just pegged at 11, clearly, they want us to think this is serious stuff...

A study, led by experts in Glasgow, showed heightened chances of dying from cancers of the colon, rectum and prostate, as well as from lymphatic leukaemia.

We're a' doomed!

Dr David Batty, of the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, based at the University of Glasgow, said: "What this study shows is that smoking is linked to more kinds of cancer than previously thought. It's important to remember that cancer is not a single disease and that the various kinds of cancers are different illnesses so you couldn't necessarily assume that smoking was linked to them in the same way. What's unclear is how exactly smoking causes these cancers."

Let's just run that one by again - "What's unclear is how exactly smoking causes these cancers".

In other words, they do not know!

What I suspect their statistics show is that a great swathe of society since the 60's, since apparently, most people did. If someone then got some disease, and they were of that vintage, then the chances of them having smoked would be quite high - and that there's not necessarily a causal link between them...

It's just too funny

I have just shat myself laughing at this:

Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable on Amazon for $500.99 (USD)

But, isn't that just a CAT5E cable?

No! Clearly it is somethign much more...

According to the reviews, some people are reporting this cable is capable of moving bits so fast that it causes the attached equipment to collapse into a singularity such as the one in Patrick Carroll's house...

"Since then, I can't find the cat, and my entire set of VAX/VMS 4.7 documentation (DEC Will Rise Again!) (Mmmmm, orangey!) has gone missing.

Another reviewer (Momo the Barbarian) wasn't so lucky and didn't escape in time...

"As I write this email, a small black hole is tearing through the space time fabric of my living room, consuming everything in its path (including my former pet Chihuahua, Wolfgang). A simple warning to prevent me from having reverse cabled my new joy for experimental reasons would have also spared me the horror of bidding adieu to 20 years woth of collecting (yes my cabbage patch dolls and hummel figurines are now faint memories of the past, for this dimension anyway). I bid you all adieu as I now see my walls dissolving... goodbye cruel worl"

Dan's Tech Reviews has another take on product:

"There's a lot of negative reviews of this cable. I say, why? It's clearly worth the money.

I sense you're skeptical.

Here's proof: Just 1 minute after pressing the button to order this, I had 7 phone calls from insanely hot women, and got 7 dates out of it. Coincidence? I think not.

I have a hot date for the next week, every night, and you don't. Why aren't you buying this cable?!"

Other reviewers have taken a different path on the piss-take, here's one from Jeffery A. Chabotte:

"A coworker had recently bragged to me about buying these cables, and when i told him what he was really buying, he was shocked.

He hadn't shown up to work for the last couple days and the boss got in this morning, he said that the guy's wife "found him in the garage, hanging by a noose made of some sort of speaker wires he had just purchased".

R.I.P. - Frank Grimes.

I guess these cables are pretty rugged."

Sadly, some people are humourless bastards, who are taking this all very seriously -

"$500 for a cable? Get a grip, Denon. Completely dishonest. I'll never buy any of your products again."

No, sir, I believe you should get a grip, and see that this is an utter piss take, and you should be posting something suitably funny as a review... Read all of the reviews, since most of them are pants wettingly funny. Remember, don't have coffee or any other liquids in your mouth while reading these. Your keyboard and monitor will suffer.

42 days

Apparently that bill has been passed.

We're allowing them to piss our historic rights up the wall here. We might as well tear up the Magna Carta, and every other right that has been fought for by our forefathers.

But it's all ok, apparently, as you can be compensated if you're wrongfully arrested.

I wonder, if they arrest you on suspicion TERRRRR, and you're released after the 42 days are up, can you claim 42 days of your life back from these illiberal cunts? Oh, you can get some sort of compensation. That's just fucking great. I'd want the time back. But they can't do that, can they?

The government didn't do this when the IRA were blowing up people doing their shopping.

I am horrified and ashamed to call myself British.

Haymarket doom

The BBC reports that traffic chaos is about to hit Haymarket - as if the current closure of Shandwick Place wasn't enough already.

Cllr Phil Wheeler, transport convener at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "Edinburgh remains very much open for business while work goes on and every effort is being taken to ensure that access to businesses for customers, services and deliveries is retained".

Aye, apart from businesses being fucked by this... Like the Caley being demolished.

You can be damn sure if anyone else wanted to demolish a grand old building like the Caley, they'd be told to fuck right off, but since it's for the trams, oh that's ok then. Bastards.

Interestingly enough the links at the side of the article show...

How green are the trams?
Trams 'will help airport grow'
'A place where firms want to be'
'Unique benefits' of trams
A better experience for visitors
'They will aid passengers'

Nothing mentions the fact that the people of Edinburgh didn't have an option to say "shove your trams up your arse" or "spend our money on something we actually want". For the money, we could have a huge reduction in bus fares. We could have the roads fixed so buses and bikes and cars can get about the city without falling into massive holes where repairs have been botched. We could send all the cuntcillors off on a holiday so they'll not be here to bother us with their pish.

Coolest thing - a remix of Radiohead

A chap on a mailing list posted this remix of Radiohead, Nude, from their album "In Rainbows".

For comparison, the original version of Nude is on YouTube

Ordinarily I hate Radiohead - all they seem to produce is music to open a vein to. I make no apologies to Doctorvee, who along with a load of other people, seems to like them...

That remix has to be the coolest thing I have heard in a long time - mostly because it appeals to my inner geek. Hard drive speaker array... Sinclair Spectrum... Epson Dot Matrix Printer, HP ScanJet... An old GPO Oscilloscope. What isn't there to like?

Spam stupidity

So I got a bounced message today.

X-SpamTest-Envelope-From: ANGRY.STEVE@his..other.domain.example.com
X-SpamTest-Group-ID: 00000004
X-SpamTest-Info: Profiles 2969 [June 02 2008]
X-SpamTest-Info: {Headers: Spam B3: spamware from}
X-SpamTest-Method: headers plus
X-SpamTest-Rate: 100
X-SpamTest-Status: SPAM
X-SpamTest-Status-Extended: spam
X-SpamTest-Version: SMTP-Filter Version 3.0.0 [0255], KAS30/Release

So, your spam software detected this message was spam, and that the Envelope From header was likely forged... And it STILL bounced to ME. What kind of utter fucktardedness is that?

Backscatter from forged email headers can be even more of a problem than the spam its self. It's ordinarily not in our interests to /dev/null mail from postmaster or mailer-daemon because they are used legitimately to alert users and admins to stuff not working!

People writing anti-spam software need to be smarter. A lot smarter, otherwise they are only making the problem worse.

And as for ppp83-237-226-3.pppoe.mtu-net.ru, you may go and fuck yourself. With a cactus. A big, spiky one.