Slashdot Mirror
A Look Inside the BBC's Network
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The BBC have provided the entire internet with a look inside their amazing network. It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls and their 8Gbps intersite connections. All this seems to running some form of *NIX with perl underlying their powerful website delivery. Take a look at those load graphs!"
....There's More Than One Way To Do It!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Well, according to the ever reliable Netcraft:
Solaris 8 Apache/1.3.26 (Unix)
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
503 POST UNAVAILABLE
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Now if I get the urge to hack into the BBC network, I won't have to do as much poking and prodding to get my own network map. They've done the time-consuming work for me!
I'm a big tall mofo.
... how well can all this great technology stand up to a good old-fashioned slashdotting?
As anyone who listened to the now defunct Vorbis streams of BBC radio, this has been here for many years. Nevertheless, it's still impressive.
I actually wouldn't mind seeing that..... maybe netcraft could get on that for us....
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls
Well, it's rather a lot, but "almighty?" What ever happened to British undertatement?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Geez, having an awful time getting access to the graphs and all that fun data. So much for that 8gbps then huh?
As a network engineer for a large web hosting company, having worked for very large ISP's, etc all I can say is that I'm impressed. The 4 OC-12's alone coming out of NY sold me. =)
Since we're talking about the BBC, wouldn't something more like Bits-Bytes-and-Cockney be more appropriate?
hehehe.... cockney.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Curious that the map showing the geographical distribution of the network centres shows only the USA and Europe. Is this because the bulk of the audience is there?
Has anyone dug through the data and found country usage statistics?, now that I would find interesting.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Nah, they're already slashdotted. Watch those load graphs.. as they rise like they've never risen before!
Man holding teacup: "Nigel, what's that sudden whirring noise?"
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
You are one smart american
Now the latter would be news: an insider view from the individual whos job it is to clean out the zapper in the Microsoft canteen.
Now that's what I call a bug report.
This is not considered incorrect. "BBC" can be considered a collective noun, and as a Brit, I can say with some certainty that we would use the third person plural pronoun - i.e. "they" to refer to that company without naming it.
:P
In fact, this is commonplace for any company/body corporate/corporation...any group, surely? Consider: Microsoft are evil. They are bastards.
iqu
That's perfectly acceptable British English. I mean, seriously. If you're going to be a Grammar Nazi, at least put a little effort into it.
Another one bites the dust
I seem to recall that a link to that page was present in each highly-modded comment in each story regarding "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy part 3 on BBC radio 4" we had back in... September 2004?
So, old news!
Indeed, how is this "news" at all?
(I may need to "get out more" - whatever that phrase means.)
Apparently the servers to serve up the server load graph couldn't handle the load.
Step 1: Build webfarm
Step 2: Tout its mightyness on Slashdot
Step 3: Review logs after free stress test
Step 4: Fix issues
Step 5: See Step 1
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
Hell, the BBC Micro was good enough for teletext. It should be good enough for this intarnet thing.
It's been Slashdotted before the first 10 replies!
Believe it or not, "have provided" is a correct alternate way of saying it.
http://cctc2.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm
hey, looks like you guys slashdoted the page. where's the mirror?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Yeah, BBC, you *did* have excellent servers and bandwidth...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Doing a search of their site reveals no occurance of "Perl".
Seastead this.
But it takes someone with some intelligence to realise that the 'C' in 'BBC' stands for corporation.
Only an American would think that, any Brit would know it stands for "Corporation".
its slashdotting like a man.
I got the page load in ~8 seconds when comment counter said 30...thats about when most sites have smoke coming out of the servers.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Google cache:
: su pport.bbc.co.uk/support/+site:support.bbc.co.uk+in url:support&hl=en
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:KiH513c0cEcJ
...of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to serve the internet is insignificant compared to the power of a slashdotting.
quoth the story: "take a look at those load graphs!"
i love it when slashdot predicts a slashdotting...
ed
All those moaning it's slashdotted must be missing the fact that the rest of the BBC pages are still loading pretty damned fast. Browsing BBC News isn't a problem for me. Try a bit harder if you want to Slashdot the BBC.
The overview diagram points to a directory, so it can be virtually hosted anywhere, further distributing the load.
Maybe they'd be kind enough to measure the /. effect and post a separate graph showing traffic with referrals from slashdot? Now that would be neato...
Cheers, guys! Steady on!
/.'d within 3minutes. Guess they can't use this page for monitoring anymore.
You have to feel sorry for Declan. The duty team roster has him doing a 24 hour shift today.
--
Linux VPS Hosting with 24x7 support, so we know how he feels.
We killed a major (and in a Major sense, this is no silly CBC stuff) broadcaster.
Good teamwork, soldiers!
But they're not government controlled. Their Royal Charter provides them autonomy. They are obligated to be politically neutral wherever possible - just look at the criticism of all three major UK political parties they carry on their news pages.
... and given the current unavailability of the said technology, one could easily be forgiven if someone said it needed fixing.
Ah, ever the flaming Yank troll. It's Perl, not PERL by the way!
Elgon
Any true Briton with a knowledge of history would know that the British Broadcasting Company, founded in 1922, became the Corporation at the start of 1927.
Nope, the BBC is funded entirely through the license fee, which you have to pay if you own a TV. The government allows it to demand this, and it is effectively a tax, but that's not to be confused with 'tax money'
Nor is it controlled by a government board. The day to day running is controlled by the Director general. The overall direction is controlled by the government (who do have to be approved by the government, but that doesn't mean that they are part of the government), only above that is the culture secretary, who doesn't really get much say either way. The only other contact that the government has with it is the Royal charter whic has to be renewed every 10 years by act of parliament. It's not a good idea for the BBC to annoy the government, but the government doesn't actually control them at any direct level.
FGD 135
The network infrastructure throughout the BBC, certainly in News, is so microsoft centric it's unheard of. The network has recently been sold, along with the staff, to Siemens. It's based around Active Directory, all file servers are Windows, all DNS and DHCP is maintined by windows, with only a smattering of *nix boxes (DHCP at one london office, unix for parts of the BBC-Wide Imaging system "elvis" and "Jupiter"). The desktop is 2K/XP, and so locked down we cant even run the BBC News Ticker on it! (For what it's worth, everyone in my office ignores such policies as we need things like Putty and VNC to work)
...it's possible to use tax funding to do some really intensely cool stuff. The BBC has a much better grasp of production (technical as well as aesthetic) in all forms of media than any of the pay services here in the U.S. Too bad we have the sadly underfunded NPR and PBS here. It could be so much better. NPR needs a lot more dramatic and comedy programming. PBS needs more popular entertainment that they haven't snagged from the BBC. But without the funding, we're stuck with the crap on HBO and Showtime. There is a definite lack of quality in US production. The same goes for HBO and Showtime's web presence. They have nothing on the BBC.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Over 40 high performance webservers : $
12 firewalls : $$
8Gbps network to connect them : $$$
Not able to handle the Slashdot effect : Priceless.
Nevertheless, the BBC is independant of the government and posts whatever news it wants to. It frequently posts bad things about the government without fear of being shut down.
The BBC has a charter to say what it can and can't do, the government doesn't get a say in how it is run outside of that charter. The charter is reviewed every few years, see http://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/
Steve.
A latent existence
In what way is the Beeb providing a public service (as it should according to its original mandate) by offering Net based information that a private agency, be it Sky, Reuters or some blogger could just as easily offer? All this equipment may be very pretty to look at, but where is the value for money and why should I be made to subsidize the costs incurred in providing BBC information to those users who are accessing it from outside of the UK? [/rant]
They've gone and setup HTTP Auth on their internal support pages now, so unless someone got their the login to their 'Ops Pages' then we're all done enjoying thier little peep show :(
When I clicked on the link just now, it was asking for a username and password. Seems like they're out to get us poor innocent Slashdotters...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
'It is always accurate to call a forced payment to the government a "tax".'
Which is why the licence is payed to the BBC and not the government.
(The BBC has it's own tax raising powers, similar to the taxes raised by trading companies in our colonies under previous Monarchs)
It's been there since at least Oct 1999.
It is not part of the Government at all, it is run by a board of governors who ensure standards are maintained.
It is not accountable to the Government, instead it answers to the public and increasingly the British telecoms regulator OFCOM.
The governemt have no input on the editorial of the organisation.
"John, could you put down your tea and come here for a moment."
"Yes?"
"It seems our load monitoring application is overloaded. I can't monitor the system."
"Hmm, try tapping on the dials."
"Uhm, there aren't dials John. This is a computer program."
"Don't you mean, 'programme'?"
"Yes, sorry. So, what do I do now?"
"Let me check the manual... let's see.. squirrels chewing through fibre-optic.. alien invasian.. tea shortage.. politcal unrest.. ahh, here we go, inaccessible monitoring.. it says simply, 'Panic'."
"Panic? What does that mean?"
"I think it means we should run about the room screaming or some such."
"Like this? WOOWOWOWOWO"
"No, that's more celebration. Try more anguish, like this: Aahhhhhhhhhrg!!!"
"Ahhwoooooooo!"
"No, try and keep from letting your mouth go round like that. Here, watch me: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaahrg??"
"That's good. Aaaaaaaahrg!!! And flail your arms about like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!!!"
"I think I've got it! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"
The BBC is not part of the government, it is a private company that gets money from the public through the license fee, not from the government.
After a long public consultation on what should be in the charter. They have leaflets about it in public libraries, they tell people about it on TV, and there's the website about it. Did you read the link I posted?
A latent existence
1. Karma Whore
2. Goto step 1.
So if they have all those UNIX servers, why aren't we getting ogg vorbis streams of their content? All they offer is that damn RealAudio, for which there is no good Windows software. The BBC has tried ogg as an experiment, and it sounded great but I don't know why they ditched that. It was a couple years ago they briefly offered ogg vorbis radio streams.
Interestingly, the BBC streaming exclusively in Real Audio has been one of the main reasons I find myself booting Linux daily instead of Windows, since there is a fantastic clean real audio player for UNIX variants.
looks like the bbc have gotten wise to the slashdot effect and are now looking for admin and password details... shame would of liked a look at their system.
That's basically the norm in British usage but has become more and more unconventional in American usage. Over on this side of the pond the plurality of the subject is typically decided only by the plurality of the noun, and the very concept of a "collective noun" is falling out of favor. So we get "Microsoft is evil", "the government has decided", but still "they are bastards" since "they" is plural. Note that "it" would be considered a valid pronoun for Microsoft by most speakers ("Microsoft is a profitable company, but its software has never been very good.")
One could argue that it makes more sense this way, as there's not a clear definition of what "collective" means -- is an individual person not a collection of cells? In any case, it makes the grammar a little easier, since it's trivial to decide whether a noun is plural and a little more difficult to notice that it is collective.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"Public" and "government" are not the same thing. At least not in Britain.
A TV licence is not a tax. It is a licence. It is a fee paid in order to have a licence to receive and demodulate TV broadcasts. The revenue from this goes straight to the BBC.
HTH
In the charter if the BBC wants to provide services outside the UK they must be self-funding. If you want to see BBCAmerica you need to pay. I'm not sure whether the video news feeds work outside the UK or not.
but if the BBC reports on something the British government doesn't like, the BBC (theoretically) risks losing funding and/or changes to its charter. The BBC is suckling at the British government's teet. They cannot be independent.
cpeterso
Because Sky (That's FOX to you American lot) is a pile of crap and has no poltitcal integrity whatsoever, unlike an accountable public service such as the Beeb. Also it's a complete rip off, the BBC is far cheaper. Just take a look at the costs of Sky subscription and you have to put up with ads as well, despite already paying through the nose. Oh but wait, the BBC is state funded so it must be evil.
In what way is the Beeb providing a public service (as it should according to its original mandate) by offering Net based information that a private agency, be it Sky, Reuters or some blogger could just as easily offer?
Any public serivce could theoretically be provided by a private contractor instead, you idiot. This in itself is not an argument against providing a particular public service.
All this equipment may be very pretty to look at, but where is the value for money and why should I be made to subsidize the costs incurred in providing BBC information to those users who are accessing it from outside of the UK?
It would probably cost more money to restrict access to within the UK in some cases. I presume the general reason for the BBC providing services to outside the UK is good will. You know, the same reason we give aid to foreign countries, or hold receptions for foreign dignataries, etc.
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
Now it wants a password. Bah!
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Technically, this network is now owned and managed by Siemens Business Services. BBC Technology, which grew out of a few different parts of the BBC Engineers and IT depts, was sold to Siemens in October last year, to form part of Siemens Business Services, specifically the 'Media' part. SBS run the network both internally and out, as a managed service. This creates some interesting issues with network boundaries, and "who owns what", but it keeps us on our toes!
Of couse, most of the same staff are there, so little has changed on that front. The lads and ladies in Maidenhead do a very good job of running a VERY complicated network. The BBC is the top content (not search) site in the UK, if not the world (don't quote me on that). The internal network is also pretty damn reliable, with a dual fibre ring running round most of the London buildings.
Oh shock horror, the BBC managed to not make a natual disaster all about the Americans.
Tell me, did FOX news even bother reporting the Tsunami at all, or did they just mention some high wind in Califoria.
I think it's unfair that you've been labelled a troll, because the poster you were replying to mis-typed. The BBC is controlled by a Board of Governors. They are proposed by Government ministers, but they are appointed by the Queen (but you should understand that she has zero choice in the matter). In general, the BBC tends to be somewhat anti-government, or at least somewhat sceptical about what the government is doing. Generally speaking, whichever political party is in power accuses the BBC of being biased against it. It's probably fair to say that the BBC is somewhat anti-establishment, even though it is a bastion of the establishment. It's pretty hard to describe the situation actually, but no sane person would call the BBC the mouthpiece of the Government.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Seems they felt the slashdot effect :-P
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Doesn't the C in BBC stand for CBBC?
Does anyone else get asked for a login/password when they click the link?
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
The BBC frequently upsets the government. Even when it was a new organisation.
The BBC has a lot of sway on public opinion. If the government even suggests a substantial change to the charter, the people will be told. It would be a very good way to lose the election.
I guess somebody realized that obscurity might add some security. But if you scroll up somebody has the google cache url...
Did anyone mirror this? I'm interested in their topology.
' NPR is not "official US government news" by any stretch.'
NPR is propped up and funded by tax money. The same is true of PBS.
PBS receives most of its funding from (80% ) from private donations (sponsors and members); some government funding does come in via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the form of grants, but not much of it.
NPR gets most of its funding from licensing fees paid by member stations. Even these memberships stations average maybe 15% government funding, at most.
For an interesting contrast, Raytheon gets something on the order of 80% of its funding from government or "defense" sources; since all "defense" money ultimately comes from the US government (even foreign defense revenue must be approved by the US government, and I can almost guarantee you that the foreign defense revenue does not come to more than a fraction of the US defense revenue), I think we can characterize all 80% or so (I'm rounding the number to account for leaner and fatter years) as "government funding." So I guess that we can say, by your logic, that Raytheon is part of the government.
So, to summarize, PBS and NPR are independent non-profit organizations that receive some federal grant money: nowhere near as much as most of their detractors seem to think.
Oooh right. I stand...informed.
:P
So what do we do when writing about a British corporation on an American web site read internationally?
iqu
Say again.
Greg Dyke was forced to resign as DG following the Hutton report, Tony Blair wanted him gone and he went. It might not be explicit but the UK government effectively has ultimate control.
The site is seemingly experienced the slashdot effect, but for those who see outside the box: http://support.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/support/ - most of the links, graph and stats work.
Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Remember kids - technically corporations are psychopaths.
ALso, the BBC is not the only television channel. Other television channels are controlled far more obviously, explicitly, and effectively by coporate advertising.
With the extistence of the BBC, implit or explicit pressures can be argued about until the cows come home, but at least both sides to the arguemnt exist. That is the purpose of the BBC.
How is that not a troll?
Definitely not insightful, monkeys aren't even allowed inside of voting booths since they'd probably vote for Buchanan instead!
Ha!
Tell it to Greg Dyke.
I must have seen different BBC news coverage to the guys at The Telegraph, because mine had American helicoptors landing at Red Cross camps to deliver aid. Can't let any facts get in the way of a good Murdoch sponsered rant against the competition..err, BBC..can we?
Begin controlled by a government board doesn't have to be a bad thing and is probably better than being controlled by someone like sky's rupert. Remember the Alastair Campbell story? I think that was a pretty good proof of relative independance wasn't it?
.kill b honi soit qui mal y pense
> Just remember, security by obscurity is bad! ;)
All security is by obscurity, that is a fundamental truth of any system whose state can be altered. You have to know how to get its state to change and if you know how then you can change its state.
The issue is how much knowledge do you need to be able to change the state of a part of the system, and how much effort do you have to put in to get that information. Also how likely are you to be caught attempting to learn how, and how much of the system can you break into with that information before you have to learn more information (essentially the value of that information).
Strong cryptographic authentication uses a mathematical formula to produce a *different* method of access for each key, and the key is a description of the method. Thus, cracking one key gives you access only to the systems that use the method that that key describes. For a weak cypher, it is relatively easy to determine the correct method to access a system.
Similarly for *all* communication with a computer. If you know what software is used, and you know how to get it to respond, then you have access. So, since you are *always* relying on attackers not knowing the method to access your systems, you must ensure there is a different method for each system to limit damage when the method is no longer obscure.
"Security Through Obscurity" refers to the technique where many system use the same method and depend on none of the other systems being cracked. This is risky: ie, chances of cracking are small, but cost of cracking is extremely expensive as all systems become vulnerable. Though chances are not so small as one may think as the value of the knowledge needed to access the systems is extremely high, and thus more effort tends to be dedicated to its discovery.
This is why open source software will tend to become more secure over time (provided that there is a sufficient interest in its security - ie popularity). While it is less costly to discover the information necessary to crack a system, it is also less costly for the organisations that use it to discover that information, thus the systems tend to be fixed. That also devalues the knowledge from the perspective of the cracker. How many organisations will send their disks to MS for analysis vs how many can do the analysis with reference to the source code.
All those little factors cause the initial risk of open source software to be much higher, but the risk of a mature and popular system to be lower. Compare with closed source, which for new and unpopular software the risk is low, and for mature and popular software, the risk is high.
The best opportunity (as the world begins to realise the value of security) for closed source producers is to be cheap to market, quick to help mature an open source competitor, and quick to help your customers migrate to the open source alternative, siphoning a lucrative support and development contract as you move onto new product as restart the cycle.
They should make people log on using the serial number of thier TV licence, that would keep those forien moochers out.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Just like Bush did to NPR, our fine damn-near-falling-over-to-the-left 'publicly funded' (i.e. taken from our paychecks) network? Oh, wait...
Echoing sentiments in other posts, this usage is indeed uncommon in modern American....much like complex "reverse negations" like This is not considered incorrect.
(all kidding aside, the language on your website/blog is beautiful.)
Looking at the excellent diagram. Wondering where original data originates. Stupid me or what?
Try bbc bbc
AJ
BBC World is the commercial arm of the BBC - responsible for selling (and making money from!) BBC-produced content outside of the UK:
www.bbcworld.com
(although the website is more about one specific channel)
Thanks for that,
Perhaps we should watch 'fair and balanced' news channels instead?
peasant
Let me guess - you're a student, right? Or unemployed? Because everyone in the UK that actually earns any money whatsever, realises that the cost of the BBC license fee is miniscule compared to the benefit it serves not only the UK, but the rest of the world - BBC online included. Think of it like this - Americans can be proud for exporting 'freedom' to the rest of the planet, us Brits can be proud for exporting the best News agency to the rest of the planet. Or would you just prefer to think how Fox TV wants you to think?
/. is good for you.
However you wouldn't say "I hate Microsoft, it is a bastard," would you?
Well, Bush didn't need to. He already had Fox News. For free.
Je ne parle pas francais.
"In the charter if the BBC wants to provide services outside the UK they must be self-funding."
That's very interesting. Is that self-funding requirement limited in any way? I ask because the BBC World Service, a spectacularly good news radio service, heard in parts of the world many people have never heard of, actually pays local carriers to provide their service.
I know this because a tiny little (i.e. 5W briefcase transmitter) community FM station on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu plans to use the money the BBC gives them to buy a stronger transmitter.
The BBC has been at the forefront of information technology since before the term 'IT' existed. It comes as no surprise to me that they are the most effective and successful content carrier on the Web.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
So what do we do when writing about a British corporation on an American web site read internationally?
We accidently call it Canadian.
The whole point of the licence fee is so that the BBC has an independent source of funding, and isn't beholden to government. Charter reviews are infrequent (every ten years or so) and sufficiently high profile that it's difficult for government to manipulate the process.
Fascinating that the Western bourgeousie venerates what is effectively a state news agency as a source of unbiased news and analysis, and yet the Soviets' TASS was always treated with derision by nearly everyone. What gives? Their funding model is basically the same, as is the final arbiter of content, the state, which as you put it here, "isn't a good idea to annoy." Well, isn't that always true?
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Private agencies are out to make profits. BBC has no adverts. It has no reason to support any partners (due to a lack of them) and hence lack of bias.
Why not close all of BBC's TV channels? We've got UK Gold haven't we?
The World Service is funded directly by the UK foreign office, not the license fee. It's based in Bush House, and news in TVC have more to do with ABC then World. Outside SCAR and occasional shared guests I'm not aware of any contact between them.
BBC World (TV) is funded by adverts which affiliates sell. There is some (Sky orientated) controversy over sharing of resources between World and normal BBC News - they are linked a lot closer then World Service Radio/News, simulcasts, shared Newsreaders, shared reporters, shared floor crews, shared techies (Adam and Ed cover N8 and N9 equally). Hell, the studio equipment's stored in the same room!
Well, maybe "self-funding" was the wrong term, but you try making sense of the bloody charter:
(c) Subject to the prior approval of Our Secretary of State, to provide (whether alone or together with any other person firm or corporation) sound and television broadcasting services and communication services (whether by analogue or digital means) and to provide sound and television programmes of information, education and entertainment funded by advertisements, subscription, sponsorship, pay-per-view system, or any other means of finance whether for reception by the general public free of charge or available on individual demand or encrypted or not in Our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and the territorial waters thereof and elsewhere in the world (such services being hereinafter referred to as "the Commercial Services")
(g) determine the strategy for and oversee the provision of the Commercial Services in such a way as to ensure that they are funded, operated and accounted for separately from the Public Services;
As far as i can make out, that basically says that it can broadcast outside of the UK/Commonwealth provided that it charges/obtains revenue.
For the BBC World Service, that's counted under the "Public Services", which is funded by the BBC/Licence Fee. I presume it's a "gift to the world" or something. However, the cost of the World Service is probably tiny compared to everything else.
See the BBC Royal Charter (PDF) for more details. Reading that reminds me of Sir. Humphrey Appleby's longwinded speeches...
Whatever you think, the British public has raised over £100 million so far. And I like to think that the Brits who are out there are helping. Like BT who are helping to get the phone systems working again.
And anyway, the BBC has reported how great the Americans and Australians have been, because I heard the 80 helicopters thing, being doubled to 160 days ago.
And its not a competition, we are just helping out those people who have lost everything.
I'm pretty sure the BBC run apple's webobjects on Solaris for their online news service...
Erm, SunOS is Solaris.
No, it isn't. SunOS =5 is SVR4 and always distributed in bundle called "Solaris". Sun did distribute a late release of SunOS 4.x with Openwindows and called it Solaris 1.0 but most people confine the term "Solaris" to versions 2 and higher.
The version reported in SunOS 4. That means that, at best, they running on 9 year old hardware. I don't beleive that.
But reverse negations are such a wonderful construction, bound to at the very least make the reader pause and think a little about the concept being expressed! Not a few times have I found good cause to include them in an essay or such.
:D
Cumbersome? Of course, but therein lies the beauty.
(And I return your parenthised comment with a genuine thank you.)
iqu
It became a Greater Undead, merging with its daemonic side to become... a Back Reaver. And it's not gonna stop, 'till it gets that server list back...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Funded by the license fee, plus a few million direct from the Foreign Office for BBC World Service.
And adverts on BBC World, and subs from BBC America... but the license fee is the essence of course, which is why Rupert Murdoch would like it abolished, even tho his Sky operation extracts more cash from the public than the BBC does already...
I'm sure there's a nice graph in the annual report somewhere.
Funny doesn't get you any karma.
From the Now Show: The Muslim radio station featuring swing and dance music for the 1920's and 30's - Al Jazz-Era.
Where does BBC News 24 (the cable/satellite/digital TV channel) come in? Is the overseas version produced separately from the UK version? Or does the BBC collect subscription fees from all non-UK transmissions of it?
The government's influence on the BBC is sufficiently limited to render it practically ineffectual. It took BlairCo quite an effort to get Greg Dyke out, but it was largely a token victory for them. Afterwards, the BBC completely failed to be cowered and turn into FOXNews/PBS.
In contrast, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which receives its funds directly from the government, is a very timid, self-censoring beast, erring on the side of backing the government's line and only picking up criticism (i.e., of the Iraq war) after the commercial media have done so, for fear of facing another political purge or budget cut.
So, to summarize, PBS and NPR are independent non-profit organizations that receive some federal grant money: nowhere near as much as most of their detractors seem to think.
Which is why they both tend to suck. Since viewers and listeners know that at least some of the funding is coming from the government, stations cannot claim that you are watching or listening without paying. Therefore, public broadcasters must cater to a narrower set of views, resulting in dull and occasionally preachy programming.
-Joe
What's the last big story broke by NPR? Anita Hill harrasment allegations?
Play Command HQ online
Tried to get "General Server Stats", got this instead:
/support/mrtg/servers.html.
Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET
Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
As a business journalist, I had it drummed into me time and time again that companies are singular. Hence Microsoft is evil, IBM hasdeveloped a new chip.
This makes logical sense, but is at odds with most colloquial usage and can become awkward when there is confusion as to whether you are talking about the corporate entity, or the people that comprise it.
The correct description of the Beeb is, of course 'Aunty'.
So, slashdot is now stooping to linking to server monitor pages?
As quoted from "Christopher Booker's notebook" - he's completely bonkers - just look at his past columns - why blame incompetence when alledging a vast conspiracy seems to do ?
Presumably he is referring to a different BBC to the one...
Which mentions the Abraham Lincoln here?
Which mentions the risks the US are taking in providing aid here
Which reports on the extraodinary generosity of the US (people + government) here
and Colin Powell's visit here
and US government promises of aid here
Alex
ps - whoever said the thing about Murdoch picked the wrong newspaper group.
Maidenhead is a high capacity hosting facility that is owned and operated by Siemens (previously BBC Technology)
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
.... seem to be agreeing there:
"....fallacy about them being tax funded. They're....."
Which leaves us with precious little to mock about you in regards to what you are trying to say.
How inconsiderate!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There's just no way I can see the ousting of Greg Dyke as a 'token victory'. The government and the BBC went head-to-head over a very important issue and the New Labour drew blood. Whatever your opinion of Dyke (I know I'm not his biggest fan) the result was and is profound for the BBC's journalistic integrity. The message is clear: go with the story and be decapitated.
It's interesting to hear about the Australian system. In the UK we have a strange funding system for some other terrestrial channels but it goes some way to providing the truly excellent Channel 4 News. Channel 4 is essentially a commercial channel but their news programme is the best out there by a country mile. The quality of their reporting and, most importantly, analysis is unmatched in the UK. Sadly, the BBC "dumbed down" their televisual output a long time ago, and their news coverage is no exception. Channel 4 News is the intellectual alternative over here.
Agreed - the main BBC news bulletins are getting 'fluffier' as the years go buy. ITN News is a shadow of its former self, and Five News is a joke.
At least with the Channel 4 News (50 mins at 7:00pm - how's that for brave scheduling ?), you will not be treated like a retarded 5 year old and the editor and presenters assume that the audience actually have a brain.
p.s. I do find the Channel 4 News a little bit too 'pro-Guardian viewpoint' but its still the best by a country mile.
I'm not aware of the "overseas version", you may be refering to BBC World (which is paid for by affiliates), which is produced seperately. Occasionally you get a simulcast of World and N24, and N24 always has one feed available with the World DOG (ISO4 FYI).
The normal Nwes24 that you get in the UK (glass at the back with a bunch of monitors and plasmas behind the glass, galary visiable in some shots stage-right) is funded by the license fee.
I would really go with "Microsoft is a bunch of bastards." But I do hear things like "I hate Microsoft, they are bastards" sometimes.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
just to add to the comments already pointing out various BBC online mentions of the US military aiding Tsunami affected areas, it's been mentioned multiple times on BBC Radio 5, a national broadcaster, which has reported on the US Carrier group, its large number of helicopters, the fact that the US aren't including the cost of that carrier group in their committed aid budget, and that one of the helicopters crashed with injuries to two of the eight people on board.
So over the course of a few days I've found out about this activity from the BBC - hardly a black-out on coverage of the US Navy.
Of course, they've also covered the commitment of a Royal Navy frigate and a fleet auxilary vessel to the area, and had a stunning amount of coverage including live interviews with people in the region (UK nationals, reporters and many many native citizens of the affected countries) and reported on the reaction from Europe, Japan and (oddly enough) the US.
Hardly an anti-US bias.
~Cederic
BBC: Prepare to be pwn3d!!!!11!!!1!!
Sincerely,
Scrip T. Kiddie
Too bad that link wasn't published with the /. story.
Seastead this.
I think that commercial broadcasting, which requires that the broadcasters satisfy their sponsors' need to interest the lowest common denominator, are far more guilty of "cater[ing] to a narrower set of views."
I agree with you there. After the tsunami, BBC News 24 spent two weeks running nothing but human-interest stories about tsunami victims. The situations in Iraq and the Ukraine, for example, drew scarcely a mention, The one thing that snapped them out ot it was the floods in Cumbria.