Interesting Links for 12-02-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Welcome to the UK, where women have no choice but to have faith in a justice system that keeps letting them down

(tags:UK police women OhForFucksSake )

2. Originality in copyright law: How does the UK define it?

(tags:UK copyright creativity law )

3. 28-ton, 1.2-megawatt tidal kite is now exporting power to the grid

(tags:electricity moon ocean tides )

4. The robots delivering takeaways to Edinburgh students

(tags:edinburgh robots food )

5. The Brexit bill: £100bn hit to UK exports as toy, medical kit and jewellery sales slump

(tags:uk europe doom economy )

Comments

[fub]

I wonder in which low-wage country the handlers of those robots are located. Because inevitably, "autonomous robots" turns out to mean "underpaid people managing multiple devices from a call center somewhere".

[andrewducker]

It's a test, being run by the Edinburgh University AI lab. So it'll undoubtedly be being monitored, but by the researchers who are working on it.

https://edinburgh-innovations.ed.ac.uk/news/student-inspired-by-personal-tragedy-begins-robot-trial

I've not seen any figures for Waymo (the most successful of the self-driving cars) that indicate that they're using the ridiculous level of supervision that Cruise is. Obviously they will have *some* supervision, it would be reckless not to.

[anna_wing]

If it's a living wage by local PPP or at least better than the alternatives available, I don't see why that should be a problem. Comparative advantage is a real thing.

3

[danieldwilliam]

A LCOE of less than $100 / MMH would be a nice price.

Re: 3

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I went off to check how that compared to solar/wind and was pleasantly surprised!

Obviously, having a mixture of different inputs helps makes things the grid more reliable, and one that has a very easily predicted supply would be great.

Re: 3

[danieldwilliam]

Aye, it's not a bad price for power plus some avoided storage and / or some more predictable supply. Timing of tidal power is weird because it's predictable but variable - so it helps with some storage problems (a week of cold, still weather in winter) but sometimes helps sometimes hinders other storage problems because every so often you're tidal generation is going to coincide with peak solar or with periods of high wind.

But I'd love to see someone genuinely get to sub-$100 for tidal. What to do with lots of reasonably priced energy is a good problem to have.

Re: 3

[andrewducker]

Agreed on all counts.

[coth]

This post was adjacent in my feed to this one from The Conversation which I think will interest you.

https://crooked-timber-feed.dreamwidth.org/1368963.html

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. Women can't negotiate equally when they're under threat of violence. Makes total sense.

Copyright and Music Typesetting

[bens_dad]

More recent judgments support however the correct view that the bar to originality has been also raised under UK law

I wonder if that has significant implications for music typesetting, especially with the technological advances in the field.

AIUI, as well as there being copyright on the way musical notes are arranged in time, there is copyright on the way they are arranged on the page. Traditionally typesetting a piece of music was a much more skilled and involved job than typesetting a book or newspaper, and copyright valued skill and effort significantly.

Now it seems that copyright law has raised the bar on originality. While some music typesetting will require creativity, many pieces can be typeset in a fairly mechanical manner - in fact an addon for Sibelius can can generate a score from an audio track.

Do those things together spell the end of copyright on music typesetting ?

Re: Copyright and Music Typesetting

[andrewducker]

It wouldn't surprise me if the copyright on the printed version wasn't held separately any more.