It's a virtuous circle. Designers buy Macs because they are pretty and great for designing with. Then the Macs end up in the ads, because they are pretty. PC laptops tend not to end up in the ads, because designers don't like unpretty things and most PC laptops are not pretty. Simple!

Of course, this is reprehensible behaviour. But I'm curious - is this the first time a Langford hack has been seen in the wild? And could it be modified to affect non-epileptics?

I wrote to one of our MEPs, Tom Wise, and he sent me back this great email:

"Dear Huw
I am proud to have been the proposer of an amendment in July 2005 which scrapped the proposal for an EU software patent. What worried me then, and still does, was the response from an EU Commission official at the time. I quote, "Colleagues, we are disappointed, WE will just have to bring this back before a more acquiescent Parliament"
I guess that this is part of that process.

Please believe me, YES, I will vote against this and collaborate with whomsoever wants to join me to defeat it.

Best wishes
Tom Wise MEP"

It's very refreshing to feel proud of your representatives! Good for Tom Wise. He also emailed me back to let me know the whole fiasco had been torpedoed, so he gets double points for responsiveness as well as being a sensible and upright chap.

I had the happy privilege of seeing Colossus in action last year. It's a truly badass machine - retrotech heaven! Tony Sale is one of the nicest and smartest fellows in the UK, and he was kind enough to chat in great detail about the project. He had been racing the Colossus against a Pentium 2 laptop - Colossus was beating it handily!