Re: [backstage] Friday humour
What do you call a three legged donkey with one eye playing the piano while wearing shades? A honky tonky plinky plonky winky wonky. On 6 Jun 2008, at 16:54, Gareth Davis wrote: What do you call a three legged donkey? A wonky. What do you call a three legged donkey with one eye? A winky wonky. What do you call a three legged donkey with one eye playing the piano? A plinky plonky winky wonky. Shall I continue? :) -- Gareth Davis | Production Systems Specialist World Service Future Media, Digital Delivery Team - Part of BBC Global News Division * http://www.bbcworldservice.com/ * 702NE Bush House, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Forrester Sent: 06 June 2008 16:41 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Friday humour Some of these jokes are terrible! :) Ian Forrester This e-mail is: [x] private; [] ask first; [] bloggable Senior Producer, BBC Backstage Room 1044, BBC Manchester BH, Oxford Road, M60 1SJ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] work: +44 (0)2080083965 mob: +44 (0)7711913293 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sean DALY Sent: 06 June 2008 11:33 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Friday humour A skeleton walks into a bar. He says, I'll have a pint... and a mop - 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/ - 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/ - 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/ --- Tim Duckett +44 (0) 7525 786 492 - 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] Ashley Highfield leaves BBC (almost)
On 15 Apr 2008, at 05:41, Brian Butterworth wrote: Oh right, you mean like this... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/14/bbc.digitalmedia1 The former Microsoft executive Erik Huggers Give the guy a break - so, he worked for Microsoft in the past. Let's assume for a moment that his joining the BBC was based on his merits - and not some lizard-controlled Illuminati plot to make Windows take over the world - and he might, just might, have learnt a thing or two about delivering projects despite messy internal politics after spending nine years at Microsoft. Given the history of the projects so far, I'd suggest those are skills that the BBC could use now and again. If he still owns stock or has some other conflict of interest, that would be one thing. But to relentlessly slag him off because of who he worked for in the past is simplistic at best, and plays right into the hands of those who dismiss the whole topic of interoperability as muesli-crunching irrelevance at worst.Personally, I think some of the decisions that have been taken in the past have sucked. But I don't see how this kind of ad hominem abuse is going to help persuade people that there is a better way of doing things. /rant
Re: [backstage] Ashley Highfield leaves BBC (almost)
But hold on - you're confusing two issues here. Erik Huggers no longer work for Microsoft - he works for the BBC. So either we say that working for Microsoft at some point in his past has made him fundamentally untrustworthy for all time, and therefore unqualified to make these kind of decisions for another organisation in the future; OR we take the view that he will work on behalf of the organisation that he's being paid by, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Promoting closed formats in the face of all the arguments was doing the right thing as far as Microsoft was concerned - so if he's got a track record of doing the right thing by his employer, it's reasonable to assume that he's going to try to do the right thing for the BBC - whatever that happens to be. I don't buy the line that having worked for Microsoft in the past is some kind of incurable virus that renders you forever immune to the open standards arguments. Assuming he has no conflicts of interests, then surely he's entitled to the benefit of the doubt - and I've read nothing to suggest that he has conflicted interests in the way that, say, certain individuals at the National Archives have. Ad hominem attacks on Erik Huggers are a distraction from the underlying issues of technology and interoperability - and I'm sure the pro-Microsoft camp are only too happy for the community to waste bandwidth on one particular individual. On 15 Apr 2008, at 10:00, Sean DALY wrote: Tim, what disturbs people about a former MS executive in that position is that Microsoft's interests are not at all aligned with the interests of a public broadcaster. Microsoft wants video format lockin, which is why to this day Windows Media Player has no support for MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and AAC (Xbox excluded), the Xiph Ogg codecs, or even Dirac for that matter whose bitstream has been frozen for SMPTE VC-2. Microsoft chooses not to license Windows Media 9 format for implementation in GNU/Linux. Their DRM architecture is Microsoft-only, just like the Apple FairPlay AVC/AAC extension is Apple-only. If Mr. Huggers had worked for, say, a bank, nobody would care. But he had an active role at Microsoft promoting a closed, proprietary format at the expense of open formats. Anyone using a non-Microsoft system knows that only open standards guarantee interoperability and given Microsoft's shoddy record on open standards, concerns are justified. Probably the best thing he could do to allay those concerns would be to support open standards. It's a mystery to me why the BBC doesn't make available a Dirac codec installer for WMP. I have no doubt the browsers and mobile manufacturers would line up for Dirac given its patent-unencumbered status. Did you see Sun announcing the reinvention of the wheel last week, a patent-unencumbered video codec? Sean. - 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/ - 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 Podcasts Programme Guide...
Nice - is there an equivalent for iPlayer?? -Tim On 28 Feb 2008, at 15:41, Carlos Roman wrote: Hello, just wanted to say hi and say that we have another version up of our XML dump of podcasts feeds we produce. It is update every 30min and includes a link to latest episode (if there is one) and other information on the Podcasts. There is also some BBC specific info in there as well. We currently use/transform it for other internal applications but figured everyone can use it as well. Schema: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/ppg.xsd Feed: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/ppg.xml It is still an early version but any feed back on the feed would be great (or if you build anything interesting). Enjoy, -Carlos. - 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/ - 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/
