A miscellany of opinions, thoughts, rants and comments
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/geopostcode/
Many of you will probably remember the news story a while ago about the forced closure of ernestmarples.com, a website which provided a free postcode geolocation API that was, in turn, used by several other organisations running public service websites.
The reason it was shut down was because postcode geolocation data is the property of Royal [...]
If the civil libertarians, the conspiracy theorists and the Conservatives had their way, Abdul Azad would probably never have been caught. Azad was convicted of a brutal stranger rape in Stafford in July 2005 after fragments of his skin were recovered from under his victim’s fingernails and yielded a DNA profile matching his record on [...]
Hot on the heels of an EU regulation that could, if actually implemented and enforced, destroy the advertising-supported economy of websites based in Europe, the British government comes up with a proposal of its own that is equally ludicrous.
For those that may have missed it, the EU recently published a set of regulations that will [...]
Back on the subject of websites that somehow think they have the right to stop you linking to them, I found this really stupid clause at this one:
Unless expressly authorized by website, no one may hyperlink this site, or portions thereof, (including, but not limited to, logotypes, trademarks, branding or copyrighted material) to theirs for [...]
Go to www.gillette.com and see what it looks like. If you’re in the US, then it will look like it’s supposed to. But if youre in the UK (and, for all I know, anywhere else in the world, then you get this rather unfortunate error page:
That’s the default ASP.net error message. It happens when someone [...]
One of the adverts that I get every now and then on Facebook is for a dating agency. Now, as a happily married man, that’s of no interest to me, but I can’t help noticing some of the photos that illustrate the ad. And one of them that crops up regularly is this one.
I don’t [...]
I’ve found another bunch of idiots who seem to think that linking to their pages on anything other than their terms is something they have control over.
I wonder if they were as useless for all of their clients as they were for this one.
I’m just wondering if I’ll get a call from the lawyers because of this.
In case anyone isn’t aware of the significance of these numbers and letters, this is the infamous AACS key which sparked a huge storm at Digg.
There’s a page on this website which says that “You may not create a link to this website from another website or document without Marshalls plc’s prior written consent.”. That’s stupid enough in itself (after all, I’ve just broken it, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me. But what’s even more dumb is [...]
If you buy music from iTunes, it currently costs 99c a track in the US or 79p a track in the UK. Is this reasonable? I think not. Here’s why…
According to a report on the Harvard university website, a typical breakdown of costs for a retail music CD sold in the US is:
Retailer: 35%
Distributor: 9%
Record [...]