Posts by Alan Brown

UK digital network Openreach takes 15 electric vans for a spin

> there'll come a stage where the ICE infrastructure becomes uneconomic before there's sufficient infrastructure to support 100% EV.

That's already looming with the push for "renewables"

Under ideal conditions, renewables (wind/solar/tides/whatever) can _just about_ replace (or slightly outproduce) carbon-emitting power generation, but it's intermittent and unreliable by comparison as well as being ~10 times more expensive.

The increased electrical demands from EVs are only the tip of the iceberg. Gas heating of housing _IS_ going away in the UK within a decade.

The UK's nuclear generation fleet is set to retire. The coal fleet basically has and the gas fleet only has a lifespan of 15-20 years left. It will take 25-30 years to bring anything new onstream (nuclear - carbonless) and in the meantime, the fact that smartmeters have cutoff relays in them is likely to be used increasingly more commonly for load shedding.

"if you really need to do something which requires absurd range/longevity away from civilisation then you can always hire a liquid propelled vehicle."

Or even more creatively, you can take some other form of transport to the area where you want to be away from civilisation and then use suitable transportation for the area. You could call it a train or something.

Re: Pedantry

> some kind of regenerative braking system?

Not on a milk float. Regenerative braking is ineffective below a few miles per hour.

Re: apples for apples

>> Motorway service stations already have pretty hefty electrical connections

> Nowhere near comparable to what they'll need for 8-10 supercharger++ connections, running 12 hours a day. Do the maths.

In order to cope with bursts and supercharging they'll need battery banks anyway. Do the math on that.

The bigger problem of _overall_ electricity generation capacity is something that the "Green" mob are quite pointedly ignoring (it's a hell of a lot worse than just the extra capacity needed for EVs - remember that new gas heating connections won't be allowed past 2025 and that will turn into "no gas connections" eventually.)

Re: apples for apples

"Recently spoke to some people from Oxford who'd travelled by (Zoe/Leaf) to Aberystwyth and had to go via the M4, as there is just one rapid charger in mid-Wales (just north of Aberystwyth) - apart from that it's a desert for 50+ miles in every direction!"

I suspect the best solution _for the moment_ is a "range extender" - being something like a 4kW generator in a roofbox.

A lot of EV enthusiasts used to come up with something like this (or attached to the rear of the vehicle) but it's something that's not there in mass market vehicles.

Re: apples for apples

"One is that where you stop has sufficient chargers that you can be sure of getting to park adjacent to one"

In other words - what you ACTUALLY need is a carpark full of charge points - not just a few in the corner and definitely NOT a separate area when you queue up.

Park up, plug in, go and do your "driving break" stuff for 45-75 minutes. Come back, unplug, drive off.

Re: apples for apples

" Same argument for people whinging that Tesla's semi truck only goes 300miles "

Drayage and haulage are 2 different animals - Tesla's Semi is being marketed as a haulage animal.

Drayage EVs already exist, but a proper Tesla drayage EV would be a game-changer.

"Westminster Council has calculations for HMOs"

And the scary part is that a lot of PRIVATE rental 1-2 bedroom accomodation or private sale stuff doesn't meet these requirements - as came out when developers couldn't sell their stuff, tried flogging it off to local government and it was discovered that none of it met minimum requirements for social housing (noise isolation, ventilation, natural light, floorspace)

Not that it'd stopping this stuff still being flogged off as "affordable housing" - developers would sell rabbit hutches if they could get away with it(*) despite the public health effects of cheek-by-jowl living without adequate isolation.

(*) They largely are. Sucessive governments have refused to enact legislation protecting this stuff and instead have been trying to tear down the rights of social housing occupants - no surprise when you realise that a large number of MPs are private landlords and stand to make out like bandits from such changes.

"It arose because since the war the entire aim of planners has been to separate work and housing"

Actually, that's been going on since the late 19th century and was done on public health grounds - BUT it was done by extending public transport infrastructure out to the suburbs (ie, rail links)

It's only more recently that cars took over and mainly because urban planners failed to resist them in inner city areas.

"So that takes us into the territory of needing public chargers for each overnight parking space."

Private chargers or public chargers it takes us into the territory of questioning whether the electricity infrastructure can COPE with the load (it's not just the main feeders into conurbations which aren't engineered for this

UK houses draw about 100W-300W as a long-term average. Having a streetful of them(*) pulling 2-6KW overnight turns the entire concept of "offpeak" on its head and there's the question of whether the feeder cables are even rated for that. We really don't want any more exploding footpaths, do we?

(*)or street chargers

And then there's the issue that some counties (eg: Surrey) refuse point blank to deal with the issue of public on-street infrastructure and have been giving the same "We'll think about it" answer for the last 12 years.

Huawei is planning to inject $436m into Arm-based server silicon

Re: Smart

It's hard to make sarcasm show in postings....

Back in the 1980s we used to say that the guys in Korea/Taiwan were knocking off Japanese designs and couldn't come up with anything original.

By the end of the 1980s that was obviously wrong and by the 1990s they were outstripping Japan.

Talking to a bunch of Huawei engineers last year they commented that they thought Chinese academia was crap and most PhDs being awarded were for fairly "worthless" stuff - I had to point out that this is the norm everywhere and occasionally a few of those "worthless" discoveries turn out a decade or so later to be critical turning points in development or understanding. This is important because the number of patents and low level discoveries coming out of China is easily matching the USA - which succumbed to self-important puffery a long time ago and at some point is going to wake up finding that it can't be the neighbourhood bully anymore - most likely "Gulliver in Lilliputt" style as noone else actually _wants_ a fight.

A quite successful businessman I knew a long time ago pointed out that the most important thing about having a degree wasn't so much what it was in, so much as it showed the holder could apply themselves for prolonged periods - interestingly he _didn't_ like hiring MBAs or other business-type grads and preferred arts/education grads for management/business planning roles as they tended to be better at it.

Boeing's 737 Max woes trigger BEEELLIONS in losses – and that's just for the latest quarter

Re: I Prefer Aircraft Designed By Engineers, NOT Venture Capitalists and Bean Counters

ETOPS was sensible and took 40 years of operations proving turbines were hundreds of times more reliable than piston engines before it started happening.

" it seems really odd that the TRIM can have a bigger effect on the aircraft than the CONTROL SURFACE."

Older aircraft "trimmed" by means or "trim tabs" - small bits hanging off the elevators,

In the case of modern civil transports, they actually have an "All flying tailplane" design - the entire tailplane swivels and "trimming" is done by adjusting the angle of the _entire_ tailplane. This is a slow process (done with a jackscrew on 737s), so elevators are still used for quick changes - but under normal flying conditions the elevators play little part in control as they induce drag.

You can pretty much fly a 737 using the electric "trim" control alone and leaving the elevators entirely alone (I played with this in a -200 simulator at one point, including takeoff) but it's "NOT RECOMMENDED" for a number of reasons.

Re: Will the 737 MAX ever be safe?

"Do you have any links for this?"

The 737NG parts issue was covered in 2010 and affects aircraft built in the first 5-7 years of the production run:

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/20101214104637901849.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258260315_Whistle-blown_into_nothingness_The_Boeing_Story

The handling issue (stalling and the inability to power-on out of it - at ANY altitude) is well-known and part of pilot training as a result.

Mentour Pilot covers it in his videos about flying 737NGs. Because it's PART of pilot training/certification on 737NGs it's not regarded as a big deal by pilots (who tend not to be physicists or safety engineering analysts), but the aviation industry is full of tombstone safety shit like this - "It hasn't killed anyone yet, so it must be safe" (similar to NASA and O-rings, or blocks of foam being shed from tanks).

The fact is that the procedure is to cover a quite dangerous handling deficiency - Stall recovery is normally done by powering up and putting the nose down at the same time - having the engines able to force the nose to _remain_ high thanks to a loss of handling authority or a willdy out of balance torquing moment is inherently dangerous. Whilst older 737-(400-800) models have this tendency it's able to be overcome and other civil transport aircraft aren't susceptable to it or they simply wouldn't get type approval.

Re: Will the 737 MAX ever be safe?

"Had the pilots been properly trained, the accidents were avoidable, if only by throttling back to shuck off speed and then lowering the landing flaps to force a change in software mode."

You're that close to the ground, the plane is doing its level best to kill you by pointing itself down and you find you have to both throttle back AND let off on the yoke in order to adjust the trim?

Sully (Yes, that Sully) flew the Ethiopian flight data in a simulator shortly after the crash. His statement was that he found it almost impossible to fly and in his opinion most pilots wouldn't have been able to save it even with hours of training. Yes it really IS that dangerous.

It's bloody easy to armchair-quarterback but you're not facing 90-120 seconds of situational overload and trim controls requiring several hundred POUNDS of force to turn thanks to aerodynamic pressures whilst being required to make flight changes that every fibre of your being screams NO about ("Always maintain thy airspeed, lest the ground rise up and smite thee", and "Never fly into the ground. It hurts") - actually LETTING an aircraft that's determined to fly itself into the ground DO SO - even momentarily - so you can frantically wind the wheels and _HOPE_ you can adjust them enough before you hit the ground.

Re: Will the 737 MAX ever be safe?

"The cut corner here is redesign and restructure of the aircraft undercarriage to allow for additional ground clearance."

longer legs == utterly redesigned wheel bays (the wheels almost touch as they fold under) and a major fuselage redesign necessitating major wing work which means certification as a new aircraft and that means fixing a couple of hundred _OTHER_ issues that wouldn't pass muster on a new bird (including that tailplane jackscrew setup). At that point you'd also address the factor that the 737 can't take aviation containers (a major shortcoming if you've ever seen ground handling of their cargo)

That means "new aircraft time"

There's a saying that aircraft are designed around their engines, but it's even more true to say that they're designed around their undercarriage, because changing the way the wheel bays are built into the fuselage usually affects positioning of serious structural components, balance, wing, fuselage, fuel and cargo handling components.

The design might START around the engines and wing but in practice they can be changed a little over time. Once the leg design is locked in place, those CAN'T be changed without scrapping the body and starting over.

Re: Will the 737 MAX ever be safe?

No.

The 737NG can't be recovered from a stall if the engines are throttled up before the nose is pitched down, pilots have to nose down, gain airspeed and THEN throttle up, or else the engines will keep pitching the nose up.

That means the NG airframe shouldn't have been certified. The MAX simply makes the problem worse.

Regulatory capture writ large

And then there's the issue of the FAA looking the other way when whistleblowers came forward about damaged ribs with falsified documentation(*) being fitted to NG airframes - and Boeing employees bashing the shit out of things to force them to fit, then covering up the damage and creating more falsified documentation thanks to management pressure. 7-10 deaths so far, potentially a couple of potential Comet-style failures in future. The whistleblowers got outed and tossed under a bus.

(*) They're supposed to be precision CNC milled/drilled but were hand bent/drilled and way out of tolerance, which means things didn't fit and the "forcing" them in (aka bashing the shit out of things and filling gaps with green goo) may have overstressed panels and built in fatigue cracks. 3 airframes have broken when they shouldn't have so far on minor runway overruns and as the NGs are certified for more cycles/higher flights on the basis of the precision assembly possible due to the CNC milling of the ribs, there's a good chance of a mid air structural failure as they age.

Operation Desert Sh!tstorm: Routine test shoots down military's top-secret internets

"I still don't understand why these don't have 9V battery attachment nubs"

A lot of electronic safes have the batteries on the OUTSIDE for this very reason.

Re: rows of car batteries baking in the 48° heat

Go to XYZ developing country and you'll see row after row of them - and the only thing you can GET are car batteries.

Even after saying you don't WANT car batteries, you want proper deep cycle batteries, you'll be sold - a car battery - because the sellers really don't know any better. They also sell WD40 as lubricating oil.

Re: rows of car batteries baking in the 48° heat

" They didn't spit during these toppings-up."

You've never topped up telephone exchange traction batteries (about 8-10 inches a side and 2-3 feet high - PER CELL - times 24 cells). They might not spit but splashback was always a worry. Goggles AND an apron thanks - acidwash jeans may have been fashionable but it's not a good idea to get the chemical in question on them whilst wearing them.

Re: rows of car batteries baking in the 48° heat

"In cold environments..."

Which is why the owner's manual of the Lada Niva rather famously recommends that drivers do this for several minutes before attempting to start the car if the ambient temperature is below -40C

Re: Bloody Sand gets everywhere

"Said switch was removed after the test and found that it was half full of sand."

Between that and the switch at the backup DC, one assume that ALL the electrics were inspected and/or replaced on spec after that?

Braking bad? Van with £112m worth of crystal meth in back hits cop car at police station

Re: It don't add up, guv

500kg of chinese-sourced meth recovered in NZ a couple of years ago was valued at half a billion dollars - because it was assayed at something like 98% purity (by contrast "P labs" mostly turn out low grade junk and a lot of toxic byproducts/contaminants)

The key factor _is_ purity. If it was 273kg of "pure" meth then it would easily be worth that much - it would turn into a few _tons_ of street product.

One of the biggest dangers of the illegal drug market isn't so much the illegal drugs themselves as what they're diluted with - which can be anything from icing sugar to talc to rat poison to caustic soda (or worse). It's not as if there's regulatory oversight.

Man arrested over UK's Lancaster University data breach hack allegations

Re: Sophisticated and malicious

"This will keep happening until we invest in training and basic measures. Which will probably never happen."

Very sorry to disappoint you, but for the cases I mentioned the users in question DID get training and STILL went on to try and override the antivirus software - no responsibility and liability == don't care.

These days that training would include mention of GDPR, swingeingly large fines and the probability that apart from being a dramatically career limiting move, the university's insurance underwriters may attempt to recover some of their costs from the people in question if there was any hint of actively overriding the security systems.

"I wonder if the account phished this time was one JISC breached on their test."

Based on what I see in my own $orkplace - I don't.

And these same people get offended/start making grievance cases when you call them out on it.

I'm not kidding about this either - We had two staffers _deliberately_ disable AV software which was preventing them opening malware that had come in via email on the basis that "It might be something important" - and they did it on multiple occasions.

After one's third offence - and giving her a dressing down for causing us over a day's lost work a formal complaint was filed on the basis of "Speaking to her as if she was a spoiled naughty child and making her cry" - her excuse at the time was "I knew it might be infected but it's my duty to open everything to see if it's important, no matter what and the Antivirus software was stopping me doing that"

These are the users who give you 65 million reasons to ensure that they CAN'T mess with the systems - although personally I'd prefer to detect them attempting it, give one warning and make the second one security appearing at their desk to escort them off the premises.

Just add water: Efficient Energy’s HFC-free chillers arrive in the UK

"I used to use an ammonia cycle cooling chamber (they go down to -28C) and it stopped working when it reached 32C outside"

That was one of the problems that Solarfrost nailed, along with the issues of pumping efficiency.

Re: Brexit FUD

"if the UK still has any manufacturing industry left by the time it may or may not throw itself out of the EU"

At this point, with the increasingly violent rhetoric and talk of "traitors" being tossed about I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of the larger companies contemplating moving out are planning ways of organising shutdowns for "extended maintenance", then moving in a fleet of trucks, packing up the critical kit and only announcing they're going AFTER those vehicles have safely arrived on the other side of the Chunnel.

I'm also surprised that more recruitment posters for jobs in mainland europe haven't started popping up. I'm certainly seeing more headhunting going on.

The UK was in a rotten state before it joined the EU, losing population at a prodigious rate and only bailed out via being a member plus a lot of oil/gas revenue (mostly pissed against the nearest wall by various governments). The oil/gas ran out some time back and the UK's been a net importer for a while. The lack of forward planning since 1980 shows and trying to blame Johnny Foreigner for the actions of sucessive incompetent governments has gone down as well with Johnny Foreigner as might well be expected (ie: they've rolled their eyes, watched the poo-flinging tantrum, told us we still won't get any extra ice cream and we're perfectly welcome to leave home to go live with the bears in the woods, but they don't eat porridge and we will go well with ketchup.)

Re: What is the efficiency ?

> There are already refrigerants with low or zero global warming potential that are suitable for industrial use (eg ammonia).

Adsorbsion systems have their own sets of problems. SolarFrost have nailed down a lot of them over the last 20 years but many remain (including overall efficiency at power levels below 500kW - not a problem if you're using waste heat or solar power but otherwise it can be a serious issue)

For that kind of setup I'd keep the ammonia side of things outside and run a chilled water/antifreeze loop inside the data centre. Ammonia, biologicals and and enclosed spaces are not a good combination.

Re: Strange units

"14 pounds to a stone (which is only used to weigh persons),"

A butcher's stone was 8 pounds.

Just when you thought you'd gotten your head around it all.

As for the distances or weights - I lived through the metric conversion in au/nz. ('73-75)

As kids we simply became bilingual in measurements (except fahrenheit - those are still alien).

Anyone ten years younger speaks metric-only, anyone ten years older is bilingual in decimal currency/£sd too.

The UK is metric in all but name. The road signs - posted in miles - are at km and metre multiplier intervals (and the engineering ones ARE in metric). The USA is the same.

The issue isn't that that metric is "different", but that under the old system there are _too many_ different units of measurements with strange multipliers between them. Rods, chains, perches, poles, yards, paces, feet, inches, miles, furlongs, leagues, fathoms, knots being just one set of examples.

And then there's the problem that there are different measurement units WITH THE SAME NAME - 6 different competing pounds/ounces over recent history. 2 actively used different measures with differing pints, fluid ounces, quarts and gallons.

And to cap it all off - going further back EVERY COUNTRY had its own unique sets of measurements. You can't standardise for widespread commerce in that kind of environment and whilst a country _might_ be large enough to try and say "our measures are good enough for us", this becomes at least as large a barrier for selling things OUTSIDE the country as for anyone on the outside attempting to sell things into the country.

You can see a similar effect with cars - there are three world car standards - UN(LHD) UN(RHD) and USA(LHD) - USA carmakers are now crying it's "unfair" that they are required to conform to UN(LHD) standards to sell their vehicles in the rest of the world and that the rest of the world should conform to USA(LHD) standards - which were mostly enacted as way of erecting a trading barrier to imports without breaching GATT rules in force at the time and had the effect of creating a captive market.

Most recently the US government has been trying to make out that requiring vehicles comply with "rest of world" safety standards before being sold in 3rd party countries is an illegal tariff barrier and they will take punitive action against countries that block imports on that basis. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they start pulling this against countries that drive on the left hand side of the road and require that the steering wheel be on the right hand side of the car (for obvious safety reasons)

And of course it wasn't so long ago that if you serviced cars you needed at least 4 different sets of tools to handle the differing standards used by the manufacturers (Acme, Whitworth, UNC, UNF, 4 different UK types, metric, etc etc etc)

Re: Strange units

"16 ounces to a pound"

Only for the Avoirdupois pound(0.45359237kg - or 7000 grains)

It's 12 for a Troy pound or Apothecaries pound (0.3732417216kg - 5760 grains)

It was 12 for the Tower (Hill - site of the royal mint) pound (0.350kg - 5400 grains)

and 12 for the London Mercantile pound (0.437 kg - 6750 grains)

The wool pound was 6992 grains - and wasn't divided

The Pound of Sterling (a Tower pound) was equal to 240 sterling silver coins - which means a silver penny had an approximate purchasing power around to 60p today. No wonder there were fractional values - all the way down to a groat.

Why 12? Romans! This is all descended from the roman Libre - which was divided into 12.

Why grains? (and they're the exact same grain used to measure gunpowder and other items) - They're grains of barley, which are remarkably consistent.

Why 16? Who knows? It's French! (So was the Troy pound)

The really fun part is that Apothecary pound is divided into 12 ounces, which are divided into 20 pennyweights or 8 drams. Drams are further divided into 3 scruples - so when someone has "no scruples" or "only had a dram"....

Why are fluid ounces different?

The only place I've ever heard of anyone specifying Aircon units in BTU or tons in actual seriousness in the last 40 years has been the USA - Portugal is a new one (presumably they're just using american glossies)

Most places use kW(latent) and kW(sensible) - the difference being critically important when you find some twat's installed comfort cooling in a server room as only the (sensible) part matters.

Latent cooling is about removing moisture from the air, reducing humidity and allowing us bags of "mostly water" to sweat, thereby feel cooler. Reducing humidity does little for a heatsink's ability to transfer heat unless you've had a sudden conversion to swamp coolers.

Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

Re: And So, A Long Farewell Forever

I thought that was his strongest point

Rimmer Graying

Send some of those kids down here. I'll pay them to trigger the crossings and "encourage" motorists to keep off residential routes when bypasses exist.

> Yer when it comes to wood burning stoves "we need to study how big the impact is"

FWIW motor vehicles are no longer the largest single source of NOX emissions in UK cities.

Euro5/6 might have been flawed but they worked well enough - and the culprits for around 40% of the total NOX emissions in inner London are a vanishingly small number of 1970s gas boiler installations which also emit amazingly high levels of Carbon Monoxide - Each one of these installations causes London to breach its air quality limits in the area they're in, but there's nothing that can be done about them as no legislation covers them and their owners have refused all offers to replace them.

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"I own a .uk.com address, and this approach would have kept every commercial site neatly arranged in the commercial branch"

Except that registrants of various XX.com domains saw it as an opportunity to sell _THEIR_ services exclusively linked to the domain - and did so. There was no way to independently host yourdomain.XX.com - which pretty much shot this arrangement in the face and then stomped all over the corpse well before e-commerce even started.

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

> (Meanwhile, on topic: how about restricting ".com" to only those with a US address?)

.com has always been international

.us _IS_ restricted to USA entities.

Re: Do you want a second referendum?

"It is preposterous to claim that 52% backed a "leave at any cost" position"

It's even more preposterous to claim that 52% of voters backed leaving.

It was a nonbinding referendum and only 52% of those WHO COULD BE BOTHERED TURNING UP voted Leave.

More than half the electorate stayed at home in many areas (72% turnout overall - meaning 28% of eligible voters didn't show up) - and now they can see the damage being done a second referendum might have a "slightly higher" turnout.

Oh what's that? You don't like the idea of democracy in action? Perhaps something to do with a new crop of newly minted 18-20 year olds who are highly likely to turnout AND vote remain?

Why do we vote for a new government every so often?

Why is there a rule that no government may bind succeeding ones to any policy?

ie: the referendum (which was non-binding anyway) ceased to have any power the moment Theresa May called a general election, except as a rallying cry.

The last legal action to throw out the results based on the illegality of the activities of the various players was ruled invalid because the referendum was non-binding("advisory") and as such any governmental policy decisions made as a result of it are the independent decision of the government of the day.

This being the argument advanced by Theresa May's lawyers - which translates to "Yes, we know it was illegal but it doesn't matter because we can just say it's our own policy and you can't stop us."

A few simple words of advice: Don't piss off the people who get to choose where you spend your twilight years, because Millenials may well look at the large bills and other shit that Boomers have left them with, toss the bills (and a few Boomers) under a passing bus and decide that "Under a motorway overpass bridge" is an appropriate location for the remainder.

British ISPs throw in the towel, give up sending out toothless copyright infringement warnings

Re: People just aren't pirating as much any more

" I'm still not keen on perhaps having to sign up to a multitude of services just to watch stuff."

Incidentally the same applies to parking. If I can't use coins in a parking meter (because it's broken) and I'm required to setup _yet another_ app to pay (with "convenience" surcharges!) then I'm likely to go back to my car and take my business to an area which isn't so stupid.

Re: People just aren't pirating as much any more

" Give people an easy way to buy content at a decent price and they will."

This was repeatedly proven by the nascent computer games industry (cassette tapes!) as far back as 1980 - and them promptly broken by rapacious marketers wanting to make as much as possible in as short a time as possible.

Of course the small matter of the same games selling in the USA at US$3 and in Australia/NZ retailers at US$35 didn't do anything to discourage piracy... (I gather the situation in the UK was similar)

"For Disney classics you had to wait for the excerpts on a Xmas programme"

Before digital distribution, Disney used to carefully curate their release schedules in order to milk maximum income from old titles.

Now they just steamroller the opposition using the Microsoft Halloween model(*), buy copyright extensions to ensure Steamboat Willie never falls into public domain (There's a reason the most recent US copyright extending law was nicknamed the "Mouse Immortality Law") and go for broke with more bought and paid for copyright laws containing ridiculous penalties (there are bigger jail sentences on the books for movie piracy than for murder)

(*) Embrace, extend, extinguish - or hoover up the competition - or just resort to outright IP piracy (eg: "Lion King" vs "The White Lion") and then litigate the victims into oblivion.

At some point the greater public is likely to collectively wake up and wonder WTF happened.

Re: In the real world

"Of course, since it would be unethical to track people's internet usage, we had no idea what to do with them."

On the other hand if they'd been downloading "terrorist" material you'd likely have various security services all over you like a badly fitting shirt wanting to know those details and threatening jailtime using RIPA laws if you don't cough up the details.

There's a small difference between not tracking usage and not knowing who was logged into your network when, but it's enough to cause a world of hurt.

Re: Follow the money

"unless I 'illegally' changed the region code on my DVD."

FWIW, unless NZ laws have changed since 1998, it's perfectly legal to change the region code on your DVD player or pay someone to unlock it, or purchase an unlocked one.

In Australia, region coding was ruled an illegal restraint of trade and DVD players there had to be sold unlocked as a result - not that it stopped the global copyright cartels (yes they still exist and need blowing apart - they ARE cartels) from attempting (and failing) to get that court ruling overturned.

Copyright is one of the last bastions of restraints on world free trade and the prime offenders in keeping the world carved up into "zones" for publishing are the USA and UK - which is why US titles have to get to Australia and New Zealand via the UK and why selling US-authored/printed/published books in Australia or New Zealand is illegal unless you have blessing from the _UK_ copyright holder (Hint: you won't get it - this is why things like O'Reilly titles costing US$15 hit NZ bookshelves at US$100)

Re: Follow the money

"Trouble is, artists or (as I am) writers "

Who _willingly_ walk into deals where you end up shafted......

The ONLY actor to get paid out of Star Wars was Alec Guiness - because he insisted on a fixed fee.

Everyone else made book on appearance fees later on.

Ask Sigourney Weaver how much she got out of Alien (hint: almost nothing)

It doesn't overly matter if the studios get paid or not - they'll still find ways to expense _EVERYTHING_ and ensure the actual creatives don't get anything (Hell, the only reason production staff get paid is because they have strong unions and have been willing to _use_ that big stick to force studios to the table. Those "stupid union rules" about having everyone possibly involved being in the credits are there for a reason traceable to one studio robber-baron or another.

Rule #1 in Hollywood (and most media): If you don't get paid upfront, you're unlikely to get paid at all and _NEVER EVER_ work for a percentage.

The amazing thing is, people KNOW this going in, but they still gamble it won't happen to them and they'll be the one in a million who doesn't get royally shafted - and then they go and do it AGAIN, over and over, just for a shot at fame and fortune.

It takes a special (short bus) type to do this....

"even if its wrong, pirates sometimes give a better service. "

The only kind of "customer service" that media types understand is the kind that goes on in a stud farm.

It's an attitude that's bled into management of other areas. Bear in mind that the media industry is tiny in comparison to its voice and the likes of Google could have simply headed off the Hollywood challenges by _buying_ most of the studios and distribution systems up using change from down the back of the Sofa.

Re: Dilution of quality too..

"What would be nice is to see stations doing .... so we'll put something quite different on."

THAT would require originality, creativity and analytical thinking, which are things that have been lacking from TV network management since the outset of TV networks.

Re: Dilution of quality too..

> BBC is horrific dirge, ITV no better 80% of their outputs are

"As cheap as you can possibly make them" - and it shows.

New Zealand had the same problem with their TV license fee and govt-run TV channels vs private ones and solved the issue by making funding available to all comers on an investment basis - anything sold outside the country had to repay dividends.

The govt network was originally exempt from the investment stuff but after a few years it became clear they were taking 2/3 of the cash spent, turning out lots of cheap tripe for local consumption, and making big money on the quality stuff they did export - yet not having to repay it - without doing any accounting for license-fee income expenditure at all, vs non-govt recipients who had to account for every last cent.

In the end there was a licencepayer revolt and when it hit 30% of the population refusing to pay, the government gave up and canned it. Unsurprisingly the money was still found to fund local content production and the government network was forced to cough up profits on overseas sales.

The same thing is happening here - which is why the license fee rules have been changed to try and cover anyone who could possibly watch BBC content in a frantic attempt to maintain income. Of course it that clamping down on Iplayer, etc means that more people are moving to piracy so they don't get counted as downloaders and license-able.

Netflix

It's also to do with the factor that the cablecos are not prohibited from charging Netflix (or you) extra fees in order for yu to be able to reach Netflix' servers whilst at the same time pushing their own streaming content services.

Remember that 80-90% of the US operates under effectively legislated monopoly supplies for broadband and dialtone, but there's nothing legislating net neutrality (which is only needed in a monopolistic supply environment, else customers can choose other providers and the problem sorts itself out)

It should come as little surprise that a good chunk of the "astronomer" agitating against Elon's starlink birds was traceable back to US Cablecos/Telcos who could see it as a direct threat to their monopolies (if they could pay for legislation to make accessing that competition illegal, they WOULD). And I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that large chunks of the rest of it is traceable to certain countries who see it as a direct threat to their censorship/firewalling of the Internet - on the way in(eg: China) or _out_(eg: Myanmar - where it's clear the military actively hunted down and killed reporters using satellite phones based on geolocating the images where they were reporting from)

BT staffers fear new mums could be hit disproportionately by car allowance change

Re: Bigger problem

"in an ideal world the maternity leave pay would not be that low. "

If you read the article properly you'll see that's the level that kicks in after an extended period.

Of course it's not ideal, but it's nowhere near as USAian as depicted.

" Personally I'd rather have it locked in as salary (and therefore becoming pensionable and bonus eligible) "

Which is why BT _don't_ want it locked in.

Re: Hold on a second

"wouldn't a simpler way of increasing their salary be to just increase their salary?"

If you've ever seen the number of hoops that need to be jumped through and paperwork that needs to be filled out _every single fucking year_(*) if you decide someone in the rank and file is actually worth paying more, then you'll understand why it's sidestepped with allowances.

(*) And if you can't justify these reasons each year to TPTB, then that person's salary is simply slashed back to basics, which results in a better than 50:50 chance of them walking - not good when they're critical staff named on your DR plan (and yes, this HAS happened)