A^3's Cube

New Website

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 09:41:56 GMT

I've set up a new website: A-Cubed Info which, amongst other things, contains blog entries about my trip to Japan. Sorry they're not here folks, but I wanted to set something up separate and including things like an image gallery, so it seemed like time that I finally paid for a reasonable web hosting service. See the entries categorised "Japan" in the A-Cubed Info Blog.

A Modest Proposal

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:38:41 GMT

With respect to the claim by Sir Cliff Richard and others that the copyright in their recordings should be extended from 50 years either to the 95 years "enjoyed" in the USA or to "life 70 years" as provided for the composer of the music and lyrics, there follows a modest proposal regarding recognising the contribution of educators to the creative industries.

Many famous people when appearing on shows such as "This is Your Life" or "Desert Island Discs" acknowledge their debt to their teachers earlier in their life. Whether it is the primary school teacher who first aroused their passion in music/science/engineering/history etc, or the University lecturer who gave them a fine understanding of their craft, they recognise the influence all of their teachers had on their lives. Many teachers end up in relative poverty in old age, while those they have taught go on to fame and, usually, fortune. It is a disgusting state of affairs that those who create the minds of our finest talents do not receive any royalties on their work. Since it can be difficult to judge exactly which teacher was the principle author of a creative mind (we might consider an actuarial model based on how long the teacher taught them for, and how close their subject was to the arena of their success, later on) I propose a tax of 5% on the earnings over 50,000 pounds per year to be distributed amongst their teachers and lecturers. This royalty to be retroactively introduced and applied to all high flying businessmen, musicians, politicians, scientists, TV presenters, actors and military officers. This will provide an incentive for good people to enter teaching, and to pay particular attention to nurturing the talents of the brightest students to ensure that they reach the tops of their chosen professions. Eventually this system will produce highly paid teachers who will then be sufficiently wealthy to focus on teaching only these exceptional students, to the benefit of society.

Isn't everything Sir Cliff has done in his career a "derivative work" of his education? Shouldn't his music teacher(s) have been receiving a cut of his royalties (and all other significant income) for all these years?

Petition against closure of Physics at Reading

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 08:47:38 GMT

The University Senate recently confirmed the Senior Management Board's decision to close Physics (it was apparently disgusting to see some of the other academic staff from currently successful departments baying for Physics to be closed in the hope that they could grab some of any resources released - it's unclear to me whether this does indeed free up ay resources except for a few student numbers which iwll almost certainly go to the health sciences area i the University's push towards a Medical School).

Anyway, the University Council must still also ratify the decision. Their next meeting takes place on 20th November. The University and College Union (formed from the merger of AUT and NATFHE earlier this year) is running a campaign not only to save Physics at Reading but to persuade the government to take a serious look at why the funding situation is leading to the loss of so many vital science departments around the country. Please consider signing the petition against the closure of Physics at Reading on the UCU website here:

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1871

Another Physics Department bites the Dust

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 12:38:38 GMT

The University of Reading announced to staff this week that it will no longer accept new students onto Physics single subject or joint degrees from 2007. This is the latest in a long chain of departmental closures at Reading, as well as the latest in a a long chain of closures of University Physics departments.

At Reading, they've closed, amongst others:

Postgraduate Research Institute in Sedimentology.
This department ran one of only two hydro-geology MScs in the UK. At a time of climate change, when flooding is one of the biggest challenges facing the UK environment, we closed down one of the principle sources of qualified scientists. The relevant government department has since directly funded the creation of a similar course elsewhere.

Music

Food and Microbial Sciences Unit
This unit brought in approx 5% of the University's research income and included one of the most highly cited researchers in the world.

Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

Various Modern Languages, reducing our degree-level language studies to German, French and Italian. We dropped such unimportant languages as Japanese.

Now Physics.

Pandora's Box: Social Issues of the Information Age

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:51:44 GMT

The draft for review of the book Pandora's Box: Social Issues of the Information Age, went off to the editors at Wiley this afternoon.

The full book will now be sent off to reviewers for comments. That should take 5-6 weeks. After we get those comments back, we'll have until mid-January to do any revisions necessary (we'll decide these in consultation with the editors).The book then goes into the production process with Wiley - type-setting, proof-reading, copy-editing. It's scheduled for publication in November 2007.

Liberal AND Fascist - can you be both.

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:51:19 GMT

One of those strange links on google came up today. Looking for something entirely other, I came across the website of the elite liberal fasict association".

Is it possible to be liberal and fascist at the same time. Is it, as they claim, possible to support democracy and be fascist at the same time. Even taking away the links between fascist states of the past and racism and homophobia (by the way, I'm sitll not sure what their stance on homosexuality is - their statement is self-contradictory), is it possible to support the idea of democracy and an authoritarian government? Is it possible to have some for of PR and still have an authoritarian regime?

database strangeness on Amazon

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:24:09 GMT

So, i was looking for a kanji dictionary on amazon. There's a very good one, but it's only in hardcover and is 40 pounds, so I'm looking for one a bit cheaper but as good. Anyway, going through a useful category of japanese language learning and dictionaries, I suddenly find this entry:

Solid-state Physics and Engineering by Craig T.Van Degrift (Paperback - Mar 1995)

Shurely Shome Mishtake!

Silly online "who are you" test

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:59:17 GMT

Thanks to autopope for this one.

You scored as Poland. Your army is Poland\'s army. Your tenacity will form a concept in the history of your nation and you\'re also ready to continue fighting even if your country is occupied by the enemy. Other nations that are included in this category are Greece, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.

</td>

Poland

94%

British and the Commonwealth

81%

Italy

69%

Finland

69%

United States

56%

France, Free French and the Resistance

44%

Soviet Union

31%

Germany

31%

Japan

31%

In which World War 2 army you should have fought?
created with QuizFarm.com

Trademarks and Domain Names Stupidity

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:48:45 GMT

The newly authorised international pseudo-country-code top-level domain of .eu was approved last year. As with the new gTLDs (.biz, .info, .museum, .aero) the registrars included a "sunrise period" during which only trademark owners can register their mark as a domain (supposedly anyway - some registrars have also been extending this to other issues such as "right of personality" for individual names and similar). One of the first arbitration cases (see Michael Geist on domain name arbitration) was launched recently. This one, I believe, shows the utterly ridiculous nature of the whole trademarks in domain names and sunrise periods issue. There is a company which has a trademark in an EU country (czech at least and maybe others) on the word "sex". So much for trademarks not being allowed on generic words. Another company trademarked sex.eu (and also casino.eu) and launched dispute resolution proceedings when they weren't the trademark owners who were awarded sex.eu.
OutLaw story.

Trademarks were developed to prevent unfair business practices, such as building a shoddy car called a Rolls-Royce and then trading on the goodwill of the original brand to sell inferior goods or to penetrate a market. The justification for trademarks is as much about consumer protection (knowing what you're buying without having to go digging through company records) as it is about rewarding the good business of the existing company. ALlowing trademarking of words such as sex, and then allowing sunrise registration of such trademarks in new domain names, brings the law into serious disrepute. It used to be that you had to have actually been trading under a recognisable name before you could get a trademark, and it used to only be valid within a very specific domain, unless you became a sufficiently well-known mark (such as Rolls-Royce again) such that customers would need protection within all domains.

It's time we stopped regarding trademarks as "intellectual property" and started regarding them as consumer protection.

Returning from sabbatical - what will it be like in a year

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:57:02 GMT

This week's THES (http://www.thes.co.uk/) had a cartoon this week showing what can happen when you return from a sabbatical - you get huge amounts of work thrown at you to "punish" you for taking a eyar away. I do hope that's not going to happen to me one year from now.

Two Thirds Done

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:07:31 GMT

Well, I've revised Chapter 10 of Pandora's Box. Only five more chapters to go. It's due at the end of the month, so it's not too bad. Five chapters in two weeks should be eminently possible.

Pharmaceutical Patent Enforcement in the Developing World

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:37:52 GMT

Claim by pharmaceutical companies:

Allowing cheap generic production of new drugs for use in the developing world would destroy their ability to do research and development by removing their income stream, because of grey imports back from those countries into the developed world where their patent runs.

Thoughts:

Assuming this is the honest argument, and it isn't just the more politically acceptable argument than "we demand maximum profit, even if this means that lots of people in developing countries suffer and die", then the following thought occurs:

Is the grey import problem principally a factor of the lack of a proper government funded health system in the US? In the UK, for instance, if we agree to honour global pharma patents then the NHS will not be allowed to source prescription drugs from the third world. Since the vast majority of patented drugs in the UK are prescribed by the NHS, this should be sufficient protection of the income stream of pharma companies - anything else would be beyond the point of diminishing returns at the margins. In most other developed countries, so far as I'm aware, there is not a substantial underclass of people without access to necessary drugs.

So, is this a factor in the skewing of the worldwide debate on pharma patent enforcement?

Dangers of Vanity Surfing

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:19:52 GMT

While doing a quick Google Blogs (http://www.google.com/blogsearch) vanity search I found out that I'm a gay porn star (http://www.queerbites.com/naughty-scenes/naughty-scenes-roundup-8/), as well as a campainger for the Democrats in the US (http://pittlawdems.blogspot.com/2006/09/welcome-back-events.html).

There are some things you just don't want to know :-).

Nic Garnett on DRM et al.

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:30:51 GMT

At http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrb/complaw/ there were two keynote speakers this morning. The first, Prof Michael Geist (http://michaelgeist.ca/) is well known to copyfighters as a battler in the trenches in his native Canada and on the international scene. The second was Nic Garnett, former IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/) chief, who negotiated the WIPO Copyright Treaty (http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/) and Performances and Phonograms Treaty (http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wppt/) on their behalf. I must first congratulate Nic for being willing to step into the lion's den, before proceeding to snack upon him, along with my colleagues at the conference (http://lexferenda.com/ : http://www.lexferenda.com/?p=139, http://nic.suzor.com/ : http://nic.suzor.com/2006-09-garnett-tpm_regulation, http://dooooooom.blogspot.com/ : http://dooooooom.blogspot.com/2006/09/understanding-wipo.html).

Nic no longer works for the copyright middlemen directly. Instead he has switched to working for developers of DRM (see key below) software. He now works for Media Rights Technologies (http://www.mpb.tv/), and previously for a company he founded called Interight (http://www.interight.com/) on whose description page (http://www.interight.com/about.html) he is described as "lawyer and technologist".

Nic was presenting thoughts based upon his work for WIPO in writing a report for their Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. The title of the report is Automated Rights Management Systems and Copyright Limitations and Exceptions (http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/sccr/en/sccr_14/sccr_14_5.doc).

As Ian Brown pointed out in the questions/comments section after the presentation, Nic's technical expertise is sadly lacking in someone producing such reports. Nic's claim that he is only a lawyer and doesn't understand the technical details seems rather at odds with the Interight website claim about being a "lawyer and technologist". Various claims in both the report and the presentation simply sit there and beg to be blown apart. In fact, the presentation and report seem almost like a straw man set up to show the naivety and/or FUD of the pro-TPM/pro-DRM/copyright maximalist groups.

Nic dismissed the Sony/BGM rootkit fiasco (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html) as a storm in a teacup, ignoring, amongst other issues, the fact that Sony settled a lawsuit brought by the EFF on behalf of customers seriously inconvenienced by the obviously illicit nature of the rootkit (http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/settlement_faq.php). He then claimed that Sony's understanding of the nature of TPM/DRM was deeply flawed, promoting his own company's approach which is, he claimed, based on the concept of delivering an encrypted content file, by any suitable distribution method, and then separate delivery of a key which allows the interpretation of that file as sound (and, one assumes video) data, but which allows for time limitations on the file. Now, this in itself is perfectly feasible, although the time-limitation element is technologically simple to circumvent by messing around with system clock time (an always-running DRM program MIGHT include its own timer program which measured the passage of time that the machine was switched on and running...) The weakness of this idea is that once the file is decrypted for use (i.e. interpreting it into some form of sound file that can be sent to the sound card driver) then it is vulnerable to interception. He claimed that Media Rights Technologies' software would prevent "stream rippers" from capturing this digital information and that this would prevent re-encoding. The concept of high quality digital recording from the output of the computer soundcard (in either digital or analogue form) seems to have escaped their attention, as do many other ways around this - rolling one's own sound card driver, running the DRM restricted decryption and playback system in a virtual machine running Windows and using Linux software to intercept the digital signal between the virtual soundcard and the linux hardware driver, or even the old standby of an old-fashioned microphone placed near a speaker in a quiet room.

Nic also claimed that Media Rights Technologies had a patent on the "separate provision of encrypted content file and decryption key". I'm sure this wold come as a surprise to many, not least Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, Shamir and Adelman. Surely a candidate for the EFF's patent busting programme (http://www.eff.org/patent/).

Another interesting element was Nic's worries about Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/). Given his claim that he no longer sees the world as a representative of the recording industry, his worries seemed rather strange. Why would someone claiming to be interested in a balanced view of the world of copyright find CC at all worrying? After all, the goal of CC is to give copyright owners more flexibility in offering their content under variable conditions ("some rights reserved" rather than "all rights reserved"). The explanation for this lies in the report itself, which demonstrates Nic's fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons for, and purpose of, the Creative Commons project. To quote from the report:

"Creative Commons was officially launched in 2001. Lawrence Lessig, the founder and chairman of Creative Commons, started the organization as an additional method of achieving the goals of the case Eldred v. Ashcroft,1 which was adjudicated by the United States of America Supreme Court. The initial set of Creative Commons licences was published on December 16, 2002."

The prosecution rests that not only does Nic not understand technology, but that his background as chief strong-arm for the copyright maximalists have led to an inability to view the world of copyright as anything less than an IP-maximalist apologist at best.

Key:

TPM: Technological Protection Measures, the phrase used in the WIPO CT to describe DRM software and encryption of content-bearing files.
DRM: Digital Rights Management, a broad term including formal languages for expressing licensing terms through to software interfering with the noral operation of a computer in processing digital information to prevent perfect digital copying of that information, or systems restricting interpretation of digital files to "authorised" software and/or hardware.

GikII

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:58:13 GMT

I'm currently at the VI Computer Law World Conference in Edinburgh. Lots of fun. However, even more fun was the pre-conference workshop GikII (combination of Geeky, Wiki and ***LII - AustLII, BAILII etc, which are Law information Institutes). This was a wonderful combination of law, computers and SF-related stuff (anything from MMORPGS to Harry Potter to SF literature to Philip K. Dick's interactive AI robot head). It was a great success and looks like there'll be another one next year. I hope it's not before I get back from Japan.

Pandora's Box: Social Issues of the Information Age

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:30:42 GMT

Rachel and I have just been offered an acceptable contract by Wiley to publish Pandora's Box: Social Issues of the Information Age. We'll be delivering a draft by the end of September and the final version by mid-January. It is scheduled to appear November 2007.

Bear Name

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:50:58 GMT

As some of you know, I used to have two beeble-bears. They got stolen during the final bid party for UK in 2005 (at ConJose in San Jose). One of these two was a present to me from nesacat. Very nicely she sent me a new one recently (I also have another one that I bought in 2003, called Misty, a name suggested by jennadragonfly).

Anyway, I now need a name for the new bear. You can see him at:

http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~sis00aaa/bear.jpg

Weirdness on Campus

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:47:24 GMT

When I came in to work yesterday the campus had sprouted these strange little installations all over the place:

http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~sis00aaa/Campus_Weirdness.jpg

When I checked my email, there was a general message which explained them. Any guesses?

A Year in Provence... Well, Nine Months in Tokyo

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:40:09 GMT

The Vice-Chancellor signed off on my request for research study leave next academic year in Spring and Summer terms. This is the formal permission so that's the first (albeit not very high) hurdle overcome to arrange to spend most of 2007 in Tokyo. I've got the invitation from a professor at Meiji University in Tokyo. They've got a visiting scholar scheme which there's a very good chance will fund four months of the visit, now I have to get on with asking other sources for funding for the other five months. Not yet completely arranged, but it's looking very positive.

Fraud online

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:36:35 GMT

It really is amazing how many frauds you get just by putting up a credit card registration page for a conference in Europe. I'm not sure how many of them are financial fraud attempts and how many are travel visa fraud attempts, but it's very irritating and it's getting very tempting just to tell anyone registering from Nigeria or any other West African state to stop taking the p*ss and get lost.

Sigh.

Officially moved in.

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:56:20 GMT

Well, on Saturday 8th July I unpacked the last boxes from my house move. Not bad, tend days from getting the keys to be completely moved in. It helps that I had a bunch of stuff (most of my books, half my DVDs and much of the shelving) stored at my brother's and a friend's place, so I had the space to unpack things in stages. There's still a number of bits and pieces I need to do on the new place but unlike the previous place I don't need to do a major renovation on it which needs starting immediately. The kitchen could do with replacing but that's the only major thing and the current kitchen is perfectly usable for the moment. I may even get around to doing a house warming party for the new place, something I never did in Ivydene Road.

My Mum was a great help with the move, and I think having something to do a couple of weeks after my Dad's funeral helped her. She'd had time to start getting into a new routine at home but had something to plan for as well. She's going to be coming down again in a few weeks to take care of my niece (8 years old) during the school summer holiday, so she's looking forward to that.

I'm now finally picking up on all the things that basically got dropped during June. It really takes an effort to recover from having to take most of a month away (I was off for three weeks dealing with my father's illness and funeral then I was in the US for a week then moved house). Lots to do, so it's time to get on with them and stop procrastinating by writing on LJ :-).

Moving House

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:53:58 GMT

As of Wednesday 28th June 2006 I am moving to:

27 Westerham Walk
Reading
RG2 0BA

New Phone: 0118 987 2363

Eulogy Notes

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 19:27:20 GMT

Since I drafted them on the computer, I thought I'd post my notes for my father's eulogy.

My father lived a life of service to others and I would like to share some of
the highlights of that life, and in particular the positive difference
he made in others' lives.

He was called up in 1939 and served first in the King's Liverpool Regiment.
Following training in Gibraltar he made use of his prior experience as a
cinema projectionist offering training and entertainment to troops not only in
barracks in the UK, but also in North Africa and Italy. Far from being a
safe behind the lines job, this often involved service just behind the front
lines, helping keep the morale of the troops up with entertainment. In one
of his anecdotes, he even ended up between the German and British lines
with his lorry full of equipment.

After the war he became a teacher, working in Liverpool, Oldham and the Wirral.
He started as a science specialist in secondary schools and this was one
of the influences in my life which has led me to become a working researcher
and teacher of science at University. He moved from secondary to primary
education, where he met my mother, of course. Through thirty years as a teacher
he improved the lives of thousands of children with his strict but fair
discipline, his enthusiasm for teaching and his example of honest dealing
with all around him.

In addition to the difference he made to the children he taught, he
supported his teaching colleagues in numerous ways. Most formally,
he was an active trade unionist in the NAS/UWT including serving
term as as branch president of first Wallasey and then the combined
Wirral branches. His unfailing good humour and keen insight into
people, together with unfailing honesty, made him a core figure
in the schools in which he worked.

Following his retirement from teaching in 1978, he did not stop
his service to the community, taking up a political career spanning almost
two more decades. From local party activities he moved on to stand as
a candidate in several unwinnable seats, believing good candidates should
stand in the strongholds of other parties, if only to keep them honest
and to show the voters in that constituency that being in the minority
did not mean their voices could be ignored. Finally in 1987 he was
elected as a Conservative councillor for New Brighton. In two terms
as councillor he again made a positive difference in the lives of hundreds,
maybe thousands, of individuals, though his tireless work on council
committees. He became an expert on planning regulations and environmental
protection issues, and applied his vast teaching experience to education
matters on the council. All the while he sorted out problems for individuals
in his constituency, and others within Wirral. He also served on the
oversight bodies of Liverpool University, St Katherine's Teacher Training
college and a number of local schools.

When he stepped down in 1995, after two terms as a councillor his energy
and enthusiasm for life allowed him to enjoy his final retirement decade
with his wife. They travelled the world together, enjoying the sights.
He returned to Gibraltar, cruised the Med and the Caribbean and fulfilled a
long held desire to visit the island paradise of Hawaii. He was able to spend
time with his grandchildren, great grandchildren and even great great
grandchildren, and give of his wisdom and humour for yet more generations of
children. He maintained contact with his brothers and sisters, even visiting
those in America, encouraging contact between all branches of the family.

He will be missed, but remembered with love and respect by his family and
friends. He lived a full life, and a life full of service.

Back Online

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:48:07 GMT

We had my father's funeral on Monday 12th June. I'm now back at work and back in regular electronic contact. I've come back to a horrendous batch of urgent marking to do - the new University and College Union suspended the industrial action while I was away, so now I have to try and get all the marking done before I go to PRIV (Privacy in Vision) workshop in New York next week.

Albert Victor Adams (1919-2006)

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:36:58 GMT

My father passed away in St Thomas' Hospital in London yesterday morning. He came down ill on holiday in Spain and despite wonderful efforts by the doctors and nurses at St Thomas', his heart gave out. My mother, brother and I saw him every day until the end. He was awake and rational until his heart stopped: he never lost himself.