Am I the only tech market watcher on this side of the Atlantic to be thoroughly bemused by the brouhaha over Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s fake degree? Former Paypal boss Thompson, who joined the search engine outfit four months ago, claimed, in his corporate bio, to have a degree in accounting and computer science.

He actually (wait for it) has a degree in…just accounting! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! That, as far as I can figure it, is the long and the short of it; no money donated to despotic dictators, no large-scale embezzlement, not even a bit of hanky-panky with his co-workers.

Nevertheless, Thompson, whose half-truth was brought to light by major shareholder Third Point, has found himself caught up in all sorts of trouble. Third Point has demanded to see all documents relating to the recruitment process (if Yahoo is anything like Dodgi, this’ll be a couple of Post-Its and some interview notes on a beermat.) They’ve also called for an official investigation into the “debacle”. Oo-er.

Meanwhile, Thompson has issued his troops with a contrite memo, apologising for holding back the company’s progress. If telling a few tall tales about your achievements renders you incapable of running a company, then a (ahem) friend of mine might have to update his LinkedIn.

Nothing major, just some minor edits regarding the five years as IBM’s European VP, the decade as de facto boss of Computacenter, the Masters doctorate, the nomination for the Nobel Prize for Economics and all the first aid badges.

Driving me crazy

For anyone who’s ever despaired at the all-around idiocy of every other single driver on the road, good news may have emerged this week in the form of the first licences for self-driven vehicles.

The great state of Nevada has issued Google with the documentation, after the search giant modified some Toyota Prius cars. The automobiles, which feature rooftop cameras, radars and laser range finders to detect other traffic, have previously been road-tested on the highways of California, including a scenic jaunt across the Golden Gate Bridge.

The cars have previously only been on the road when helmed by a human, ready to intervene, if need be. The Golden State is now planning a similar move, with senator Alex Padilla pointing out that “the vast majority of vehicle accidents are due to human error”.

Good point, but it’s also worth remembering, Alex, that the vast majority of technology will eventually turn against its fleshy masters and try and kill and/or enslave the human race.

Northern Star

A well-known channel exec characterises himself as something “a straight-talking northerner” on LinkedIn. (If I can digress for a minute, am I the only southern softie who gets annoyed at anyone from north of Milton Keynes thinking they have the monopoly on being “down-to-earth” and “no-nonsense”? If you northish tykes have never been to Dagenham, I’d suggest you pay us a visit. There’s little, if any, nonsense.

And I’d severely advise against starting any.) Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes – this “blunt” northerner went on to reveal something along the lines of him “believing in pairing leading-edge client experience with product innovation”.

Like, how much more straight-talking can you get? He went on to add that he’s always been a dab hand at providing “manged services to the pubic sector”. I’m starting to worry about him tapping up some of my sales goon, as most of them have always had a strong focus on the pubic sector. Although not much of a successful track record, to be fair.

How to change a lightbulb

Lightbulbs designed to last upwards of two decades are set to hit shelves this year. LED-based technologies from Philips, Sylvania and General Electric are all on course to be on sale within 12 months, with the former planning on charging £12 per bulb.

Impressive stuff. But, if you ask me, these leading lights have got the wrong idea. Conversely to what my customers expect, the lifespan of the average server estate has actually gone down in the last decade. I tell them it’s best to do a complete overhaul about once every three months.

Smart move

Have you noticed how everything is claiming to be smart these days? Smart, this, smart that, smart the other. Well now IBM has been granted a patent for a “smart floor”… yep, you read that right: a smart floor. It’s apparently going to be able to detect if someone in a room has fallen or if an intruder has entered the premises. According to the PR puff, the floor senses the shapes, weight and number of feet on the ground so it can distinguish between adults, children, infants and pets, as well as identifying unauthorised visitors. If this works, it will be great for old people who live alone – or someone who has no friends and is extremely security conscious – but not so good if you happen to live in a busy house with people coming and going all the time. Your nerves would be shot every time the kids brought a friend or two home for tea. Maybe it still needs a little work, guys?

The P word

I was intrigued this week to learn that Computacenter has apparently banned the dirty word that is “product” from all its communications to press and investors. According to a trading update last week, the company now divides its business into two segments: services, and something it’s calling “supply chain”. What happened to the product business that generated the lion’s share of Computacenter’s revenue last year, making it the UK’s largest reseller? OK, we get that you don’t want people to see you as a tin shifter, but instead, more of a global provider of cloud-based, customer-facing turnkey service solutions. But, guys, is it really such a hard word to say? Repeat after me: P-R-O-D-U-C-T!

Money talks, talent walks

Fat salaries and exciting start-ups are attracting the talent away from mid-sized firms, a roundtable event from UKFast has concluded. Well, aside from bears defecating in the woods and a certain pope being a devotee of a certain religion, this has to be one of the most stunning revelations I’ve come across in a long while. No, really. I mean, who would have thought that when faced with an enormous salary, someone with a modicum of talent and sense would snap it up? When I look around the Dodgi offices, I almost wish there were an exciting start-up in the area so I could force some of the useless articles here to apply for a job. Then I could get some graduates in – I’ve heard they come quite cheap. And to be honest, the only wallet that I like to be fat around here is mine.

Peed off

IT workers are always regarded as a little stranger than the average worker, and one geezer in the US helped strengthen that perception when he was caught marking his territory in the same way as an adult tomcat. The 59-year-old Des Moines-based amorous geek was caught on camera urinating on the chairs of female colleagues whom he deemed attractive, marking his patch in a primitive way to warn off any other randy alpha males. He eventually turned himself in to the police after he realised his antics were preserved on film. Obviously he was discharged from his job and the local cleaning company must have got some interesting business as a result. I hope his punishment isn’t the same as the one most of the unneutered tomcats around here get. Ouch.

Sup up and shut up shop

The majority of my peers enjoy the odd can of shandy but one former reseller boss I know is taking it a step further by setting up his own brewery. I hear that Darron Anley, who helmed Security Partnerships before selling it to Bytes last year, will have a plant up and running for the manufacture of fine malt liquors by September. When I retire from the channel, I’ll be spending my time shopping for shoes, not making booze, if Her Indoors gets her way.

Have you been feeling a little peaky of late? Running a temperature? Breaking out in cold sweats? Permit me to diagnose you, dear reader. It can surely only be a case of... Olympic fever!

With the Games just around the corner, experts estimate that about 99.8 per cent of people are literally bursting with excitement at the prospect of having the world’s best athletes on their doorstep. On their doorstep, that is, if they live in Stratford.

And, even then, the runners, rowers and rhythmic gymnasts will be safely secreted away in their purpose-built village. But you get the idea. Olympicitis is also pervading the channel, although I felt that maybe network provider Exponential-e had gone a bit far with a recent press release.

For no discernible reason the bumpf said: “Exponential-e was founded 10 years ago, in the shadow of the Olympic Stadium in the heart of east London.” Now, leaving aside arguments about where “the heart of east London” is (though it’s Dagenham, obviously), it’s doubtful whether the Olympic Park could cast a shadow from the northern reaches of Newham all the way to Aldgate, where Exponential-e is based.

Even on a sunny winter’s day. Perhaps it might also be a little ambitious to suggest that the stadium, impressive as it is, could’ve towered over anything three years before London even won the Olympics.

Why-Fi?

Speaking of my fair city, I read this week that London Overground passengers will soon be able to benefit from Wi-Fi. Travellers will soon be enjoying one free hour’s connectivity, courtesy of BSkyB sub¬sidiary The Cloud (nice work snaffling that company name, fellas!)

According to Gary David Smith, co-founder of VAR Prism, this can only be good for workaholic cockneys. “It will help to alleviate some of the stress commuters feel from not using their time productively,” he mused.

Yeah, tell me about it. I know that half-hour I spend immersed in a book, free of nagging wives, feckless kids, idiotic staff, irate customers and chuggers, is just about the worst time of my day.

Slipped disk

I heard this week of a hapless distribution exec who recently sent a rather off-colour email to a reseller sales head.

This distie chap, let’s call him John Thomas, had been liaising with VAR exec Mary about a disk storage deal. “Dear Mary,” wrote John. “In the relation to the Vendor A project, please clarify how big a di*k you need. Thanks, John.”

Suffice to say the missing letter was not the intended ‘s’. The red-faced distie man apologised profusely for his “error”. Yeah, right. Gord’s been pulling that trick for years.

Bed bugs

As a 24/7/365 workaholic who always has his mind 118 per cent focused on doing business, I’ve been known to work some pretty unsociable hours. But even I draw the line at bringing my Dodgi antics into the boudoir.

But according to “research” commissioned by security jamboree Infosec, 35 per cent of us use a mobile device to do work when in bed.

Assuming this factors in people who work in shops, farmers, hairdressers, bank tellers, waiters, fishermen and clowns, I reckon this means pretty much every person who can work from their bed is doing so.

More than 10 per cent of us spend more than an hour a day working from our slumber pit, while almost two per cent admit to averaging two hours a day. Which seems like great news for those of us who like our employees to live and breathe their work.

But, wait! The “study” shows that a frankly staggering one in four bed-workers do not have strong security. NOOOOOOO!!!

Claire Sellick, event director for Infosecurity Europe, said: “On the darker side, this reveals the scale of the problem for IT security departments.” It also reveals the scale of the challenge facing dermatologists and marriage counsellors in reining in increasing instances of bedsores and divorce.