Legal guidelines for photographers in England and Wales

In the wake of the Guardian newspaper's treacherous attempts to photograph the secret, hitherto unseen building at 1 St Mary Axe, everyone considering taking photographs in public places in England and Wales should really ensure they're aware of the complex legal situation surrounding photography. A conventional reading of the law can be seen in this … Continue reading Legal guidelines for photographers in England and Wales

Yes nucular, no Tridentular

Supporters of nuclear weapons systems like Trident generally justify the cash by saying things like 'dangerous world, Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad very bad men, we can't just disarm'. Or, more cynically, 'place on world table, we can't just disarm'. I'm not totally sold on this argument - after all, the US will continue to … Continue reading Yes nucular, no Tridentular

Hacking mobile phones is hard to do

This Wired piece about some techies who discovered a major flaw in the DNS systems that underpin the Internet, and co-ordinated a mass surreptitious effort to fix it, is worth reading if you like That Sort Of Thing. However, there's one aspect of it which strikes me as utterly bizarre: "The first thing I want … Continue reading Hacking mobile phones is hard to do

Spam filters and paranoia

A very long time ago, I had a blog whose software platform I wrote myself. It was pretty ropey by the standards of WordPress and Moveable Type, although it beat Blogger's offer in those days (for really dull reasons, the only server I had access to ran Windows and Access; no existing blog software supported … Continue reading Spam filters and paranoia

Entertaining iPhone theory

Article: O2 (UK) has shifted 190,000 iPhones in its first two months of sales, just short of its target of 200,000. From the comments: "190,000 surprised me at first - given that we and the Europeans understand mobiles far too well to buy an outdated overpriced paperweight like the iPhone, I thought the number sold … Continue reading Entertaining iPhone theory