[backstage] 'Project Canvas' to be called 'YouView':
http://informitv.com/news/2010/09/16/youviewisconfirmed/ Personally, I think 'WeView' would have been a better follow-on from 'iPlayer' and 'YouTube'. But that might suggest open collaboration and public participation, so perhaps not. :-/ -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?
Brian Butterworth wrote: Did no one tell those stupid MPs that the whole Internet is peer-to-peer? To most of them, peer-to-peer communication is what happens when Lord Mandelson does a deal with Baroness Scotland. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?
Gordon Joly wrote: On 09/04/2010 08:22, Brian Butterworth wrote: That wasn't the first time the poor old dears got IP and IP mixed up, I heard it on @R4Today some days ago. Shows a lot about where their minds are. Yes, but what happens when they debate other technical issues? Medical, military, etc. None of us are experts in all fields None of us are setting government policy, influencing public opintion or writing laws in the fields we're inexpert in, though. I hope. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
Ian Forrester wrote: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/is-the-world-ready-for-the-successor-of-the-mp3/ This is meant to make music piricay less tempting, so they say. There's an off-putting quote in this report about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8478310.stm We can deliver a file that is extremely searchable and can carry up to 32GB of extra information in the file itself. And it will be dynamically updatable so that every time the user is connected, his file will be updated. Uh-oh. There goes my bandwidth if I start iTunes and it decides to check and update my 12,000 tracks. Never mind the potential for more Kindle-1984 scenarios. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
Mo McRoberts wrote: It’s almost as though Ofcom (and the BBC, and distributors) believe the illicit file-sharing is bound by geographical restrictions, though that’s so crazy it can’t possibly be true… Are you suggesting that these organizations don't fully understand the media landscape they're presiding over? Why, that's...inconceivable! -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
Mo McRoberts wrote: Anybody know if the BBC’s attempted to take any action against the developers? (Or even if they’re aware of this) [I’m guessing we’d have heard about it if the former answer was “yes”, but I’m curious about the latter] I just wonder if the BBC realize how Freeview HD content restriction could become a PR Nightmare Construction Kit for their tabloid foes. Once someone makes available code to defeat it, how could prosecutions ensue without risking raging headlines like: BBC prosecutes licence-fee payer for watching Doctor Who And, if prosecutions did not ensue, then we might have: BBC wastes your money to shore up Hollywood's profits This is quite separate from any debate on how content management might support or hinder the BBC's public purposes, which I will happily leave to others. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] NoSQL databases
Brendan Quinn wrote: We have been asked if we know some people who are doing interesting things with the NoSQL family of databases… CouchDB, Tokyo Cabinet, Voldemort, etc etc. Does eXist-DB fall into this anti-category? The Tweetstore runs on that. http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/node/15 -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] What is TV?
Rain wrote: Wot that pastime you only end up doing if you really, really have nothing better to to do instead? Oh, I know, I know! Is it: debate the meaning of 'TV'? -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC News - Googlejuice vs Usability
Brian Butterworth wrote: I've just done a bit of code that grabs the Fletch score for each of the newest stories on the BBC News site. 90.0–100.0 easily understandable by an average 11-year-old student 60.0–70.0 easily understandable by 13- to 15-year-old students 0.0–30.0best understood by university graduates So, am I supposed to conclude that: 43.2 Floods body is missing policeman is noticeably easier to read than: 22.6 Whisky body backs safe drinking ? -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC News - Googlejuice vs Usability
Mo McRoberts wrote: On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 03:11:28PM +, Frank Wales wrote: So, am I supposed to conclude that: 43.2 Floods body is missing policeman is noticeably easier to read than: 22.6 Whisky body backs safe drinking I’d contend that in terms of sheer readability of the headlines, the floods one is far worse—in that it takes far more effort, but having successfully parsed both, I’d have a reasonable idea of what both stories relate to (enough for me to decide whether to read them or not). So would I, hence my asking for the clarification that Brian provided. Indeed, there is a completely sensible parse of the first headline that makes it about a flood-related organization that is currently suffering from the absence of a police officer. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] For our younger travellers
BA are listing 'BBC Backstage' as a children's 'Music and Stories' selection on their flights this month: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/ifeoutavodlisting/public/en_gb?class=wt My favourite is Goldilocks and the three APIs. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - encoding from broadcast rather than master tapes
Ant Miller wrote: If you've got ideas and suggestions for improvement, or any further questions, I'd be happy to pass them along to the team. Completely geeky one: make iplayer.bbc.co.uk do something sensible. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Warning: Super geeky - Petabytes on a budget
On 09/03/2009 11:28 AM, Tim Dobson wrote: Ian Forrester wrote: http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build- cheap-cloud-storage/ Found via Frank Wales, Haha. So Frank reads /. too! :) Actually, I got it (and RTed it) in my twitter feed. So there *pththtb* :-P. [As I said to Ian, I was most interested in the power consumption, at around ~1kW per 4U box of storage; it was less than I expected.] -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Site check
Ant Miller wrote: is www.welcomebackstage.com down for all you guys too? It's down for me, and it's down for downforeveryoneorjustme.com: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.welcomebackstage.com -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Fwd: [Autonomo.us] Skype, out?
Alex Mace wrote: I compressed the run time on my toaster and now it won't shut up about grilled bread products. Other hot flat snacks are available. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Twittering on
Apparently, there are complaints about how much air time twitter is being given by the BBC: http://thenextweb.com/2009/02/09/bbc-radio-listeners-kick-fuss-twitter-time-bbc-create-microblogging-service/ -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] OT - Mobile Broadband
Peter Edwards wrote: In case it helps, I use a 3 INQ1 (next gen. Skypephone) to get broadband access over bluetooth from an Eee running Ubuntu 8.10. On a contract that costs £17 for 5GB data + 100 mins talk p.m. This was one of the features that nearly made me get an INQ1, since other providers tend to stripe you up if you want to treat your phone like a modem for your computer, while 3 seem quite happy to let you do this, at least on this model. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Nice CC-ND-ish DVD
Dave Crossland wrote: A nice example of someone running a business, with streaming and torrent downloads and verbatim commercial redistribution permitted: http://www.chrismartenson.com/make-your-own-crash-course-dvds Er, you sure? ** server can't find chrismartenson.com: NXDOMAIN -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.com] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] So Long and Thanks For All The Fish?
Nick Morrott wrote: The Beeb could have used kiloponds as themetric force unit, Kiloponds, eh? Why, that's very nearly a lake. Which brings us back to the fish. I'd say more, but I'd be out of my depth. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] I've woken up to a new world
I wrote: I had a sustained period (about 45 mins) where nothing was working from bbc.co.uk http://bbc.co.uk, yet other sites were fine. Brian Butterworth wrote: I lost the whole of bbc.co.uk http://bbc.co.uk (and news.bbc.co.uk http://news.bbc.co.uk) last night from my Be network at home, Well, there you go then. I'm on Be at home also. Problem characterized. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] I've woken up to a new world
where bbc.co.uk is unavailable, and twitter.com is responding well. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] I've woken up to a new world
Alison Young wrote: Have spent most of the night cheering whenever the BBC broke out the incredibly zoomy graphics. Fab. Was is just a coincidence that Jeremy Vine appeared to repeatedly poke McCain in the face as he was calling up results that were in Obama's favour? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] I've woken up to a new world
John O'Donovan wrote: Still working from here...both home page and news front page. I had a sustained period (about 45 mins) where nothing was working from bbc.co.uk, yet other sites were fine. Traceroutes were erratic, as were pings, both from here and from a couple of other systems in distant locations. Probably rats chewing on cables. Obama won in case you were wondering :o) Oh, I wasn't wondering -- BBC News on the televisual gramophone still worked, despite Gore Vidal's best efforts to stupefy everyone. I notice I sent out several more tweets than I remember too. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC DRM iplayer mobiles etc
Andrew Bowden wrote: Even for smaller channels, there are benefits to being encrypted, such as reduced EPG listing fees. It costs less to tell people about your programmes if you encrypt them? The reason being...? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
John O'Donovan wrote: Now that you know what happens I bet you won't do that again... Actually, I think that behaviour is a bug, but as I'm now out of scratch pantaloons to test with, I'll leave it for others more versed in surprise linguo-tailoring incidents to investigate. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
John O'Donovan wrote: If you swear on this list for example, your trousers will fall down like a comedy clown. Huh. I did not know that. But how sensitive is this language-sensitive depant-o-tron? Let's find out... What word starts with 'f' and ends in 'uck'? Firetruck! Hey, look at that, my pants are still up. They're on fire, but they're still up. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer and the ISPs - a solution
Mr I Forrester wrote: Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks” The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality “a load of bollocks” and claiming he’s already doing deals to deliver some people’s content faster than others. If you aren’t prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he’ll put you in the Internet “bus lane”. http://torrentfreak.com/virgin-media-ceo-says-net-neutrality-is-a-load-of-bollocks-080413/ I think the interesting statement in this article is: With around 3.5 million customers in the UK, and already traffic shaping due to lack of capacity, [...] Or, in other words: Having signed up far more customers than their existing technical infrastructure can handle, [...]. I bet this guy would get on really well with that other bozo who, as head of some US TV network, claimed that skipping commercials was stealing the programmes, since both of them seem to want the world to change so that their business models can work. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC tells ISPs to get stuffed
Mr I Forrester wrote: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/bbc_highfield_isp_threat/ I love this alleged quote at the end: One executive at a major ISP stormed back at Highfield: Relying on the customer's failure to read the small print is not the basis for a digital content strategy. Whereas relying on the customer's failure to read the small print *is* often the basis for a profitable(*) business relationship for ISPs. (*) Small print: by profitable, I mean misleadingly using common words such as 'unlimited' to mean 'limited', and hoping that our paying customers won't get so pissed off with us when they learn how we've tricked them that they find cause to sue us, or leave us for someone more honest(+). (+) Small print small print: by someone more honest, I mean your Mom. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Identity/trust/reputation project savingtheinternetwithhate.com
Dave Crossland wrote: (From http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html which I found hilarious and may be of interest to Ruby on Rail developers :-) Listen to the guy himself: http://ajaxian.com/archives/zed-shaw-interview-on-rails-community-enterprise-ajax-patents-and-a-whole-lot-more He sounds like he'd be a hoot to have around, as long as you're not one of those cheeseburger-eating, IDE-loving, PHP douchebags, as he might call them. (Which I'm not, by the way, if you're reading this, Zed. I'm more your coffee-drinking, emacs-loving, meta-programming geezer.) -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Re: New BBC customisable homepage
On 12/21/2007 01:37 AM, Christopher Woods wrote: Static content can be cached and distributed to local nodes by ISPs and the BBC itself, but realtime NTP queries will really kill a box and suck up a ton of bandwidth. But NTP would be a mad way to get a clock on a web page roughly right. Web servers know what the time is (or they ought to), so one of them could provide a clue in a header or a variable or a comment or something that the clock could be told when it started up. There's enough dynamic content on the page to attach the time to without much of an additional load on anything, and all without having to open up another series of tubes to time servers. And by the way, I do agree with the sentiment that if you put a ticking clock on a BBC page, the time it shows ought to be within an egg-boiling interval of dear old Green Witch. Mean time, I also appreciate that this is a nostalgic touch, but I don't lose sight of the meaning of a BBC clock to Mr and Mrs Punter. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] New BBC customisable homepage
To show my gratitude for this new beta page, I found some bugs: In my rush to lose 'Sport' from the page, I clicked on the triangle expose button at the left of the title bar, but found that it left the heading there (don't know why I thought it would eliminate it, must be my lack of experience at using these computer things). So then I clicked on 'Edit' -- nothing changed. Oo-er. 'Edit'. Nothing. 'Edit'. Nothing. 'Edit edit edit' Nothing nothing nothing. 'Triangle'. Sport window reopens, but now has a bunch of checkboxes at the top. A-ha! So the bug is that 'Edit' should not do nothing at all when the content of the panel is hidden, it should re-open the panel so that the requested edit process can begin. Alternatively, when the panel body is hidden, it should hide or grey-out the 'Edit' button so it doesn't offer the chance to be an apparently non-functional control. (Also, you could save some real estate by switching 'Edit' to 'Cancel' 'Save' in place when edit mode is active, perhaps.) %% Clicking 'Set your location' exposes a form that is partially obscured by the big Sleigh/Twist/Garden/Tardis panel, so that the action buttons cannot be read, and the typed input cannot be seen. (Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Linux -- I can send screenshots if required.) %% The text in the 'Directory' at the bottom of the page spills over the bottom of the obligatory round-cornered box onto the grey area below, making the bottom rows of text pretty illegible. %% When clicking on the '?' by 'Blogs' when the Blogs heading is close to the bottom edge of the screen, the pop-up box ought to appear above the '?', so that its contents are actually visible. ## Meanwhile, since you asked, here are some requests for features: I'd like to be able to reorder sub-headings (such as news categories). I'd like to be able to exclude certain radio stations, and I'd like to have more than one available local station, and I'd like to have a list of locations that I can switch between for the whole page. Oh, and I'd like a pony (preferably one I didn't have to feed). Feed! An RSS feed of fixes and updates to the new page, too, I'd like, please, thank you very much. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] New BBC customisable homepage
On 12/19/2007 12:50 AM, Noah Slater wrote: On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 09:16:30PM +, Stephen Miller wrote: The character set on the page appears not to support £ signs, this story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7149616.stm appears with the ? black diamond replacement character in firefox. It works for me, though your email doesn't. From Firefox, View, Character Encoding, what does it say? Latin-1 here... I can see the pound sign in both Stephen's e-mail (Thunderbird) and the web page (Firefox); for both, the character encoding selected is ISO-8859-1, which is also the charset specified in the respective Content-Type headers. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] flash streaming version of iplayer is live
Matthew Cashmore wrote: Working on my install of Ubuntu to - as well as my Mac - which is the main thing! Watching Dr Who as I type :-) Joy. Doesn't yet work for everything on Firefox/Linux: Sorry, Gergiev Conducts Three 20th Century Greats is not available to play here. Presumably, this is because it's from longer ago than yesterday, since shows from this morning seem to be available. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] flash streaming version of iplayer is live
Richard Cartwright wrote: Is iPlayer the BBC website killer? As Facebook is blocked in more and more workplaces due to the amount of time employees spend using it, will employees catching up with last nights TV at work cause bbc.co.uk to become a blocked site too? If a company's staff are more inclined to watch TV at work than getting some work done, they have bigger problems than those that can be fixed with some overly-broad firewall rules. I don't think the BBC should be worried about such dysfunctional companies. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: AW: [backstage] The next big thing in ipTV
Oeztunali, Sebnem wrote: You could have clicked the about page for example to read about their monetization concepts for broadcasters - I did. After removing vacuous phrases such as 'monetization concepts', I managed to boil it down to the question: Is it just lower-cost live streaming for broadcasters, dressed up as a new consumer platform? it is basically for broadcasters that do not have the resources inhouse to build a very expensive player and see how it works out... But why would anyone even be considering writing their own player these days, when low-cost or free players are already available? An application has to be *really* compelling to gain traction with a downloadable client, and there are abundant examples that such clients are not required to watch video online. This is especially true now that handheld video watching is practical. Where are their downloadable clients for phones and video iPods, never mind Playstations and networked media players? Compare their 8 million client downloads in one year figure, which places an optimistic maximum on their total worldwide potential audience, with the number of views YouTube and their ilk get every day. Why do they think that there is a business in servicing the demand for streamed content on the broadcasters' schedules, when the overwhelming move now is towards downloadable content on the viewers' schedules? Do you see what I meant by pre-YouTube thinking? It's like they joined the race to stream video to the desktop without realizing that Flash was getting drunk in the Winner's Enclosure, Real's name was engraved on their trophy, and the crowds had left anyway to go to iTouch Stadium. If their business model is getting small broadcasters to pay for some kind of back-to-front content-delivery network, I think they'll have trouble paying the bills, unless they can find a lot of small companies who absolutely must deliver live video of something to the web, and who are philosophically opposed to existing solutions. I hope there's something fundamental that I haven't grasped about what they're doing, because I can't even think of use cases from the porn business to support them, which can't be a good sign. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] The next big thing in ipTV
Matthew Cashmore wrote: I'm at a conference in LA at the moment about Next Gen technologies and we've just been shown this as the 'Next Big Thing in TV' - I'd be really interested in everyone's thoughts http://pages.tvunetworks.com/index.html Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but ... is this intended solely for streaming live TV? No catch-ups, or watching old stuff, or recording for later? No sharing clips? No skipping commercials? If so, then it seems like a reversion to me, made by people with a pre-YouTube, pre-PVR mindset. It reminds me of a bonkers web site I saw in 1995-ish, which *must* have been created by clue-deprived TV executives; it had scheduled content on the same web pages (News: 10-11; Sport: 11-12, Entertainment: 12-1, etc.). Here's the old camel for doing things, nailed onto the back of the new horse. It was a stunning success, where by 'success' I mean 'failure', and by 'stunning' I mean 'blitheringly obvious'. Likewise, I think TVUnetworks is solving the wrong problem, too. Apart from things where the liveness is essential (news, sport, Big Brother (either kind)), I don't see the benefit to the viewer. I also don't see their business model -- what are they enabling, that people will pay for, that isn't already doable? Is it just lower-cost live streaming for broadcasters, dressed up as a new consumer platform? I think people are now getting used to ignoring schedules (which are only a hack to get around radio spectrum capacity limits anyway), and are deciding what they want to watch, when, rather than organizing their activities around a TV schedule. Or worse, zillions of schedules. Let's all watch TV like it's 1994! On the Internet!! In Korean!!! -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service
Nick Reynolds-AMi wrote: i will bet anyone on this mailing list a fiver that in 2026 there will still be something called the BBC and it will still be paid for by a licence fee I will bet you the Standard Long-Term Economical Unit of Comparison (one Mars bar) that, in 2026, there will not be a physical object called 'a fiver'. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service
Nick Reynolds-AMi wrote: i will take that bet Frank physical money will still exist in 2026 For the avoidance of doubt, I'm talking about fivers in general circulation, not in the hands of collectors, drug dealers and suchlike. If you're still up for it, I'm willing to gamble a Mars bar over it, since I have more confidence they'll be around. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] weather feed: thursday
On 11/09/2007 07:31 AM, ~:'' ありがとうございました。 wrote: weather feed: thursday why is the BBC weather feed showing thursday's weather? http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/24hr.shtml?world=0008 I do find this fairly frequently and rather unhelpful. It's a beta for the BBC's new weather catch-up service, iMbrella. If you missed yesterday's weather, you can catch it again today. Note that, because of the use of Digital Rain Management, sunlight is not presently available through this new service. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Use of Tinyurl in Emails
vijay chopra wrote: You can't deliberately invoke Godwins law: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/Godwins-Law.html I think you'll find that he can, since he did, although I accept that the chances of a successful Godwinizing are low. (Plus, if anyone gets to pull rank on this list, it'll be Matthew or Ian -- that they'll do it with good humour is a bonus.) Personally, I was waiting to see whether anyone's irony fuse was going to blow, since arguing in public about how good your manners are is a fairly robust demonstration of how good they aren't. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Freesat and backstage - can we MHEG? Yes we can...
Brian Butterworth wrote: On 09/11/2007, *Dave Crossland* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 09/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - an alternative electronic programme guide By alternative, do you mean user-generated, so when there's some low quality programming people can , ahem, express their opinions? I guess that would depend upon if the system has a return path - like an ethernet connection! Actually, I wondered whether you were suggesting, say, a satellite/ Interweb mash-up of some kind, where the Freesat box's MHEG engine could incorporate data from somewhere other than the satellite, and had the programmability to be able to embed, or otherwise render, the secondary data into the display. So, for example, in the EPG, you could ask to have rottentomato.com votes for upcoming movies incorporated, which would require the box to be able to: a) grab those ratings, and b) correlate them with the EPG entries without c) the EPG interface becoming ludicrous. Even usefuller would be the ability to grab personalized gubbins from sites based on your very own ID, so that your have your mates' insane opinions show up, with hilarious consequences. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Downloading Flash video (was Re: [backstage] Argey Bargey on iPlayer)
We interrupt the recursive argument-passing routine to bring you an increasingly unexpected technical tip. So even though Gnash can play YouTube in my browser, I still use http://www.arrakis.es/~rggi3/youtube-dl/ to watch youtube. Cool. I almost never stream video in the browser, because '...buffering...' really annoys me. My attention span is already clinically short, and ...hey look, donuts! Hee, hee! Donuts. They're round. What? Oh, right. Downloading Flash, gotcha. Rather than using a script, I use a Firefox plug-in that knows how to download Flash video from loads of sites, using the standard browser download mechanism (so I get little progress blobs at the bottom of my browser while I continue to surf for donuts). http://www.downloadhelper.net/ I find it particularly useful for snarfing technical presentations from Google video and Yahoo! YUI! Theater! for later playback on my shiny video iPod bauble, thus allowing the computers to be used for more computery purposes, such as accountancy, or sending out advertisements for international criminal syndicates, or something. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] An interview with Mark Taylor, Pres. of UK Open Source Consortium
Gordon Joly wrote: How about Google? It's not directly open-source, but it's built on top of Linux, which is. I can't see Google releasing their source code, or their search algorithms... My point was that Linux is widely used as an enabling technology in things that are ostensibly more popular than it; other people made the point better by referring to set-top boxes such as TiVo. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] An interview with Mark Taylor, Pres. of UK Open Source Consortium
~:'' ありがとうございました。 wrote: where are the easy-to-use tools? Ubuntu and Gnome are hardly mainstream... By 'mainstream', do you mean 'commonplace among computer users' or 'commonplace among the general public'? Also, are you conceding that Ubuntu and Gnome are easy to use? the most significant issue is that no open source project outside possibly wikipedia is truly popular. I'm confused about what you mean by 'open source project', since you cite Wikipedia as one and imply that Ubuntu Linux is another. Are we talking about software, or data, or services, or platforms, or what? If Wikipedia is an example, then I think a reasonable case can be made that the Internet is the world's biggest open source project, and it's pretty mainstream. Plus, web browsers are pretty easy to use, especially the open source ones. NB wikipedia is not an application or tool. If Wikipedia doesn't count as a tool, how do you define 'tool'? How about Google? It's not directly open-source, but it's built on top of Linux, which is. Does such an enabling technology that's in widespread use behind the scenes not count as 'popular' or 'mainstream' when it's the bedrock of things that are? My concern is that because the process does not include users, it is difficult for their needs to be met. Which 'process' are you talking about? Are you suggesting that software is too important to be left to programmers? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] built with
Jason Cartwright wrote: You're returning... X-Powered-By: ASP.NET http://ASP.NET ...in the HTTP headers of that page. I guess you're running ASP.NET http://ASP.NET on other sites inside IIS. Well, the Apache server that runs our site (www.limov.com) happens to include mod-php, since some of the other sites hosted on that box do use PHP, but we don't use PHP at all on limov.com. Despite that, builtwith.com reports unequivocally that www.limov.com is a PHP site. So this is one example they get utterly wrong. If they're relying on server headers, who knows how reliable their results are? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Mobile Developer Un/Conference/Camp
Jakob Fix wrote: Matthew: 18 months contract. There is a limit: 1,400 internet pages per day would break the deal as part of fair usage agreement. Wait, what? Which internet page do they have in mind, I wonder? I bet it's more like google.com than amazon.com. I also wonder about the exchange rate between internet pages, AJAX requests, MP3 files and e-mail messages; a limit based on requests rather than total bytes transferred would be highly comical. And is the limit a cap, or merely the threshold to the land of severely enlarged bills? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] I would gladly sell the BBC, and all it contains, for my house.
At least, I think that's the quote. Anyway, here's a load of gear being flogged by the BBC, just in case there are any people on this list who understand old technical stuff: http://www.goindustry.com/en/speciallist.asp?SaleID=7658Track=AuctionScope=group -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] From Private Eye - BBC Shock!
Matthew Cashmore wrote: From last weeks Private Eye - http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ THE BBC has announced today radical new plans to show TV programmes on television sets. While these television sets will never replace seeing your favourite shows streamed on the internet, beamed directly to your mobile phone, or projected onto the side of your house, said the BBC's newly-appointed Creative Multi-Vision Platform Director of Post-Media Interface Synergy Jeff Haircut, we do believe that broadcasting on television sets still plays a small role in delivery to a small niche market of viewers who want to watch television. From next week's news, as far as you know: The BBC's radical plans to show TV programmes on so-called 'television sets' has been met with almost unilateral opposition by opposition groups. Famed spectacle-wearing spectacle Dr Coriolanus wrote a moving piece in the Daily Grot, comparing the BBC's plans to the cultural revolution in China, and accusing Jeff Haircut of being a Little Red Kook. And the British Homeopathic League accused government boffins of watering down official research in order to hide the harmful effects of the new TV broadcasts. 'Radio waves are all fine and good, but we have many reports from our patients that these new television waves are making them feel sick, and we insist that the BBC stop these dangerous experiments with our children's health,' said the BHL's chief health experimenter Dr Debby Mengele. Meanwhile, members of the Multi-Platform Distributors, Erstwhile Journalists and Glass Blowers Union staged a bandwidth-capping protest that effectively shut down every BBC programme except for Graham Norton's new audience participation reality show, 'Strictly Coming'. Asked to comment on future possible protests, Dr Jeremy Paxman, the union's ambassador to the BBC, just looked tired and sad. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] From Private Eye - BBC Shock!
Tom Scott wrote: Wait - surely the British Homeopathic League would water down research in order to make it more effective? The BHL don't understand the meaning of the word 'irony', but they do know that whatever it means, the more subtle it is, the more effective it is. And Debby Mengele isn't standing behind me right now with a hose. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] This weeks top 10
On 08/10/2007 03:28 PM, Matthew Cashmore wrote: Join us as we delve into Ian and mines browser history each Friday afternoon :-) Perhaps we should release this as a podcast complete with cheesy music? Or get Smashey and Nicey to read it out. Cor? Blimey! Two-point-oh! If you see something that should be in our weekly top 10 – drop me a line before lunch time Fridays! I take it such suggestions ought to be SFW, right? 4. Costing only $150,000, at number 4 it’s your very own jet pack http://www.tzunami.com/No-More-Harddrive.php I see no jet pack here. While you try to find it, let's listen to You ain't bookmarkin' yet by Backstage-Browser Overdrive... -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] feeds with icons or pictures?
On 07/24/2007 12:09 PM, Brian Butterworth wrote: Thus the whole point of the BBC Mediabank - images to use for any purpose! Hardly. Material retrieved from the Media Bank must only be used within the specified embargo dates, by authorized users, may not appear in association with salacious, misleading, pornographic or many other categories of material, and not in a way that would bring the BBC's reputation for impartiality into question. Actual terms and conditions of use: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediabank/documentation/guidelines.doc -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] iFiddlingDetails
Meanwhile, in actual news, Apple have published just how close they got to making developing for the iPhone just like web development: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html Apart from the usual mobile device constraints of display size, input devices and network speed, I see these additional potential stumbling blocks in making typical web sites iPhone-compatible: + no Flash + no Java + no tool-tips + no hover styles + no mouse-over events + no Javascript execution beyond 5 seconds per page + no file uploading (input type='file') + no self-signed or custom X.509 certificates + old version of Javascript (1.4) + problems with framesets + problems with pop-up windows + scaling images is discouraged + converts anything that looks like a phone number into a tel: URL + built-in client that handles maps.google.com URLs + fixed video playback controls So, just like normal web development, then (except for all the differences). -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iFiddlingDetails
Brian Butterworth wrote: + no Flash No bad thing that! Lots of sites use it, whether it's liked or not. I suspect this will be the first item on the list to change, once Adobe accede to whatever comedy business terms Jobs is suggesting to them, according to sources in my imagination. + no mouse-over events There's no mouse! Many AJAXy sites use hovering or mouse-overs to disclose extra options, previews or menus that don't seem available otherwise, so this will potentially break many trendy sites. + no file uploading (input type='file') Not really suprising on a closed device. So I can take photos, but can't upload them to Flickr? + problems with framesets Who uses them these days? They haven't gone away, and I've seen recent developments for intranets and business services where they're used to minimize page refreshes for a closed community of users using older or bandwidth-limited equipment. + problems with pop-up windows Another good think, surely? Still widely used, now often imitated by pop-up-like boxes over content instead, so the need for something like them is clear. + no self-signed or custom X.509 certificates Which, by the way, breaks the device for me as a potential future phone, since we use self-signed X.509 certs to authenticate to secure web services, and we're certainly not the only people doing this. (It doesn't help that I couldn't put an ssh client on the thing either.) -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iFiddlingDetails
On 07/04/2007 10:22 PM, Gordon Joly wrote: So I can take photos, but can't upload them to Flickr? Use email? :-) If I wanted to use e-mail for everything, I'd move back to 1992. (I suspect my ping times to flickr.com would become excessive, though.) Besides, Apple loudly proclaim that the iPhone is the Internet in your pocket: http://www.apple.com/iphone/internet/ while merely whispering the curiously-folded value of 'Internet' they're actually working with. I'll be intrigued to see what the iPhone turns into by the time it lands on these shores, and indeed whether or not the Linux phone from FIC actually gains more traction that the rest of the promising-but-discontinued Linux-based handhelds did. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Worried about your music being pirated?
You could always try this: http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2007/07/dude-releases-his-new-album-on-nes.html Probably a bit extreme for the BBC to consider, though. (P.S., don't mention using emulators to distribute copies; it'll only upset people.) -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DVD Region 2
Kim Plowright wrote: Here in the US, that is not the case. It is much harder to find such DVD players. Because they contravene the DMCA act? IANAL, and certainly not across american law, but I thought it expressly forbade the circumventing of content locks? Playing a region 2 disk in North America doesn't involve breaking any content locks -- it's no different from having a region 2 player in the same box as your region 1 player. I think it would involve some high-value comedy lawyering to make a case that this is a DMCA violation, unless mere possession of a lawfully-acquired region 2 player outside of region 2 is somehow a crime. I believe the reason that multi-region DVD players are hard to find in the States is simply because multi-standard televisions are uncommon there. UK region 2 DVDs are almost all encoded in PAL video format, so to watch them you need a TV than can cope with lovely PAL video, rather than horrible old NTSC. Since TVs that can display PAL seem to be about as common in the States as hen's teeth, multi-region DVD players aren't much use there. (I have a friend in the States who had to spend an unholy amount of money a year or two ago to acquire the ability to play non-NTSC DVDs. His choice was either to *import* a PAL-compatible TV or buy a fancy-schmancy DVD player that did on-the-fly PAL-NTSC transcoding, a non-trivial operation. This was completely separate from the issue of region coding.) More info on DVD video coding, and how it differs from region coding, here: http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.19 -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Radio 7
Toni Sant wrote: Could it be that DAB listenership is now higher than Internet listenership? I believe it's simpler than that -- consistency of branding. I think they're just enforcing these apparent naming conventions: BBC Radio n - radio station (whatever 'radio' means these days) BBC n - TV channel (even where 'n' is spelled out) Until recently, naming for n4 has been inconsistent, and there are bound to be people who don't know that BBC Four isn't Radio 4, and BBC 7 isn't a TV channel at all; those people are perhaps now living in a media universe that is epsilon less confusing. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial
Mutt Baskerville wrote: Slightly Off Topic, as you mentioned Ubuntu ISOs, nice to see that the BBC is not covering this on it's technology news, it gave an awful lot of press to Vista. They even gave coverage to some World of Warcraft expansion pack! Then again, I've never agreed with them on their definition of 'news'. Perhaps it'll become newsworthy now that Michael Dell is running Ubuntu Linux (and OpenOffice and Firefox) on his new laptop: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/04/18/12261.aspx#comments -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Browser Stats
Andy wrote: On 26/03/07, Jeremy Stone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 0.4% of users at the time used a Linux operating system ;) That's not entirely true is it? Please do not try to mislead people. Admittedly, I've only met Jem a few times, but I feel I ought to defend his honour here by pointing out that I don't believe he's the misleading type. What is more likely is: 0.4% of users WHERE DETECTED AS using a Linux operating system AT THE TIME THEY VISITED THE BBC SITE. Well, we are talking about stats based on visits to the bbc.co.uk home page, so I kind of took that as implicit. This number can be wrong for a multitude of reasons. Indeed. But for all you know, it's also right. 1) the BBC stats are biased, the site is target at Windows users and on certain pages blocks users of other OSes That's not my experience of it; my usual browser is Firefox on Gentoo Linux, and I can't recall the last time I was blocked from content on bbc.co.uk. This is the great thing about statistics people like you claim they show something and try to cover up the failings of how the sampling was done. People like you, eh? I trust you have the data to support such a generalized denigration. I really do dislike statistics, especially when people try to claim that they prove something without accounting for the method of gathering. I suspect that you dislike abuse of statistics, as I do; statistics themselves are tremendously useful, and I find them really quite hard to dislike by themselves. Maybe you should improve your stats? 1.Group each unique header together and have a Skilled Human with knowledge of all operating system classify them according to OS. Not exactly scalable. 2. Make each visitor pass a Turing Test prior to using there User Agent. Not exactly possible. It would probably be easier and cheaper to just add 'Browsing platform' as a question in the next census. Then we'd have the data for a whole decade of quibbling. 3. Verify details of OS using other methods, i.e. Javascript could check, An interesting suggestion, given your other comments about just using what's standard, and given how uniformly available and consistent Javascript isn't. Why do you need to 'support' specific browsers anyway? This is what standards are ofr, [...] Why should the HTML content be any different? Because an ounce of facts beats a ton of wishful thinking. Just because Microsoft, Mozilla and others ought to implement standards-compatible software doesn't mean they actually do, and any serious web developer is mindful of the technologies that people actually have, not those that she would rather they had. The underlying TCP/IP and HTTP system seem to work much more compatibly than all these websites, [...] does this not show that standards work better? Not a relevant comparison, in my opinion. Standards such as TCP/IP and HTTP are often substantially easier to implement correctly than client-side web standards. Morever, the Internet Protocols were never used as strategic weapons in a struggle for the desktop, so had no reason to break out in ugly rashes of vendor-specific quirks. Like it or not, any competent, non-trivial web site today simply has to take account of differences at the client, both in implementation and in customization, and this isn't a situation that's going to go away any time soon, especially with the burgeoning of Ajax-like interactivity and the use of mobile devices as browsers. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] End of week exam
at the outset of rampant DNA copying by multicellular organisms, would have sped up the process of biological evolution to the point where we would all be walking on sunshine by now. Exam Raider XXX -- the Desperate Gambit (200,000 marks) Perform a market-impact assessment of a machine that could make perfect, free, unlimited copies of itself and Angelina Jolie, paying particular attention to the international trades in lip gloss, little brown babies and grainy photographs of Jennifer Aniston. Using any system of logic that is legally permissable, show how hacking such a machine to make copies of Steve Ballmer would lead directly to the end of the world, as well as causing a widespread loss of confidence in Blu-Ray technology. End of the exam -- or is it? Exam Raider Anniversary Edition -- coming for Christmas 2008. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Trust reaches Provisional Conclusions on BBC on-demand proposals
Gordon Joly wrote: The BBC decided not to celebrate 70 years of television that started at Alexandra Palace in 1936 that is in 2006. Or did I miss something? The face-sucking-alien that used Alexandra Palace episode of 'Doctor Who', shown last summer? (Although I would understand if you'd blotted that one out, as it wasn't exactly the zenith of writing for the new series.) I'm sure it was no more of a coincidence that we had an Ally Pally episode in 2006 than that the two-part episode about Satan was broadcast on days that straddled the date 6/6/6. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Trust reaches Provisional Conclusions on BBC on-demand proposals
vijay chopra wrote: When will media corporations realise that p***ing off their customers is not the best way to make money, Well, they're still making money despite suing the public, treating them all like criminals, and claiming that skipping adverts on commercial TV is stealing the programmes. So, I think we have a long way to go yet before they wise up. and definitely not something a public service broadcaster should be doing. Serving the public includes bringing the best available material to them, not just whatever can be distributed without copying restrictions. Right now, and probably for many years to come, much of the best content will only be available from those who fear that uncontrolled computer copying will reduce them to busking for alms. Just like the eminently defeatable locks on your house help you to sleep at night, so DRM helps some media people sleep at night. Consequently, if the choice becomes 'DRM-protected content' or 'test card', I vote 'DRM-protected content', with the following proviso: make sure that the rights that the DRM protects includes the rights that I, as the consumer, have in handling that content. It seems to me that the BBC is one organization that might actually keep the public in mind in any DRM system they invent, so I strongly support the idea that it's something the BBC should be involved with. Few other broadcasters in the world have the clout, and the technical wherewithal, to act as advocates for the public in this debate; they should not stay out of it. DRM doesn't serve the public in any way shape or form, the BBC should say to content producers give us licence to show your media DRM free, or we won't broadcast you, it shouldn't give in to their demands. I take it you haven't spent much time negotiating with programme makers, then? In general, my way or the highway isn't a winning strategy to get talented people to work with you, especially when they're scared of what the future might hold for them. Afterall, there are many companies that would pay to be on the BBC, you should exploit that position to promote free(libre) media. The day the BBC sells its airwaves to the highest bidder in this way is the day they betray the public's trust. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Trust reaches Provisional Conclusions on BBC on-demand proposals
Andrew Bowden wrote: If everyone - and I mean everyone - made their DVD player multi-region, it would be far harder to justify making region-encoded DVDs. DVD region coding rides on the coat-tails of different international video standards, so I think pressure against DVD region coding could never become very severe. It's not enough that your DVD player be multi-region in order to watch out-of-region discs, your TV also has to know what to do with the signal. At least in North America, it's quite hard to find multi-standard TVs, so a multi-region DVD player could play a UK DVD, for example, but the TV wouldn't display it because PAL wouldn't make sense to it. For what are probably comedy reasons, DVD region 2 includes the UK (PAL), France (SECAM) and Japan (NTSC). This, combined with the economics of manufacturing, has probably dictated that UK DVD players be more capable (and therefore more hackable) than for other regions, since DVD players bound for region 2 already have to be able to cope with every video standard in the world, plus dog. (I'd be interested in real data that supports or contradicts this supposition, by the way.) This is different from the situation with MP3 players, for example, where there is a world-wide standard on how to go from bits to audio that isn't hamstrung by history. Consequently, I think lessons from DVD region coding have limited applicability to how DRM might work out in other areas. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Trust reaches Provisional Conclusions on BBC on-demand proposals
On 02/01/2007 08:30 PM, vijay chopra wrote: I would rather the BBC aired all that stuff with expired copyright, all that copyleft\creative commons talent, and gave exposure to new talent who are willing to show me how good they are without dictating how I use what I've seen. I would rather the BBC didn't become YouTube. The day the BBC sells its airwaves to the highest bidder in this way is the day they betray the public's trust. You misunderstand, I wasn't advocating that they sell to the highest bidder, merely expressing the view that there are so many people wishing to be on the BBC that the BBC wouldn't even have to pay them, but would be able to charge artists to appear. So the only thing I got wrong was saying 'highest bidder', rather than 'any bidder'? Just like the eminently defeatable locks on your house help you to sleep at night, so DRM helps some media people sleep at night. ??? Are you serious, if the lock on my door was as easy to break as DRM, I would be up all night with a baseball bat under my pillow, I wasn't suggesting the locks and DRM are of equivalent strength, merely that locks and DRM can both serve the purpose of allowing people to avoid worrying so much about something they fear. Most real-world locks are actually pretty bad, but they still work because few people test them to see if they're really steel or simply tinfoil. are these media people so stupid as to believe that DRM gives more protection against copyright infringement than giving a quality product that people want to pay for? I don't believe the choice is between 'do a good job' or 'protect it with DRM'. I believe it's between 'publish it without any notional protection and risk losing control of it', 'publish it with some protection that the average customer will tolerate and hopefully keep some control of it', and 'don't publish at all until we see what the real risks and benefits are'. This last option is also known as 'last-mover advantage', and is traditionally favoured by established players in a changing market, especially if they can run to their Daddy in the legislature for help in retarding change until they retire to just outside of Seattle. For the avoidance of doubt, as a card-carrying member of the FSFE and a supporter of the EFF, I am *not* pro-DRM; but, as a member of the human race with a modest degree of pragmatism and a finite life-span, I believe that cramming the live-free-of-DRM-or-die mantra down the unbelievable number of throats that my fellow Earthicans possess is the argumentative way to re-build our world in true digital glory. In some ways, DRM is a comfort blanket that the young digital age is using to get through difficult growing pains; the trick is to make sure it doesn't get dragged into adulthood, covered in drool and cat hair. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] democracyplayer
Nic James Ferrier wrote: Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In the other, we're just a natural resource to be harvested and sold off like so many varieties of attentional baked-beans; any benefits we might get are a side-effect of the process. I realise you said it was very crude but I think this is too crude. I can't think of many itv or sky people who would agree with this analysis. Perhaps they should look harder at the financial underpinnings of their employers, then. Ultimately, all businesses serve their customers first, or they fail, and for all commercial businesses, the customers are those who pay the invoices that the business sends out. Sky, at least, invoice viewers as well as advertisers, so arguably they are as concerned with what viewers want as what advertisers want; I don't know the split between these funding sources, though. No clearer indication of the difference between these two models can be found than in the sudden profusion of TV-based premium-rate phone scams, I'm sorry, phone-in pay-to-guess-the-answer quiz programmes; the BBC has no such offerings, nor would I expect them to have any, because they're just a mechanism for hoovering money from the pockets of the bored and the under-informed. They're hardly a mechanism for delivering viewers to advertizers. Well, why involve your real customers when you can drink from the source of funds directly, especially in the middle of the night, when your real customers are hard to find? (Plus, I'll bet you 20p that no advertisers would purchase slots in the 'Guess movies with an 'M' in them' show, for various reasons.) Are you saying they are scams? That no one wins the prize? They seem carefully constructed to conceal from participants the truth about what their chances of winning are, while charging them for every attempt. Even a bookmaker has to disclose the odds, and doesn't get to rip up 99% of the bets at random while keeping all the stakes. I believe I saw Sky TV executives testifying before a parliamentary select committee just the other week, giving their poor opinion of the whole situation, and asking that it be regulated like gambling before they're all tainted by it. Commercial activities also tend to favour the easy and the uncontroversial, which implicitly marginalizes unpopular views and hard-to-digest information; look at Fox News, if you don't believe me. Tend, tend, tend. This is a very biased nonsense. Can you show that the majority of commercial broadcasting endeavours are difficult or controversial? If not, then it isn't nonsense. Commercial channels may be more likely to appeal to niche markets. *May* be more likely, but most don't, unless you class football or reality cop shows or 'Ironside' repeats as niche markets. Just as most commercial retailers *may* be more likely to serve niche markets, but most don't; the commercial imperative makes it consistently more tempting to pursue the larger markets, especially in fields where economies of scale operate, or where fixed infrastructure costs have to be paid, such as for transmitters and satellites and stuff. Ultimately, what *might* happen is more inspiring than what *does* happen. They may be more customer led than a giant public corporation with no need to pay immediate attention to viewing figures. Because overnight viewing figures are the number-one criterion to judge public-service broadcasting by? American Television, where there are few controls, is some of the worst in the world. But it's also some of the best in the world. Unfortunately, unless it's changed a lot since I was last there, the 'some of the best' is a sprinkling of rose petals onto the torrent of dishwater that is 'some of the worst'. 'Six feet under' or 'Futurama' or even 'The Daily Show' don't compensate for the Incredible Foghorn of Conservative Mediocrity that is US TV. Frankly, I'm amazed when anything half-way decent comes out of it, doubly so when it's commissioned by a major network. The BBC could never have made Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the best TV *ever* in my opnion and yes, I can justify that) I would hope you could justify your own opinion, but I suspect you'll have trouble getting the rest of us to share it. :-) -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] democracyplayer
The Joly G-man wrote: The BBC are responsible in the main (AFAIK) for enforcing incorrect terminology as follows: 1) forward slash - a term used by Naomi Troski on the Big Byte, circa 1994. Since Ms Troski speaks fluent 'Strine, we assume that the term oblique stroke was not in her vocabulary. Presenters including the late John Peel used the correct term. I don't think the term solidus was much in use. Well, it's always been 'slash' in the computing circles I've been wobbling around in since about 1980; to me, 'oblique stroke' sounds more like a cerebrovascular accident occasioned by maintaining one's head at an overly-jaunty angle. My objection would be to the 'forward' part, but I guess a non-trivial number of people still get 'backslash' wrong (due, no doubt, to the bone-headed adoption of '\' as the DOS path separator by Microsoft, as a result of being frivolously different from Unix, as far as I know). (Nowhere near as egregious as referring to '#' as 'pound', though.) 2) logon to our website - the actual meaning in most cases is browse our website. Or send us an e-mail at www.bbc.co.uk/not-an-email-address. Still, we've come a long way to be quibbling with the BBC's use of terminology about something that's so taken for granted now. It was only a few years ago that Janet Street-Porter ruined my perfectly good irony meter when she wasted 30 minutes of precious TV airtime whining about how the Internet was only of interest to Sad People, and how we should all get out more, instead of being stuck in front of screens the whole time. I suspect that the programme in question, J'accuse..., could only be shown today as an object lesson in how to be totally clueless in public about the future of your own field. Now, who wants to start a sweepstake about which year we'll all be saying 'softwares' without flinching, the way we no longer flinch about saying 'emails'? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Psiphon Next Gen content
Ian Forrester wrote: I keep meaning to draw this out and post it on my blog Aw, fuff. I'm too busy writing individual, pithy-oid quips on mailing lists to post things in my blog. (Hold on, I think I'm having an epiphany...nope, just gas.) --- my own thoughts on TV generations --- Maybe I'm in the pi-th generation: I hear about a really cool programme, such as 'Itchy and Scratchy meet the Fairly Odd Parents -- on ice!', which was so subversive they'll *never* be allowed to show it again. Unfortunately, just like all the other things I should have seen to be a credible member of modern parlor-room society, it was on yesterday. And I once again wish for a simple Show me yesterday's TV that I didn't know about until today gadget that doesn't cost one of these (holds up an arm and a leg), doesn't risk having one of these felt (tugs at collar), and doesn't involve me having to build one of those (points at networked multi-channel, multi-day video cacheing system). Which I could build, obviously, if it weren't for all the, you know, quips. Obviously there's stages between the generations, like someone who watches everything on demand but also tunes in for Torchwood every week (what day is it on again?) All of them. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Re: (freeing) content is king
On 11/29/2006 04:22 PM, Matthew Cashmore wrote: Only the BBC would be having a conversation about it's Chairman having to code Perl to get the job... Over at ITV they're talking Ruby, Ruby? At ITV? What? [checks immediate surroundings for signs of severe reality distortion] If the BBC required senior management to possess practical perl prowess, ITV would surely demand rock'n'roll, drag'n'plop PowerPoint skilz, so they can re-spiffify the sales demo of their attention-harvesting plans before Big Ad notices just how ensweatened ITV's brow has become. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Newcastle labs
Matt Locke wrote: Yep - the slides that jem talked to and the tech slides are already online in the 'briefs' section: http://open.bbc.co.uk/labs/2007_the_brief.php Matt, In between all my interruptions at the Londinium launch, I recall you saying that a ninth brief was coming to the boil, but I don't see it mentioned on yonder page; something to do with those mobile newfangle-o-trons. Is my memory playing poker with dogs again? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] A sekrit from Virgin Radio
Kim Plowright wrote: We have a super lady called Elsie who types out in tripliacte the names of all of the beat combos as they play out from '78. The Pink copy is filed with the BH librarians, who stamp the counterfoil and authorise the T109-D form procedure; the yellow copy is sent to the Music (modern, repetitive) Playout Reporting Unit (third class) for record keeping; the blue copy is then sent via registered post to the BBC's ENIAC installation in Surrey, from where it is set out to 'the Last.fm internet reception station' via a series of tubes. Thanks to some unexpectedly investigative reporting by the famously inebriated Jim 'Drunken' Campbell, a fourth set of green copies was recently discovered in the basement of Reith Wetherspoon's Parrot and Cheese Shop in the remote Welsh village of Llanmannager. The green slips are all labelled 'Blitz Avoidance Copy Kept Until Peacetime', and are apparently carried clandestinely via the only route from London that avoids every bridge, railway line and transport cafe. -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Christmas Backstage bash
David Burden wrote: Coming down from Birmingham it would be best to be mid-week so as to try and dovetail in with a business meeting. Good idea though. Perhaps Ian could stick a when-can-people-make-it poll on www.doodle.ch with suggested dates? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue
On 04/26/2006 02:01 PM, Tom Loosemore wrote: Live now http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue Jings, that's a lot of details. Is this still implemented using Ruby-on-Rails? Minor bug: the 'Catalogue Mashups' link on the bottom of each page is broken: http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/prototypes/catalogue -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue
On 04/26/2006 03:05 PM, I inadvertently echoed Dave in asking: Is this still implemented using Ruby-on-Rails? Looks like this is answered on Matt's blog: http://www.hackdiary.com/archives/81.html -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
