Serial hacker and internet prankster Tom Scott has a new video, and it has some very sinister undercurrents.

Unsurprising, given the number of PCs being sold today without optical drives. One assumes, and hopes, that OEMs who do install DVD drives on their PCs (for instance, all-in-ones) will go to the trouble of licencing DVD codecs, or face a number of very angry customers.

Jerry Hayes neatly dismantles certain backbench Tories’ (cough Dorries) claims that voters are deserting the Conservative party due to progressive policies.

These were mid term elections, people can’t be arsed to vote, they are worried about jobs and money and think that local councillors are as much use as a cat flap in a submarine and as attractive as vaginal deodorant. To say that the clear message is that Cameron must now embrace true right wing Tory policies or face oblivion because the Kippers snaffled 150,000 votes, borders on the criminally insane.

The tastefully-named HardCode IDE.

Okay so by now you are probably wondering what the deal is with HARDCODE. Well its actually very simple. Hardcode is an IDE (integrated development environment) that is designed to take programming to the next level.

Presumably the “next level” is a mysterious place where elegance and convenience are ignored in favour of gaudy Photoshop filters and features invented because they sound cool.

Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica speaks to Ken Segall, former ad man at TWBA\Chiat\Day, about one of Steve Jobs’s crazier ideas:

One time Jobs approached the inner circle about hiding a golden ticket in iMac boxes to celebrate the sale of the millionth iMac. The finder of the golden ticket would be flown to Cupertino where Jobs would dress up as Willy Wonka (yes, really) and take that person on a tour of the company—no chocolate river was included in the plan. “Our response was, ‘you’re going to embarrass yourself,’” Segall said. “But he really wanted to do it. In fact, the only thing that did derail the plan was the legal part.”

Part of me isn’t surprised by this at all. Jobs did once describe his business model as being Beatles-like, in that it consisted of around four or five people who balanced out each other’s negative tendencies. Certain other technology executives could probably take a few cues here (hint hint, Mister Ballmer.)