Posts by Vulpes Vulpes 88 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jul 2007
should eff off to a country where they have a better state broadcasting organisation.....
<tumbleweed blows past>
Still here?
Thought so.
I'd like the BBC to show a little more spine over the Islamofascists, and the whole "let's doff our caps and tip toe carefully round all religious types" issue, however.
How about giving Pat Condell his own slot, say 15 minutes each night, right after the news, for a brief blast of common sense?
<rrrring> <rrrring> <rrrring> <rrrring> <rrrring>
<click>
"Hello, IT support, what's the problem now?"
"Is that Mr. Simon Tr..."
"Woah! NO NAMES, this is an unsecured line! Who's calling?"
"This is Ringotts, the jewellers in the high street, we're just checking up on a few er, unusual orders..."
"OK then, this is he, now what orders are we talking about?"
"The ones for 50 each of every item in the expensive wtaches section....amongst others."
"Yeah, those are legit, can you give the goods to that pimply chap I sent round with a wheelbarrow please?"
<some time later>
"So let me get this straight, you suddenly discovered you had been left umpteen millions by some obscure dead third cousin you'd never heard of before? You jammy git."
"No need to be bitter." <smirk> "Speaking of which, I tell you what, I'll buy the first round down the pub at lunchtime, soon as you've finished stacking those boxes of Rolexes"
"Hmmm, how VERY generous. You must have spent the best part of several million just on Amazon this morning. I never realised how many different credit cards you had." <suspicious glare>
"OK, I'll buy ALL the drinkies, just this once."
<in the pub, after a couple of pints>
"When I got in this morning, how long had you been at your desk?"
"Oh, I was here all night."
"All night! You never do overtime unless there's some VERY good reason....so do spill the beans."
"Listen, oh pimply one, when you need to break the password protection on two discs full of extremely useful data, it sometimes takes a little longer than one working day....."
"BBC - you are morally obligated to provide a workable service for ALL consumers, not just those who've been foolish enough to take BillG's Shilling."
No, no and thrice no, you silly Billy.
They have no moral obligation to do any such thing. They do have an obligation to get clearance from the BBC Trust before they spend dosh from the licence fee, which is precisely why they are not going to pi$$ away millions on the Linux minority.
Now back in the corner with your little Red Hat on, and you might just get to go out at playtime.
Personally Chad, I'm using the UK distro of Life -The Operating System, which ships with humour.exe, rather than the inferior, irony-free version called humor.exe. The UK version only works with well-formed jokes, however.
And Frank, you're wrong. Cornwall is not really part of England, it's far too fine a place for that to be true. You may fantasise that it is, and your propaganda maps and atlases might show it as such, but we all know it's just that you're jealous.
If you've got a hosts file that has the ability to intercept streamed MPEG2 files and recognise and remove adverts in real time, I may have an interesting proposition for you.
Is it patented yet?
Do you own the IP?
Why does it call itself a "hosts file", when it is clearly nothing of the sort?
A couple of points.
DRM has always been about keeping the lawyers happy, nothing more or less than a sop to greedy sharks with accountants.
I object to being told that I know about FLAC (orSHN) because I've probably had to find out about it due to my piratical torrenting. Nope. If you think like that you've probably never heard of archive.org, and have NO RIGHT to post pontificating bollocks in a discussion about music downloads.
FLAC is rubbish? Nope. You are at best misinformed, but more likely just stupid.
I can't tell the difference between a 320 MP3 and the full frequency uncompressed WAV version? Oh yes I can.
192K VBR sounds pretty much like the CD? Nope, it sounds crap. Do you only listen to Goth metal or Radiohead? Do you have CLOTH EARS?
Jeeze.
"100% of nothing for Linux is still nothing (unless you are talking about a service support contract instead, maybe?"
Yes indeedy, as per my comment about service levels.
So show me an SLA between a commercial business IT department and a provider of Linux. You know, one with stuff about turnaround times for bug fixes and security patches, the release schedule for OS versions for the next two years, the intended timeframe for the ongoing availability of support and so on. For that matter, show me the job adverts for administrative and clerical staff with Open Office skills. Show me the marketing department that doesn't run on Excel spreadsheets. Show me a presentation in a Motel conference room that isn't being done in Powerpoint.
Like it or not, the reality is that for 90+% of people, "Windows" is pretty much synonymous with "computers", and they don't give a hoot about Linux, whose users remain commercially insignificant.
"100% of nothing for Linux is still nothing "
Er, "next to nothing" for the initial software maybe....
and yet....
Drivers for all the printers we have lying around?
Desktop support staff with remote access and suitable training?
Integration with the rest of the business estate?
SLAs with the OS provider for business critical fixes?
All free, obviously, if you use Linux for the workstations.
No reality check there then.
Get a grip. Oh, and get a name.
So there might actually be 100K Linux users out there actively using the Beebs website. Fine.
So they demand their share of development investment in the iPlayer. Fine.
Let's (over)estimate that iPlayer accounts for 10% of the BBC's IT costs.
Let's (over)estimate that IT costs account for 50% of the BBC's budget.
So 5 per cent of the overall pot of dosh from licence fees gets spent on iPlayer.
100 000 licence fees amounts to, say, £15 million.
5% of that little lot gives us £750 000 to spend on an iPlayer download service especially for Linux users.
The fact is, like it or not, in the big picture, the fraction of Linux user's licence fees that might go towards the iPlayer project doesn't amount to enough to justify the expenditure needed for the BBC to get a DRM solution working under Linux.
Not only is this not about the Browser, it's not about the OS either; it's about rights and DRM.
Smell the coffee.
So this is a radical move is it? Good grief.
Either you pay next to nothing for some sodding MP3s, or shell out 40 quid for a boxed set with, ooh look! Photographs. Vinyl. "Enhanced content".
And the music will follow one of the two typical Radiohead "song" patterns, either an interesting chord sequence with opaque lyrics building from an acoustic start to a crescendo of wailing anguish, or an unlistenable barrage of noise overlaying a crescendo of wailing anguish.
They haven't done anything interesting since Creep.
Tosh advertising tosh delivered in either tosh or dosh format.
Somewhere in the larger caves is the home city of the Mysterons, who await the arrival of the ill-fated expedition led by the man who will become known only as Captain Black.
Made indestructible by the Mysterons, Captain Black will make Osama Bin Laden look like a teddy bear, plotting terror and destruction on a weekly basis, striking regularly at tea time on a Sunday afternoon.
Earth's only hope will lie with the equally indestructible Captain Scarlet, who will repeatedly save the world at great personal cost and to the ongoing annoyance of his tailor.
Dum dum, dum, dum dum-dum dum.
Everytime I see iPlayer mentioned in El Reg, being pretty close to the project, I take a look at the comments posted, and in the past I have weighed in with the odd response myself.
Increasingly, though, it's becoming obvious that there is a common species of Reg poster who likes to write either sneering put-downs or ill-informed diatribes without so much as a shred of factual knowledge, or anything approaching sensible analysis with which to back up their rant.
Which makes continuing to weigh in with responses myself look like a waste of time.
This thread is a perfect example.
I do hope all this righteous indignation about Microsoft's business tactics is reflected in your own good practices in other business arenas?
How many of you do most of your weekly shopping at Tescos, Asda, Waitrose, Sainsburys, Morrisons, or wherever?
And how many of you make a point of buying all your groceries only from small independent traders?
I thought so. Only indignant where it suits you to be so, usually where you think it's the done thing to be indignant.
Hypocrites, most of you.
Your posting is nonsense:
"it's utterly incomprehensible why the people who own the programs punish legitimate viewers with ridiculous restrictions on viewing, while the same content is freely available to anyone who wants to obtain it illegally from a P2P network.
Furthermore, the BBC seems to be not only a willing, but an eager partner in this insane scheme."
You must know that "the people who own the programs" are NOT the BBC. There's no evidence at all of the BBC being necessarily "eager" or even "willing" to use DRM, it's just a question of their being "obliged".
There is nothing incomprehensible about a public service broadcasting organisation obeying the law.
Hey, Michael, great flame! Such originality.
As you have stooped to personal insults, here're a few facts to chew over:
I left the SW 30 years ago to look for work.
I'm working in London making more cash than you can imagine fleecing the morons who come through my doors every day.
I'm afraid I see them coming, and boy do they pay for it.
Most years my wife and I holiday in California.
So don't give me any crap about getting off my arse or competing with the rest of the British.
Most of my relatives and peers from school days, who still live in Cornwall, worry that their children will leave the county to find work elsewhere, as their prospects in their home county remain poor.
They deserve better, and they certainly deserve better than the sort of scum who post in here with sneering comments like yours.
One word.
Infrastructure.
Have you ever tried GETTING to most of Cornwall?
And don't you DARE say the Cornish are lazy; other posters have already said there's a "workforce that has been screwed over so many times they'll work for anyone who'll offer them half decent pay and conditions."
I said nothing about scrounging, you arrogant toerag, I talked about making a viable economy for Cornwall that doesn't have to rely on visiting home counties twats with more money than sense.
And finally, your very language gives the game away when you say "Perhaps a better option is that we allow Cornwall to separate".
Your use of "we" and "allow" says it all.
Stay away, your type are not welcome.
"better off living off EU grants than actually hvaing to have a viable economy"
Eh?
No, using the EU grants to make a viable economy for Cornwall that doesn't have to rely on home counties twats with more money than sense.
"one of your Local neighbours chose to sell (it) to (a fat bastard) at a vastly greater profit than if he'd sold it to another local."
Yes, amazing how desperate people can get after a generation or two of economic decline isn't it, you smug tosser?
If Cornwall was to be separated from the rest of the dis-United Kingdom, as a sovereign nation within the EU, and with the level of per-capita income it currently "enjoys", it would attract such a huge amount of EU financial assistance it would be able to rejuvenate itself without putting up with ignorant chav visitors getting pi$$ed en masse in Newquay, or ignorant monied second-homers arriving at weekends to have dinner at Ricks place.
I sincerely hope you never stray over the border again, after that remark about a "little stink hole", you smug, ignorant git.
Try living in the poorest part of the UK through a damp Atlantic winter, on a minimum wage job, in rented accomodation, waiting for the fat ba$tards from the home counties to arrive at their holiday homes each spring, driving their Chelsea tractors to the beach while looking for a place to buy as an investment.
If you did, you'd know that although the wages might be better in the summer, when it's possible to work much longer hours serving the needs of the spoilt middle class to$$ers who come down each year from Kensington or Surrey, there's only a limited amount of satisfaction to be had from spitting into the froth on their cappucinos, or scratching the paintwork on their X5s.
Pray elucidate.
<quote>
And yes I do know for a fact that it works fine on Linux because I have tested it legally.
</quote>
What do you mean by "it", and by "works fine" and "tested"?
If you downloaded a wmv file from the BBC's iPlayer service and removed the DRM before playing it back via "whine", you were not acting legally. Neither could that possibly be construed, in any meaningful way, as "working fine". And all it would have tested was your ability to use Google.
So exactly what is "it" that you have "tested" that "works fine legally"?
If you want to understand why the BBC are obliged to use DRM for this project, and why Windows DRM is the only available option with the required set of features, and a huge number of potential users, I suggest you read some of the postings on the BBC's iPlayer message board, at bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer rather than the ill-informed drivel in this article.
Tim Lake - Vista version will be out by October, and the current one works fine on Vista anyway if you take a few seconds to research the tweaks you need to make.
The upgraded version just makes the tweaks for you, so that the IT-illiterate can use it on Vista.
Tom - don't hold your breath for Linux.
bbc.co.uk usage figures: roughly 80% use XP, 10% use Vista, 10% use Macs, and there are a couple of Linux boxes too.
Tampa Dave - roll another one and get a beer from the cooler. Dream on.
Tennant runs into a room, in pursuit of some ghastly alien thing, only to find his own self, in full-on, curly-haired and stary-eyed Tom Baker incarnation, sitting naked in a bath of custard, dictating a voice-over for Little Britain into a microphone while Leela sits nearby astride K9, knitting a new and even longer wooly scarf....
What a missed opportunity.
Whatever the technical benefits of digital sound, and I have stacks of both vinyl and polycarbonate discs on my shelves, there's one crucial difference between LPs and CDs.
You cannot construct a correctly formed Camberwell Carrot on a 5 inch square of slippery polycarbonate.
Blowing the "tobacco" dust from the centre parting of a gatefold sleeve (usually the Valentyne Suite, I seem to remember) is a memory to cherish.
What? "essence and truth"? Jeesus, what a pompous pronouncement.
FFS do me a favour.
The Bourne stories are three enjoyable yarns wrung from a single, simple plot idea and strung out over enough pages to ensure the paperback editions will pay for a nice condo in Florida.
The Bond books are full of neatly detailed observation, delicious dialogue, sardonic humour and a natural cinematic sweep that has led to their surviving even their worst filmic interpretations.
"I can't see it coming back, I doubt the BBC has enough confidence to put on a genuinley challenging program that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator."
Of course it does, you're just too lazy to look at the schedule. Check out the BBC4 schedule this very evening. Hardly Telly Tubbies is it?
Hot air and misinformed opinion.There's so much of it in this discussion it could power a small city.
Why whine about OS choice?
The BBC chose a solution with the available DRM facilities to keep the content owners happy on day 1, and the biggest catchment of licence payers - over 80% of UK PC users currently have XP 32bit.
Why whine about not being able to use it 'cos you're a Linux user/Mac fanboy AND a licence payer?
Do you suppose the BBC should only ever do something new if they can guarantee that every last licence payer will benefit from the off? Get real. Think about the digital switchover for a start. They should be obliged to keep the analogue signal on-air because some poor sods in the middle of nowhere can't get a digital signal? I think not. Smell the coffee folks.
Why whine about the application?
The BBC didn't WRITE the iPlayer, they are using an EXISTING application (the same one as Sky, Channel 4 and others). Writing one from scratch would have seen the BBC crucified for spending licence money on systems development when a working alternative was readily available.
Why whine about the use of Microsoft components?
Along the way, the iPlayer solution uses Sun Solaris, Linux and Windows server components, to deliver content to an end user client application which runs under XP 32bit. Anybody got any complaints about using Solaris or Linux servers?
Why whine about the use of DRM?
Download some content. Remove the DRM. Transcode to another format if you have processor cycles to waste. Watch using DivX Player, VLC or whatever you like, whenever you like, for as long as you like.
Now stop trying to make yourself feel more pleased with yourself by writing cobblers on here and GET A LIFE.
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