So what would you do if a review you wrote that smacked of press release/brochure copy got ‘busted’, and a journo contacted you for more info, to get your side of the story?

1. Not respond at all, playing the ‘la la la la la—I can’t hear you’ game.
2. Pull the article, and hope no-one notices.
3. Come clean, admitting that you’d screwed up (or, if there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, offer said perfectly reasonable explanation and leave it at that).
4. Ban the journo’s IP, and then dig up his personal details and publish them on a hall-of-shame thread, leading, naturally, to said journo continuing investigating any alleged wrongdoing.

Update: Turns out the answer is 4 and 5, 5 being ‘use the DMCA to have the site in question suspended for copyright infringement‘ on what are, charitably, extremely dubious grounds.

Apple’s announced its third-quarter results, and they make for grim reading. Apple only managed to post revenue of $15.7 billion and a net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion. This came in part from Apple selling a mere 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, which in itself represented a pitiful 33 per cent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. With certifiable, deranged analysts expecting Apple to post profits of $900 trillion, the company’s all-time record revenue and earnings increase of just 78 per cent looks miniscule by comparison.

Additionally, Apple reports that 3.27 million iPads were sold during the quarter. “iPad is off to a terrific start,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, ignoring the fact that crazed, deluded, stupid analysts had predicted Apple would sell 3.27 million iPads per day and is therefore well behind targets set by these self-important idiots who don’t have a clue and yet get paid huge sums of money to write all sorts of garbage about Apple that never comes to pass.

Elsewhere, since analysts also predicted iPad would be a failure and that Apple would only sell eight units in total, the 3.27 million figure is extremely worrying, since it means eight people now somehow own over 400,000 iPads each and likely won’t have the money or space for any more, which will therefore impact Apple’s Q4 results.

AAPL was up 2.57% today, on the back of the results, but Lenovo was up more at 2.66%, proving that Apple doesn’t know what it’s doing and should really learn from the Chinese company who [SUB: PLEASE ADD SOMETHING ON LENOVO HERE—WHO THE HELL ARE THOSE GUYS ANYWAY?]

We all know the Tories hate the BBC, because they hate anything that’s not privatised. However, due to the public not realising the value the BBC offers, the ‘slow death of the BBC’ stance is now taken by pretty much every political party.

Jeremy Hunt, the incumbent culture secretary, has now suggested the licence fee could “absolutely” fall next year, using the excuse of the UK’s “very constrained” financial situation. (Source: MediaWeek.)

I realise some people are irked about paying for the BBC, but let’s put things in perspective. £145.50 is about £12 per month, or 40p per day. That’s less than the price of a newspaper, half a typical candy bar, or a third of a cup of coffee. It’s less than BT charges me for line-rental alone. It’s only 80p more per week than The Times is charging for online access to its two websites. And yet for your 40p per day/£2.80 per week BBC fee, you get a bunch of ad-free TV stations, ad-free radio (including Radio 6, which, as recent events show, has no effective competition at all), and an ad-free (if you’re in the UK) website, including decent, reasonably impartial news coverage.

Reducing the licence fee will force the BBC into terminal decline. Some will argue removing the BBC will improve competition, but it won’t. Rupert Murdoch already effectively drives everything else in this area, and so you’ll merely see increasing competition for advertising, leading to more dumbing down of content and increasingly advertising-led/advertising-friendly news. People will then pine for the “good old days” of the BBC, but by then it’ll be too late.

If you don’t want the BBC beaten to a bloody pulp, write to your MP. Alternatively, use the 38 Degrees site to speak out against BBC cuts and convince Vince Cable to stand up to Rupert Murdoch.

Engadget reports on HP rattling on about flexible display Palm devices. Phil McKinney talks about the great display technology that will “change what we think of in form factors, both in products from Palm with flexible displays, and with HP”. That’s great, so where are these devices? Oh, they don’t exist yet, except as a concept in people’s heads, or perhaps as devices sitting in a lab.

People moan about Apple’s secrecy, but here’s the thing: when Steve Jobs goes on stage and starts talking about something, it’s almost always because he has something to show. He’ll talk about something revolutionary, then he’ll show it to you, say how much it costs and when pre-orders are going to start.

If only others would follow suit.

The quote of the day that forms the title of this post comes from MacRumors, as part of its link-bait iPhone 4 Drop Test with Bumper Case Shows Little Protection. Reporting on iFixyouri’s iPhone-with-Bumper drop test, the site notes: “The iPhone 4 with bumper lasted only 3 drops before the front glass cracked. This was the same number of drops that it took to break an unprotected iPhone 4.”

Oh noes! Apple is clearly evil for pushing those bumpers on everyone! BUT WAIT! It turns out that “the iPhone 4 hit the concrete face down for the last fall, so how it falls likely affects the chances of the glass breaking“. Wow, a serious revelation there, folks!

In other LATE-BREAKING NEWS, MacRumors will almost certainly soon reveal that if you repeatedly smash your brand-new MacBook Pro with a hammer, it will get damaged more easily than if you repeatedly beat it with the very feathery bit of a feather duster. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!