Well actually the Guardian (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,14 85232,00.html ) reports that the BBC is looking for 5000 broadband users (in the UK only, sorry foreigners!) to trial their new Interactive Media Player for 3 months starting in September. Email imptrial@bbc.co.uk if you're interested, giving your name, contact details, age, and postcode.
Oh God, don't remind me about directory enquiries! One simple number to remember, 192, replaced by a plethora of 118xxx numbers. The whole thing was so well organised that consumers have no idea which directory enquiry service is cheapest, and they're less accurate than the BT service was too, so there are a third fewer calls made to DQ than in the good old days of the BT monopoly!
The Bank of England stopped issuing £1 notes in 1984, which was when the halfpenny coin was taken out of circulation too. The Scottish banks continued to issue £1 notes for quite a long time afterwards, but I think the last one (RBS) stopped issuing them a few years ago. The Scottish and Northern Irish banks issue £100 notes as well, which the Bank of England doesn't.
I was buying a ticket at Basel main railway station about 20 years ago, and the man in front of me was paying with a 1000 Swiss franc note. Now that was a lot of money (about £400 or $700), particularly 20 years ago. Ticket clerk didn't blink at all.
On the other hand I was in a gift shop in Salzburg once and the Italian tourist in front of me bought about 12 schillings' worth of postcards with a 1000 schilling note. The shopkeeper was ever so slightly in Basil Fawlty mood after that - "Haben Sie eine kleine banknote??". While for "if looks could kill", try buying 14 koruns worth of stamps in the Prague Castle gift shop with a 2000 korun note, as I saw a German do once....
The Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1861 restricted the death penalty to:
Murder
Treason
Arson in Royal Dockyards, and
Piracy with violence.
A hundred years earlier and I could believe you - the Black Act of 1723 prescribed the death penalty for 220 offenses, including 50 offenses involving theft or poaching, but 2/3rds of those were abolished in 1808 or by the Punishment of Death Act 1832. Even in capital cases, juries were reluctant to convict, and other sentences like transportation were substituted - how on earth do you think Australia got populated?
Note that the Hugo is voted on by Worldcon members, and Worldcon is in Scotland this year. So a substantial portion of the voters will be able to travel to Scotland for the con, and I believe several of these nominees are more well-known in the UK. They're all really good--don't get me wrong--but location is probably a factor in this list..
Err, no. I don't think the Worldcon's location has anything to do with it. Most Worldcon members live in the US even in years when the Worldcon isn't being held there. I've been a member of most Worldcons since 1987, but have only actually attended the ones in 1987, 1990, 1994, and 1995 -- this hasn't stopped me voting for the Hugos when I've been knowledgable about the nominees (and sometimes when I haven't!). There's this useful little invention called the postal system, you see...
It's the base of the Hugo which changes every year, e.g. the one produced for the last Anaheim Worldcon (seen in the final episode of Babylon 5) was based on a film reel case. The actual rocketships have been produced to the same design by Peter Weston in Birmingham, UK, for the last few decades...
it's all Nazi documentries and soaps no other channel wants.
Now, now, it's not all Nazi documentaries - tonight they've got a documentary on the Russian Revolution in Colour, and later this week it's World War I in Colour!! And fair do's - tonight they've got 2 hours of CSI...
Well, I'm in my mid 40s and I enjoy TG! Probably proves I'm just a big kid.
I particularly liked the test of what they could do to a beat-up old Toyota pick-up, last season -- drive it up and down steps, park it on the beach of the Severn estuary when the tide's coming in, drop a wrecking ball on it, park it on top of a tower block which is going to be explosively demolished, do all that... and the damned thing will still move under its own power after a little basic mechanics' attention!
The situation was interesting in Britain where, although we have a state religion,...
Err, no. We have two state religions, or none, depending on where you live and who you are. The Church of England (Episcopalian, for leftpondians), in England, of which the Queen is Supreme Governor; and the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), of which she's just a member. There are no state religions in Wales or Northern Ireland.
As for America, the original colonists set out to obtain religious freedom for their particular sects, but they were not particularly tolerant of other sects, which is how each colony came to be dominated by one denomination. Personally, I think the reason we are not very religious in Britain is because we managed to get rid of the overly-religious gene by shipping out the victims, thank God! Also the weak state religions immunise us when we're small against the religious nuts.
Yes, satellite broadcasting of the BBC was moved from Astra 2A to 2D last year, the same time it went unencrypted. Astra 2D's footprint is concentrated on the UK and Ireland, though I'm told larger dishes can pick it up as far as northern Spain and eastern Germany.
I have found numerous errors when reading articles.
Well, naturally - there will be errors in any reference source, nobody's reached perfection yet. Have you tried looking something up in the new edition of Oxford University Press' Dictionary of National Biography? http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,690 3,1431473,00.html At £7,500 for the set, you'd think they'd get their facts right.
Different jurisdiction, of course, but when I worked for British Rail, like the other then 120,000 employees I was subject to the appropriate sections of the Rule Book which included gems like "All employees must observe passing trains and ensure there is a red light showing on the back" (without saying what we were supposed to do if there wasn't one), but more to the point it included the notorious rule A.1.4.4: "You may not make any public statement which reflects to the detriment of your employer". Then they went and privatised us, splitting BR into over 100 companies, so while we couldn't slag off our own employers in public, there were plenty of other railway companies we could criticise if we felt adventurous!
There are about 20 million households in the UK, maybe a little more, if I remember correctly. Sky has about 8 million customers (possibly more than one in some households) so the figure is more like 40%. There's another 5 million households with Freeview, but Sky One's not on that yet (though rumours persist...).
This report has been a bit counterproductive for the DRM people - it interested me enough to investigate BitTorrent for the first time and I've just been watching Battlestar Galactice (just as an experiment of course, you understand....)
Yup, practically the only things that they actually own are their staffs' contracts, and they authomatically transfer to new employers when their franchise is ended.
Well, first off we don't have cabooses. Secondly, since the Regulation of Railways Act 1881 all trains are continuously braked - there's a pipe that runs all the way along the train, if it breaks then the brakes come on in all vehicles automatically.
The private rail companies still own and (sometimes) run the trains...
Err, no, the passenger railways don't actually OWN any of their own trains -- they lease them from one of three leasing companies (all of which are now owned by banks).
The private railways in 1948 were in no condition to carry on. You do realise that in its entire existence (1923-1948) the London & North Eastern Railway never paid a dividend?
"The wrong kind of snow" was an unusual type for the UK - very fine snowflakes as I recall, which got sucked into the motor compartments by the cooling fans where the heat promptly melted them. Water + electric motors = not much fun!
"Leaves on the line" get crushed by weight of trains into something with the slipperiness of Teflon. In the old days trains had friction brakes that were applied to the outside of the wheels and would clean the crud off. Nowadays they have disc brakes on the inside of the wheels, so they don't clean the crud off, trains can't stop as quickly so they go sliding past red signals with the wheels locked (wearing flats into the wheels, so they trains have to be taken out of service to have the wheels reprofiled), so trains have to be slowed down, so trains are even later than usual etc., etc...
Slashdot Mirror
Well actually the Guardian (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,14 85232,00.html ) reports that the BBC is looking for 5000 broadband users (in the UK only, sorry foreigners!) to trial their new Interactive Media Player for 3 months starting in September. Email imptrial@bbc.co.uk if you're interested, giving your name, contact details, age, and postcode.
Scotland and England are kingdoms.
No they aren't. The Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were abolished in 1707.
Oh God, don't remind me about directory enquiries! One simple number to remember, 192, replaced by a plethora of 118xxx numbers. The whole thing was so well organised that consumers have no idea which directory enquiry service is cheapest, and they're less accurate than the BT service was too, so there are a third fewer calls made to DQ than in the good old days of the BT monopoly!
The Bank of England stopped issuing £1 notes in 1984, which was when the halfpenny coin was taken out of circulation too. The Scottish banks continued to issue £1 notes for quite a long time afterwards, but I think the last one (RBS) stopped issuing them a few years ago. The Scottish and Northern Irish banks issue £100 notes as well, which the Bank of England doesn't.
You mean Stoke?
No they don't have to be bigger and heavier for larger values, just clearly distinguishable.
British coins go:
1 and 2 pence - smaller and larger round copper coloured coins
5 and 10 pence - smaller and larger round silver coloured coins
20 and 50 pence - smaller and larger equilaterally curved heptagons, silver coloured.
£1 - thick round gold coloured coin
£2 - thin bimetallic round coin - silver colour inside, gold outside.
£5 - very large silver coloured round coin (rarely used).
Except in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where they have £100 notes... and let's not get into Northern Bank notes! :)
I was buying a ticket at Basel main railway station about 20 years ago, and the man in front of me was paying with a 1000 Swiss franc note. Now that was a lot of money (about £400 or $700), particularly 20 years ago. Ticket clerk didn't blink at all.
On the other hand I was in a gift shop in Salzburg once and the Italian tourist in front of me bought about 12 schillings' worth of postcards with a 1000 schilling note. The shopkeeper was ever so slightly in Basil Fawlty mood after that - "Haben Sie eine kleine banknote??". While for "if looks could kill", try buying 14 koruns worth of stamps in the Prague Castle gift shop with a 2000 korun note, as I saw a German do once....
Nice story, but total nonsense.
The Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1861 restricted the death penalty to:
Murder
Treason
Arson in Royal Dockyards, and
Piracy with violence.
A hundred years earlier and I could believe you - the Black Act of 1723 prescribed the death penalty for 220 offenses, including 50 offenses involving theft or poaching, but 2/3rds of those were abolished in 1808 or by the Punishment of Death Act 1832. Even in capital cases, juries were reluctant to convict, and other sentences like transportation were substituted - how on earth do you think Australia got populated?
Note that the Hugo is voted on by Worldcon members, and Worldcon is in Scotland this year. So a substantial portion of the voters will be able to travel to Scotland for the con, and I believe several of these nominees are more well-known in the UK. They're all really good--don't get me wrong--but location is probably a factor in this list..
Err, no. I don't think the Worldcon's location has anything to do with it. Most Worldcon members live in the US even in years when the Worldcon isn't being held there. I've been a member of most Worldcons since 1987, but have only actually attended the ones in 1987, 1990, 1994, and 1995 -- this hasn't stopped me voting for the Hugos when I've been knowledgable about the nominees (and sometimes when I haven't!). There's this useful little invention called the postal system, you see...
It's the base of the Hugo which changes every year, e.g. the one produced for the last Anaheim Worldcon (seen in the final episode of Babylon 5) was based on a film reel case. The actual rocketships have been produced to the same design by Peter Weston in Birmingham, UK, for the last few decades...
it's all Nazi documentries and soaps no other channel wants.
Now, now, it's not all Nazi documentaries - tonight they've got a documentary on the Russian Revolution in Colour, and later this week it's World War I in Colour!! And fair do's - tonight they've got 2 hours of CSI...
Well, I'm in my mid 40s and I enjoy TG! Probably proves I'm just a big kid.
I particularly liked the test of what they could do to a beat-up old Toyota pick-up, last season -- drive it up and down steps, park it on the beach of the Severn estuary when the tide's coming in, drop a wrecking ball on it, park it on top of a tower block which is going to be explosively demolished, do all that... and the damned thing will still move under its own power after a little basic mechanics' attention!
The situation was interesting in Britain where, although we have a state religion, ...
Err, no. We have two state religions, or none, depending on where you live and who you are. The Church of England (Episcopalian, for leftpondians), in England, of which the Queen is Supreme Governor; and the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), of which she's just a member. There are no state religions in Wales or Northern Ireland.
As for America, the original colonists set out to obtain religious freedom for their particular sects, but they were not particularly tolerant of other sects, which is how each colony came to be dominated by one denomination. Personally, I think the reason we are not very religious in Britain is because we managed to get rid of the overly-religious gene by shipping out the victims, thank God! Also the weak state religions immunise us when we're small against the religious nuts.
Yes, satellite broadcasting of the BBC was moved from Astra 2A to 2D last year, the same time it went unencrypted. Astra 2D's footprint is concentrated on the UK and Ireland, though I'm told larger dishes can pick it up as far as northern Spain and eastern Germany.
I have found numerous errors when reading articles.
0 3,1431473,00.html At £7,500 for the set, you'd think they'd get their facts right.
Well, naturally - there will be errors in any reference source, nobody's reached perfection yet. Have you tried looking something up in the new edition of Oxford University Press' Dictionary of National Biography? http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,69
Different jurisdiction, of course, but when I worked for British Rail, like the other then 120,000 employees I was subject to the appropriate sections of the Rule Book which included gems like "All employees must observe passing trains and ensure there is a red light showing on the back" (without saying what we were supposed to do if there wasn't one), but more to the point it included the notorious rule A.1.4.4: "You may not make any public statement which reflects to the detriment of your employer". Then they went and privatised us, splitting BR into over 100 companies, so while we couldn't slag off our own employers in public, there were plenty of other railway companies we could criticise if we felt adventurous!
Yes, but for a moment there I thought you wanted to remake a Swedish car!
There are about 20 million households in the UK, maybe a little more, if I remember correctly. Sky has about 8 million customers (possibly more than one in some households) so the figure is more like 40%. There's another 5 million households with Freeview, but Sky One's not on that yet (though rumours persist...).
This report has been a bit counterproductive for the DRM people - it interested me enough to investigate BitTorrent for the first time and I've just been watching Battlestar Galactice (just as an experiment of course, you understand....)
Yup, practically the only things that they actually own are their staffs' contracts, and they authomatically transfer to new employers when their franchise is ended.
Well, first off we don't have cabooses. Secondly, since the Regulation of Railways Act 1881 all trains are continuously braked - there's a pipe that runs all the way along the train, if it breaks then the brakes come on in all vehicles automatically.
Err, no, the passenger railways don't actually OWN any of their own trains -- they lease them from one of three leasing companies (all of which are now owned by banks).
The private railways in 1948 were in no condition to carry on. You do realise that in its entire existence (1923-1948) the London & North Eastern Railway never paid a dividend?
I couldn't stand Maggie Thatcher, but fair do's to her - she had more sense than to privatise the railways, that was John Major's stupid idea.
And they are perfectly good excuses.
"The wrong kind of snow" was an unusual type for the UK - very fine snowflakes as I recall, which got sucked into the motor compartments by the cooling fans where the heat promptly melted them. Water + electric motors = not much fun!
"Leaves on the line" get crushed by weight of trains into something with the slipperiness of Teflon. In the old days trains had friction brakes that were applied to the outside of the wheels and would clean the crud off. Nowadays they have disc brakes on the inside of the wheels, so they don't clean the crud off, trains can't stop as quickly so they go sliding past red signals with the wheels locked (wearing flats into the wheels, so they trains have to be taken out of service to have the wheels reprofiled), so trains have to be slowed down, so trains are even later than usual etc., etc...