12.05.21
Posted in Site News at 8:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Tonight we begin the migration to GemText for our daily IRC logs, having already made them available over gemini://
AS we noted the other day, IRC scrollback is now available over Gemini with clickable links, which were later added.
We’re now in the process of progressively adding a Gemini+GemText version of IRC logs. Proper GemText for each and every day, not just plain text. In about an hour from now we shall be testing the conversions, which will later add clickable links, then get indexed in our capsule. The goal is to make almost everything just GemText-formatted objects. Hours ago we wrote about GemText replacing HTML because we want to see everything, even IPFS, adopting lighter and safer protocols. The same is true for OpenDocument Format (ODF).
The cynic might just joke or taunt, arguing that Gemini is “nothing” or just some “niche”. Well, a year ago it looked like this:
December 2020
Less than 12 months later it looks like this:
December 2021
There are probably close to one million pages in Gemini space (Lupa does not crawl and index everything) and the growth continues. The expansion carries on unabated.
“The expansion carries on unabated.”We still have some more plans for Gemini adoption; many areas are not yet explored because the specification is relatively new. What matters more is the growth (inertia) rather than the current scale; it’s only when momentum dies down that projects perish and contrariwise, in Gemini’s case, development on the project itself resumed about a month ago. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Site News at 10:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Source of charts (based upon data from Lupa)
Summary: Why GemText needs to become ‘the new HTML’ (but remain very simple) in order for cyberspace to be taken away from state-connected and military-funded corporations that spy on people and abuse society at large
THIS weekend we’ve migrated a bunch of things to GemText, described by Wikipedia as “a special document format [...] that allows linking to other document” (hyperlinks, but without HTML).
The charts above, generated today, make it clear that in Gemini space the adoption of GemText has been reasonably OK but not perfect. Many GemText pages are in effect just plain text with no additional bits such as active links and headlines/headings. We need to improve that.
At the moment all the EPO articles are available as GemText and the same goes for Wiki pages (e.g. here for Benoît Battistelli and here for António Campinos). Those are all self-hosted, hence difficult to censor (there are complete copies in IPFS as well).
“Many GemText pages are in effect just plain text with no additional bits such as active links and headlines/headings.”We’re about to publish some suppressed information, so the topology does matter. Over the years we’ve received many threats, both directly and indirectly, and these are easier to defuse when the infrastructure is done right.
As discussed earlier today (internally but publicly), “we need to advocate for a sort of ‘homelab’ but in the DC sense… so that fewer companies get to control people’s data and lives…”
An associate agreed but noted that “however the big money is pushing to make home labs, or anything outside of a big datacentre, discouraged or illegal; see Mozilla’s and Chromium’s “warnings” about sites, as well as Netcraft’s fake attempt at “risk rating”.”
They’re nowadays doing the same for "apps" (the Linux Foundation is already working on it). So if the “app” isn’t signed by the ‘babysitter’, you cannot run it or you can barely run it. This is the general direction technology has taken, unless we walk away and do it differently.
“I see various dickheads adopting the term “sideloading” in place of the normal term “installation”,” the associate noted.
We’ve already written a great deal about the bad direction/turn the Web has unfortunately taken. It assumes computer users are untrustworthy, even on their very own computers, and Web sites are only "trusted" if the US government says so.
Gemini does not work that way — not even remotely — so it deserves wider adoption. There are many practical benefits in this age of fake security, where by “security” they typically mean US "National Security" with back doors. █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 6:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum a59a1b4da84187b858bd24d0145f459b
Summary: The EPO’s noise site (formerly it had a “news” section, but it has not been honest for about a decade) is a torrent of lies, cover-up, and promotion of crimes; maybe the lies are obvious for everybody to see (at least EPO insiders), but nevertheless a rebuttal seems necessary
THE EPO is a den of lies. It was supposed to be about science, but nowadays it is about law-breaking, propaganda, and abuses/violations of basic rights. António Campinos is in no way better than Benoît Battistelli; he keeps interjecting his name like he’s an expert in every domain and he’s shamelessly promoting corruption, misusing the EPO’s Web site to lend legitimacy to that corruption.
The video at the top discusses what we published last night and this morning [1, 2]. The EPO’s site, perhaps inevitably, did a puff piece about “gold standard”, citing Intellectual Asset Management (IAM). Here’s a screenshot (in case it changes or anything in a decade to come):
This is just a long screed or a bundle of lies, for reasons explained in the video above.
To quote the text (warning: epo.org link), with in-line rebuttals (very short):
“Once again, users have voted the EPO number one among the world’s five largest patent offices for the quality of its patents and services in the latest benchmarking survey by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM). The EPO has topped the survey in both categories ever since it began in 2010.”
“Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO’s PR firm? Is this survey scientific?”Who are those users? All of them? How were they selected? Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO’s PR firm? Is this survey scientific?
“More than a quarter of respondents (26%) now rate our patents as “excellent”, up from 23% last year and placing the EPO well ahead of the other IP5 offices. There is also a strong consensus among respondents that we are maintaining our high level of quality. Overall, more than 87% of respondents describe our service as “good”, “very good” or “excellent”, once again putting us well ahead of the other IP5 offices.”
Still no mention of who’s actually paying IAM and who those respondents were.
“Moreover, “quality remains king for the EPO” (source: IAM). The EPO is the only office for which patent quality ranks as the top motivation for filing. In all other jurisdictions, it is the commercial importance of the local market. One respondent is quoted as saying: “The EPO has the edge due to better search, high quality examination and rules which enforce clarity.””
So now they single out one respondent (anecdote). Is this scientific?
“This year’s survey was conducted in September and October among several hundred IP professionals. Participants were asked about the EPO, Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA).”
They say the same thing every year because the EPO pays them. They don’t actually check patent quality!
But to make matters worse, the above is lost in a sea of yet more propaganda. From the past week alone:
Let’s go through these very quickly, one by one…
“EPO marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities” (warning: epo.org link) is the second such propaganda in about a month.
Disabilities for EPO workers?
This is akin to the pinkwashing, which is too easy to dispute. Disabilities… while sending the judges to Haar (illegally), where disabled people were killed.
To quote the EPO: “Today the Office is marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) with a special internal discussion session. This session brings together EPO experts from various technology fields as well as from Health & Safety, Human Resources and Building Administration units. It aims to showcase how collaboration between colleagues across the organisation can help ensure that everyone fulfils their true potential based on their talents alone, without having to worry about any kind of so-called disability.”
The irony won’t be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required.
It seems evident that, tying together both disability and ‘ViCo’ agenda, EPO management has a new sockpuppet in “Managing IP” and its name is Rory O’Neill; this fluff is one example (“VICO marks ‘levelling up’ for D&I at EPO, lawyers say”) and he has also just helped patent extremists — being employed by their paid-for propaganda mill — lobby Germany to allow patents for bots. What next? Patents for one’s pets? We’ll come back to Rory O’Neill later; he seems to have replaced Charlotte, their UPC booster who left some months ago after she had posted a lot of fake news for Team UPC.
The lies are endless and they piggyback disabled people (picture the cruelty).
Similarly, the EPO pretended to care about health (warning: epo.org link) when as a matter of fact it had no choice on the matter because of government/national policies.
“They don’t actually check patent quality!”But then it gets even worse, as they’re shamelessly promoting an illegal agenda (warning: epo.org link) connected to attacks on the judges and courts.
And speaking of attacks on the very law and moreover an attack on many constitutions, the EPO topped it all up with UPC fluff (warning: epo.org link), reminding us that Team Campinos is either a Team UPC megaphone or an extension of Team UPC, crushing the Rule of Law for the sake of patent trolls, litigation firms, and monopolies outside Europe. “Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the PPA,” says the summary, but Austria is not the UK and they're ignoring the Vienna Convention. The patent litigation firms meanwhile flood the Web (the spamfarm) with headlines like “The Unitary Patent Approaches The Finish Line” and statements like: “The UPC is being widely welcomed by users, but shortly before its launch, it is foreseeable that users will likely proceed with caution at first.”
They pretend that it’s already launching. Amazing! Promoted for a fee, along with the misleading headline above [1, 2]. They’ve long pushed such misleading headlines; it’s deliberate deception. They pay for some sites (patent-centric spamfarms) to give it broader audience, clogging up the signal with misinformation of theirs. How many times before have they said similar things, even 4 years ago? Ignoring facts and fundamental issue, floating fake rumours etc.
This other new article (boosted here) overlooks the UK’s exit from the EU and says: “The 25 participating Member States are called upon, firstly, to promptly ratify the Agreement on the Unitary Patent System, if they have not already done so, and secondly, to facilitate the rapid establishment of the planned Patent Arbitration and Mediation Centre.”
But Unitary Patent (illegal patent system) cannot ever start without UK ratification. Only France has ratified it (among required ratifications). Those are the simple, fundamental facts. Rory O’Neill didn’t bother mentioning it; When “Managing IP” says “sources” it means sponsors and Team UPC is one of those sponsors.
“The irony won’t be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required.”But let’s get back to the EPO’s statement. To quote: “On 2 December 2021, the Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on provisional application (PPA). This is another very important step towards the start of the new system. As soon as Austria has deposited the ratification instrument, the period of provisional application will begin in order to complete all technical and infrastructural preparations so the new court can start and allow the entry into operation of the Unitary Patent system.”
Of course they don't want to mention the UK and other fundamental issues, instead referring to the “legal guru” Campinos.
To quote: “…EPO President Antonio Campinos said, welcoming the decision of the Austrian Parliament.”
Well, Tony Campinos is acting more like a Mafia Don than the chief of a patent office. He knows he’s pushing an illegal agenda, but he does not care. Patent litigation firms are on his side for purely financial (self-serving) reasons and the parrots at JUVE are lending support to him. Konstanze Richter has issued this puff piece about the “UPC users” (no such thing!), speaking about it like it’s a real thing which exists already.
“The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage.”Amy Sandys, a longtime megaphone for Team UPC and the above lies from EPO management, keeps writing junk like JUVE is now owned and run by EPO management (those who hijacked the Office). Watch this page; Sandys is just copy-pasting all the lies from EPO management, no fact-checking required. This isn’t journalism but lobbying; to make matters worse, they lobby for an unlawful agenda.
Still unconvinced? 2 days ago Amy Sandys gave an excellent new example of JUVE posting pure spam, or pretence that a firm hiring one person is some major news (it’s not even a high-level worker); one day apart there was this fluff from a colleague, who used to do journalism about EPO abuses but is nowadays wording her articles like nothing but advertisements for litigation firms (which is what the site is all about these days). No sane person would call this journalism.
The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage.
The EPO can barely even run its Web site properly. How many technical people have left? As we showed before, oftentimes (for period of hours if not days) the “news” section is practically broken and 5 days ago they published “Strong Together visual”, which led to this:
Stronger together? Not even strong enough to run a site properly. Maybe the remaining staff does not know how to use the CMS. And as a side note, in the EPO’s press/communications department there have been many departures. The exodus isn’t invisible to us. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
António’s lapdog?
Summary: A letter from the Munich Staff Committee at the EPO highlights the worrying extent of neglect of patent quality under Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; the management of the EPO did not even bother replying to that letter (instead it was busy outsourcing the EPO to Microsoft)
FOLLOWING the previous post about lessening examination time to ‘produce’ (grant) worse European Patents, the time seems right to also divulge a letter to EPO management. IAM seems so eager to produce "quality" propaganda, so let’s examine what actual examiners said this year.
The following is a publication “on behalf of the Munich Staff Representatives (LSCMN)”, which said that “[s]ince the entry into service of Mr Rowan (VP1), the promised bottom-up planning in DG1 never really materialized. This year is no exception [...]. The number of colleagues faced with unreachable objectives and who have contacted Munich staff representation has this year reached unprecedented levels, especially amongst those in the ICT cluster. In particular, timeliness objectives are turning into a covert means to increase productivity targets.”
Read “ICT” as software patents; it’s one of the weasel words/acronyms.
“In this open letter to Mr Rowan,” they said, “we demand an urgent meeting together with the COOs, as well as full transparency on the objectives for the year 2021 compared with those of the year 2020.”
OPEN LETTER
Target setting in DG1 for the year 2021 – Demand for urgent meeting
Dear Mr. Rowan,
Since your entry into service, the promised bottom-up planning in DG1 never really materialized. This year is no exception1. The number of colleagues faced with unreachable objectives and who have contacted Munich staff representation has this year reached unprecedented levels, especially amongst those in the ICT cluster. There is a trend which shows that we are not dealing with isolated personal cases but that there is a general problem in DG1.
In particular, we note that:
- productivity targets have been increased by at least 5%, 10% or even 20% without any explanation whatsoever being given and in utter disregard of any change in personal circumstances caused by the pandemic, which is a major diversity & inclusion issue,
- some line managers are refusing to take into account the 4 or 5 days of leave offered by the President when calculating work capacity and are even suggesting that updating the cumbersome SuccessFactors tool would be too much work for them,
- timeliness objectives go as far as demanding that examiners have no late priority 2 or 3 files by the end of the year regardless of whether that is meaningful or realistic when considering actual stock levels and examiners’ capacity– this requirement then turns into a covert means to increase productivity targets.
- The examiners and formalities still have defective tools (e.g. 2-day outage of the viewer this week).
Yet again, staff in DG1 is experiencing a total discrepancy between your commitment that nobody should be put under pressure (SMART objectives?), and what line management in DG1 is actually implementing. Staff Representation demands an urgent meeting with you and your COOs to correct the situation as soon as possible. In order to prepare for the meeting and in line with the Office’s call for transparency, we request anonymized data per Directorate and per Team comparing the objectives for the year 2021 with those of the year 2020.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Alex Kemény
Chairman of the Local Staff Committee
____
1 “Target setting in DG1 for 2021 – Even more business than usual during a pandemic” CSC paper of 22 January 2021 (sc21004cp)
The Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) would later note: “Following our paper on the target setting exercise for 2021 and our (still unanswered) letter to Mr Rowan (VP1), we now question in this paper how a system with ever-higher production targets, and ever-more “unproductive” but mandatory goals, can be reconciled with the quality target the EPO has set for itself.”
The EPO’s management did not even bother defending its own actions. Because it cannot. █
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