* Posts by Simon Williams

62 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Oct 2007

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Euro judges strengthen protections for database creators

Simon Williams

@Hugh McIntyre

When there's a degree of subjective input, such as deciding which poems should be included in the list, I can see your point, but what about this extension to the priniciple?

If I made a list of all the people ever recorded as having emigrated to New Zealand, which is a discrete list -- no subjective argument about who should be included, and if it were the first such list made, should that prevent anybody else making a list of these people? How much separate work would have to be done to show it was a different list, bearing in mind that the two lists should, by rights, have identical content.

We're not considering plaguerism, here, where you're copying the creative invention of another author. This is a collection of facts, which surely should be public domain.

Simon Williams
Thumb Down

Listing sideways

If I were another professor of German Poetry of this period and had separately researched my own list of the most important 1,000 poems I would, presumably, come up with many entries in common with Prof Knoop's. Since I'm a rival academic, though, there would also be some I'd argue should be in his list and others that are worthless and should never have been included.

Would I not be able to use the ones I agree about in my own database (and the anthology I'm thinking of publishing), because they already exist on the Freiburg list? How many of them could I use before I was said to be infringing?

This seems to me to be a dangerous ruling, limiting research and surpressing difference of opinion, which is an important part of the academic method.

MoD loses most of the armed forces

Simon Williams
Coat

Coded message

Why the f*** can't portable drives, laptops and flash sticks be supplied to the MoD pre-encrypted, so the dorks can't actually use them in an unsafe state. Encryption may not be a perfect defence, but it will at least slow down the extraction of data. Perhaps what we need is MoDAMoD -- a ministry to defend us against the MoD.

Please check all jacket pockets before leaving the building -- make sure you have at least one storage media full of sensitive data.

Oz woman held hostage by pugnacious porker

Simon Williams
Coat

Emmanuel Cant was a real pissed ant...

To misquote Monty P 'Don't mind if we call you Bruce, do you, pig? Just to avoid confusion'. Can it grunt the Philosopher's Song?

Mine's the one with the unedited scripts book in the pocket.

Brad squeezes Paris out of unsafe search chart

Simon Williams
Paris Hilton

A Real Paris Story

Only commenting so I can be the first to use the Paris icon legitimately on a story comment.

Paris 'cos she's pleased to be used anywhere

Chrome-fed Googasm bares tech pundit futility

Simon Williams
Boffin

@bws

I'm no expert, but I don't believe it *is* possible to polish a turd until you can see your reflection in it. Even if constipated.

My name really is Ivan O'Toole, admits Ivan O'Toole

Simon Williams

Check out the shortening before naming the baby

I once knew a Joanna King who was sick of people chatting her up at parties with the opener 'You must be Jo King'.

Cuil confesses 'serious file corruption'

Simon Williams

Silly word, silly way of saying it

Until I read it should be 'Cool', I was mentally pronouncing it 'Quill'. Write on.

Court advisor says poem list infringed database right

Simon Williams
Unhappy

What's in a list?

If you were to try and compile a list of the top 1,000 poems in German between 1720 and 1900, *not* using the University of Friebug's list (Frieburg, shurely?), but consulting academics with expertise in German poetry, I'd take a bet that a good number of the poems would be on the university list. How many of the poems on a CD or in an anthology would have to be on the list to warrant infringement? 100? 500? 800?

I can see there's considerable work involved in compiling a database like this, but being a university, the money to pay for the work presumably comes from the public purse in the first place. And if the University didn't want people using the list, why put it on the Internet?

I write this as a full-time writer and poet (though not a German one, living between those dates). It seems to me a publisher producing such a CD would have trouble *avoiding* copyright infringement, if this case is upheld.

NEC goes Back To The Future with XP for biz users

Simon Williams
Happy

Headline demons

Can't believe the El Reg punsters missed 'NEC goes back to XP, or Vista Versa'. Sorry. I'll get my coat.

Nine-second delay sinks unfair dismissal claim

Simon Williams
Thumb Up

And I thought it was just bad time planning

re: if he had a medical condition making it difficult for him to keep deadlines he should have proper systems in place once the claimant had put him in charge of the case.

So there could be a medical reason why I can't hit deadlines; this is good news.

Gartner: no relief for data center costs

Simon Williams

Re: Conservation of Energy

Apart from those little lights on the front, which give out...well, light.

And do 1s weigh more than 0s? If so, and if there are more 1s stored than 0s on a typical drive, we could reverse binary notation and reduce the foundation weight spec for data centre floors. There are so many ways to cut energy usage ;-)

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