links for 2009-06-10

When will I learn never to criticise Apple online? I'm a MacBook user myself, but the mere act of pointing out that if the new iPhone is expensive on O2 it presumably reflects the way that Apple have priced the contract with them is enough to have the fanboys teeth bared at me.

Given the upset that O2's pricing has caused, this must be one of the most ironic headlines of all time. Well, all of the last 48 hours anyway.

From the comments: "The real question of media ethics is how two reportedly eccentric, tax exile brothers - the owners of the Daily Telegraph - are allowed to bring the political system of this country nearly to its knees and let in some of the extremist parties that, from what one gathers, are the ones they support. Why has no one emphasised the role of the Barclay brothers in the recent debacle?".

"That's the big lesson - a small number of people can get Wikipedia over 55 million U.S. visitors in a year, or create the fact that 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute (equivalent to Hollywood releasing 86,000 films every weekend!). It’s what got facebook to over 200 million users, and Twitter to over 32 million."

Visualisation of popular social networks across the globe [via News From The Herd]

"If it is BBC policy to take snippets of peoples videos from YouTube with minimum attribution then I'm sure you will have no qualms when I use similarly notated clips from the BBC on my own internet series 'carpool' which is available to download on iTunes"

From the comments: "its to stop paedos ect, i can understand them being annoyed , but then again if u caught a paedo taking pics wily nilly at kiddies in the pool , the park would be questioned as well.......no one can win.............yes the countrys gone bonkers , thas why all convicted paedos should be hanged.....problem solved"

"Following a conversion involving other pupils she overheard, the curious youngster typed the word 'sex' into Google's search engine. She was directed towards videos sold by Amazon. When the girl clicked on a suggested link, images of half-dressed women in sexual positions flashed up on her computer screen. 'I was astounded that school children are able to access these sort of images,' said her mother, who wishes to remain anonymous". And whom, I presume, has never let her daughter see inside a copy of The Sun or walk into a newsagents?

"Kevin Bond yesterday dropped his libel claim against the BBC, six days before his case against the Panorama programme Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets was due to be heard at the high court". The programme was broadcast in September 2006.