I’m pretty sure I have commented on this before, but it’s really getting on my pecs again. This whole “invasion of privacy” thing regarding Google Street View.

First of all of you how are doinking your brothers wife just park your flippin car around the corner, or find a hotel room like normal people. And keep the curtains closed!

The law is pretty clear in terms of photography in public and your rights to privacy -

• There is no expectation of privacy in a public place.
• You are allowed to photograph children in public as well.
• Even the front of your house can be photographed – even with the windows open.

The laws around publishing photos is a little murkier.

If the shots are for editorial purposes only, then no model release is required. A photographer should have the courtesy to ask to take your picture, but is under no obligation to do so. You do have the right to ask them to move on, however the photographer is under no obligation to delete or otherwise not publish images.

Editorial images are those that provide background in newspaper articles, or for the photographers own promotion for example.

If the photographer wants to make money from the photos they take they have 2 options. Either a stock photo site or to produce the stuff themselves. If monetary gain is the prime objective, then there are clear guidelines as to the content of the photo so as to not have an issue.

• If the content has clearly identifiable people in it, a model release for each person is required.
• If a person can reasonably be able to identify themselves in it, a model release is required. (for example even if the face is not visible, a distinctive tattoo also qualifies)
• If there is a logo, trademark or other copyrighted work in the photo a release from the owner is required.
• If you are taking commercial photos in Trafalgar Square or Westminster Square, you need a specific permit that costs money.
• Anything of, on or in a royal park – you need a permit.
• On private land – you need a permit. (Of private land from a public place – no permit)
• Any private building open to the public – read the notes by the entrance.

Under trademark and copyright, the Eiffel Tower is an interesting point. During the day, you are allowed to take snapshots for commercial use, however in the evening when the lights are switched on this becomes a copyrighted work of art.

Anyhow, back to Google. Are they selling the photos with trademarks, people or car registration numbers in? No. Are they on private land? No. Therefore they are under no obligation to ask permission, and even further they are not obliged to conceal anyone’s identity either – they choose to as a responsible company and to calm the pitchfork brigade.

Do they make money as a direct result of these images? Hmmm… Grey areay, possibly technically true, although they still do not sell any services through or based on street view itself, so again, technically they are under no obligation to protect anyone’s dignity.

Luckily, embarrassment is not a legal defense. If you are worried about the repercussions of an action you take, then think about the consequences before you take the action. There is no difference in you digging for diamonds up your nose and a passer-by noticing and laughing, or someone submitting the video to Jeremy Beadle and the nation laughing – other than the scale of your embarrassment.

Think before you act and the moral fabric of this onece great nation may return… whatever.

Basically this guy has been going with a manipulative, bullying, tranny like slag who won’t take no for an answer. One of the main (well the funniest anyhow) reasons is she only does one position, doesn’t do blowies or handies and has a very over inflated ego (or was that an over inflated egg-roll?).

This guy has tried just dumping her to her face… she still calls him. He has tried dumping her by phone… she is going to the horse racing (not as a competitor) with him. He has also tried SMS and email dumping, but she just doesn’t seem to get the point. How’s about growing a spine dumping by website. there has to be a market for it.

So, if you want to dump someone send me the details and some background on the relationship and I’ll happily trash the crap out of em for ya. I’ll also act as intermediary and you can provide your comments to each other via the site – until I get bored.

There are 3 justifications for this.

The bible says so

God made man in his own image. Man has a belly button, therefore god has one.

The holy trinity argument

The father, the son and the holy spirit are interchangeable and are the same thing when required. Jesus (The son bit) was born of Mary and therefore has a belly button. The father is the same as the son, ergo the father has a belly button.

Intelligent design says so

If you look at the belly button (and umbilical cord) as a functional component, then it is in a really stupid place. The best place to stick the umbilical cord would be close to the heart, and on the chest – a third nipple so to speak. So, what must have happened is that god thought to himself, “ok, all the other holes and orifices are taken, what about this useless bump in the middle of my belly? Hmm.. lets stick it there”

What about Adam and Eve?

Well, since we have now established that god had a belly button, then so did Adam and I guess Eve. A more interesting question though… Eve was made from one of Adam’s “Spare ribs”… So, Amniotic fluid, or basting sauce?

Bless old Harry Wallop in Las Vegas… my assumption is that he is American.

Harry starts off with quite a good expose on the Consumer Electronics Show but then starts stuffing it up with some rather non-technical stuff-ups. The best of which is that the new £99 Elonex will have 2 GB of memory – a mere thirteenth that of full blown laptops. Errm… carry the one… minus… errr… a full blown laptop has 26 GB of RAM? Where the hell is he living? My 64 bit, quad core beast only has 8GB… General use Windows XP can only use 3GB. Assuming he means ’solid state disk replacement’, then When is he living? Full blown laptops today have 350GB hard drives… even the cheap ones (£250) start at about 80GB…

All-in-all I’m not sure I trust Mr Wallop’s reporting.

I thought I did my own article on netbooks, maybe my search engine isn’t working as well as it shoud? ah well, this is no time to not be giving you my opinion now is it.

There is a trade-off with the sub-notebook sized machines and here is a summary:

• The size means harder to use by a fully grown adult with failing vision and fingers like sausages.
• Horsepower is not really available because of the lack of cooling ability and airflow.
• The massively extended battery life means there are fewer moving parts – disk space is limited for the most part.

So what can you do with them… well, here is what you can’t

• If you need to install Microsoft Office suite, don’t get a netbook.
• If you need to install backup software, don’t get a netbook.
• If you need to install anti-virus software, don’t get a netbook.
• If you want to use Photoshop, don’t get a netbook.
• If you want to dictate meeting minutes, don’t get a netbook unless you have iddy-biddy fingers and telephoto zoom vision… or an external monitor and keyboard… oh, wait, that’s not the point… don’t get a netbook.

So what is the point? Here are a few.

• They are generally ultra quiet meaning you can surf for porn in the front room while your missus watches coronation street.
• They generally have a superb battery life meaning you can even survive the Sunday omnibus of coronation street.
• They generally run a whole lot cooler meaning that if you do accidentally fap your tangle onto one, your chap won’t get second degree burns round the head.
• They can be tiny meaning that if your sister walks in on you, you can stuff it in your trousers with your tok-a-losh in one swish movement (this does take some practice though)

I recently came back from holiday in Africa where I put my Asus Eee 900 in the spare wheel well for 3 weeks while off-roading. When called upon the device worked perfectly… I would so not have done that with my work laptop. As a support guy, these things mean that you can have a relatively active social life yet still have the tools to access most modern support systems if you need to.

Netbooks will never replace ‘real’ computers where any kind of processing power is concerned, and major business will not suddenly drop Dell, IBM and Lenovo. However given the potential saving in the cost of ownership and the prevalence of software tools like ‘PC anywhere’, it is not that hard to imagine that smaller companies may start buying a few more powerful computers for in the office and share out the power over dumb terminal style netbooks. It’s not that far off to imagine that larger companies may start suggesting to vendors that new software runs on these things. Put the horsepower where it is needed.

The more immediate consequense is that the price of intermediate and entry level PC’s will fall, and this is good for the consumer.

In my opinion the MSI wind based systems are very good value and a great compromise on screen and keyboard size. One of the better ones in the UK at the moment is the Advent 4213. I hate myself for saying that PC world stock is good, but this one genuinely is. This edition even has a mobile broadband SIM slot built in, and they are currently (at the time of writing!) selling them as a web exclusive price of £249.99.

What does the doctor have to say on this turn of events.

• Fuck Europe
• Fuck the Euro
• Fuck Gordon Brown
• Fuck Tony Blair
• Fuck New Labour
• Fuck Politics

and most importantly

Fuck off Brussels

We will probably get there in the end. I have a shitty red passport (although I am probably on most no-fly lists, and a fugitive from the Swaziland government) so it is basically inevitable. But does it mean I will be able to move to Germany and slouch of the state there? will it fuck. They have proper laws, and proper politics that protect it’s citizens. When moving to Europe will mean Britain values its citizens then you can unfuck all of the above, until then…

FUCK OFF!!!!!

People who claim perpetual motion is possible – whack jobs.

People who claim over-unity is possible – whack jobs.

People who claim that magnets can power things for a long time – less of a whack job.

For them among us who don’t know what unity means in this context, and got confused about over-unity above, this is a buzz-word for “violator of either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both” so you can see, for a start, its a whole lot more catchy. Boiled down over-unity means you get out more energy out of your device than you put in.

I think that one of the closest to being validated example is Howard R Johnson’s magnetic motor. People only mumble under their breath that “Mr Johnson is a whack job, but whatever, he still violates the laws of physics.”

Actually though, magnetic motors have more going for them than you may think. Lets look at the first law of thermodynamics for a minute. This law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed and can only be transferred from one type of energy to another by the performance of ‘work’. For example a battery has a stored amount of energy, if you have a very closed loop of wire with a light bulb in, it will remain lit while there is still energy in the battery… but when the battery goes flat, where did the energy go?

Basically the energy gets turned into light that you can see as well as heat.

But, what if it powered a motor. And this motor was attached to a dynamo (a motor in reverse) and it charged the battery? This may seem to work for a while, but eventually the energy stored in the system would leak out because of noise that you hear as the motor spins as well as heat in friction in the motor spindle and windings.

So back to magnetic motors. When you see people’s response to stuff, alright you the videos are like alien autopsies, so obviously they are hiding something, but debunkers blame the hidden drill. In actual fact there is no physical reason why magnetic motors could not actually work. So where would the additional energy come in, how useful would they be…

Bear in mind that to magnetise something takes a lot of energy itself – just like a battery – so why can’t you use a magnet to power something. Also like a battery, magnets wear out with over use, over loading or banging with a hammer etc. So, the argument now turns to how much energy can you get for your expenditure.

If you buy a bunch of magnets cheap enough, then they will have already paid for the energy it took to magnetise them. So, if you can use enough magnets to replace a bunch of batteries, then technically you will have free, clean, energy.

Based on this model however, if you grow marrows from seed and then put that money to your electricity bill, the same thing is occurring – and the plus side is that no-one will call you a “laws of physics defying whack job”

Well, I don’t do walking the street, and you really don’t want a visit from me…

I have also been asked for a picture of me “Commando” – I don’t like to disappoint…