[Quote:]

Internet service providers (ISPs) have charged child sex abuse investigators over £171,000 for access to data since 2006.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) told the BBC following a freedom of information request that since April of 2006 it had made 9,400 requests for user information, at a total cost of £171,505.99.

In an interview with the BBC, the CEOP centre’s chief executive Jim Gamble said the body expected to pay as much as £100,000 to ISPs to get the information they needed to find children who were being abused – and the criminals hurting them. “That could have put a number of specialists to work here – doing the right thing, making the environment safer, making it even more commercially viable,” he said, later adding that figure could fund two extra investigators.

[..]

Gamble said companies clearly have the right to cost recovery, and said he does not think a change to the law is necessary. “We don’t need new legislation, we need new thinking. We need sensible thinking,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is to say that I don’t believe that ISPs should give us everything for free, of course not.”

But he added that any firm which claims it can’t afford to provide such data in support of police protecting children “simply can’t afford to do business”.

I wonder if he’s using the same logic for the cars his investigators drive – after all, the money spent on those could have gone to investigators as well, and any car manufacturer who can’t afford to provide such transportation in support of police protecting children “simply can’t afford to do business”, right?

Why the fuck does this moron think that just because it’s computers and internet, the work should be done for free?

It appears the Democrats have hot chicks too, except they are actually intelligent.

irrelevant detail – I started her current wiki entry back in august ’06 when she was running for congress…

As a follow-up to the “can free content boost your sales” article two posts down, André sent me this:

[Quote:]

Nothing prepared us for the phenomenal success of Museo and Museo Sans, the year’s top geometric display fonts. When introducing Museo, a clean yet unconventional semi-serif, designer Jos Buivenga got everyone’s attention by offering three out of the five styles for free. On the strength of the paid weights alone, Museo made it to the top of our list of hot new fonts. When its sans-serif companion was launched some months later, again with part of the family offered at no cost, it smoothly sailed to the top spot as well.

[Quote:]

Have you checked out Monty Python’s YouTube channel? It’s got a selection of their brilliant (as always) clips, and it’s got links to buy their DVDs on Amazon. As those crazy Monty Python dudes put it,

“We’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there! But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”

And you know what? Despite the entertainment industry’s constant cries about how bad they’re doing, it works. As we wrote yesterday, Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent.

[Quote:]

Hidden in the new Coroners and Justice Bill is one clause (cl.152) amending the Data Protection Act. It would allow ministers to make ‘Information Sharing Orders’, that can alter any Act of Parliament and cancel all rules of confidentiality in order to use information obtained for one purpose to be used for another.”

“This single clause is as grave a threat to privacy as the entire ID Scheme. Combine it with the index to your life formed by the planned National Identity Register and everything recorded about you anywhere could be accessible to any official body. If Information Sharing Orders come to pass, they could (for example) immediately be used to suck up material such as tax records or electoral registers to build an early version of the National Identity Register. But the powers apply to any information, not just official information. They would permit data trafficking between government agencies and private companies – your medical records are firmly in their sights – and even with foreign governments.

[Quote:]

her plan unraveled when she appeared at her own funeral service, claiming to be her own long-lost identical twin sister.

“Hello, Governor Palin? This is President Sarkozy. No, really, it IS me this time. So, what are you wearing?”

[Quote:]

Microsoft Windows is an installable device driver under MS-DOS 2.0 using ordinary MS-DOS files. Complete compatibility with MS-DOS means that Windows will at least let you run any application that runs under MS-DOS. In the worst case, Windows will turn the fill display over to an MS-DOS application and return you to your place in Windows.

[Quote:]

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

Use the controls to zoom and pan around the photo. You can also double click to zoom in and double click again to get even closer.

[Quote:]

In the case of the Letter of Last Resort, the reference turns out to be factual: At this very moment, miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there is a British nuclear submarine carrying powerful ICBMs (nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles). In the control room of the sub, the Daily Mail reports, “there is a safe attached to a control room floor. Inside that, there is an inner safe. And inside that sits a letter. It is addressed to the submarine commander and it is from the Prime Minister. In that letter, Gordon Brown conveys the most awesome decision of his political career … and none of us is ever likely to know what he decided.”

The decision? Whether or not to fire the sub’s missiles, capable of causing genocidal devastation in retaliation for an attack that would—should the safe and the letter need to be opened—have already visited nuclear destruction on Great Britain. The letter containing the prime minister’s posthumous decision (assuming he would have been vaporized by the initial attack on the homeland) is known as the Last Resort Letter.

The only purpose of the letter must be to say “don’t shoot,” at least in certain circumstances. The reason for all of the secrecy is because if “don’t shoot” was revealed as the strategy, the deterrent value of the nukes would be lost.

Put differently — if the message says “kill them all,” there would be no reason to keep it secret as it would be completely consistent with the deterrent value of the nukes. The letter must be inconsistent with deterrent value at least in some respect.

Either that, or it reads:

Commander:

Yours,
G. Brown

[Quote:]

When President Bush left office on Tuesday, America marked 2,688 days without a terrorist attack on its soil.

[..]

If Obama weakens any of the defenses Bush put in place and terrorists strike our country again, Americans will hold Obama responsible — and the Democratic Party could find itself unelectable for a generation.

I guess it’d just be the Greens and the Libertarians left, then.

So if it happened before 9/12, it was Clintons fault, and if it happens now, it’s Obama’s fault, right?

And about those “without a terrorist attack”, let’s have a look…

There was the anthrax. So, no terrorist attacks except anthrax!

Well… and pipebombings in the midwest. So, no terrorist attacks except anthrax and pipebombs!

…and the shooting at LA International Airport at the El Al ticket counter. So, no terrorist attacks except anthrax, pipebombs, and airport shootings!

…and the DC Sniper. So, no terrorist attacks except anthrax, pipebombs, airport shootings, and the DC sniper!

That just gets us to the end of 2002. I’m tired of typing now, so find it out for yourself…

[Quote:]

We did a follow-up interview with Jony Ive at Apple in California last week, and enjoyed the opportunity of filming inside Apple’s design facilities. I felt like Charlie in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, except everything was made of shiny aluminum instead of candy. And there were no oompa loompas.

Those are waterjet-units in the background. How many prototyping shops have you seen where you can eat off the floor?

The full trailer for the movie is here.

The Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK appears to be so utterly clueless I’m starting to wonder if this is a fake article by PC Pro:

[Quote:]

Microsoft yesterday unveiled its MSN Mobile Music service – and a surprise return to digital rights management (DRM).

While companies such as Apple and Amazon have finally moved to music download services free of copy protection, MSN Mobile locks tracks to the mobile handset they are downloaded to.

[..]

The fee for downloading tracks – £1.50 – is relatively high compared to 79p on iTunes and less than that on certain Amazon tracks. Why is that?

We’re constantly reviewing our pricing and if we feel this price point is incorrect, we’ll look to amend it.

If I buy these songs on your service – and they’re locked to my phone – what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months’ time?

Well, I think you know the answer to that.

Q: If you try to run a business with your services and business model as they are now, what will happen to them in six months time?
A: I think you know the answer to that.

There, fixed it for him.