Museum Helps Domesday Reloaded Project

purehavnet writes "For many months the volunteers at the Centre for Computing History have been working on capturing and preserving the data from the BBC Domesday System. A complete set of data from the community disc was supplied to the BBC, who have now released the Domesday Reloaded project. This allows most of the community data from the original system to be viewed online."

Comments

Ah, Domesday.

[Anonymous Coward]

...That final, ultimate end when the Earth will be covered by giant... domes.

Re:Ah, Domesday.

[SeaFox]

Not only that, this is Domesday Reloaded. Where the mechanical squid make their coordinated assault on the domes that protect us.

Re:Ah, Domesday.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case you weren't just trying to get a laugh...

Re:Ah, Domesday.

[rubycodez]

Do not be deceived by the idolatry of the false mechanical squids, when the real squid-god Cthulhu comes he will devour all people, and reward his faithful followers by eating them first.

http://rubbersuitstudios.com/ptcct.htm

Read the gospel tract of Cthulhu, and be SAVED (well, hors d'oeuvres anyway)

"update this picture"

[Hazel Bergeron]

Please tell me that it adds rather than replaces. Also, where is the downloadable copy? All I want is a copy of the laserdisc etc.

And the UI is a noisy, muddled pain. There were fewer distractions in 1986.

Re:"update this picture"

[Serious Callers Only]

Please tell me that it adds rather than replaces. Also, where is the downloadable copy? All I want is a copy of the laserdisc etc.

A more pertinent question would be - where can I get a working copy of the hardware to play the laserdisc?

This update is long overdue, and so long as all the data is there, the web is a far better place for this project, as someone else (you for example) can take all the data and repackage it with a better UI and redistribute, which couldn't be done with the original analogue files without a huge amount of extra hassle and a working version of the original hardware/software, which in 100 years will be forgotten and obsolete.

Interesting that the rosetta stone of our age may be impermanent bits which are replicated, copied and modified ad infinitum on the web, rather than more permanent marks on stone. That's until the lights go out of course. Unfortunately the original laserdiscs are neither permanently readable (stone), nor conveniently accessible (web), so they are the worst of both worlds.

Re:"update this picture"

[Hazel Bergeron]

Well, I accept a digital conversion of the laserdiscs of sufficient bitrate not to lose any data :-).

Microfiching and read-only digital archiving with regular copying are appropriate for all such cultural artifacts, of course. And the Domesday project was fairly unique in that it collected a lot of data by the method of "having a casual chat with the guy down the road who actually does stuff", rather than the much more sterile and indirect e.g. Wikipedia procedure of finding an article in a "reliable source".

Re:"update this picture"

[locofungus]

All I want is a copy of the laserdisc etc.

Much of the data on the laserdisc is analogue. The images definitely are.

Even the digital data is stored in an audio track - not sure if it was played through the cassette port of the BBC micro to decode or whether the laserdisc hardware did the decoding.

Tim.

Re:"update this picture"

[AGMW]

Please tell me that it adds rather than replaces. ...

I saw something about it on the TV yesterday (was it?) ... they're replacing the old tech with new (internet based) tech, then people will be able (asked? encouraged? now that I don't know!) to add more stuff. Specifically, I think they want people to go to where the various photos were taken and take new ones of what it looks like now ... that sort of thing.

Re:"update this picture"

[uglyduckling]

It won't have been played-in through the cassette port, searches would have taken hours. The BBC had numerous higher-speed interfaces as standard, which is what made it the best project micro of its day, and ideal for this sort of thing.

Re:"update this picture"

[Gordonjcp]

No, the digital data is not stored on an audio track. It's stored as digital data, with the modified Laserdisc player appearing as a SCSI disk.

Re:"update this picture"

[Going_Digital]

Well to be accurate the data is stored on the part of the disc that would normally be used for audio. The text data is Digital but the images are analouge a lot more info here http://www.microcomputer.org.uk/projects/domesday.html

Re:"update this picture"

[itsdapead]

All I want is a copy of the laserdisc etc.

Probably wouldn't do you much good - the Domesday system used a new "standard" called LV-ROM which stored analogue video and digital data on the laserdisc. I think that the format was only ever used by Domesday and one or two other educational projects. So even if you've got a lasevision movie player stashed away for whenever you want to see Han shoot first it won't get at the data. LV-ROM players had a SCSI interface - Other laserdisc players just had a RS232 interface for computer-controlled playback.

Also, the way you design software for laserdisc-based "Interactive Video" is very different from "modern" multimedia: your computer has fairly crappy graphics with a genlock/overlay card which superimposes them on the analogue video output from the laserdisc. The laserdisc is recoreded at constant angular velocity, so its basically 1 frame/2 fields per revolution, giving perfect freeze-frame and frame-accurate random access. So, wherever possible you pre-rendered all your graphics and on some expensive specialist video graphics setup and recorded them statically on the disc.

I didn't work on Domesday, but I worked on another educational interactive video project and I can tell you that large sections of the discs would make no sense whatsoever as linear video - and the affordances of the system greatly affected the design of the software. E.g. there was a 3D maze-building game with every possible forward view pre-rendered as a few frames of video... which meant it was cunningly designed so that you could only see the length of the corridor and any branches to your immediate left and right - otherwise rendering [thinks] 2^16+2^12+2^10+... frames for an 8x8 maze might have got tedious. In other parts we were utilizing the ability to step through video perfectly in 1/25 sec steps to get kids to calculate speeds etc.

I guess now it would be possible to simulate the whole system in software with uncompressed or MJPEG video...

Re:"update this picture"

[cpt kangarooski]

Microfiching and read-only digital archiving with regular copying are appropriate for all such cultural artifacts, of course.

Meh. Microfilm isn't nearly as good as it is advertised to be. It's bad at photographs or anything in color, the film isn't as stable as one would hope, and it's usually not verified to be readable when it is made (this also happens with Google books at times). Since the process for making microfilm is usually destructive (they chop up books to stack the pages more neatly) and the goal is rather destructive as well (the heart of the policy isn't mere preservation but also the wholesale disposal of paper books, more or less regardless of condition, so that libraries don't have to buy new buildings for storage), it's not a good deal. Plus, many libraries will throw away copies of works once someone else makes up microfilms, but editions may differ (eg throwing away a complete copy of a newspaper to replace it with only the evening editions), leaving us significantly worse off.

I don't mind if we non destructively make microfilms, but we shouldn't use them as an excuse to not preserve originals, or to not try using numerous different non destructive methods of preserving and disseminating information.

Re:"update this picture"

[Hazel Bergeron]

Hell yes, I am not advocating microfiche as a substitute for preservation of the originals. I am just strongly in favour of making copies which can be read without requiring society to remain stable and replete with advanced digital technology.

Re:"update this picture"

[JBMcB]

If I recall correctly, video was encoded in a modulated analog signal. So the data is pulled off of the disc and ran through a DAC, and a composite analog video signal is created. This is opposed to how DVDs and Blu-Rays work, where the video is stored digitally, decompressed and an analog video signal is created, if an analog monitor is used.

Analog audio could be stored along with the modulated video, along with a couple of digital PCM encoded audio tracks, which is usually where data was stored if needed. Newer surround-sound Laserdiscs would have a stereo Dolby Pro-Logic encoded digital stereo track, and a digital surround track encoded in the analog portion of the video track - which is why you needed a special "AC3" decoder, the digital info was coming out embedded in an RF signal. // Still has a LaserDisc player for a few Criterion titles never released on DVD, and the THX release of Star Wars, the last decent, un-screwed-up version

Re:"update this picture"

[laejoh]

If the laws of the universe are kind, the donwloadable copies will never be found.
But I must tell my son what I saw or thought I saw, and let him use his judgment
as a psychologist in gauging the reality of my experience, and communicating
this account to others.

I have said that the awful truth behind my tortured years of dreaming
hinges absolutely upon the actuality of what I thought I saw in those
Cyclopean, buried laserdiscs. It has been hard for me, literally, to set down
that crucial revelation, though no reader can have failed to guess it. Of
course, it lay in that disc within the shiny case - the case which I pried
out of its lair amidst the dust of a million centuries.

No eye had seen, no hand had touched that disc since the advent of man to
this planet. And yet, when I flashed my torch upon it in that frightful
abyss, I saw that the queerly pigmented letters on the brittle,
aeon-browned cellulose pages were not indeed any nameless hieroglyphs of
earth's youth. They were, instead, the letters of our familiar alphabet,
spelling out the words of the English language in my own handwriting.

Re:"update this picture"

[Going_Digital]

The video was purely a analogue composite video source just like VHS tape, the computer graphics were overlaid on to the video signal using a genlock.

Re:"update this picture"

[An ominous Cow art]

The Shadow out of Slashdot. Nicely done.

Immigrants

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... looks like London was already heavily colonized by Muslims even back in 1986... and I bet none of the people at the BBC who compiled this stuff reported the "beating with a bamboo stick" for fear of being labelled 'racist' either.

Re:Immigrants

[Hazel Bergeron]

I don't know if you were alive in the '80s but "beating with a stick", aka caning, was fairly standard in regular (almost always Christian, though not necessarily very religious) private schools back then, and in state schools not much earlier. Some of my earliest school memories are of the slower kids being hit with a ruler.

School essays

[Relyx]

They essays that accompany each grid square remind me of the pieces we were made to write at school. Unsurprising really as a vast number were contributed by British school children back in the eighties. The everyday banality is quite interesting, as the world has moved on a great deal since then.

Re:School essays

[Inda]

I beleive one of my pieces of 'work' was included on the disk. I remember looking for it on the original Domesday machine, which was probably in the Natural History Museum.

Now if only I could remember what I wrote.

Re:School essays

[LizardKing]

I remember this project from my school days too. The swotty kids were involved in submitting data for the project, and eventually a setup consisting of BBC computer and laser disc player appeared. Those of us who hadn't been involved eventually had a look at it, and the reaction was pretty much "so what". By that time, the technology had already been used for computer games, and the Domesday data set didn't really excite us. When the Archimedes computer arrived, that was a different matter though - mainly because of a couple of neat games it came with. In short, if the Domesday project was in part aimed at exciting an interest in computers amongst school kids, then we were well ahead of the teachers.

Re:School essays

[ajo_arctus]

I vaguely remember writing something at school in the 80's (on the school's single BBC Micro that got wheeled around between classrooms on a trolley) that may well have been intended for this project. Seeing this does ring a bell.

Anyway, anything I wrote as a child in the 1980's certainly wouldn't be worth reading today.

Re:School essays

[timftbf]

Mine's on there. East Mersea Oyster Fisheries :)

Credits to the school and to my geography teacher don't appear until you read all the way through to the last of the East Mersea entries, though.

Will there be a

[abednegoyulo]

Doomsday Revolutions ?

Re:Will there be a

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get that pop-culture reference. Nobody here gets that pop-culture reference. The pop-culture reference to which you refer DOES NOT EXIST!

Re:Will there be a

[Bing Tsher E]

33-1/3 revolutions per minute.

Sit on that and spin, dude-at-lit-table-in-student-center.

Seriously, though, what the Hell is wrong with /.?

[PCM2]

OK, this thing with the half-shown posts is just about the last straw. For all the years that people have been talking about software design and Web design, isn't there one single developer who actually looks at the results before they push a new CSS file out to the live Slashdot site?

I mean, for fuck's sake, it was bad enough when they went to the new design, and you couldn't click on a Reply link without it expanding the parent... then trying again and it would expand the grandparent... then trying again and again and again, and eventually it would let you actually click on the link you wanted to click on.

It was bad enough when the CSS varied from topic to topic, so when you wanted to post a reply on something about, say, games, the UI would work differently than for other topics (maybe the text would be too small to read, for example).

No, now they've figured out a way so that you can't actually read the text of any of the posts, because they all overlap and you can only see the first three pixels or so of any line.

Congratulations, /. wizards! How the fuck you get paid for a living should be an inspiration to anyone who's on their third beer at eight in the morning.

The irony is ...

[Viol8]

... if they'd kept the raw analogue copies of the original video and image data it would have been a hell of a lot easier to port it to the web. Its still easy to find something that will read a VHS or Betamax tape compared to a laserdisk , never mind a laserdisk in LV-Rom format.

Re:The irony is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the Wikipedia article for the video info:

"Another team, working for the UK National Archives (who hold the original Domesday Book) tracked down the original 1-inch videotape masters of the project. These were digitised and archived to Digital Betacam."

Don't Panic!

[GerryHattrick]

The BBC shouldn't be selling H2G2, they should be integrating with this, as a locational Wiki. If only it could be said that Britain today is 'Mostly Harmless'.

Re:Don't Panic!

[Tim C]

Well, I'm 36 years old and have lived in Britain all my life, and neither I, nor any of my family, nor the majority of my friends have had any significant trouble. Britain really is mostly harmless, frothing at the mouth tabloid headlines to the contrary.

Re:Don't Panic!

[GerryHattrick]

The H2G2 tag was mainly for the info of visitors to Earth, not residents who already had a towel. Perhaps the BBC itself is 'Mostly Harmless'.

Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

... instead of being left with the result of a liberal left wing teaching establishment that has increasingly let kids run riot over the last few decades culminating with headmasters being stabbed outside his own school. Of course if anyone ever criticised this politically correct insanity you instantly they were instantly labelled as some kind of ranting right wing child abuser who wanted to go back to the days of kids up chimneys. Rational discussion was off the table and the inmates have taken over the asylum. Hopefully one day people will wake up to the collective insanity of the liberal agenda but I won't hold my breath.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Anonymous Coward]

Google speakyourbranes. I think you'll enjoy it. Lots of folk like you make it onto that site.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

Hilarios pal. But unlike people like you I don't need to justify my beliefs anymore - the proof is out there on the streets. When left wing fuckwits like you eventually wake up to the problems you've caused it'll be too late. If it isn't already.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Hazel Bergeron]

Well, actually, hitting the slower children didn't make them smarter, it just made them cry (and you'd probably be better off rewarding kids who refuse to memorise a religious text rather than hitting them).

But carry on, Violet - this is the Internet after all.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

I wasn't talking about hitting the slower kids but the badly misbehaved ones. And yes , it did make them behave. But lets not let facts get in the way of your self righteous little feelgood post.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Hazel Bergeron]

I recall one kid who was hit when he misbehaved. When he was hit, IIRC, he'd deliberately shit his pants to annoy the teacher. This slap in the face of teacher's almighty authority[tm] in full view of the whole class was enough to stop the class taking the teacher's authority seriously. It's hard to respect someone three times your size who is outwitted and out-willed by a kid under the age of 10.

Of course, eventually she learnt her lesson and stopped hitting the kid. It turns out that not rising to a challenge and sometimes simply sending the kid out of the room to be alone without an audience can work rather well.

Punishment in general (do not confuse this with reward-based incentive nor removal for the protection of others) does not work for producing a free society, let alone corporal punishment. No research has /ever/ been published to the contrary. Corporal punishment is pure sadism.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[m50d]

But unlike people like you I don't need to justify my beliefs anymore - the proof is out there on the streets

What, in the form of the lowest crime rates ever, approximately 15% of what they were 20 years ago?

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

The *youth* crime rate is one of the highest ever.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

"When he was hit, IIRC, he'd deliberately shit his pants to annoy the teacher."

A very likely story. But even if it is true, how many of the other kids *didn't* shit their pants but behaved a lot better? I have memories of school too funnily enough and the teachers who had the most discipline had the best behaved classes. The ones who tried to be nice to the kids and "be their friend" (usually women) ended up with anarchy.

"Punishment in general (do not confuse this with reward-based incentive nor removal for the protection of others) does not work for producing a free society, let alone corporal punishment. No research has /ever/ been published to the contrary. Corporal punishment is pure sadism."

Total and utter looney left crap, but you keep believing it if it gives you a nice warm superior feeling when you're with all the other bleeting right-on sheep. I hope for your sake that one day you'll wake up and take your rose coloured blinkers off.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Hazel Bergeron]

A very likely story.

As well as witnessing it and hearing it happen elsewhere, I recall Woolf's biography of Roger Fry describing a similar incident. Perhaps it's a common way for young English boys to respond to flogging.

how many of the other kids *didn't* shit their pants but behaved a lot better?

None.

have memories of school too funnily enough and the teachers who had the most discipline had the best behaved classes. The ones who tried to be nice to the kids and "be their friend" (usually women) ended up with anarchy.

I've never been in a class experiencing "anarchy", although the best way for a teacher to gain respect was to show a high level of competence and combine this with a willingness to engage and discuss. Physical action by teachers all but disappeared beyond pre-preparatory school, although I recall around the age of 14 one very good teacher once losing it on a classmate who was being a bit of a dick, throwing a chair at him. That was just hilarious to everyone concerned, including the chair target (and the teacher suffered no consequences).

Anyway, my experience with corporal punishment experienced from parents, witnessed at school from teachers, and experienced at school from older boys (a staple of boarding school) has been to laugh at people who threaten violence. I know what physical punishment feels like and I don't care. A kick or a lash or a slap heals over - if it's the best authority can impose then I guess I'm above authority.

Total and utter looney left crap, but you keep believing it

Provide evidence in the form of research results which demonstrate that corporal punishment is effective. In order to do this, you need to show (i) that it provides better outcome than other less severe methods, e.g. a timeout; (ii) that it has a long-term positive effect rather than just stopping immediate behaviour.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Viol8]

"As well as witnessing it and hearing it happen elsewhere, I recall Woolf's biography of Roger Fry describing a similar incident. Perhaps it's a common way for young English boys to respond to flogging."

Or perhaps you're just talking out your arse. Which would be fairly apt.

"None."

Really? You did an observational study did you? Because its contrary to my experiences.

"I've never been in a class experiencing "anarchy","

Perhaps you should have gone to an inner london comprehensive like I did instead of some posh boarding school.

"I know what physical punishment feels like and I don't care"

Thats your lookout. If you'd sooner suffer pain than improve your behaviour then perhaps the best route for you would be a psychiatrist. Or maybe you get turned on by pain.

"Provide evidence "

You made the initial assertion that it did no good. You back it up.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Hazel Bergeron]

Or perhaps you're just talking out your arse. Which would be fairly apt.

Well, I can't give you proof of what I witnessed, can I? Would it help if I told you that the misbehaving boy's name was George and the slow kid was Giles? Well, of course not, but there you go...

But I also gave you an account by a famous author which you can check to show you that it does happen.

Really? You did an observational study did you? Because its contrary to my experiences.

We were talking about my experiences. Yes, I did "observe" my own experiences.

Perhaps you should have gone to an inner london comprehensive like I did instead of some posh boarding school.

No, that's OK, I'd rather go to the posh boarding school which educates you than the inner London comprehensive which hits you. Wouldn't you? And, if you lacked the intelligence to get a scholarship / family means to pay for it, would you at least prefer that your school learnt from its betters and improved the lot of its pupils?

If you'd sooner suffer pain than improve your behaviour then perhaps the best route for you would be a psychiatrist.

Of course I'd rather suffer minor pain than kneel before someone who claims authority. I can think of a few regimes other than the one in your authoritarian fantasy which would regard me as needing a psychiatrist for thinking like this, of course.

You made the initial assertion that it did no good. You back it up.

OK, now you're trolling. The default is not to assume a correlation.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Tim C]

I'd pronounce Viol8 as Violate rather than Violet, which fits the subject rather better too.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Angostura]

Actually - what you have there is an assertion, not a fact.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no correlation between the punishment of bad behaviour, and a corresponding increase in good behaviour? Are you really saying that!? What a bizarre hypothesis. Have you thought it through?

There is evidence of a strong correlation if you are willing to look for it. It is hidden from you by people who would rather it was not true.

One relevant fact is that the inner city schools once were effective educational establishments with good discipline. That was 50 years ago. What happened since? The fucking Left took over with their loony "radical" theories about how authority was bad, punishment didn't work, and common sense is always wrong. Theories that you have since internalised and recognise as Truth. When someone like Viol8 turns up to tell you that it's bollocks, you act as if he just told you that the Earth is flat. Newsflash: he's right. Denying facts doesn't change them.

If the Left really cared about social mobility, helping the poor and disadvantaged, social justice and so on, then they'd call for the reintroduction of effective discipline without delay. That way, maybe the poorer kids could get a decent education in a safe environment, free from disruption. But oh no, that would be Authoritarian. What utter balls.

Re:Pity it isn't still done today..

[Hazel Bergeron]

I said:

Provide evidence in the form of research results which demonstrate that corporal punishment is effective.

You say:

There's no correlation between the punishment of bad behaviour, and a corresponding increase in good behaviour? Are you really saying that!?

(1) "!?" is not a suitable argument technique - it shows that you're flustered by an attempt to poke at your prejudice with reason;

(2) You've erected a straw man: we're discussing corporal punishment, not punishment in general;

(3) Even your straw man is fairly sturdy: punishment of general bad behaviour (e.g. by locking up in jail) isn't a very good deterrent. It tends at worst to be no better than much cheaper and more humane methods of modifying behaviour. Soooo much research on recidivism.

There is evidence of a strong correlation if you are willing to look for it. It is hidden from you by people who would rather it was not true.

LOL, a conspiracy theory about hiding the effectiveness of corporal punishment of children? I love the Internet!

One relevant fact is that the inner city schools once were effective educational establishments with good discipline. That was 50 years ago. What happened since?

Well, 50 years ago there were lots of secure training and job opportunities. Page 24 might help you.

Newsflash: he's right.

Whatever you say, Violet.

If the Left really cared about social mobility, helping the poor and disadvantaged, social justice and so on, then they'd call for the reintroduction of effective discipline without delay.

Discipline is worthless without opportunity. Effective discipline does not translate into corporal punishment.

fake weather friday, the life0cide continues

[Anonymous Coward]

tetwollted;
Zeus canon going off willy nilly from down under southern hillary (Score:-)mynutswon, stuff that shouldn't have to matter)
by Anonymous Coward on mtw(Terrorific)fss

never a better time to disarm. tell the truth. the atmosphere is not ours to toy with either?

you call this 'weather'? what with real history racing up to correct
itself, while the chosen one's holycostal life0cider mediots continually
attempt to rewrite it, fortunately, there's still only one version of the
truth, & it's usually not a long story, or a confusing multiple choice
fear raising event.

world wide disarmament is taking place based on the pure intentions of the
majority of the planet's chosen to be depopulated, population. as the
biblical fiction based chosen ones have only one ability, which is
destruction for personal gain, they just don't fit in with all the new
life extending stuff that we're being advised/warned to avoid/ignore. life
likes to continue, advance etc... deception & death appear to have similar
ambitions.

also, there's just enough time left to investigate the genuine native elders
social & political leadership initiative, which includes genuine history
as put forth in the teepeeleaks etchings. the natives still have no words
in their language to describe the events following their 'discovery' by
us, way back when. they do advise that it's happening again.

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment
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diaper leaks group world wide

Re:Seriously, though, what the Hell is wrong with

[hcdejong]

The site works well for me; I've got my account prefs set to use the old Discussion System (D1).

Not Centre for Computing History

[Going_Digital]

The BBC already had the community data available the Centre for Computing History had nothing to do with it !

Re:Not Centre for Computing History

[Going_Digital]

The truth of the story is that the BBC have had the Community data and pictures available for a long time but legal issues prevented them from publishing it, this Centre for Computing History is just trying to free ride on the publicity generated by the BBC.

Re:Not Centre for Computing History

[Going_Digital]

To see who the real people are who should be credited with this project, see the official BBC Acknowledgements page. You will see from the official Acknowledgements on the BBC site http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/story that there is no mention of the Centre for Computing History. BBC Employees part of George Auckland's Innovations Team deserve the credit for the work done here.

I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[Viol8]

.... they obviously don't test their code with all the browsers out there which does smack of lazyness and a can't be bothered attitude. If you're running a geek site at least get coders who care about the software that runs it.

Re:I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the same problem: FF 4.0.1/Win XP fully patched.

Re:I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[Stormthirst]

Perhaps this is a Firefox problem, I too have the same issues with Firefox 4.0.1, but I'm running Win7 (again, fully patched)

Re:I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[symes]

Same problem here - but FF3.6 and Win7

Re:I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[Anonymous Coward]

same here, Chrome on Win7

Re:I don't have a problem with firefox 3.6 but...

[Viol8]

I run 3.6 on LInux and don't have the problem. Must be a FF on windows issue.

BBC

[Grindalf]

Can you still get it in BBC Micro?

i hope it fares better

[circletimessquare]

than the matrix reloaded

there "reloaded" titles don't have a good track record

Accuraqcy Wiki

[Anonymous Coward]

All I hope for is that it is a wiki, so I can correct some of the personally embarrassing factual errors contained in the original dataset.

Re:Seriously, though, what the Hell is wrong with

[Anonymous Coward]

You are seriously off-topic, as am I (hence the anonymous), but I whole heartedly agree with you.
I will try the trick below though, trying 'old discussion form'.

Kind regards,

A.C. (do not want to destroy my karma).

Re:Seriously, though, what the Hell is wrong with

[c6gunner]

The site works well for me; I've got my account prefs set to use the old Discussion System (D1).

Well, sure, I did the same, but it's ridiculous that we need to go and use an older version because some twits completely screwed up the implementation of the new-and-improved version. I LIKED the old dynamic layout. It was a heck of a lot more convinient than D1. But once they made these newest changes, it got so goddamn frustrating that I had no choice but to switch to D1. As a result, I end up missing a lot of the discussions, and spending less time on the site. If they had any common sense, they'd either roll back to the earlier version of the dynamic system, or fix the bugs that they introduced; instead they seem to be determined to break it even further.

Waiting until Domesday

[deadhammer]

...the BBC, who have now released the Domesday Reloaded project

I'm confused. I thought Domesday was supposed to be on the 21st of this month. Did they release early?

can't trust the BBC to preserve things

[speculatrix]

http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nerd-saves-entire-bbc-archive-for-399-you-can

spelt with a z, American, never been to UK

[fantomas]

He spelt "colonised" with a z, he's an American, AC is talking about the UK and they've never been to the UK, doesn't know anything about it.

Next troll please, try a little harder.