I'm pretty sure that regulations require companies to identify themselves in all communications (it's certainly true for email and web under legislation in last 2 years) with you.
That is a UK company that spams you and doesn't leave the company name and contact details, or who have a website and don't have that information on it are breaking the law.
You're not in the mafia are you! Here's 2 ways you can enforce that contract:
1) bribe judiciary (very expensive) 2) get a shotgun in court
I'm sure there are plenty of other ways... oh you meant using the legal system... my bad.
the mirror test is incomplete isn't it?
on
Magpies Are Self-Aware
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Anyone else wonder why they don't complete the experiment. The bird could simply be trying to establish if it has a sticker, like the other bird that it sees. This doesn't show self-recognition.
So you have a mirror, the bird sees the sticker and tries to remove a sticker from themselves. You also need to present an image of some other similar bird with a sticker and see if the subject assumes they too have a sticker.
You could have a two way mirror with a switch. You place either a model or real bird behind the mirror with a spot. See if when looking right through the mirror they behave the same. You'd also want to have the subject bird with a spot, looking in the mirror, flash off the lights and remove the spot, bring up the lights with the second bird behind the mirror with a spot on. Do they recognise the spot has gone (assuming they can't feel it's been removed)? This part would work well if the spot could be colour changed, eg by wetting.
I'd want to go further and use some video equipment for the mirror. That way you could test whether they perceive their own "reflection" when the image is flipped vertically. You could also digitally add a spot that wasn't there or present an image of the same bird with no spot when the bird subject does actually have a spot on.
Seems like quite a sloppy experiment - or are they just not telling us about the other parts.
Also since when was self-recognition == self-awareness?
That's why they could look at it in the first place.
But they failed to gather evidence when they had the chance. And now he's back in the country, subject to all the regular protections. If they had removed the drugs from his vehicle they would be able to use that evidence in court, but they can't force him to remove the drugs now just because they happened to have access to the drugs when he crossed.
Yes, but if I'd lived that close to Chernobyl there's a high probability I'd have suffered irreparable damage.. like death or something. I concede I may have suffered from radioactive doses from Drax but it's not distinguishable over background sources.
Few other factoids - Chernobyl's output to date is about 55 years (their are 4 reactors, opened in stages, closed in stages between 1970-2000) of maximum 1000MW production, so about 400TWh total.
Drax a UK coal fired power station opened in the 70s produces about 24TWh annually (7% of the demand apparently).
So by your consideration Drax has "released" at least twice the "radioactive waste" of Chernobyl. Having lived not that far from Drax for my first 18 years of life I find your definition of radioactive waste to be lacking somewhat.
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Er, yes I did, and I was more than happy to believe you given sufficient evidence. Let's examine your claim - coal power stations produce more radioactive waste per kWh than Chernobyl:
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
"In certain regions of Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland, wild game (including boar and deer), wild mushrooms, berries and carnivorous fish from lakes reach levels of several thousand Bq per kg of caesium-137", while "in Germany, caesium-137 levels in wild boar muscle reached 40,000 Bq/kg. The average level is 6,800 Bq/kg, more than ten times the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg", according to the TORCH 2006 report. The European Commission has stated that "The restrictions on certain foodstuffs from certain Member States must therefore continue to be maintained for many years to come"
Radioactive trace elements in fly ash include the elements 238U, 232Th and 40K. Using the fission track registration technique, Jojo and others (1994) found the average uranium concentration to be 29.1 ppm in fly ash, 25.7 ppm in slag and 17.1 ppm in coal. Uranium exists in coal as the silicate mineral, coffinite, and as uraninite (UO2). During combustion, the refractory coffinite is distributed in equal concentrations in fly ash and bottom ash, while uraninite is vaporised and later condensed on fly ash when the flue gases cool. Uranium has only a slightly higher concentration in fly ash than in bottom ash.
Font and others (1993) quantified heavy metals in ash by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICPAES). The amount of radionuclides that are captured depends on their concentration in the original coal used, that of the ash it produces, the efficiency of the filtering system employed and the combustion efficiency of the power plant itself. The concentrations of some primary radionuclides in fly ash are estimated to be 265 Bq/kg for 40K, 200 Bq/kg for 238U and 240 Bq/kg for 226Ra.
Now the Greens-EFA and CoalOnline are both likely to be quoting research in their favour... but at least qualitatively looking at the Becquerels/kg of the radioactive by-products of coal power vs. the fallout a couple of countries away from Chernobyl 20+ years later I can safely say I'd rather live near a coal power station capturing it's fly ash in building materials than near Chernobyl issuing forth it's radioactive matter upon the lands of Europe.
For comparison old houses with 400 Bq/m^3 of radon are considered to within safe limits in the EU. But who fills their basement with fly ash?
In other news, gas ovens make more flame than flame-throwers.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar [sic] exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
Come off it, if coal plants produced the same results as the Chernobyl disaster we wouldn't be here now. All either dead from cancer or infertile from radiation sickness.
Have you any citations or evidence to back up your claim. Seems the Nuclear Fuels industry would've used this before if it were true.
I use adblock with the filterset.g updater; hosts file loopbacks... old-skool!
If Linux is gaining all this "market share" it's getting a substantial number of folks without the nous to block the ads nor apply fixes/hacks to get flash working.
His reply was, "yeah me and everyone I know in this industry try to get the programmers to put as much flashy flash stuff up on our different marketing web sites and advertising banners as possible... and loving it! We won't stop."
Why won't they stop? Well, because people pay attention to the stuff, you can't help but be drawn to moving images vs. static content - it's how our brains are designed.
What surprises me, following on from this, is that doubleclick (or some other online Ad company) hasn't paid to implement flash properly on Linux to ensure that all the ads can be viewed on that platform.
A burger place may listen politely to a vegetarian, but they're not going to change much to accommodate that person.
If it's a small enough business then they'll add a vegeburger/pakora/spring-roll/fish-burger option and see how it flies - if the person will ask for it tehy're the sort of person to tell their friends.
My wife and I run a pottery painting studio (http://www.barefoot-ceramics.co.uk/) in Wales, UK. We've had some strange requests, we say "we don't do that" and they just keep asking!
Before you ask none of those "strange requests" involved removal of clothing or bodily fluids.
Under UK law (S.40 [IIRC] UK Patent Act, possibly in Europe too) as a named inventor you have a right to reasonable compensation. If you're not reasonably compensated then you can take the company to a tribunal IIRC (it may be some other legal hearing).
Compensation is considered commensurate with the profit to the company, so if the company make millions from your work you are entitled to more than just standard pay.
Once ownership is established as yours, an employee inventor still has the right to claim a fair share of the benefits. In principle, it is a right designed to guard against an employer enjoying a windfall, while leaving the employee no better off. In practice, you will usually come to your own arrangement.
But if a court has to make an award, it will reach its own judgement of what constitutes a fair share. The pay, skill and input of your employee will be set against how well the invention has done.
See for example http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=7405 reporting on a Hitachi employee's Japanese compensation claim amounting to 14% of royalties. You can always donate the money to the EFF, or me;0)>
In G06F (IPC code covering computing) generally the question as to whether a citation amounts to disclosure of your invention (or something close enough that there is considered to be no inventive step needed to create your "invention") is quite tricky.
If you find some related art, with an earlier priority date, then just don't consider it in enough depth to know the answer as to whether you're infringing or not. It can't be wilful if you don't know that answer (IA-so-NAPA).
I gather in the US your required to cite any related art you know of and be diligent in mentioning it exists. But AFAIK you can just assume it's not close enough that you'd be infringing it... the patent examiners job is to demonstrate that you're infringing and your patent attorneys job is to show it isn't.
You're right Mr AC: "The right of equal access to public services (Article 21.2 [of the so-called The Hague Declaration])".
I'm not saying it's right to use patent encumbered tech.. I was amongst those who let the BBC board know how wrong I felt it was that iplayer's full service be limited to MS Windows users.
As it happens workarounds based on iPhone access mean that I could get better service through hacks... some things don't change.
WO patents can cover all jurisdictions that sign the International Patent Cooperation treaty - pretty much everywhere including the ARIPO, OAPI nations. It's unlikely that a broadcasting algo that's covered by a US patent asigned to a large firm doesn't also have a WO patent and hence is protected in the UK.
Sorry but you haven't a clue what you're talking about do you? Business methods/per se/ are excluded and so software implementations of business methods are too. But in general innovations in software that provide a technical contribution are allowed to have patent protection:
For example, in Vicom/Computer-related invention [1987] 1 OJEPO 14 (T208/84) the invention concerned a mathematical method for manipulating data representing an image, leading to an enhanced digital image. The EPO Technical Board of Appeal defined a mathematical method as one which is carried out on numbers and provides a result in numerical form (the mathematical method or algorithm therefore being merely an abstract concept prescribing how to operate on the numbers). Thus the Technical Board of Appeal rejected claims to a method of digitally filtering data performed on a conventional general purpose computer, since those claims were held to define an abstract concept not distinguished from a mathematical method. However, they allowed claims to a method of image processing which used the mathematical method to operate on numbers representing an image. The reasoning was that the image processing performed was a technical (ie non-excluded) process which related to the technical quality of the image and that even if the idea underlying an invention may be considered to reside in a mathematical method, a claim directed to a technical process in which the method is used does not seek protection for the mathematical method as such. Therefore the allowable claims went beyond a mathematical method as such because they specified the physical entity the data represented and the technical process in which it was used.
The UK is obliged to keep as close to the EU as possible (under rules on patent harmonisation) when it comes to software patents, etc., however EPO board rulings are not binding and so judicial proceedings can diverge from the European position.
To say there have been no rulings on SWPAT in the UK is ignorant.
To summarise - software patents are fine so long as the inventive contribution is technical (!, case law decides exactly what is technical, basically it has a physical effect).
I read this to mean that an algorithm can't be patented unless it's applied in a physical situation - a decoding algo. in a mobile phone that saves power would be fine, a decoding algorithm/per se/ would not.
Disclaimer: I haven't been a patent examiner for quite a few years now!
Slashdot Mirror
The point is plain if you read the two sentences. If you can't be bothered reading them, I can't be bothered explaining.
I'm pretty sure that regulations require companies to identify themselves in all communications (it's certainly true for email and web under legislation in last 2 years) with you.
That is a UK company that spams you and doesn't leave the company name and contact details, or who have a website and don't have that information on it are breaking the law.
Review of requirements - http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/ruDetail?type=REGUPDATE&itemId=1078632802
The SI - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2006/20063428.htm
Would be stupid if this doesn't also apply to audio telecommunications ...!
You're not in the mafia are you! Here's 2 ways you can enforce that contract:
1) bribe judiciary (very expensive)
2) get a shotgun in court
I'm sure there are plenty of other ways ... oh you meant using the legal system ... my bad.
Anyone else wonder why they don't complete the experiment. The bird could simply be trying to establish if it has a sticker, like the other bird that it sees. This doesn't show self-recognition.
So you have a mirror, the bird sees the sticker and tries to remove a sticker from themselves. You also need to present an image of some other similar bird with a sticker and see if the subject assumes they too have a sticker.
You could have a two way mirror with a switch. You place either a model or real bird behind the mirror with a spot. See if when looking right through the mirror they behave the same. You'd also want to have the subject bird with a spot, looking in the mirror, flash off the lights and remove the spot, bring up the lights with the second bird behind the mirror with a spot on. Do they recognise the spot has gone (assuming they can't feel it's been removed)? This part would work well if the spot could be colour changed, eg by wetting.
I'd want to go further and use some video equipment for the mirror. That way you could test whether they perceive their own "reflection" when the image is flipped vertically. You could also digitally add a spot that wasn't there or present an image of the same bird with no spot when the bird subject does actually have a spot on.
Seems like quite a sloppy experiment - or are they just not telling us about the other parts.
Also since when was self-recognition == self-awareness?
That's why they could look at it in the first place.
But they failed to gather evidence when they had the chance. And now he's back in the country, subject to all the regular protections. If they had removed the drugs from his vehicle they would be able to use that evidence in court, but they can't force him to remove the drugs now just because they happened to have access to the drugs when he crossed.
?
He can prove they are lying, or he can keep quiet about his password.
Seriously, if he's innocent would he really prefer to do the time than have a officer of the law view the contents of his laptop?
Yes, but if I'd lived that close to Chernobyl there's a high probability I'd have suffered irreparable damage .. like death or something. I concede I may have suffered from radioactive doses from Drax but it's not distinguishable over background sources.
Few other factoids - Chernobyl's output to date is about 55 years (their are 4 reactors, opened in stages, closed in stages between 1970-2000) of maximum 1000MW production, so about 400TWh total.
Drax a UK coal fired power station opened in the 70s produces about 24TWh annually (7% of the demand apparently).
So by your consideration Drax has "released" at least twice the "radioactive waste" of Chernobyl. Having lived not that far from Drax for my first 18 years of life I find your definition of radioactive waste to be lacking somewhat.
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Er, yes I did, and I was more than happy to believe you given sufficient evidence. Let's examine your claim - coal power stations produce more radioactive waste per kWh than Chernobyl:
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
It's hard to assess the radioactive waste quantitatively but this quote about Chernobyl may help us make a qualatitive analysis at least, via Wikipedia, http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/118/118559.torch_executive_summary@en.pdf:
"In certain regions of Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland, wild game (including boar and deer), wild mushrooms, berries and carnivorous fish from lakes reach levels of several thousand Bq per kg of caesium-137", while "in Germany, caesium-137 levels in wild boar muscle reached 40,000 Bq/kg. The average level is 6,800 Bq/kg, more than ten times the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg", according to the TORCH 2006 report. The European Commission has stated that "The restrictions on certain foodstuffs from certain Member States must therefore continue to be maintained for many years to come"
Now let's look at the effects of radioactive waste from a coal power plants; http://www.coalonline.org/site/coalonline/content/viewer?LogDocId=81357&PhyDocId=5945&filename=5945_34.html at Section 3.2.3:
Radioactive trace elements in fly ash include the elements 238U, 232Th and 40K. Using the fission track registration technique, Jojo and others (1994) found the average uranium concentration to be 29.1 ppm in fly ash, 25.7 ppm in slag and 17.1 ppm in coal. Uranium exists in coal as the silicate mineral, coffinite, and as uraninite (UO2). During combustion, the refractory coffinite is distributed in equal concentrations in fly ash and bottom ash, while uraninite is vaporised and later condensed on fly ash when the flue gases cool. Uranium has only a slightly higher concentration in fly ash than in bottom ash.
Font and others (1993) quantified heavy metals in ash by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICPAES). The amount of radionuclides that are captured depends on their concentration in the original coal used, that of the ash it produces, the efficiency of the filtering system employed and the combustion efficiency of the power plant itself. The concentrations of some primary radionuclides in fly ash are estimated to be 265 Bq/kg for 40K, 200 Bq/kg for 238U and 240 Bq/kg for 226Ra.
Now the Greens-EFA and CoalOnline are both likely to be quoting research in their favour ... but at least qualitatively looking at the Becquerels/kg of the radioactive by-products of coal power vs. the fallout a couple of countries away from Chernobyl 20+ years later I can safely say I'd rather live near a coal power station capturing it's fly ash in building materials than near Chernobyl issuing forth it's radioactive matter upon the lands of Europe.
For comparison old houses with 400 Bq/m^3 of radon are considered to within safe limits in the EU. But who fills their basement with fly ash?
In other news, gas ovens make more flame than flame-throwers.
I thought it was more like 50% and 49.9% were made up a while back on Wikipedia.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar [sic] exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
Come off it, if coal plants produced the same results as the Chernobyl disaster we wouldn't be here now. All either dead from cancer or infertile from radiation sickness.
Have you any citations or evidence to back up your claim. Seems the Nuclear Fuels industry would've used this before if it were true.
Zombie Puppies ... so you get electricity, a free Hulk costume and the plot for a great film. Where do I sign up?
lolz
I use adblock with the filterset.g updater; hosts file loopbacks ... old-skool!
If Linux is gaining all this "market share" it's getting a substantial number of folks without the nous to block the ads nor apply fixes/hacks to get flash working.
His reply was, "yeah me and everyone I know in this industry try to get the programmers to put as much flashy flash stuff up on our different marketing web sites and advertising banners as possible... and loving it! We won't stop."
Why won't they stop? Well, because people pay attention to the stuff, you can't help but be drawn to moving images vs. static content - it's how our brains are designed.
What surprises me, following on from this, is that doubleclick (or some other online Ad company) hasn't paid to implement flash properly on Linux to ensure that all the ads can be viewed on that platform.
A burger place may listen politely to a vegetarian, but they're not going to change much to accommodate that person.
If it's a small enough business then they'll add a vegeburger/pakora/spring-roll/fish-burger option and see how it flies - if the person will ask for it tehy're the sort of person to tell their friends.
My wife and I run a pottery painting studio (http://www.barefoot-ceramics.co.uk/) in Wales, UK. We've had some strange requests, we say "we don't do that" and they just keep asking!
Before you ask none of those "strange requests" involved removal of clothing or bodily fluids.
Grace periods are only used in the US, they have been considering harmonising with the rest of the world, but you know, they _are_ the US.
They'll probably get right on it after decimalisation is fully implemented (in an inconsistent way to how it's used everywhere else of course).
</overly-acerbic-comment>
If you sabotage your employers revenue stream do you think it might somehow impact your own earnings?
Under UK law (S.40 [IIRC] UK Patent Act, possibly in Europe too) as a named inventor you have a right to reasonable compensation. If you're not reasonably compensated then you can take the company to a tribunal IIRC (it may be some other legal hearing).
Compensation is considered commensurate with the profit to the company, so if the company make millions from your work you are entitled to more than just standard pay.
FWIW, http://www.ipo.gov.uk/newsletters/ipinsight-200803/ipinsight-200803-3.htm:
Compensation
Once ownership is established as yours, an employee inventor still has the right to claim a fair share of the benefits. In principle, it is a right designed to guard against an employer enjoying a windfall, while leaving the employee no better off. In practice, you will usually come to your own arrangement.
But if a court has to make an award, it will reach its own judgement of what constitutes a fair share. The pay, skill and input of your employee will be set against how well the invention has done.
See for example http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=7405 reporting on a Hitachi employee's Japanese compensation claim amounting to 14% of royalties. You can always donate the money to the EFF, or me ;0)>
In G06F (IPC code covering computing) generally the question as to whether a citation amounts to disclosure of your invention (or something close enough that there is considered to be no inventive step needed to create your "invention") is quite tricky.
If you find some related art, with an earlier priority date, then just don't consider it in enough depth to know the answer as to whether you're infringing or not. It can't be wilful if you don't know that answer (IA-so-NAPA).
I gather in the US your required to cite any related art you know of and be diligent in mentioning it exists. But AFAIK you can just assume it's not close enough that you'd be infringing it ... the patent examiners job is to demonstrate that you're infringing and your patent attorneys job is to show it isn't.
---
This is not legal advice.
You're right Mr AC: "The right of equal access to public services (Article 21.2 [of the so-called The Hague Declaration])".
I'm not saying it's right to use patent encumbered tech.. I was amongst those who let the BBC board know how wrong I felt it was that iplayer's full service be limited to MS Windows users.
As it happens workarounds based on iPhone access mean that I could get better service through hacks ... some things don't change.
Ever heard of WIPO?
WO patents can cover all jurisdictions that sign the International Patent Cooperation treaty - pretty much everywhere including the ARIPO, OAPI nations. It's unlikely that a broadcasting algo that's covered by a US patent asigned to a large firm doesn't also have a WO patent and hence is protected in the UK.
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/policy-issues-patents-computer.htm
Sorry but you haven't a clue what you're talking about do you? Business methods /per se/ are excluded and so software implementations of business methods are too. But in general innovations in software that provide a technical contribution are allowed to have patent protection:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/policy-issues-patents-computer.htm
Particularly (one of those cases that I thought should have gone the other way) an early software patent case on image compression won in court and was deemed to be technical. See MPP Section 1.17, http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-decisionmaking/p-law/p-law-manual/p-law-manual-practice/p-law-manual-practice-patent1977.htm, the case is called "Vicom":
For example, in Vicom/Computer-related invention [1987] 1 OJEPO 14 (T208/84) the invention concerned a mathematical method for manipulating data representing an image, leading to an enhanced digital image. The EPO Technical Board of Appeal defined a mathematical method as one which is carried out on numbers and provides a result in numerical form (the mathematical method or algorithm therefore being merely an abstract concept prescribing how to operate on the numbers). Thus the Technical Board of Appeal rejected claims to a method of digitally filtering data performed on a conventional general purpose computer, since those claims were held to define an abstract concept not distinguished from a mathematical method. However, they allowed claims to a method of image processing which used the mathematical method to operate on numbers representing an image. The reasoning was that the image processing performed was a technical (ie non-excluded) process which related to the technical quality of the image and that even if the idea underlying an invention may be considered to reside in a mathematical method, a claim directed to a technical process in which the method is used does not seek protection for the mathematical method as such. Therefore the allowable claims went beyond a mathematical method as such because they specified the physical entity the data represented and the technical process in which it was used.
The UK is obliged to keep as close to the EU as possible (under rules on patent harmonisation) when it comes to software patents, etc., however EPO board rulings are not binding and so judicial proceedings can diverge from the European position.
To say there have been no rulings on SWPAT in the UK is ignorant.
Check out the Manual of Patent Practice under Section 1 (patentability) - http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-decisionmaking/p-law/p-law-manual/p-law-manual-practice/p-law-manual-practice-patent1977.htm, start at Section 1.09 and read on the "four step approach" which governs how examiners assess patents for patentability when faced with question of excluded matter such as software patents.
To summarise - software patents are fine so long as the inventive contribution is technical (!, case law decides exactly what is technical, basically it has a physical effect).
I read this to mean that an algorithm can't be patented unless it's applied in a physical situation - a decoding algo. in a mobile phone that saves power would be fine, a decoding algorithm /per se/ would not.
Disclaimer: I haven't been a patent examiner for quite a few years now!
English Language
|_ American Spellings
|_ Misspellings
|_ C
|_ CATAGORIZED, replace CATEGORIZED, British CATEGORISED, not shouting "categorised"
If I spelt anything wrong I'm sure you guys have my back ...