Antifroth

Now presume metadata-stripping to be malign

akm — Sun, 19 May 2013 00:04:40 +0000

Digital photographs contain metadata – the name of the maker of the image for instance – embedded in the file. Some social media sites – but not FLickr – strip this data out. An excuse would be that this reduces storage requirements or bandwidth for those looking at the images, but the size of metadata is small compared to the size of a picture of reasonable quality.

With the orphan works provisions coming in, it is now time to assume that anyone stripping out metadata from a picture is doing so in order to facilitate copyright infringements, to remove the possibility of reward from the owner of the work, and in general being Bad.

Time to change.

IANAL.

Ink colour on forms

akm — Sat, 18 May 2013 23:04:49 +0000

“This is a hangover from a previous era. When most photocopiers used selenium photoconductor drums, there was a big problem with blue light discharging the drum, resulting in it not copying well.

This was resolved in the early 1980s by the adoption of either CdS drums or other photoconductors. Even those that continued to use selenium got around the problem by adding 5% tellurium and 10ppm chlorine to the coatings. These days, the only reason a photocopier should fail to copy blue writing is if there is a fault with it.”

From my clever colleague with special knowledge of this subject, Prit Buttar.

From me: if you want indelible ink, it is still India Ink, which is not easy stuff, and not usually found in black pens particularly ball points. If you want a form in monochrome (losing the information of colour) then photocopy it on one of the remaining copy machines that doesn’t print colours as colours. If you want it legible, computable, and available for mechanical checking and fault-free sharing, obviously print it off a suitable computer program.

DRM should not be in HTML5

akm — Thu, 02 May 2013 23:16:14 +0000

MMR

akm — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:27:26 +0000

“The MMR vaccine was introduced to induce immunity less painfully than three separate injections at the same time, sooner than at three separate encounters, and more efficiently than either.

By increasing the time until immunised, spacing the components inevitably increases opportunities for infection with at least two of the diseases for the individual and their contacts. ”

http://www.ganfyd.org/index.php?title=MMR_vaccine

In case your Trust has lost this …

akm — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:11:19 +0000

in the 15 years or so since it was published…

The guidance saying hospitals should build sick notage into their discharge procedures is now in the National archive.

I’m wondering if the vanished PCT stuff will find its way there, or if a veil will be drawn across that.

Measles MMR and Homoeopathy

akm — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:04:29 +0000

http://newsthump.com/2011/05/27/why-are-all-my-children-getting-measles-ask-homeopathy-fans/

Some concepts can be conveyed to some people by some variety of humour sometimes. The situation in Swansea deserves some bilious humour, and is likely to shade into mordant humour. Someone who made a mistake will claim it was someone else’s fault, and quacks tend not to be insured.

Moving from Stars to Grids

akm — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:49:28 +0000

Our logistics and information networking and for all talk of partnership among agencies, much of our general organisation is in stars.

The next step in efficiency, and production and profit is moving to grids.

Well done Waitrose

akm — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:11:10 +0000

Bees are essential.

Culture News

akm — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:59:17 +0000

Iain Banks mortally ill.

This is a pity, for more reasons than my wanting him to carry on writing until I stop reading.

An insolvent model of banking

akm — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:39:12 +0000

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/misesian-explanation-of-bank-crisis.html

Unstable, rather than strictly insolvent, until something goes slightly wrong.