Posts by Colonel Panic

Apple's 3G iPhone to launch 11 July

Wait for January

Here's why its still got the 2 MP camera. In the Book of Steve, expandable=bad. So no SD card slot. So you're limited by onboard RAM. Steve doesn't want you filling up that 8 or 16 GB of RAM with 5 MP pics of your friends when you could be filling it with iTunes tracks at $1 a pop.

So when RAM prices make a 32 GB model feasible, I bet we'll see that camera get a bump.

Now quite what they're smoking in Cupertino that they couldn't fix copy and paste I don't know...

The reason the Palm was such a success (and arguably the CrackBerry) is that it does (did?) the basics well. Contacts, Appointments, Tasks and Notes (and later email).

The iPhone does not yet handle Notes properly, and its too early to tell whether the Tasks are properly synched over the air (whether through ActiveSync or MobileMe)

Maybe the bit that Steve doesn't get is that those of us who don't have minions to remember stuff for us need to write it down somewhere..

City anti-Scientology protestor avoids court summons

Plod need to brush up...

The Public Order Act is not designed to protect people's feelings - its designed to protect, er, public order. So even if what you say is offensive, it must be offensive and threaten public order - hence the requirement that the behaviour or words be within the sight of someone likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress.

You also have a complete defence if you prove that your conduct is reasonable.

Then there's the oft-maligned Human Rights Act, which guarantees your right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention). Ok, its qualified, and not as robust as the US 1st amendment... but its better than nothing. Come to think of it, as the Americans aren't using their constitution, can we borrow it ?

Apple gets into mine-sweeping, missiles and storage

The answer is obvious...

...Apple is getting ready to go to DefCon 1, and take out Redmond in a pre-emptive strike.

Want to get into 10 Downing Street? Get a Lithuanian ID card

er, yes, burglary (@spleen)

You're quite right, the offence of burglary is not made out under s.9(1)(a) TA 1968 - but it is under s.9(1)(b) which covers entry with *intent* to steal - so its still burglary.

But the sentence is clearly manifestly excessive, as no reasonable judge could have failed to give him an absolute discharge had he properly directed himself in accordance with the Mitigation (Chutzpah) Act.

FBI agents lured suspects using fake child porn hyperlinks

Easy to throw a spanner in the works...

Just send one to the cops.. "Click here for free donuts"

End of problem.

Mega-mortuary creaks open its doors in Westminster

@MIke Smith

>We have to try them and convict them before we can punish them

Presumtion of innocence ? That is sooooo 90s...

No, you see under the watchful eye Citizen Gordon, you will be issued with an ASBO at birth, together with your identity card. That way, when you breach it, you know where you live. Oh, and just so we know where you are when you're not at home - bend over, we need to fit you with this rectally implanted GPS tracker. Don't worry, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

French Googleslayer gets the green light

It will be useful....

So you can search for what happened to all your tax money they trousered on the equally necessary GPS-alike Galileo project.

Or to look up the winners of the that other shining example of European cooperation - the Eurovision Song Contest

Police bugging of lawyer visits might see flood of appeals

@Mike

Hate to break it to you Mike, but being "a criminal" in this country is very, very easy. Wrong place, wrong time is about all it takes. "I didn't mean it" ? Sorry, mate, doesn't matter what you were thinking - there's this little something called strict liability.

So when your sorry butt is dragged before some beak for (for eg) "having an article of use to a terrorist" (that copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook you downloaded in 1997 for a laugh and completely forgot was still on your hard drive), or whatever half-baked offence the Daily Mail has managed to scare No.10 into ramming through parliament, some "money-grabbing fkkr" (that would be me) will have to come to court, and find out from you why you think you shouldn't end up in clink.

And guess what ? I'll probably be paid about £ 46 for my entire day listening to your sorry tale. Not exactly a princely sum, I'm sure you agree. I could make more money flipping burgers or driving a bus. But the beauty of it, see, is that you're *not* a criminal yet - until you've had a trial and been convicted you *are* innocent.

That's why I'm there.

RIAA chief calls for copyright filters on PCs

I for one...

Welcome our RIAA overlords.

I will be sending them the keys to my home shortly - so they can verify at their leisure that I have not been indulging in home taping.

Thais rate rat 'better than chicken'

Fried it all tastes the same

A well-known brand of fried chicken had one of its outlets in a small English university town closed by the council a few years ago for selling fried rat.. so if the punters couldn't tell the difference, it must taste like chicken

Dutch fire up petrol-pumping robot

What could possibly go wrong...

Just make sure you don't yawn. Or get out the car to stretch your legs, drop something and bend over...

Straw: Police can bug MPs without asking Cabinet

Judicial oversight

Since the Americans clearly aren't using the 4th amendment to their constitution, maybe they'll let us borrow it for a while.

Bug whoever you wish - just show a judge reasonable suspicion, and get a warrant. (oh, and if you want to override legal privilege or MP-constituent privilege, show a little more, like a serious offence and the exhaustion of other avenues to obtain the information)

And make the resulting evidence admissible in court. That way you don't get into the preposterous "we're putting you under house arrest but can't tell you why" control order nonsense.

Bank turns London man into RFID-enabled guinea pig

Data Protection ?

Arguably, making your data available to an RFID scanner is caught by the Data Protection Act. Therefore your bank require your consent, which can be withdrawn. Worth a punt - banks crap themselves at the mention of the DPA. My DPA complaint to a well-known bank over spamming me with adverts in their online secure messaging system led them to withdrawing it across their entire system.

Warner Music supremo in Apple-fondling mea culpa

that's reality distortion field at work

Looks like someone just drank the kool-aid

Babbling net software sparks international incident

Questions in advance ?

I'm hoping this was not accidental... if a player asks for a list questions in advance, any self-respecting journo should answer back with something about the his mother.

Symantec accidentally warns of internet meltdown

Its part of the plan...

Enough false alarms, and we'll stop reacting to them.. then the signal will go out, and the machine uprising will begin.

When you wake up with your Roomba pointing a Glock at you, you'll know.

T-Mobile, Orange and O2 land Europe iPhone deal

02 has no EDGE

...therefore there only three possibilities:

1) the story is wrong, and another operator will get the current iPhone for UK (AFAIK, only Orange supports EDGE);

2) 02 will get a 3G-capable iPhone;

3) 02 is getting the current iPhone, and you can look forward to browsing at 56kbps. Which is like getting a Ferrari - and using it to plow fields.

Girls prefer pink: official

From the department of the blinding effing obvious...

Correlation doesn't prove causation, people. The experimental subjects were adults - with preferences formed over the course of a lifetime, influenced by peers, chosen, reinforced - all that nurture stuff.

It does NOT show that the preference is innate.

This they call science ? Richard Dawkins is right... we're screwed. We'll be back to worshipping rocks and reading sheep entrails before long.

Plods to get helmet cams

Evidence yes - but only when it helps plod

Something tells me that when a suspect gets beaten up, Plod-Cam will suddenly go on the fritz... or the tapes will get lost.

Just ask a defence lawyer how many times CCTV goes missing when it would have backed up the defendant's story.

UK Gov seeks 'scientific' basis for nationality

Call a sawbones...

I remember reading an article on forensics which used radio-isotope profiling to reveal where some lived. As you drink the local water, a particular set of radio-isotopes will be absorbed into your system and deposited in your bones.

The distribution and proportion of the different isotopes can be used to identify the region you came from.

There are only two problems: I'm not sure if the technique can necessarily distinguish a person who grew up in France from one who just happens to have a penchant for Evian.

The other is that if I remember rightly, it requires analysis of your bones.

But I'm sure that that's covered by the Identity Cards Act.. just step zis vay, sir, ve need ein zmall piece of your skull...