They almost never used photos from the filming, they used telesnaps which were made from the film copies in the BBC Archives (distinct from the mag tape copes the BBC mentions in the article). Two copies were supposed to be kept of every program broadcast over a period of time, after that period the Archives would retain the film copy and the BBC would reuse its tape.
The only episode never to have been transferred onto tape was Feat of Stephen from Dalek Masterplan.
Nope, no such agreement existed and the actors were furious (Troughton especially) when the news of the junkings leaked out. The BBC denied it at first, then claimed it was one rogue employee.
The BBC Archives junked a lot of its black-and-white archives on the grounds that nobody watches that stuff. There is some disagreement over whether the archives were junked once or twice. The BBC article linked to notes that the BBC itself reused mag tape recordings -- whilst this is true, it is extremely disingenuous, as the BBC is not the same thing as the BBC Archives. The BBC Archives used film - the telesnaps that exist are photos taken directly off the film copies.
There's actually a lot of technicalities they can use - not just to prevent paying out if it would mean losing overall. The links I gave elsewhere show that there only has to be a suspicion that a gaming machine (be it a slot machine, a roulette wheel or an automatic deck shuffler) has a fault, even if that fault leads to the machine being random rather than biased towards the house, then the house isn't obliged to pay the winnings. True, do that too much and people will stop gaming, but the lottery shows that even trillion to one odds against is just fine for many gamblers. Casinos can therefore be selective and merely stop a percentage of the payouts.
Which, of course, is what the devices are designed to do in the first place -- ensure that N out of M bets that would win are fixed to lose. A slight tweak on the friction on the roulette wheel is all it takes to make sure chance is not an element. And that, to me, is the thing. If the odds of a 36-number roulette wheel producing a given number was actually 1:36, that's one thing. If the odds suddenly depend on the size of the wager and how well the table is doing, that's very different. Likewise, if someone does win and that winning is redacted to safely control the number of winners, then whatever is going on, it's not gambling.
(Pubs in England were allowed to have darts games because it was shown in court that it was a game of skill, not a game of chance, so didn't violate gambling rules. So legal systems do consider that for a game to be gambling, it must be a game of chance. The mere fact that devices legally exist in casinos for the express purpose of preventing chance from operating means that casinos aren't involved in gambling.)
As Red Hat noted when they first IPOed, slashing the value of a market has a big impact on where the eyes are and where the competition is.
Agreed, giving away everything is probably not the wisest move but you won't ever catch up with competitors by pacing yourself to them and following in their footsteps. You've got to do something different. Ideally, the solution is to be radical enough to change the very direction being raced in. It's far easier and quicker to define who is in the lead than it is to catch up with those who were in the lead.
A search for casino works perfectly well, and since "machine" probably doesn't refer to blackjack, I think the average Slashdotter's intelligence is greater than you give credit for. (I happen to think readers here are competent and smart, if you don't then that would explain why you're AC.)
I thought it was "two big guys grab you by the arms, turn you upside-down and shake your wallet and change out of your pockets, then throw you out the front door into the oncoming traffic so you can't sue them".
You could run a search. Would be quicker. There've actually been a few stories. Here's what you get if you type "slot machine" into Slashdot's search engine (Ooooh! That's a complex thing to do!)
Gramatically looks fine. I see subjects, objects and verbs in all the right places. There are commas where they're not needed and no commas where they are, but comma rules are regularly broken. Just as s's is now considered acceptable (I consider it gross and a sign of mental fragility), comma rules aren't considered important any more outside of formal writing. Unless you know something about Slashdot the rest of us don't, formal writing doesn't really fit the description.
The news story posted on Slashdot not that long ago on a casino successfully suing a gambler of all his winnings because the machine's system for preventing you from winning wasn't working tells me that the only paradigm in use is "give us your money... or else!"
Well, I said why live interferometry can't be done at this point. If you timestamp the data at regular intervals, a base station would be capable of stretching recorded data and doing the interferometry that way.
NP. The problem with snarky comebacks is that Slashdot doesn't have a way of unthresholding the thing a person is snarkily replying to. I'm mentally taking it that you're really replying to the AC I snarked at.:)
It takes a lot of money to get worthwhile bribes, these days. Y'know, you need the flashy cars, the fancy outfits, the three metric tonnes of bling, a security detail, a record deal and maybe a couple of Swiss bank accounts. $120k might not be enough for all that.
in the UK, the system is (in theory) better. Any constituent can see their representative on demand, provided the representative isn't busy in the House at that time, so everyone has (in theory) equal access and equal lobbying power. Cash-for-questions and similar direct bribery is off-limits and will get a member sanctioned, banned from the House or forced to quit. Well, provided it's discovered and the ethics committee hasn't been perverted.
This is not perfect, the system has some unimaginably large holes - apparently large enough to drive 5,600 phone hacking scandals and assorted cash-for-votes scandals through, but when bribery and high-paying jobs aren't merely legal but de rigour - as is the case in the US, it's a whole different ballgame.
Both systems should be majorly overhauled and the politicians and aides operating in such a manner should be majorly keelhauled, but if only one were to change I think the US should move more towards the UK's standards than the other way round.
Slashdot Mirror
They almost never used photos from the filming, they used telesnaps which were made from the film copies in the BBC Archives (distinct from the mag tape copes the BBC mentions in the article). Two copies were supposed to be kept of every program broadcast over a period of time, after that period the Archives would retain the film copy and the BBC would reuse its tape.
The only episode never to have been transferred onto tape was Feat of Stephen from Dalek Masterplan.
Nope, no such agreement existed and the actors were furious (Troughton especially) when the news of the junkings leaked out. The BBC denied it at first, then claimed it was one rogue employee.
The BBC Archives junked a lot of its black-and-white archives on the grounds that nobody watches that stuff. There is some disagreement over whether the archives were junked once or twice. The BBC article linked to notes that the BBC itself reused mag tape recordings -- whilst this is true, it is extremely disingenuous, as the BBC is not the same thing as the BBC Archives. The BBC Archives used film - the telesnaps that exist are photos taken directly off the film copies.
There's actually a lot of technicalities they can use - not just to prevent paying out if it would mean losing overall. The links I gave elsewhere show that there only has to be a suspicion that a gaming machine (be it a slot machine, a roulette wheel or an automatic deck shuffler) has a fault, even if that fault leads to the machine being random rather than biased towards the house, then the house isn't obliged to pay the winnings. True, do that too much and people will stop gaming, but the lottery shows that even trillion to one odds against is just fine for many gamblers. Casinos can therefore be selective and merely stop a percentage of the payouts.
Which, of course, is what the devices are designed to do in the first place -- ensure that N out of M bets that would win are fixed to lose. A slight tweak on the friction on the roulette wheel is all it takes to make sure chance is not an element. And that, to me, is the thing. If the odds of a 36-number roulette wheel producing a given number was actually 1:36, that's one thing. If the odds suddenly depend on the size of the wager and how well the table is doing, that's very different. Likewise, if someone does win and that winning is redacted to safely control the number of winners, then whatever is going on, it's not gambling.
(Pubs in England were allowed to have darts games because it was shown in court that it was a game of skill, not a game of chance, so didn't violate gambling rules. So legal systems do consider that for a game to be gambling, it must be a game of chance. The mere fact that devices legally exist in casinos for the express purpose of preventing chance from operating means that casinos aren't involved in gambling.)
As Red Hat noted when they first IPOed, slashing the value of a market has a big impact on where the eyes are and where the competition is.
Agreed, giving away everything is probably not the wisest move but you won't ever catch up with competitors by pacing yourself to them and following in their footsteps. You've got to do something different. Ideally, the solution is to be radical enough to change the very direction being raced in. It's far easier and quicker to define who is in the lead than it is to catch up with those who were in the lead.
Yeah, well, I wouldn't worry about that too much. Those who are decimated can't complain and the rest won't because they get shares in the plunder.
How can you lose when you're legally entitled to not pay any winnings - ever?
A search for casino works perfectly well, and since "machine" probably doesn't refer to blackjack, I think the average Slashdotter's intelligence is greater than you give credit for. (I happen to think readers here are competent and smart, if you don't then that would explain why you're AC.)
Research says that that is a cognitive illusion, that the smart ones AVOID the financial industry like the plague.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/30/daniel-kahneman-cognitive-illusion-extract?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/apr/12/businessglossary110?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/03/research.science1?INTCMP=SRCH
I thought it was "two big guys grab you by the arms, turn you upside-down and shake your wallet and change out of your pockets, then throw you out the front door into the oncoming traffic so you can't sue them".
You could run a search. Would be quicker. There've actually been a few stories. Here's what you get if you type "slot machine" into Slashdot's search engine (Ooooh! That's a complex thing to do!)
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1638213/casino-denies-man-166-million-jackpot
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/05/1828218/malfunction-costs-couple-11-million-slot-machine-jackpot
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/06/2246234/man-arrested-for-exploiting-error-in-slot-machines
Eating the software is probably better for you than running it.
That's a form of not playing.
That would depend on how good AI is these days.
You are lost in a maze of twisty URLs, all the same.
Gramatically looks fine. I see subjects, objects and verbs in all the right places. There are commas where they're not needed and no commas where they are, but comma rules are regularly broken. Just as s's is now considered acceptable (I consider it gross and a sign of mental fragility), comma rules aren't considered important any more outside of formal writing. Unless you know something about Slashdot the rest of us don't, formal writing doesn't really fit the description.
The news story posted on Slashdot not that long ago on a casino successfully suing a gambler of all his winnings because the machine's system for preventing you from winning wasn't working tells me that the only paradigm in use is "give us your money... or else!"
Well, I said why live interferometry can't be done at this point. If you timestamp the data at regular intervals, a base station would be capable of stretching recorded data and doing the interferometry that way.
http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~monnier/Publications/ROP2003_final.pdf
Triple-glazed, so I can afford to throw stones. Besides, you know I'm right.
There's Open Source automotive control software listed up on Freecode/Freshmeat. Why not download it and add the joystick code?
NP. The problem with snarky comebacks is that Slashdot doesn't have a way of unthresholding the thing a person is snarkily replying to. I'm mentally taking it that you're really replying to the AC I snarked at. :)
Troll much, or is this your first time?
It takes a lot of money to get worthwhile bribes, these days. Y'know, you need the flashy cars, the fancy outfits, the three metric tonnes of bling, a security detail, a record deal and maybe a couple of Swiss bank accounts. $120k might not be enough for all that.
in the UK, the system is (in theory) better. Any constituent can see their representative on demand, provided the representative isn't busy in the House at that time, so everyone has (in theory) equal access and equal lobbying power. Cash-for-questions and similar direct bribery is off-limits and will get a member sanctioned, banned from the House or forced to quit. Well, provided it's discovered and the ethics committee hasn't been perverted.
This is not perfect, the system has some unimaginably large holes - apparently large enough to drive 5,600 phone hacking scandals and assorted cash-for-votes scandals through, but when bribery and high-paying jobs aren't merely legal but de rigour - as is the case in the US, it's a whole different ballgame.
Both systems should be majorly overhauled and the politicians and aides operating in such a manner should be majorly keelhauled, but if only one were to change I think the US should move more towards the UK's standards than the other way round.