My parents got one of these calls too (Dad runs a custom-built desktop PC with Ubuntu, Mum runs a Dell laptop with Windows 7).

My Mum didn't believe the guy, so she passed him over to my Dad, who spoke to them, asking them how they got their number and how they knew there was a problem, but without giving any personal information.

Eventually, the guy got fed up, told my Dad to "Go to hell" and hung up the call. I've never seen my Dad so pissed off.

That's because they want to be called "BT" and not "British Telecommunications". They even inform their employees and contractors of this. I used to work for them in an IT helldesk.

"BT" is seen as a snappier, less-stuffy title than "British Telecommunications", or "British Telecom". However, they primarily dropped the "British Telecommunications" moniker because they had become more than just a telephone company, and wanted to reduce the importance of the "telecommunications" aspect. They were performing managed IT services, writing business software, and conducting scientific research, to name just a few different things.

The phrase "British Telecommunications, PLC" is found in small print copyrights (i.e. "BT is a registered trademark of British Telecommunications, PLC").

When I was in high school, I did a week's work experience in the computing department at Dounreay

We worked on the ground floor of the building that houses the old DFR control room (it was just upstairs from us). We were right in the shadow of the spherical reactor housing (affectionately known as "the Golf Ball".

They had all sorts of old tech in their computing department - DEC VAX systems, racks full of old Gandalf kit, etc. It was 16 years ago now, and I can't remember what else they had in there. There was also just about the biggest and noisiest line printer (used for printing payslips) in an adjoining room.

My mother also worked as a contracts officer on the Dounreay site for many years.

We lived in a nearby town called Thurso, which was a small fishing port prior to Dounreay's construction. The town literally doubled in size during the 1950s as construction on the Dounreay plant began. The UKAEA was Thurso's biggest employer. Since the plant stopped generating power (in the mid 1990s), the town has stagnated and the population has been gradually declining. There's nothing up there (employment-wise) to attract newcomers any more.

Or how about they engineer some kind of PS3-based VM which enables you to use/write homebrew software that:

1) can take full advantage of the PS3's Cell architecture and graphics chipset
2) doesn't let you fuck up commercial multiplayer games, or play copied commercial PS3 games
3) doesn't need you to flash the BIOS
4) can be shared via the PlayStation Network free of charge

Kind of like the unofficial "homebrew channel" on Wii, but officially sanctioned. Of course, the fourth point would require that the software is vetted by Sony to ensure you're not producing anything that violates their PSN ToS (emulation, porn, racial/religious hatred, etc). And, they would need to produce a special EULA for that development environment that says if you do copy other people's work, you accept full responsibility (Sony can't be blamed, on your head be it, etc)

Wouldn't that be good?

I always preferred the sort of half-medieval/gothic, half-futuristic setting of the original Quake to the far-more generic "humans vs. aliens" setting of Quake II and Quake IV. I also didn't like the pure-deathmatch approach of Quake III.

I know you can download mods that revamp the Quake engine and make it look more modern, but nothing really beats a complete revisit using a next-gen engine (id Tech 5, for example). Would love to see it happen for the original Quake.

Sorry, am I right in thinking you've just said the Koran is "a hateful book"?

Have you ever read it? Or tried to?

It's not that different from the Bible really. The only part of the Koran people seem to highlight as "hateful" is the sura titled "Muhammad":

Quran Explorer - [Sura : 47, Verse : 1 - 38]

Those who do highlight this as "hateful" are simply misinterpreting it, taking it out of context. Ironically, those radical Islamists are making exactly the same mistake - it's a misinterpretation made by those who take the word of the Koran entirely too literally.

The Bible is also full of controversial passages that are open to misinterpretation if taken at face value:

http://rasroots.com/essays/biblecontra.htm

Do you have a horribly virulent airborne pathogen? You should call an epidemiologist about that.

Would you really want those four people to be the alien's first direct being-to-being contact with the human race?

I know I certainly wouldn't ...

I'm very much looking forward to The Hobbit (very skeptical about the "original" sequel).

When I read the Lord of the Rings as a youngster, I was able to picture all the major scenes, and the characters, the locations... then to see Peter Jackson's films as an adult was just astonishing; they obviously had the same ideas as I had.

Yes, I know there were some differences between book and film (the Ring going to Osgiliath, and the omission of the Scouring of the Shire, in particular), but I still loved the films, and felt they were a lot more faithful to the original story than some other big budget Hollywood productions have been.

I hope the same is true for the Hobbit. Any word on who will play Bilbo?

The teenies (yes, even though that won't start until 2013)