[Quote:]

A UK firm that specialises in unlocking mobile phones reckons it’s close to developing an application that would allow iPhone owners to use the device with carriers other than America’s AT&T.

John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, told IDG that his software engineers were working “around the clock” in order to bypass Apple’s restriction that ties activation of the iPhone to signing up to a two-year contract with AT&T.

Uniquephones said it is “almost ready” to release a public beta of iPhone unlocking software. It claims the pre-release technology is already able to unlock 75 per cent of all the iPhones it has tested using unlock codes generated from the phones’ IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers.

Uniquephones plans to sell software designed to unlock iPhones for around $50, far more than it charges to unlock other mobile devices. The firm is highly unlikely to be the only outfit getting into the act.

[Quote:]

Want to laugh? Microsoft Says It Is Not Bound by GPLv3” — they think they can so declare, like an emperor, and it becomes fiat. It’s not so easy. I gather Microsoft’s lawyers have begun to discern the GPL pickle they are in. In any case it won’t be providing any support or updates or anything at all in connection with those toxic (to them) vouchers it distributed as part of the Novell deal. What a surprise. Novell, still the Microsoft handmaiden, will pick up Microsoft’s slack:

This means that Novell will support those technologies licensed under GPLv3, he said, noting that for those customers who obtain their Linux via a certificate from Microsoft in the future, Novell will provide them with a regular SLES subscription, regardless of the terms of the certificate provided by Microsoft.

What are friends for but to try to escape the consequences of the GPL hand-in-hand? So they are backing out too. Well, folks, how do you like dealing with companies that back out of their commitments? You will not get, I gather, what your voucher said you would. Well, well.

These two — I can’t decide if it’s an elaborate dance like a tango or more like those games where you place a cloth with numbers on the floor and you have to get into a pretzel with your hands and feet to touch all the right numbers. Whichever it is, Novell and Microsoft keep having to strike the oddest poses to try to get around the GPL. If they think this new announcement has succeeded, I believe they will find they are mistaken.

In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, GPLv3 worked.

Microsoft has partially backed out, then, from the Novell deal, and so has Novell, although they PR it with an emphasis on the parts that remain. That was the purpose of the clause. Novell is sticking to Microsoft like barnacles on the bottom of a boat, even when offered a chance to swim away to safety.

[..]

You know what I love about the GPL? Regular lawyers can’t understand it. We’ve seen that over and over. I think it is so different from what they are used to, they can’t get their heads around it, brainiacs though they may be. It seems unnatural to them, and I guess they can’t believe it means what it says. But it means it. And if they think this is the end of their GPLv3 difficulties, it’s not:

Microsoft also said July 5 that its agreement with Novell, as well as those with Linux rivals Xandros and Linspire, were unaffected by the release June 29 of GPLv3 by the Free Software Foundation.

Guess again. Maybe you should reexamine GPLv2 while you are learning on the job. IANAL, but I think those latter deals are probably in violation of v2 as well as v3. Hey, don’t go by me. Ask your lawyer. But the bottom line is this: You can’t disrespect other peoples’ intellectual property and just walk away. As I believe they are going to find out.

And I hereby declare that Microsoft’s EULA does not apply to me.

Oh, wait, that’s true. I don’t own any of their products…

[Quote:]

That’s why, as we move on forward into the new digital age of the 21st century, I am pleased to announce today that it is Conservative Party policy to support the extension of the copyright term for sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.

[..]

But in return, you’ve got to help me too.

[..]

Put simply, we have to acknowledge that all of us – as politicians, as teachers, as parents, as television producers, video game manufacturers and yes, as record industry executives – need to understand our specific responsibility in not promoting a culture of low academic aspiration or violence but instead to inspire young kids with a positive vision of how to lead their life.

That’s why I am not calling for censorship, legislation or the banning of content.

I am calling on you to show leadership, exercise your power responsibly and to use your judgement.

In other words, he promises to do his part to make speech less free, so long as the labels promise to do their part to make speech less free.

I’d say fuck ‘m all.

[Quote:]

Conservative Rajkot went into convulsions on Wednesday when alleged mental and physical abuse by her husband’s family drove a 22-year-old woman to strip to her underwear and walk through the city in protest.

Pooja Chauhan said she had taken to this unique protest after being constantly harassed for not bringing dowry and bearing a girl-child.

The effect was immediate. The police arrested her husband Pratapsinh Chauhan, parents-in-law and neighbours Veji Bharwad and Vinu Dalit on Wednesday, after she threatened to scale up her protest and march nude to the police commissioner’s office if she did not get justice.

“The arrests were made on the basis of Pooja Chauhan’s complaint. We are also planning to take action against Pooja for indecent behaviour in a public place. However, we will examine her mental condition before taking any action,” said Rajkot police commissioner K Nityanandam.

Sounds totally sane to me. Well done, Pooja!

Controversy, video, her side, follow-up.

[Quote:]

The public realm in Britain is in rampant retreat before terrorism, largely because politicians and the media feast on any story involving actual or potential violence. Politicians want to present themselves as calm and statesmanlike, yet visible, defenders of public security, as their poll ratings soar. Gordon Brown’s “strength” rating jumped 14 points in a Times/Populus poll yesterday. The media can revel in fear journalism, throwing all sense of proportion to the winds and filling pages and airwaves with speculation as to what “might have happened if …” and what “could yet happen unless …”, scanning that horizon so appetising to every news desk: the worst-case scenario. The BBC re-enacts a Pythonesque sketch with a white-haired boffin igniting a can of petrol in a sandpit and remarking that it could have been a thousand times worse. The word suspect has become synonymous with mass murderer.

The sanest person last Friday was the reviled Downing Street official who decided not to wake the prime minister at two in the morning to tell him of suspect cars in the West End. Nobody was dead. The police were on the case. The home secretary had been woken (a deed apparently vital to any anti-terror operation). Matters would be clearer by breakfast. Leave the poor man his sleep.

Gordon Brown was reportedly furious at not being disturbed. Hysteria politics demands that the prime minister be roused in the middle of the night. Under the old regime, Tony Blair and John Reid would have been jostling in front of the cameras, promising 10 new crackdowns by lunchtime. Yet here was Brown in the land of nod while his new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, was winning headlines for looking concerned and cool.

[..]

There is no doubt of the murderous intent of the cells operating in Britain. But they have no sensible answer in the villages of Pakistan, the streets of Basra or the Strait of Hormuz. There is no answer in the Ministry of Defence or in that liberal cliche, the hearts and minds of Britain’s Muslim population, which is as overwhelmingly opposed to them as the rest of Britain. The answer lies only in normal crime-busting, in patient and intelligent policing, and in accepting that every now and then a bomber will get through. Very few do and adequate steps are being taken to minimise the risk without the need for some new Draco at the Home Office.

[Quote:]

Q Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I guess I don’t know what you mean by “equal justice under the law.”

Truer words were never spoken – they indeed don’t know what equal justice under the law means.

[Quote:]

Iraqi boys staged a mock execution Monday in Baghdad, with a 4-year-old, center, playing the role of the condemned. Children in Iraq have been heavily influenced by violence. Among other games the youngsters play is one that imitates a clash between militias and the police.

It doesn’t have to end this way. War Kids Relief is working to give Iraq’s war kids a chance to escape from the horrors around them, an opportunity to become part of the rebuilding of their country, rather than another life lost.

War Kids Relief is working to give Iraq’s war kids a chance at something better. We’re building Youth Centers in Iraq that give kids a chance to escape the violence in the streets, and opportunities to learn skills other than killing, skills they can use to rebuild their communities and lay the foundation for a peaceful, successful future.

War Kids Relief’s core strategy is to engage community level stakeholders – including the Ministry of Youth and Sport, Ministry of Education, local leaders, religious organizations, police, and others – combining their expertise and experience to develop a program that provides hope and opportunities to targeted youth.

[Quote:]

After the original trial Miss Longhurst’s mother, Liz, organised a petition of 50,000 people and succeeded in persuading the home secretary to introduce legislation banning the downloading and possession of violent or “extreme” pornography.

She said: “I feel pressure should be brought to bear on internet service providers (ISPs) to close down or filter out these pornographic sites, so that people like Jane’s killer may no longer feed their sick imaginations and do harm to others.”

Ms Longhurst’s former partner Malcolm Sentance said at the time: “Jane would still be here if it wasn’t for the internet.”

[..]

Dr Meg Barker, a senior lecturer in psychology at London South Bank University, said: “The current fears around the possible impact of ‘violent pornography’ on the internet seem very similar to previous ‘moral panics’ there have been from penny dreadfuls in Victorian times, to horror comics in the 1950s, to video nasties in the 1980s.”

“Images of consensual, or fictitious, acts between adults should not be criminalised,” she said, adding that there was evidence that “kinky” and S&M activities were on the increase among “normal” heterosexual couples.

But Labour MP Martin Salter, who has worked closely with Mrs Longhurst in pushing the legislation, rejected the BDSM community’s claims their civil liberties were being undermined.

He said: “No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other but they would be strongly advised not to put it on the internet.

“At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind.”

In that case, why don’t you spend some money on finding and providing care for unbalanced people, rather than banning anything (which means pretty much everything) that sets them off?

Right now you’ve got a law that allows you to arrest just about everybody (just make sure you use the right definition of the word “extreme”) and doesn’t stop the crazy people from doing crazy things… or is that your real goal?

[Quote:]

Despite a serious number of iPhone haters out there (and man are you guys a vocal bunch), it looks like the number of iPhone fans (iPhans?) has spoken loud and clear. The Apple web site is reporting that only two retail stores (one in Oregon, one is Pennsylvania) have any stock left of the device.

Many AT&T stores reported that they were out of stock as early as Friday evening and Saturday. Apple had stock at most stores over the weekend and into Monday, but the percentage of stores that had the iPhone steadily declined through yesterday.

Not only has the device sold out at AT&T and Apple stores, some web sites are reporting that AT&T has activated over 1 million iPhones since its launch last week. Steve Jobs’ original sales goal was to sell 1 million if the combo phone/media player/Internet devices by the end of 2007. He gave himself fully 6 months to reach that goal. Instead, he’s reached it in 6 days.

I think Jobs expected a lot more than 1 million by year-end. After all, the supply was good enough to stop people from selling them on eBay.

[Quote:]

Prime Minister John Howard today denied he had admitted that oil was behind his decision to keep Australian troops in Iraq.

Mr Howard said it was “stretching it a bit” to interpret comments by either himself or Defence Minister Brendan Nelson as meaning that the war on Iraq was about petrol prices.

[..]

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil. We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason.”

*snort*

Yeah, right.

It’s not often that a PM lies this obviously.

[Quote:]

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to take this photo of Rudy supporters with their broken Rudymobile.