The recent student protests haven’t covered the police nor demonstrators in glory. The former have in some cases, against regulations, covered IDs and turned into mini Judge Dredds, dishing out a particularly unsavoury and violent form of ‘justice’; a minority of demonstrators have been violent, stupid vandals, hijacking the news agenda and ruining the protest for the civil majority.

Although approximately 99.9 per cent of the recent news on the protests centred around OH MY GOD ROYAL CAR HIT A BIT (never asking exactly why the Royal car was driven straight through an area with thousands of angry protestors), but a few people have at least asked why the police response to children has been so brutal. It’s one thing to respond in kind to someone who’s attacking you; it’s another entirely to ‘kettle’ 13-year-olds for many hours in the most exposed parts of London, to hit a 20-year-old simply trying to leave a ‘kettle’ so hard he suffered bleeding to the brain (and then have hospital offers try to eject him from Chelsea and Westminster, despite his condition), and to throw a teenager to the floor and beat him until he’s throwing up blood, before casting him aside.

The reason behind these disgusting acts seems to be summed up by 17-year-old Rachel Bergan in the last of those linked articles. As someone concerned about the hike in student fees, she’d decided to protest. When the police kettled students on Westminster Bridge, things started to get ugly; Bergan contacted her mother, who on police advice told her daughter to move to the front line and asked to be released. Predictably, this was a bad idea, because she and friends were then sandwiched between violent protestors and violent, unsympathetic police. Bergan’s report notes that while the first line of police let her through, a second forced her into a ditch and beat her friends.

However, this had the effect the authorities were no doubt looking for. Bergan, keen to demonstrate her dissent now has the following to say about subsequent protests:

I don’t want to go through that again.

The actions of the police and government aren’t about stopping protests getting out of hand—they’re about stopping protests coming from a suddenly motivated younger generation.

Another ‘analyst’ clearly earning their money, commenting on iOS making ground on the PSP and DS in mobile gaming:

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities:

what’s the difference if you play Tetris on an iPod Touch or on a DS? Well, you pay a buck on the iPod Touch, you pay $20 on the DS. Parents prefer $1 or free software. I think the iPod Touch is going to sell really, really well. I really think as the iPod Touch gets more and more powerful, you’re going to see a lot of free games over there.

Yes, because iOS doesn’t already have a lot of free games. And the iPod touch isn’t already selling ‘really well’. Let’s also ignore the primary reasons behind the success of iOS as a gaming platform: huge range, bringing fun and novelty back to gaming, millions of credit cards already being hooked up to iTunes, the ability of bedroom coders to fight alongside industry giants. But, no, it’s all about cheap shit, says the analyst.

Gah.

Also, Tetris. Great example. First, it’s very rarely a buck on iOS (usually $2.99); secondly, it’s a pretty mediocre version, unlike the rather spiffy DS one.

GAH.

…

Just… GAH.

The kind of quote you don’t want to see:

A baton strike came to the side of my face and then onto the top of my head. Directly onto the crown of my head. I felt a big whacking thud and I heard it reverberating inside my head.

I wasn’t sure whether I was bleeding or not. I moved off to the side and asked a police officer if I was bleeding. But he just said “Keep moving, keep moving”. Then I put my hand to the top of my head and looked at my palm and I could see there was blood everywhere.

I then asked another police officer, who was wearing a police medic badge, if he could help me. And he told me to move away as well and told me to go to another exit. By this point blood was streaming down the back of my head and back of my neck.

No, this isn’t a quote from some irate blogger, demonstrating in a hostile regime halfway around the world. This is the account of journalist Shiv Malik at the London student protests (see the 4:31pm entry).

If this kind of thing was happening in a non-Western country, our MPs would be all over the news, saying how disgraceful such actions by the authorities are. But because it’s the UK and the authorities are clearly trying to put a young generation off of protesting for good, MPs and the police alike are denouncing the protestors as hostile scum, ignoring police provocation and kettling.

That’s not to say every protestor is well-intentioned, because that’s clearly not the case. However, what we’re seeing here is a new kind of police presence, one where disorder, dissent and disobedience simply will not be tolerated; it’s a depressing thing from a country that supposedly prides itself on being democratic.

Bloomberg reports that network operators have finally totally lost it. “Wah wah wah,” says the CEO of one or the other or France Telecom, Telecom Italia or Vodafone ‘we don’t pay our taxes’ Group. “iPhones and Android devices are being used LOADS now, and it’s JUST NOT FAIR!”

The argument appears to centre on the fact that mobile operators are whiney bastards who don’t have the balls to charge users by the MB of data downloaded, instead competing with ‘unlimited’ plans; and so rather than charging users proportionately, they’ve come up with a CUNNING PLAN.

Unfortunately, the cunning plan is this: have Apple, Google and Facebook pay for the billions of dollars of investment requires to sort out their shoddy, under-strain networks. No, really. Good luck, guys! I’m sure this idea will pan out swimmingly!

Of course, this level of stupidity has precedent. We’ve already had idiot ISPs saying the BBC should pay them money for having the audacity to create the wonderful iPlayer that loads of people love using (rather than, say, killing unlimited broadband and charging people on the basis of the amount they use, like with electricity and gin).

So, well done, network operators. I’m sure Steve Jobs and his pals are nearly dead through an inability to breathe properly, due to laughing non-stop for several hours.

Hat tip: Matt Gemmell’s hat.

24 Ways has been running for several years now, providing 24 end-of-year articles for web designers and developers. It’s like advent, except the tasty treats are web design tips, not chocolates.

This year, the company is releasing an annual. The idea is to compile everything over the season into an 80-page book, then fire the proceeds at Unicef. The book’s only going to be on sale until the end of December and is looking for sponsorship, so:

• If you’re a wealthy but charitable sort, sponser the thing (PDF).
• If you’re in the web industry, buy the thing.