Posts by Neil Lewis

Re: Also

There are no fully automated image collection systems. Even with the most basic camera, such as a simple webcam, the owner/user must initially choose where to position it and in which direction it should be pointed. If the device has the ability to be triggered when movement is sensed, then the owner/user has also chosen to enable and set that function, too. Those are all 'creative choices' - they require the owner/user to make conscious decisions based on their intentions in setting the camera up in the first place. Without making those conscious decisions, the camera would probably still be in its box.

Mostly agree (especially the bit about Windows being far from the only 'proper' OS, having been 100% Linux for many years for my work in professional photography and event production) except that, for the real work of controlling a professional stage lighting rig, a decent Android tablet running QLC+ works very well indeed.

Re: Devil's Advocate

Under UK copyright law (which, like most of the world, is based on and closely follows the Berne convention, unlike US copyright law) it'd be hard to assign copyright to anyone, including the government or the Dartford Crossing authority for those pictures. Why? Because there are two keys to owning copyright.

First, you have to demonstrate that you are the author, i.e. that you caused the photograph to be created. It isn't enough to simply be the owner of the camera, and it certainly isn;t enough to be the subject of the photograph. The author must make a conscious decision to cause the specific photograph to be created.

Second, that there was a clear 'creative step' involved. The owners of the Dartford Crossing cameras might possibly claim some elements of a creative step, since they chose where to place the cameras, but that's about it. The driver of the car has no such control over placement of the camera and does not make a decision to activate it, either.

This is a bit different to travelling around the globe specifically to set up a series of photographs, choosing where and when to set up a camera on a particular occasion when the subject was available and seemed in the right mood, choosing a lens and setting the camera's operational parameters to suit the specifics of the environment at that particular time. All those are 'creative steps' in the way UK copyright recognises them, because they were deliberate, specific to and had a substantial effect upon the overall intention of crating individual photographs. The ape may have observed the photographer handling the camera, and tried to copy thos actions, but it would be seriously stretching credibility to suggest he had any idea that pressing the shutter release button would cause a photograph of himself to or anything else to be created, hence it's not credible to suggest any creative step on his part.

Re: And it appears to be 3D skeuomorphic!

For DTP type layout, give Scribus a try. It's cross platform, and can import content from LibreOffice, too.

The statement "most staff, few will have ever touched Linux" is quite simply untrue. Fact is, the vast majority will use Linux every day without realising it, by accessing web sites or by using an Android device.

That staff can be foxed by transitioning from Office 2003 to 2007 is an indication of the poor training/lack of training frequently seen in office environments. There's a tendency towards a 'click here to do this' mentality inherent in vendor specific training which leads to users being unable to function if an icon or button is moved.

The problem is neither the OS nor the applications, but an almost criminally unprofessional lack of understanding of the tools. It's as ridiculous as if a plumber claimed they could only work with one particular brand of spanners 'because brand Y looks different'.

Re: Errrm

The argument was even more stupid than that. If a company brings in machines which completely dispense with the need for anyone to operate them, then none of that original workforce is required at all, irrespective of the volume of output.

Re: Different engines under the hood...

Many (most?) will be unaware that the majority of the stainless steel sheet leftover when the Delorean factory closed was actually used for kit car production - the Robin Hood 7, I believe. A cosmetic copy of the Lotus 7, but with a monocoque body shell made entirely from stainless steel, with GRP wings and nose cone and a Ford OHC Pinto engine. At one time, they were quite popular.

Re: £40 too expensive...

It's not necessarily about the price. GIMP is free and entirely driven by what users want. There's no marketing department adding (or withholding until the next version) features just for the sake of selling you an updated copy every few months. The 'real cost' of commercial software is that it's not built primarily for the benefit of users, but for the companies who sell it.

Re: 5K?

"For some reason the TV and computer industries have been switching to the convention of the film industry in recent times."

I'm pretty sure the reason is as explained in Dilbert some years ago. Bigger numbers *always* mean 'better' to the uneducated buyer. That makes it far easier to sell yet another expensive upgrade to consumers who really don't need it but like to have bigger model numbers and flashier kit than their neighbours.

Re: Timing is everything

Indeed. I remember buying a couple of litres of ether in my local chemist as a young teenager for use in home-brewed model diesel engine fuel. There was no problem once I explained to the owner what I wanted it for. Can't imagine that happening now though.

Re: Almost, not quite

No, you don;t own the copyright of an image created by another person just by paying them, but only if they are your 'employee' in the sense that you are responsible for their tax and NI. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Re: GIF's?

Yes, a football stadium would count as a public place in this sense, exactly the same as any other venue where an even is staged, because tickets are available to the general public.

But that's a red herring in any case. The private place/public place issue is a privacy matter, not a copyright matter. Copyright *always* belongs to the person who creates the image (or sequence of images) and not the performer.

This story would seem to be about people sharing images or clips created by the TV companyand therefore owned by them, which have been broadcast over the internet, not images or clips surreptitiously caught by spectators on their own devices. Either that, or Murdoch's legal team are laughably clueless and sadly I don't believe that to be the case, funny as it would be.

History

Don't underestimate just how pragmatic RMS actually is. He tends to look a long way ahead and sees outcomes others don't wish to see. While his positions can initially often look hopelessly idealistic to the naive, the passage of time has repeatedly shown them to be right on the button.

Re: The unfortunate thing about glass is that...

Going back a (good) few years, I can remember that being the exact reaction some folks had when people began using mobile phones in the street. Doesn't seem to have stopped them catching on though, does it?

BTW, if the events you describe had actually happened.I would have no problem defending myself, either. i.e. decking whichever self-important prick thought it was any of their business if I choose to wear such a device in a public place.

Re: Multiple standards

I don't really see a problem with having two truly open standards, but while ODF is truly open, the MS equivalent formats are at best an XML wrapper (the open part) around a closed binary blob.

There should be no reason why two properly open formats could not interchange data easily and with full functionality and data integrity. So long as the specifications of both are properly understood, two-way interoperability is easy enough. And most people accept that there is value in competing products, in principle, because it tends to encourage faster progress.

That others outside MS find it hard to convert to and from MS formats, and that MSOffice does not properly interoperate with ODF is by MS deliberate design, not an accident.

The problem is, and always will be, that for as long as they have a monopoly of the desktop OS ecosystem, it's not in MS interests to make their own formats truly open, nor for conversion from open to proprietary or vice-versa to be easy and reliable. They depend upon the lock-in to proprietary formats to prevent use of alternative office suites, and by extension, of alternative OSs.

If HMG and other governments mandate the use of ODF, then MS will have to make sure MSOffice can handle and interoperate properly with other office suites, including LibreOffice and others which run on OSs other than Windows.

That scenario undermines their entire lock-in mechanism, so of course they will fight tooth and nail to prevent it.

Re: 'Twas ever thus

It's not about 'right of way', it's about preserving your safety in an intrinsically dangerous situation. You may have noticed that cars (a) can't stop as quickly as pedestrians (b) can't change direction as quickly as pedestrians (c) tend to be moving a lot faster than pedestrians. Vehicles contain people, too, and they have just as much right to get to where they're going as you do as a pedestrian. That's why we all have to take it in turns to have 'right of way'. If you, as a pedestrian, are too impatient to wait to take your turn, than sooner or later you'll get hurt, and it will be your own fault.

Having said that, pedestrian crossings are just another type of traffic light, and all traffic lights are horribly inefficient at managing traffic of all types.

Glass is not intrinsically unsafe

Quite.

The built-in GPS in my Citroen also provides a choice of a half dozen computer modes for general info, maps and more, as well as the ability to play a feed from a connected video device. It's not illegal to have it switched on while the car is in motion, indeed, I can't recall there being any way to *not* have it on while driving, since it comes on with the ignition. It does issue a warning that the GPS should be initialised before driving off, and that it's suggestions should be taken as a guide, not orders.

It would seem that Glass would provide similar functionality, with less chance of being distracted from the road when used in a similar, safe way. Of course, that doesn't stop a fool from using it in an unsafe way.

Is anyone really saying that a device capable of providing a potentially safer way of managing navigation and other travel and vehicle info must be banned, just because it's possible to use it unsafely?

One word. DigiKam.

Re: eBay doesn't have a Christmas peak.

I believe eBay's problems are largely of their own making. I can only give a personal vtiew on this, but if my experiences and actions are repeated by others, as I think they probably are, then eBay has a lot of problems to come.

I've been selling regularly on eBay for some years, and had built up a sizeable stock - around 10,000 items worth between £15 - £50 each - in my eBay shop. That used to be a sensible way to operate, because it was relatively cheap to do and easy to maintain, thanks to eBay's discounts for sellers in that sort of position. Over the past year or two, however, that has changed. It gradually got to the point where the cost of keeping a large stock permanently listed was not justified by the volume of sales, and the fees to do so just continued to climb ever higher. As a result, I've removed almost 75% of that stock, with very little effect on my sales, but a huge reduction on the relisting fees I pay each month. I'm now paying eBay a small fraction of what I did a year ago, even though (or perhaps more accurately, because) the discounts available to small/medium sized shop sellers have been reduced so much.

Now, I may be unusual, but I don't really think so. I'm quite sure there are some sellers who can still justify maintaining a relatively huge inventory, but there must be a lot more in a position similar to me, who've done the sums and realised it makes more sense to scale drastically back on the slow-moving stock.

That just has to affect eBay's bottom line, and until the fee structures are changed again to encourage bigger inventories, I don't see why things should improve for them.

Re: No MMS?

Well, it was released as a 'developer' phone, not as a consumer item. It wasn't intended for normal use, but as a means of testing and improving the system. In the free software world, the mantra is 'release early, release often' because that way more people find and report the bugs and shortcomings, and they get fixed.

Re: But what can it do?

'Well the cost is in one's time, even for a home user.'

- which was precisely my point about not actually needing to spend any time at all on upgrading with a system like this. Install once and you can 'upgrade' it on a permanently rolling basis for year after year without having to spend any time doing so. That's real saving of your time. Upgrading is only an annoyance when it's a faff, and a Linux system is usually a no-brainer to keep properly up to date.

Re: When will we able to define *which* WiFi connection to download apps over

Presumably you're in control of the device when the original download is done, so you should know which type of connection you're using and whether or not it's costing you per MB.

When it comes to updates, Android has, for as long as I can recall, provided a setting to disable them for 3G connections. As an 'ultimate' control over metered data, you can also set all updates to ask first before downloading.