So as Season 6 of 24 continues, you can keep track of the locations in the show (and the ability with which Jack manages to get across town so quickly) at the JackTracker map. Whilst we’re used to the unrealistic travel times, the show still has some surprises, and still has produced some shock exits of major characters. However, perhaps the biggest revelation so far has been the identity of the un-named plotter we first saw manipulating events in season 5 – it has been revealed that he is actually Jack’s brother Graem…
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Another Day, Another Letter Bomb
So after the excitement around here yesterday when Vantis over the road received a bomb – apparently intended for one of their clients, Speed Check Services – attention is now focused on Swansea, where now the DVLA has now received a letter bomb, certainly indicating a motoring connection between the three bombs so far. There is also discussion about whether a bomb received by a man in Folkstone at the weekend is somehow connected too.
Quite what whoever is doing it is hoping to achieve by this I don’t know, since it’s hardly likely to make the government or the Police change their policies with regards to the motorist, any more than any other sort of terrorist campaign does. If anything it will only harden opinions against the perpetrators.
Apparently the bomb yesterday was addressed to someone specific, maybe going after people the bomber perceives as key players. However as with most organisations, the post doesn’t get to the addressee unopened – when I worked at SSE, all my post would be pre-opened and checked before it made it to my desk – even parcels from Amazon! As a result, it’s the post room staff who get injured, nobody else. Certainly, at this point in time, I’d be expecting post room workers working for anyone associated in some way with motoring enforcement will be feeling decidedly nervous…
Bill Gates in Newsweek
As part of his round of press interviews to coincide with the consumer launch of Vista, Bill Gates has given an interview to Newsweek which has got various people in the Mac community amused. The question that has attracted most attention is on page 2 of the interview:
In many of the Vista reviews, even the positive ones, people note that some Vista features are already in the Mac operating system.
In answer, Gates claims that Apple in fact copied Microsoft, and then this is the key quote:
“Security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.�
The funny thing is, if security guys are coming out with these total exploits every day – where are they?
Anyway, there is a bit of a backlash beginning with regards to Vista, with Robert Preston, the BBC Business Editor not pleased at the performance of his new Vista laptop, particularly the fact that it won’t work with either his IPAQ, or his digital recorder. We’ve also had another person, who after discovering that Vista wouldn’t work with his hardware installed it somewhere else and recorded the act on YouTube. Alongside this, independent tests appear to have recorded a fail for Vista in the security stakes.
Apple too are putting the boot in, with a new advert targeting my own least favourite Vista feature, User Account Control:
Possibly a bit of a cheap shot, but after the pretty well unsubstantiated security comment from Gates I can only see things degenerating further as we approach the release of Leopard…
Press and Police in Oaklands Park
I’ve just snapped off a picture of the press crews from the front of our building, to give an indication of where this mornings mail bomb in the Vantis building. In doing so I actually got cornered by a couple of reporters from the Wokingham Times, looking for quotes, unfortunately I doubt I gave them what they wanted as I said that apart from the disruption, and a little bit of interest, most people up here were more interested in the Cricket! Basically once we’d found that there were only minor injuries, aside from being annoyed that the exclusion zone wasn’t bigger (i.e. to include us being sent home), it really hasn’t affected us, and although it’s probably big news for Wokingham, it really isn’t overly big in the scheme of things.
Anyway, I suggested that somebody more senior representing the company might be able to give them an official quote, but in the end it looks like Charysse, one of the customer service team was sent down to speak to them rather than any of the directors. However she did give them more the kind of comments they were looking for, saying how worrying it was having something like this so close. Have to see if it appears in the paper tomorrow now… Even she doesn’t get quoted in the paper, two of the other guys in the company wandered over to see what was going on at lunchtime and got interviewed by the BBC for their news items.
In terms of a connection with the incident in London yesterday, the London Standard has confirmed what various people here thought, which is that the building, amongst other things, processed speeding tickets. Since yesterdays bomb hit Capita, who run the London Congestion Charge, could it be a motoring connection?
Mail Bomb Next Door
All morning we’ve been having Police vans, including the local bomb squad, ambulances and the fire brigade driving up into our office car park to turn round. The BBC finally picked up the story a few minutes ago, so we now know what’s going on – the building over the road that belongs to Vantis, a firm of accountants has recieved a letter bomb, and two of the mail room staff have recieved minor injuries. Not much has been affected in our building, we can still get in and out, indeed we had to wait for the news to find out what was going on!