Posts by AndrueC

Re: TV Rights

There's also the issue of 'FTA' v. 'FTV' that impacts satellite broadcasters. If I'm a UK channel and I want to broadcast the latest blockbuster I don't want to have to pay for the rights to broadcast it EU-wide. Unfortunately if my channel is being broadcast from Eutelsat 28A that's exactly what I'm going to be doing. An unencrypted channel is 'FTA' (Free To Air) and from that satellite anyone of over 300 million people can watch my output. The only workaround if I'm using this satellite would be to encrypt the channel and require viewers to have an appropriate decoding card. If I don't charge more than a handling fee for the card it becomes 'FTV' (Free to View). I can satisfy the rights holders by ensuring that the cards can only be sent to UK addresses.

The better solution would be to broadcast from a transponder that, nominally at least, only covered the UK and Ireland. Unfortunately until recently the only satellite that could do this (Astra 2A) was pretty much full. The refusal to support encryption is why Freesat doesn't carry all the free channels that Sky does. It was also the cause of the delay in getting 5 HD to air. In the end they reached an agreement with someone else (the BBC I think) to sublet space on Astra 2A.

Hopefully now that there's a new bird up there some channels might migrate over but it depends how long their current contracts run although (for better or for worse) it seems like 5 are not interested in going FTA at the moment. They may have an arrangement with Sky which is more lucrative.

One issue around regional rights that might be relevant here is translation. Anything that has to be translated needs to either wait for all translations to be complete or else chances are it'll have been seen by everyone before the translation is complete which lowers the value/revenue from translation.

Re: Cable and streaming

@Big_Ted: I think Timmay is trying to make a pun.

Vince Cable v. Virgin Cable

;)

Re: Freesat

Sky customers may be able to get it too?

I think it's around there in the Sky EPG as well. Even if not you only need the frequency/symbol rate/polarity and you can manually tune it in.

Edit: Looks like it might be channel 963. That's BBC One South East.

Alternatively unless you live in the provinces (Scotland or NI) BBC HD will be BBC London. They can't afford to carry as many different HD streams so they aren't very regionalised.

What a terrible show NCIS is

It was okay for the first couple of seasons when it was just a variant of the old cop show format. I mean it was nothing stellar but it entertained. But then they began to develop weird, long running story arcs where they take on the world's most evil people and save western civilisation as we know it all the while trampling over the rights of the general public.

Re: "it's a Unix system, I know this"

And I find it odd that you haven't included Jurassic Park.

Or one of the other novels he wrote, Sphere. There's a couple of classics in that. While investigating the strange signals they are getting they refer to them as being the 'Askey' code. Good ol' Arthur :)

Then later on there's a page of digits (and no letters). One of the characters says it's a hex dump (er..no way to know that given that there's no letters) then makes the comment that it can't be from a 68000 processor because they don't work in hex.

The mind boggles :)

Re: CSI?

For CSI whenever they do a fingerprint search I have to resist the temptation to tell them it would be quicker if it didn't waste time rendering the image on the screen :D

I thought this was to prevent suggestible loonies actually trying to connect to that fictional IP address. If it's in a movie it must be real, right?

I suppose it could be,actually, although using one of the private ranges would be pretty good.

Similar to the non-existent 555 exchange or area code used in telephone numbers.

Yeah. I think the UK system is better. It makes it harder to spot a fictitious number. Oh and I always rewind to take a quick look at the source code. It seems to nearly always be C.

Re: Transport counting as survival

Last time I looked, the total human food supply was more than enough to feed everyone but there are still people starving

That's true but there's also a lot of wastage in the system. And I define 'wastage' as being food thrown away and also food being eaten by people that don't need it.

Re: Stupid Human Tricks

It boggles my mind that most humans still have yet to figure out that religion is completely made up bullshit

Part of it I think is that everyone wants to understand the universe they were born into - they need to understand the world so that they can function in it. Science explains the universe in great detail which can be very difficult to understand and as new discoveries are made it keeps changing its explanation. Religion has the fall back phrase 'Because God made it that way' to avoid complications and because it's mostly the product of imagination it doesn't have to change unless someone wants it to (and look how much trouble it causes when it does schism).

This all means that it's easier to rely on religion to explain your place in the universe so a lot of people do. Relying on science means accepting that we know very little about anything that happens outside of our own minds and for most people that's unsettling.

Up to this point it all just looks like a psychological crutch and if that's what people need to get through their life then fair enough. The problem is that some people have worked out that if you are responsible for explaining another person's view of 'the universe and their place in it' then you have very effective control over that person. It's all downhill from there.

Re: Mostly Penniless.

The Spectrum version of the original Elite had a really simple bug. Launch the game, then immediately save the commander. The result was a much improved commander. But then again hacking the save file was easy enough. I remember that you could give yourself 25.5 light-years of fuel ;)

you are going to be away on business for a couple of extra days with the house empty you can just let your thermostat know to remain on a low setting for a few more days

Which mine can also do. I can also tell it that I'm going to be at home tomorrow so use the Sunday program. Or I can tell it I'm having friends over so run the Sunday program for the next few hours. The only thing I can't do is remotely control it although apparently there was once a telephone remote control module you could buy for it.

My main issue really is with the heuristic guessing logic and the much vaunted 'just in time heating' which was what I was complaining about here. It's a bit like cooking dinner for your partner. If they say they are going to be an hour late that's fine. But if they say 'I'll be a bit late' it throws everything into question. It'll be a sad day for humanity when your thermostat responds to a command by asking 'Yes, but how late is late exactly?'.

Re: Odd statement

iI'd like to know which species tried and failed to decode their own genomes.

Melopsittacus Undulatus. The project was going really well at first but then one of them invented the mirror and funds were immediately diverted into finding out who was doing all the cloning.

Re: Thoughts

The big problem for the NHS is mainly inefficiency on the clerical side.

A couple of years back my optician referred me to my GP and I spent two years having regular appointments to see a specialist for monitoring. The appointments consisted of half an hour for an eye test and half an hour to discuss the results. So they'd book me in for an hour. When the confirmation came (and the reminder nearer the time) I'd get two letters, one for the first half hour, another for the second half hour. Something of a waste of postage methinks :-/

Thankfully nothing was found to be wrong. Well..sorta. I still didn't do very well on their visual field test but the consultant's view was that since the machines claimed I was half blind and couldn't read and since we spent ten minutes comparing golf stories he thought the machines were wrong. His parting comment was "If it's not bothering you, it doesn't bother me."

Re: Even cheaper

IIRC most DSLAMs in exchanges are capable of VDSL2 but aren't allowed due to the apparent noise on the rest of the lines - though how this doesn't effect lines from the cabinet I don't know

ANFP. But for the record it's worth pointing out that this isn't some stupid government 'jobsworth' rule. Nor is it something BT have decided not to do for their own reasons. It's the considered opinion of skilled and experienced engineers across the industry who presumably know what they are doing.

BT are following the rules imposed on them. Bah, humbug :)