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Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

littergram.co.uk

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Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#21

Post by specialdragon »

Xylakant wrote: post #17
specialdragon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware of Fix My Street, thank you for that. The reason for bringing it to HN's attention was because I too read about the service on the BBC News website and their plight with Instagram. I was a little perplexed - it's a British company, operating entirely within the UK - why is Instagram getting involved? The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while [citation needed], is it an infringement of tradema…

> The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while [citation needed] I lately heard about that newfangled thing called tele-gram. (Nitpick: it's a suffix, not a prefix ;)

The nitpick is entirely fair. What's worse, is that I know the word is suffix, I just didn't use it. :(

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#23

Post by icebraining »

tamana wrote: post #18
icebraining wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while So has "Apple", yet Apple was still sued by Apple and had to settle. A generic term may be trademarked as long as it doesn't describe the particular goods or services being sold.

But "gram" does describe service of sending pictures.

Not really. "gram" just means "written record". Mammogram, echocardiogram, sonogram, monogram - none have anything to do with "sending" or "pictures".

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#25

Post by stuxnet79 »

rodhan wrote: post #15
tudorw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, humans love to copy, so if enough people see you picking up random litter, as I often do too, then they may do the same, as you said, some won't change, but if the 99% of us who don't litter just spend a tiny bit of time picking up the 1%'s trash we all get to live in a clean world! Here's hoping...

Ever since I learned about the Broken Window Theory of urban decay in The Pragmatic Programmer I try to pick up litter and tidy things up where I can. Worst case, someone laughs at you for wasting your time, but even then you're making the world a better place by making people laugh. It's all good :)

Hey - can you expand on what was said about the broken window theory of urban decay in the pragmatic programmer - I'd formulated a similar hypothesis just based on my limited experience collaborating with others in programming projects. I didn't know some academic had come up with a term for it..

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#26

Post by rodhan »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #25
rodhan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since I learned about the Broken Window Theory of urban decay in The Pragmatic Programmer I try to pick up litter and tidy things up where I can. Worst case, someone laughs at you for wasting your time, but even then you're making the world a better place by making people laugh. It's all good :)

Hey - can you expand on what was said about the broken window theory of urban decay in the pragmatic programmer - I'd formulated a similar hypothesis just based on my limited experience collaborating with others in programming projects. I didn't know some academic had come up with a term for it..

In the Pragmatic Programmer book [1], to help make the point that if you keep your code clean, it is more likely to stay that way, the authors cite the "broken windows" theory [2]. They mention a case where police observed an abandoned car lying untouched on a dark street for days, but once a window was smashed, vandals destroyed the car within hours [3]. I don't know much beyond that, but the theory rings true to me and I try to do my bit to stop it, in code and in real life.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4099.The_Pragmatic_Progr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

[3] http://www.artima.com/intv/fixit2.html

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#27

Post by pbhjpbhj »

icebraining wrote: post #14
specialdragon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware of Fix My Street, thank you for that. The reason for bringing it to HN's attention was because I too read about the service on the BBC News website and their plight with Instagram. I was a little perplexed - it's a British company, operating entirely within the UK - why is Instagram getting involved? The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while [citation needed], is it an infringement of tradema…

The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while So has "Apple", yet Apple was still sued by Apple and had to settle. A generic term may be trademarked as long as it doesn't describe the particular goods or services being sold.

Apple Computers were rightly sued by Apple (the music company, Apple Records?) as the computer company was getting in to the area of music.

The suffix -gram is already well known from "telegram" and adopted in to other 'message sharing via different media' situations: cookiegram, kissogram, etc..

The Apple case is a million miles from Littergram vs. Instagram. If they'd tried to create "Binstagram" there would be a case to answer ...

I consider the chance of actual confusion (which FWIW isn't actually the measure normally used to judge infringement) to be practically zero.

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#28

Post by stuxnet79 »

rodhan wrote: post #26
stuxnet79 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey - can you expand on what was said about the broken window theory of urban decay in the pragmatic programmer - I'd formulated a similar hypothesis just based on my limited experience collaborating with others in programming projects. I didn't know some academic had come up with a term for it..

In the Pragmatic Programmer book [1], to help make the point that if you keep your code clean, it is more likely to stay that way, the authors cite the "broken windows" theory [2]. They mention a case where police observed an abandoned car lying untouched on a dark street for days, but once a window was smashed, vandals destroyed the car within hours [3]. I don't know much beyond that, but the theory rings true to me…

Thanks for the links. The theory rings true to me as well. I've coerced sloppy colleagues into writing cleaner code when working on my sections of the project. Conversely I find that I relax my normally high standards when I work on spaghetti code.

Re: Littergram: Cleaning Britain one picture at a time

#29

Post by celticninja »

tamana wrote: post #18
icebraining wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'gram' prefix has been around for quite a while So has "Apple", yet Apple was still sued by Apple and had to settle. A generic term may be trademarked as long as it doesn't describe the particular goods or services being sold.

But "gram" does describe service of sending pictures.

There is a messaging app called Telegram and they never went after that. This smacks of bullying.
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