In uk.transport.london Jon Passenger wrote:
In the current climate, the application of some basic knowledge to
create rule of thumb heuristics (ie test splitting at major
interchanges / regional boundaries / known price break points ) plus
attempts at some sort of primitive 'crowdsourcing' (yuk) - like the
site cited above - might be the best available approach.

I think a cross between Skyscanner and Property Bee might work. That is,
when users query the database for fares in the normal course of events, our
website somehow intercepts the query (in the Skyscanner case by doing it for
them, in the Property Bee case by intercepting their browser session as the
data goes past). As well as telling them the answer, the site also records
it. That means it builds up a partial database of results that it can
search quickly, and just need fire off queries for results that aren't
known. Provide a compelling interface to search for normal fares (maybe
something like SkyScanner or traintimes.org.uk) and you'll get enough
traffic to keep the database fresh.

How they get these past the 'database right' lawyers is another question,
though.

Theo

In message , at 13:01:06
on Wed, 11 Aug 2010, remarked:

5J - 9.30 except Bdeford and Peterborough when it's 9.15

Perhaps this is a case of a missing/obsolete "Cambridge 9.15"?

Except that according to the FCC web site the restriction is the
long-standing "no arrival in London before 10:00". So the 08:54 is OK too.

That's not what Avantix says 5J means (for the SVR/Offpeak return)

The rule you quote is the J8, for the CDR/*day* return.
--
Roland Perry

On Aug 11, 9:01*pm, Theo Markettos
wrote:

In uk.transport.london Jon Passenger wrote:

In the current climate, the application of some basic knowledge to
create rule of thumb heuristics (ie test splitting at major
interchanges / regional boundaries / *known price break points ) plus
attempts at some sort of primitive 'crowdsourcing' (yuk) - like the
site cited above - might be the best available approach.

I think a cross between Skyscanner and Property Bee might work. *That is,
when users query the database for fares in the normal course of events, our
website somehow intercepts the query (in the Skyscanner case by doing it for
them, in the Property Bee case by intercepting their browser session as the
data goes past). *As well as telling them the answer, the site also records
it. *That means it builds up a partial database of results that it can
search quickly, and just need fire off queries for results that aren't
known. *Provide a compelling interface to search for normal fares (maybe
something like SkyScanner or traintimes.org.uk) and you'll get enough
traffic to keep the database fresh.

How they get these past the 'database right' lawyers is another question,
though.

Ignoring Advance tickets (or at least their availability), the Avantix
Traveller supposedly has all available fares in its database already
(plus rather a lot of noise too) - of course, it comes with strict
instructions not to even think about trying to reverse engineer it,
but I wonder if one could legitimately automatically query it - though
quite possibly the licence forbids that too (haven't checked, it's not
installed on this machine wot I is using).

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
13:01:06 on Wed, 11 Aug 2010,
remarked:

5J - 9.30 except Bdeford and Peterborough when it's 9.15

Perhaps this is a case of a missing/obsolete "Cambridge 9.15"?

Except that according to the FCC web site the restriction is the
long-standing "no arrival in London before 10:00". So the 08:54 is
OK too.

That's not what Avantix says 5J means (for the SVR/Offpeak return)

The rule you quote is the J8, for the CDR/*day* return.

And that appears to be what their web site think applies in the mornings
to Off Peak Returns. Sensible really, given that there are fewer
restrictions in the evenings.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 16:16:04
on Wed, 11 Aug 2010, remarked:
5J - 9.30 except Bdeford and Peterborough when it's 9.15

Perhaps this is a case of a missing/obsolete "Cambridge 9.15"?

Except that according to the FCC web site the restriction is the
long-standing "no arrival in London before 10:00". So the 08:54 is
OK too.

That's not what Avantix says 5J means (for the SVR/Offpeak return)

The rule you quote is the J8, for the CDR/*day* return.

And that appears to be what their web site think applies in the mornings
to Off Peak Returns. Sensible really, given that there are fewer
restrictions in the evenings.

I'm having difficulty parsing that. Are you saying the FCC website
thinks rule J8 applies to SVRs (as well as to CDRs)?

Another reason why they ought to print the [alleged] fare code on the
ticket - to debug situations like this.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:00:18 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

Ignoring Advance tickets (or at least their availability), the Avantix
Traveller supposedly has all available fares in its database already
(plus rather a lot of noise too) - of course, it comes with strict
instructions not to even think about trying to reverse engineer it,
but I wonder if one could legitimately automatically query it - though
quite possibly the licence forbids that too (haven't checked, it's not
installed on this machine wot I is using).

It's a pretty standard copyright notice:

© Copyright of Atos Origin 2010. All rights reserved.
The copyright in this work is vested in Atos Origin and the
information contained herein is confidential. This work (either in
whole or in part) must not be modified, reproduced, disclosed or
disseminated to others or used for purposes other than that for which
it is supplied, without the prior written permission of Atos Origin.
If this work or any part hereof is furnished to a third party by
virtue of a contract with that party, use of this work by such party
shall be governed by the express contractual terms between the Atos
Origin company which is a party to that contract and the said party.

IANAL but to me 'reproduced, disclosed or disseminated to others'
would prohibit using the Avantix data set to populate queries outside
of the application. In other words, the fares themselves are not the
property of Atos Origin, but their compliation of them is. Discuss.

On Aug 12, 1:13*pm, Ivor The Engine
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:00:18 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:
Ignoring Advance tickets (or at least their availability), the Avantix
Traveller supposedly has all available fares in its database already
(plus rather a lot of noise too) - of course, it comes with strict
instructions not to even think about trying to reverse engineer it,
but I wonder if one could legitimately automatically query it - though
quite possibly the licence forbids that too (haven't checked, it's not
installed on this machine wot I is using).

It's a pretty standard copyright notice:

© Copyright of Atos Origin 2010. All rights reserved. *
The copyright in this work is vested in Atos Origin and the
information contained herein is confidential. This work (either in
whole or in part) must not be modified, reproduced, disclosed or
disseminated to others or used for purposes other than that for which
it is supplied, without the prior written permission of Atos Origin.
If this work or any part hereof is furnished to a third party by
virtue of a contract with that party, use of this work by such party
shall be governed by the express contractual terms between the Atos
Origin company which is a party to that contract and the said party.

IANAL but to me 'reproduced, disclosed or disseminated to others'
would prohibit using the Avantix data set to populate queries outside
of the application. *In other words, the fares themselves are not the
property of Atos Origin, but their compliation of them is. *Discuss.

I suppose one could put forward some argument about the 'purpose for
which it is supplied' - i.e. it's supplied to provide fares
information - as per this sentence:

"This work (either in whole or in part) must not be modified,
reproduced, disclosed or disseminated to others or used for purposes
other than that for which it is supplied [...]"

I doubt that'd get very far though.

The bit about not disclosing or disseminating to others could almost
be read as to mean that you can't tell anyone else about the results
you get from Avantix Traveller! So all those posters who copy and
paste fare restrictions details verbatim from the program are arguably
breaking the licence.

Going back to the database mining idea, I suppose one could just kinda
ignore the licence - after all lots of technological progress has
happened in spite of various bits of intellectual property law...

(The latter point is of course devilishly complex on many levels and
cuts several ways - for example, I'm not entirely sure a career as a
novelist will be quite so rewarding in say ten or twenty years time
when e-book readers have really taken off, and hackers really get to
work on the associated e-book DRM systems. Not of course that a great
many novelists' careers are that rewarding at present!)

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
16:16:04 on Wed, 11 Aug 2010, remarked:
5J - 9.30 except Bdeford and Peterborough when it's 9.15

Perhaps this is a case of a missing/obsolete "Cambridge 9.15"?

Except that according to the FCC web site the restriction is the
long-standing "no arrival in London before 10:00". So the 08:54 is
OK too.

That's not what Avantix says 5J means (for the SVR/Offpeak return)

The rule you quote is the J8, for the CDR/*day* return.

And that appears to be what their web site think applies in the
mornings to Off Peak Returns. Sensible really, given that there are
fewer restrictions in the evenings.

I'm having difficulty parsing that. Are you saying the FCC website
thinks rule J8 applies to SVRs (as well as to CDRs)?

That's the only way to make sense of what it does say, yes.

Another reason why they ought to print the [alleged] fare code on
the ticket - to debug situations like this.

In this case I'm trying to keep them to what they say, not to the book
which differs.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Mizter T wrote:

Going back to the database mining idea, I suppose one could just kinda
ignore the licence - after all lots of technological progress has
happened in spite of various bits of intellectual property law...

True. Host the app in Iceland and you should be fine.

tom

--
A plug on its back, straining to suck voltage from the sky

Mizter T wrote in
[...]
Going back to the database mining idea, I suppose one could just
kinda
ignore the licence - after all lots of technological progress has
happened in spite of various bits of intellectual property law...

(The latter point is of course devilishly complex on many levels and
cuts several ways - for example, I'm not entirely sure a career as a
novelist will be quite so rewarding in say ten or twenty years time
when e-book readers have really taken off, and hackers really get to
work on the associated e-book DRM systems. Not of course that a great
many novelists' careers are that rewarding at present!)

For ten years, ie since December 1999, every novel published by Baen
(number 3 US publisher of SF) has been on sale as an e-book with no DRM
and no geographical restrictions.

http://www.webscription.net

Some (typically the first of a series) are even free.

Baen authors are mostly happy with their ebook royalties since no DRM
seems to result in higher sales and certainly reduces reader problems.
One author reports steady sales and royalties for a paperback that has
been a free ebook for eight years (_1632_ by Eric Flint, recommended
AH).


On the hacker front, most DRM schemes have already been broken and
indeed books never issued as ebooks have been illegally scanned, OCR'd
and made available over torrent.

--
Mike D