Posts by AndrueC

Re: "available on two platforms"

I agree that programming schedules are old school. I record everything and never watch live precisely so that I can zip past the adverts. But it turns out that most people still like the communal 'camp fire' experience of knowing that other people are watching the same thing at the same time, enhanced perhaps by tweeting their experiences as they watch.

[It] won't stop Sky milking its subscribers for all they're worth.

I'm not sure you're grasping the difference between 'available on the Sky platform' and 'A channel that is owned by Sky'. The vast majority of channels available through the Sky platform are not owned by them. Discovery carries adverts because Discovery Communications Plc wants it to. History carries adverts because AETN want it to.

At its heart all Sky is is an EPG. I think I read once that they designed the original upload equipment but basically anyone who can bounce a TV channel off a satellite can pay to be listed on Sky's EPG. Aside from feeding them your programme metadata the rest of the transmission chain need have nothing to do with Sky. Channel operators pay Sky for a spot on their EPG and (I think) the rights to use their encryption system if they want it. Sky offers them a discount on their fee based on how much value it perceives they add to the platform.

There would have to be a radical departure in Sky's business model (and that of the channels themselves) to remove adverts. It would shake the broadcasting industry to its foundations. You're talking about removing their primary source of income and in this case making them dependent on an unconnected company for their survival.

And that's before you start asking how much adverts are worth to broadcasters and how much subscriptions would have to rise to cover the costs. Understand - I'm not saying that Netflix et al aren't the way to go - they may well be. All I'm trying to do is explain why 'having a go at Sky' is inappropriate in this case. It's mostly out of their control - something I dare say this new box of theirs is trying to address.

Re: I Don't Understand The Logic ....

In addition both of you are probably contributing more toward society and a better world than Facebook ;)

Re: Mind how you go!

they type it up for the Rolodex?

Nah, most of them write it by hand. The problem is that some use a ball point pen, some use a pencil and one force (who clearly have better control of their budget) use a fountain pen.

Re: Digital motors?

I would recommend that you put in a complaint into the ASA. At least they appear to be prepared to deal with blatant fuckwhittery.

Or maybe they aren't. and I'm no fan of their '10% rule' either.

Re: re: just recovered from earing the camel toe

I was curious about that myself ;)

Re: Horses for courses

and called it "Babylon 5"

Then Channel 4 bought the rights and proceeded to broadcast it at various different times of the day and different days of the week. And so it came to pass that only the truly devout managed to actually watch all the episodes first time around.

Re: On the other hand, there is a well established link between...

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and is always fatal.

Re: 100℃ ??

What? Why a GPS chip and offloading calculations to the cloud?

Did you miss the joke icon? I was trying a bit of Heath Robinson(*) style IoT thinking. Guess I failed :-/

(*)Rube Goldberg if you're on the other side of the Atlantic :)

Re: @werdsmith - People who use adblockers...

A parallel example: I have a big sign on my front door that says "NO Flyers, Menus, Junk Mail", yet still some idiots shove their rubbish through my letter box.

I have a plastic engraved plaque on my letter box flap with the same message and also 'no cold callers'. Like yours it has only partial success. I have seen people hesitate then take their leaflets elsewhere but there's still plenty of them make it through (along with countless refuse sacks for discarded clothes).

On the plus side the older I get the less inclined I am to worry about what people might think. If someone does knock or ring I'm quite comfortable in catching their eye and then just looking away with complete disinterest. If they appear to be Jehova's lot I'll even throw in a sarcastic head toss and eye roll.

Re: I still can't get my head round this one

What is it with designers hiding tinier LEDs with every new generation in less visible places?

Except for blue LEDs. Blue LEDs are never hidden. Blue LEDs seem to always be positioned in the most eye catching position possible. I once sent a monitor back to Amazon because the blue 'I'm awake' LED was too distracting.

I'd also add this stupid fashion by many/most hardware makers to draw the symbols next to buttons and connectors in, say, dark grey over black, or white over aluminium

Yeah, my last Honda Jazz had that problem. The symbols for 'H' and 'M' that were used to adjust the clock were dark grey on the light grey fascia. Since they were only needed twice a year I could never remember where they were and had to resort to phoning the dealer. Judging from the speed with which they replied I think they must have been expecting the calls and were coached in advance :)

Re: Interesting complaint

Yep.

As opposed to privateeye which is either a humorous magazine or a citizen performing the duties of a detective :)

Re: It may just be confirmation bias on my part, but...

Cutting out everything you enjoy doesn't make you live longer. It just feels like it :)

Re: Making a Living

How indeed. Someone will be asking for transparency and accountability from the government next.

Re: Hmmm

Oh, the usual culprits probably.

Re: "in keeping with its surroundings and help minimise the visual impact"

It's in the middle of housing estate, next to a retail park

Thereby demonstrating either incredible ineptitude in the arts of secrecy or incredible cunning in the same. One never knows with spooks :)

Re: if only...

If only the EU would wake up and see that this is needed everywhere and stop listening to the snake oil salesmen from bt openreach and all the other telephone operators in Europe.

The EU was happy to partner with BT(*) and the result has been very successful. It's only when the UK government tries to get involved that things go awry (BDUK) - Broadband Delivery UnKnown :)

(*)"Funded by the EU, BT and Cornwall Council".

Re: That is one angle

Perhaps it just reflects desperation? Maybe those in the 'healthy' range have a stable partner that satisfies their needs whereas those in the 'not so healthy' range have to resort to frequent bar crawling or the less well illuminated parts of town in order to get their rocks off.

Re: Passwords on Post it notes pasted to monitor

I did something similar at one place before they consolidated everything with a single-sign on system. But I didn't write the password down - I wrote the suffix. There's not a lot of risk in someone knowing that your email password ends in '7'. The only system that foiled me was the in-house training system. For some bizarre reason it had the most strict password rules of all the systems and it was the only one that detected my changing suffix and objected to it.

Re: a third way?

If you don't mind running a Windows box then VPOP3 will do what you want and it's apparently now free for personal use up to 5 users. There are a few things that are only available with the Enterprise version though:

* IMAP support.

* Incoming SSL support.

* IPv6 receipt (you can send on IPv6 but the free version only supports one incoming protocol so it's either IPv4 or IPv6 and I suggest the first one :) ).

Installation is about what you'd expect for a Windows application. Double click the setup icon and sit back. Once it's done the server will be running and all you have to do is create user accounts. I've been running it now for nearly ten years. I've upgraded four times over the years and that was painless as well - just run the installer and wait.

I've never used the calendar facility so can't comment on that.

There are a couple of other free mail servers for Windows and when I tried them they all seemed as easy to set up as VPOP3. Hacking text configuration files around is just not something Windows users expect to have to do. I suppose having to pay for most things we use means we expect the easy life :D