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Stories filed under: "fish"

DailyDirt: Smarter Than The Average Bear Cat… Bird?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Animals aren’t as dumb as you might think, and the more we study our pets — the more we find that we may not just be anthropomorphizing our favorite animals. Some animals definitely have personalities, and some can exhibit some pretty complex cognitive skills. If we can understand more and more animal brains, maybe we’ll be able to figure out our own brains, too, someday. Here are just a few things to remember about cats, fish and birds.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: animal cognition, biology, birds, brains, cats, fish, intelligence, smart animals, tool

Paramount Pictures Goes After The Codfather Fish Shop Over A Fish That Looks Like Marlon Brando

from the it's-just-business dept

Before I started paying attention to trademark issues as a part-time living, I’m pretty sure I would have thought that it would take quite a bit to get a big company’s lawyers firing off threat letters and legal actions. You know, like an actual threat, or a violation of trademark that had been brought to the company’s attention by confused members of the public. Instead, it too often appears that the lawyers for large companies scour the world for any-might-be-possible trademark issue that can be acted upon, like a schizophrenic pouring over the newspapers in search of that secret code the government is using to control our minds.

How else do you explain when Paramount Pictures decides to fire off a cease and desist letter to The Codfather Takeaways fish and chips restaurant in New Zealand because their sign includes a cartoon fish that resembles Marlon Brando?

As part of its signage, The Codfather Takeaways has adopted Brando’s Don Corleone character in the style of a fish. Paramount, owner of the trademark The Godfather, is not impressed and through lawyers has instructed the shop to stop. But Danielle Stuart, co-owner of The Codfather, reckons Paramount is being mean spirited and says both the name and insignia are staying. Stuart was in the final stages of registering The Codfather trademark when she received a letter from Paramount Pictures’ lawyers opposing the application and also asking them to stop using “The Godfather stylisation”.

You can see the signage in the background of this picture of the owners.

When asked, the owners admit to the inspiration the film provided for the name and the signage, but say they’re confused why Paramount is targeting them because they sell goddamn fish and not movies.

Stuart said she could understand Paramount being grumpy if she was planning to open a world-wide chain of Codfather Takeaways, but she was not.

“We are just a little fish and chip shop in a small corner of the world.”

Not small enough, my dear, because the beautiful minds at Paramount are always searching for any violation. Now, there are a couple issues here. First, nobody anywhere at any time is going to think a New Zealand fish and chips shop is somehow affiliated with a Hollywood movie studio. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. Second, I defy anyone to draw a fish without it looking like Marlon Brando. It can’t be done.

And finally, why the hell is Paramount bothering with this to begin with? There are any number of restaurants and chains called “The Codfather.” A fish that looks like Brando really makes this one a priority?

Filed Under: codfather, confusion, fish, godfather, likeness, marlon brando, new zealand, trademark
Companies: codfather takeaway, paramount, viacom

DailyDirt: Chickens Of The Sea..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Americans eat about 4.5 billion pounds of seafood annually — placing third behind China and Japan. The US ranks 15th in farmed seafood production, and America exports about a billion pounds of caught fish every year. The oceans might seem like an endless supply of fish, but we’re actually starting to over-fish several species. Here are a few suggestions for what seafood to order and some technological alternatives to traditional fishing.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: aquaculture, aquapods, codfish, endangered species, fish, fish farming, food, kampachi, oceansphere, seafood, tuna
Companies: kampachi farms, lockheed martin

Google Helps To Use Big Data For Global Surveillance — And That's Good

from the fishy-business dept

Techdirt writes plenty about the dangers of surveillance, and how big data is not the solution to everything, despite what PR companies would have us believe. Putting the two together is usually a recipe for very bad things, but not always. Global Fishing Watch, a new project involving Google, the environmental mapping group SkyTruth, and the conservation organization Oceana, shows how they can be used responsibly to tackle serious global problems that were hitherto intractable:

> Global Fishing Watch is the product of a technology partnership between SkyTruth, Oceana, and Google that is designed to show all of the trackable fishing activity in the ocean. This interactive web tool — currently in prototype stage — is being built to enable anyone to visualize the global fishing fleet in space and time. Global Fishing Watch will reveal the intensity of fishing effort around the world, one of the stressors contributing to the precipitous decline of our fisheries.

The system works by analyzing data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) network, which broadcasts a ship’s location. Although AIS was primarily designed as a safety mechanism to avoid collisions at sea, information about the vessel’s behavior can be derived by analyzing AIS data for the identity, speed and direction of broadcasting vessels. Global Fishing Watch uses that analysis to remove all the cargo ships and other non-fishing vessel activity. A lot of data is involved:

> Global Fishing Watch started with 3.7 billion data points, more than a terabyte of data from two years of satellite collection, covering the movements of 111,374 vessels during 2012 and 2013. We ran a behavioral classification model that we developed across this data set to identify when and where fishing behavior occurred. The prototype visualization contains 300 million AIS data points covering over 25,000 unique vessels. For the initial fishing activity map, the data is limited to 35 million detections from 3,125 vessels that we were able to independently verify were fishing vessels. Global Fishing Watch then displays fishing effort in terms of the number of hours each vessel spent engaged in fishing behavior, and puts it all on a map that anyone with a web browser will be able to explore.

That openness is a crucial aspect of the project:

> Global Fishing Watch will be available to the public, enabling anyone with an internet connection to monitor when and where commercial fishing is happening around the globe. Citizens can use the tool to see for themselves whether their fisheries are being effectively managed. Seafood suppliers can keep tabs on the boats they buy fish from. Media and the public can act as watchdogs to improve the sustainable management of global fisheries. Fisherman can show that they are obeying the law and doing their part. Researchers will have access to a multi-year record of all trackable fishing activity.

That’s pretty much a win for everyone. Nations gain better control over their territorial waters and the resources they contain. It will be easier for food suppliers, journalists and the public to track which ships are fishing legally and sustainably. That will make it easier to identify and penalize those that aren’t — and reward those that do. Better control of illegal fishing should mean that quotas are adhered to, allowing fishing to stocks to recover. Detailed record-keeping will improve the science behind those quotas, making them more realistic and thus sustainable in the long term. In other words, Global Fishing Watch is an example of surveillance and big data analysis that even fish can love.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: big data, data, fish, global fishing watch, surveillance
Companies: google, skytruth

DailyDirt: Genetically Modified To Fit Our Modern Lifestyles…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Biotech hasn’t quite advanced as far as some science fiction stories might depict, but a few amazing genetically-modified organisms look like they’re just around the corner, with scientists making biofuels or reviving dinosaurs in the near future. While we should be careful messing with Mother Nature, here are just a few developments to watch out for.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: biotech, christmas tree, custom sneakers, fish, genetically modified, gmo, stingray, tetrapods

DailyDirt: My Robot Lies Over The Ocean…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Autonomous robots are popping up everywhere. Some can fly, and some can drive. Others can swim across the ocean. Considering that there are still a lot of places in the oceans not yet explored, fish-like robots could gather amazing amounts of data and help us keep an eye on 70% of the Earth’s (water-covered) surface. Here are just a few projects that are working on ocean-faring bots.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: autonomous, boats, fish, fishpi, locomotion, mimicry, raspberry pi, robots, sea gliders

DailyDirt: Underwater Robots For Fooling Fish & Finding Foul Waters

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The term “drone” usually refers to a robotic plane, but some robot researchers are developing underwater drones for exploring the oceans and going to some hard-to-reach underwater destinations. A few of these robotic fish projects also mimic real fish locomotion and appearance, so that the robots blend into their environment. Maybe someday these fake fish will replace the real ones in aquariums, and no one will notice….

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: autonomous, biomimicry, drones, fish, great pacific garbage patch, locomotion, openrov, pollution, robots, underwater
Companies: kickstarter

DailyDirt: Robots Of The Sea

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but some of the more interesting designs mimic some animals in the ocean. Machines that can operate underwater have some obvious military applications, but studying biomimicry can also lead to discoveries in biology and deep sea ecosystems. Here are just a few projects looking at some varieties of sea-faring robots.

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: biorobotics, evolution, fish, jellyfish, navy, octopus, robojelly, robots

EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting

from the hoped-we-wouldn't-notice dept

At the end of last week, the Council of the European Union ? which is where national ministers from each EU country meet to adopt laws and coordinate policies ? had a meeting. A group of some 40 ministers for agriculture and fisheries signed off on a range of important matters, including:

> Total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for 2012 > Fishing opportunities for 2012 in the Black Sea > Authorisation of four genetically modified varieties > Aid for processed citrus fruit > Welfare of animals during transport > Vaccination against bluetongue > Excess CO2 emissions from new cars > Temporary reception of certain Palestinians

Actually, there was another item, but from its penultimate position on the agenda it was clearly not really regarded as very important, and was just waved through. Here’s how the official press release (pdf) reported it:

> The Council adopted a decision authorising the signing of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) with Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. > > ACTA is aimed at establishing an international framework to improve the enforcement of intellectual property right laws and create improved international standards for actions against large-scale infringements of intellectual property. Negotiations were concluded in November 2010.

So, continuing the tradition of denying European citizens any opportunity to offer their views on ACTA, the Council of national ministers employed the shabby trick of pushing the treaty through by adopting it without debate at a meeting whose main business had nothing to do with international trade.

Interestingly, this is not the first time European politicians have used this subterfuge. In 2002 the European Commission presented a proposal that would allow software patents in Europe (currently, the European Patent Convention forbids patenting programs for computers “as such”).

This saga was still going on in 2005 when the software patent proposal was added to the agenda of a fisheries meeting ? just like ACTA. On that occasion, the ploy failed, but the Council Presidency went on to adopt the agreement in violation of the procedural rules. The proposal was then passed to the European Parliament, where it was definitively rejected.

Similarly, ACTA will now be passed to the European Parliament for a vote. Although there have been no indications that it will be thrown out there, the same was true of the software patents session, which was expected to approve the measure. One thing is for sure: there is going to be plenty of lobbying for and against ACTA between now and whenever that final vote takes place.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: acta, copyright, council, eu, fish

DailyDirt: Making Foods Yucky…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The modern food industry has developed a lot of techniques to help distribute food efficiently and safely, but sometimes there are a few “bad apples” out there that make it look like the entire food industry is filled with unsavory practices. Here are just a few examples of some food issues that might have hit your plate.

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: china, fish, food, honey, pesticides, stpp, strawberries