Looks like http://www.shocard.com/ lost the pitch completely :-(

Hi,

The best thing to do is to register a .co.uk or any domain looked after by Nominet. http://www.nominet.org.uk/
If you join Nominet as a registrar it costs it's £400 + VAT joining fee and £100 + VAT per annum.
That allows you to register at wholesale prices and control your domain via PGP instructions. (Or it was the last time I was a member)

So:

a) Updates are secure by PGP
b) Your domain is protected by Nominet and UK laws, which compared to other legal jurisdictions are i) cheaper ii) more sensible

If you cannot afford this route.

You can register a domain via someone like 123-reg.co.uk for a maximum of 10 years £34.90
Transfer the registrar IPSTAG to NOMINET and enable your Nominet account for 2FA
In the last month of the 10 years, transfer the registrar back to a cheap registrar, add another 10 years
Transfer the registrar back Nominet
Wash and repeat

Non-member renewal is £80+VAT per two years - so the above makes sense!
http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-d...

I reckon this is just about the cheapest way to actually "secure" a domain's ownership.

As a UK citizen, I am nervous that any of my .com domains could just be ripped off me. In such a way I never afford to recover them.

>Hobbyists could also use the setup – which cost about $300 – to produce calculators, thermostat controls or other electronics as well, Abowd said.

Or terrorists could......

I know lets BAN inkjet printers

Please don't knock DropBox, configure up your clients up with Boxcryptor for Windows which uses EncFS (opensource). You can only use the opensource support for windows using Dokan. http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html Under Mac and Linux you can also use EncFS. Assume the cloud is compromised with a limited SLA, but a jolly useful resource.

We have the most vibrant car design and development in the UK - probably in the world. I don't think many would argue? Small volume sport single approval car production, F1, supplier to the US Indie Car business. Morgan (who a Honda CEO said would be one of the last few manufacturers standing in the world - read it somewhere in a Sunday colour supplement magazine).

So what can we learn from that?

I think the least government interference the better. The current round of Pirate Bay banning shows that we are being run by clueless Luddites. I wrote to my MP who copied me the stuff on the judgement in favour of Amstrad when tape to tape was:

a) OK to sell blank tapes
b) OK to manufacture tape to tape devices
c) OK to retail tape to tape devices

I find the ruling on The Pirate Bay laughable. It's like saying we should ban chemistry lessons because.....

Hold on we should ban google and search engines because people can find the Anarchist's Cook Book.

Government involvement - it's the last think the tech industry needs, I wouldn't trust a senior politician to sit on a toilet seat the right way round. I'm sure they start of OK, then just bent with all the money involved.

But then to be fair we had some sanity in the UK on an Apple ruling:

"The decision from Judge Colin Birss means Apple will have to post the notice on its U.K. website for six months, as well as "several newspapers and magazines to correct the damaging impression" that Samsung copied the iPad, according to Bloomberg. The same judge said in a ruling earlier this month that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is not "cool" enough to be mistaken for an iPad." http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/18/uk_judge_rules_apple_must_advertise_samsung_did_not_copy_the_ipad.html

Only in America could the iPad/iPhone not be accepted as a prior art. It should have never had gone to a jury. I think it will result in Apple being broken up under the Sherman AntiTrust Act 1929.

Government / Technology - what a laugh unless you count the UK's Trident programme and it's replacement - then it's solid employment for the middle class on the surfdom of everyone else.

They copied the mouse from Xerox, they copied Y from Z.

Losers. I am SICK of Apple.

MX

Thomas Fowler actually built a calculation machine in wood, presented to the Royal Society in 1840!!!!

http://www.thomasfowler.org.uk/

This only fault was not to have the social background that Babbage had...

I quote from the front page of the site dedicated to him:

Fowler writes to Airy:

        "I had the honor in May 1840 to submit the machine to the inspection of many Learned Men in London among whom were the Marquis of Northampton, Mr Babbage, W F Baily and A de Morgan Esq with many other Noblemen and Gentlemen, Fellows of the Royal Society etc and it would have been a great satisfaction to me if I could have had the advantage of your opinion also. They all spoke favourably of my invention but my greatest wish was to have had a thorough investigation of the whole principle of the machine and its details, as far as I could explain them, in a way very different from a popular exhibition:- this investigation I hope it will still have by some first rate men of science before it is be laid aside or adopted.
        I am fully aware of tendency to overrate one's own inventions and to attach undue importance to subjects that preoccupy the mind but I venture to say and hope to be fully appreciated by a Gentleman of your scientific achievements, that I am often astonished at the beautiful aspect of a calculation entirely mechanical.
        I often reflect that had the Ternary instead of the binary Notation been adopted in the Infancy of Society, machines something like the present would long ere this have been common, as the transition from mental to mechanical calculation would have been so very obvious and simple.
        I am very sorry I cannot furnish you with any drawings of the Machine, but I hope I shall be able to exhibit it before the British Association at Devonport in August next, where I venture to hope and believe I may again be favoured with your invaluable assistance to bring it into notice. I have led a very retired life in this town without the advantages of any hints or assistance from any one and I should be lost amidst the crowd of learned and distinguished persons assembled at the meeting without some kind friend to take me by the hand and protect me."

Charles Babbage, Augustus De Morgan, George Airy and many other leading mathematicians of the day witnessed his machine in operation. These names have become beacons in the history of science yet nowhere will you find reference to Thomas Fowler. Airy asked that he produce plans of his machine but Fowler, recalling his experience with the Thermosiphon, refused to publish his design.

The machine was superior in many respects to Babbage's calculating machine, the Difference Engine, generally regarded as the first digital computer. Fowler's machine anticipated the modern computer in its design by using a ternary calculating method. This is in contrast to Babbage's machine which performed a decimal calculation, an approach which made his machine very complicated. The government of the day became increasingly disillusioned by the money they were having to pour into its development. So much so that the government refused to even look at Fowler's machine. Had Thomas Fowler published his design he would no doubt have won the support of many leading mathematicians of the time. Unfortunately, it took several decades before his approach was re-invented and in the mean time his name had slipped into obscurity.

We have identi.ca Oxwall Druapal etc etc we NEED A counter culture DNS - telehash finished for the masses?

Dear Amir,

I have yet to see one decent article on BitCoin which demonstrates the writers understanding of the relationship between the amount of electricity needed to mint a bit coin and the difficultly curve ahead providing a base price. There seems to be an implied assumption that geeks are in over their heads when it comes to trading in a marketplace. But fundamentally please find me a geek who is going to sell their BitCoins for less than it took to mint them + a little extra for their GPU card?

Question: Do you feel that the press is incompetent at being able to describe BitCoin to the general layperson, or do you also personally have a hunch that the popular press couldn't ever write up a Scout's meeting without a legion of mistakes and typos?

Cheers Mark

Dear Amir, You've made in my opinion a really cool decision to implement OpenID only on your exchange, and not record any username/password pairs, have you discussed this basic security proposition with other exchanges in the light of Mt Gox, Sony et al? Cheers Mark -- http://www.openid.co.uk/

The latest for the EU region is to *uck us over like the US! http://www.eubusiness.com/Telecoms/termination-rates-guide In the UK for sure, we have a system called caller pays. Yes US folks - it's really simple, we don't pay for people cold calling us from third world countries trying to sell us rubbish, and we do not pay for the privilege of being sold to! This is the reason why the UK and many other countries are so far ahead of mobile phone uptake usage. My call plan is £31.50 with Orange UK, unlimited calls to UK numbers and UK mobiles, oh free basic broadband over my BT PSTN line. But the EU politicians are being lent on by US telcos to roger us, just the way you are in the states. Great for the telcos, crap for customers. Paying to receive cold calls - it's incredible!