Dominic Finn

A tramp walks into a bar and demands a drink. He is refused because he clearly can't pay. The tramp then pulls a hamster from his pocket and says, "In return for the drink, I'll show you something you've never seen before" He takes the hamster over to the old piano in the corner where it proceeds to play Gershwin tunes beautifully. The barman is impressed and pours out a scotch for the same tramp, who knocks it back and demands another. "No way" says the barman. "Show me another miracle and you can have another. Otherwise get out." From another pocket the tramp produces a frog which starts to sing beautifully. Another customer is so impressed that he immediately offers the tramp £500 for the frog, which he accepts gratefully. The barman is amazed, "You're mad," he tells the tramp, "That frog must have been worth millions." The tramp smiles and orders another scotch. "Not a bit of it," he says, "The hamst

I went to the Nott Tuesday event last night. There were some interesting points raised about who owns data about you and how it is used. It's a difficult subject for me because I find it a little tiring. In fact I find it very hard to write about, so I will make it brief. The presentation was about the "man" coming down on you and taking all the data they record about you and using it for purposes that you may not want / agree to. Ah ok, I don't like the sound of that. Mmm ok so there is a problem there but surely the best way to sort it is to just firm up the Data Protection act and legislate in favour of the people whose digital information is stored. In addition to this, if you are collecting certain data they could insist that you sign up with a register (list of companies) that do collect data, or it could be a voluntary thing but people would lean towards sites and services that are members of DatSecure (my new name for it). Once we had this then these companie