Name Game
Janice Gelb
space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
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Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with
janic...@marvin.eng.sun.com | this message is the return address.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8018/index.html
"These are my opinions. If they were the Biblical truth, your bushes
would be burning" -- Randy Lander
Ed Dravecky III
> I was just listening to the CNN Headline News report on the
> space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
> Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
Yup. He's been CNN's science and technology edtior since well
before Chief O'Brien got his first name on ST:TNG, too. His
recent ascension to "space" editor is only a result of tragic and
accidental death of John Holliman a few months ago.
--
Ed Dravecky III <*> dshe...@netcom.com
RCW 139: Ride Forever, the 4th annual Due South convention
Visit http://www.rcw139.org/ for more information.
Rich Horton
>I was just listening to the CNN Headline News report on the
>space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
>Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
OK, this name conflates two of the pseudonyms of a very fine sort of
SFnal writer, Brian O'Nolan. But that's pretty obscure for CNN. What
other significance does this have?
--
Rich Horton | rrho...@concentric.net
Web Page: www.sff.net/people/richard.horton (New reviews of
_Halfway Human_ and _The Star Fraction_ and _Deepdrive_.)
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>On 9 Dec 1998 21:47:05 GMT, jan...@eng.sun.com (Janice Gelb) wrote:
>
>>I was just listening to the CNN Headline News report on the
>>space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
>>Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
>
>OK, this name conflates two of the pseudonyms of a very fine sort of
>SFnal writer, Brian O'Nolan. But that's pretty obscure for CNN. What
>other significance does this have?
Chief O'Brien of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Tsuyu to ochi, tsuyu to kienishi. Waga mi ka na?
Naniwa no koto mo, yume mo matayume." --Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Alter S. Reiss
> I was just listening to the CNN Headline News report on the
> space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
> Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
And then there's the skater Amber Corwin. Honest.
--
Alter S. Reiss --- www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 --- asr...@ymail.yu.edu
"Allright, I think I've figured it out. It can go up
or down, but not side-to-side or backwards in time."
Morgan
"Alter S. Reiss" <asr...@ymail.yu.edu> said:
>On 9 Dec 1998, Janice Gelb wrote:
>
>> I was just listening to the CNN Headline News report on the
>> space station space walk, and the name of their reporter at
>> Kennedy Space Center is... Miles O'Brien!!!!
>
> And then there's the skater Amber Corwin. Honest.
>
Corwin was named for Norman Corwin, writer. Just like Bester was
named... no wait, you guessed!
--
Morgan
"Nunc demum intellego," dixit Winnie ille Pu. "Stultus et
delusus fui," dixit "et ursus sine ullo cerebro sum."
Beth Friedman
<PzUXtiAZ...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>...
> Corwin was named for Norman Corwin, writer. Just like Bester was
> named... no wait, you guessed!
Assuming you mean Bester in Babylon 5, I thought the last name was quite
enough of a reference. I was really pretty annoyed to discover that his
first name was Alf. Of course, JMS has never been known for having a
subtle touch.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Dorothy J Heydt
Beth Friedman <b...@wavefront.com> wrote:
>Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
><PzUXtiAZ...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>...
>> Corwin was named for Norman Corwin, writer.
Author, by the way, of a neat children's SF/F story called
_Dog in the Sky._ Wish I knew what happened to my copy....
Just like Bester was
>> named... no wait, you guessed!
>
>Assuming you mean Bester in Babylon 5, I thought the last name was quite
>enough of a reference. I was really pretty annoyed to discover that his
>first name was Alf. Of course, JMS has never been known for having a
>subtle touch.
Cf. the thread on rasfw about how young people don't, unless they
read the SF/F genre, recognize the name of Tolkien (let alone his
bgook titles). You expect kids who grew up on Star {Trek,Wars}
to recognize the name of Alfred Bester?
Even my own kids, who one day mentioned a character named
"Bester," and I said, "Who?" and they said "Alfred Bester, he's
the Walter Koenig character on B5; he's the head telepath...."
and wondered why I whooped with laughter. And we have several
Bester volumes in the house.
Of course, it's their loss.
But I don't think Mr. S. was being "unsubtle" to borrow the name
of the author of _The Demolished Man_ for the head telepath
administrator. I think he was making a well and truly subtle
in-joke along the lines of so many of the proper names in
Garrett's Lord Darcy stories.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
_A Point of Honor_ is out....
Jo Walton
> Even my own kids, who one day mentioned a character named
> "Bester," and I said, "Who?" and they said "Alfred Bester, he's
> the Walter Koenig character on B5; he's the head telepath...."
> and wondered why I whooped with laughter. And we have several
> Bester volumes in the house.
Well when someone here suggested calling two cats Bester and Chekov
I spent a while pondering what the author of :The Demolished Man:
and the author of :The Seagull: had sufficiently linking them for
that to be clever. Everything I thought of was kind of.... obscure,
funnily enough. I mean there are themes in :Ivanov: that are kind
of echoed in "Time is the Traitor" but....
The other evening there was a knock at the door and it was a nice
young man wanting to know why I hadn't paid my TV license, even
though I had sent all the forms back with "I have no television,
I consider television to be pernicious" written on them. There isn't
a box to tick for "No TV". I told him I really don't have a TV and
invited him in to search for one, which he did, all the time having to
put up with a lecture on how television is a terrible thing. If he'd
stayed any longer - I'm apparently the only person he's ever met who
genuinely doesn't have a TV, not even hidden in the kitchen or under
the bed - I'd have been reduced to quoting Roald Dahl's poem against
television from :Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:.
No, I don't miss TV. It gives me so much more time for imagining
contexts for references I miss on usenet. (:The Cherry Orchard:
and "Fondly Farenheit" are both about crises of identity, I
suppose...)
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.
Dorothy J Heydt
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The other evening there was a knock at the door and it was a nice
>young man wanting to know why I hadn't paid my TV license, even
>though I had sent all the forms back with "I have no television...."
I have two televisions in the house and three VCRs. Do I watch
them? No. Months will go by before I turn on the tube, and then
it's usually to watch an old Betamax tape I recorded back in
1981.
On the other hand, if I lived in the UK I might just watch some
television. Fewer commercials.
Josh Hesse
:
: The other evening there was a knock at the door and it was a nice
: young man wanting to know why I hadn't paid my TV license, even
: I consider television to be pernicious" written on them. There isn't
: a box to tick for "No TV". I told him I really don't have a TV and
: invited him in to search for one, which he did, all the time having to
: put up with a lecture on how television is a terrible thing. If he'd
: stayed any longer - I'm apparently the only person he's ever met who
: genuinely doesn't have a TV, not even hidden in the kitchen or under
: the bed - I'd have been reduced to quoting Roald Dahl's poem against
: television from :Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:.
A TV licence?
A few years back, I remember watching a Austrailian-produced
program where they showed a van, equipped with antennas, driving around
trying to catch people with their TVs on.
Quaint British customs...
(sort of like all those extra "e"s and "u"s they use)
--
Do not send mail to this account. Really.
"Talk about silly conspiracy theories..." -Wayne Schlitt in unl.general
This post (C)1998, Josh Hesse. Quoted material is (C) of the person quoted.
|ess|erb|unl|u| (Oo) MYTHOS How's my posting? 1-800-DEV-NULL
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-Gary Kildall
Beth Friedman
<F3tCB...@kithrup.com>...
> On the other hand, if I lived in the UK I might just watch some
> television. Fewer commercials.
My new VCR encourages me to tape shows and watch them later, even if I have
time to watch them when they're on. It has a newish feature called
"commercial skip" where, after it tapes a show, it goes back and marks
portions of the tape that it determines are commercial segments.
Then when you play the tape, it automatically fast-forwards through the
commercials. I was seriously dubious about this feature (I bought that
particular model for other reasons), but it works amazingly well. It
detects just about every batch of commercials except ones associated with
credits, and it's never fast-forwarded through real program time. I think
the essential cue is the longish fade to black before and after commercial
bunches, but the documentation says it uses a variety of algorithms to
determine commercial time.
The only (minor) annoyance is that when I hand-pause the tape to manually
delete commercials (for Star Trek, there's 50 minutes of show to 90 minutes
of time slot), after I stop recording, I get a query asking if I want to
mark commercials now, later, or not at all. But that's worth dealing with
to get the commercial skip automatically when I want it.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Paul Dormer
Walton) wrote:
> The other evening there was a knock at the door and it was a nice
> young man wanting to know why I hadn't paid my TV license, even
> though I had sent all the forms back with "I have no television,
> I consider television to be pernicious" written on them. There isn't
> a box to tick for "No TV". I told him I really don't have a TV and
Last month, I received a visit from two policemen who wanted to know why I
hadn't paid my parking fines. I don't own a car, nor even have a valid
driving licence. They took my word for it.
Somewhere there is a guy called Tony Hasey who drives a car with
registration G736ACR which he keeps parking illegally, and the car is
registered to my house even though I have lived here for over three years
and I wish he'd tell Swansea or wherever it is that he doesn't live here!
Jo Walton
0009...@bigred.unl.edu "Josh Hesse" writes:
> A TV licence?
> A few years back, I remember watching a Austrailian-produced
> program where they showed a van, equipped with antennas, driving around
> trying to catch people with their TVs on.
>
> Quaint British customs...
> (sort of like all those extra "e"s and "u"s they use)
Oh no, it's a brilliant idea.
It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
to gently discourage people from having them.
But meanwhile, you don't have to pay if you really don't have a TV,
and the money is used to pay for television that doesn't have
advertising.
You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
Mike Scott
>It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
>to gently discourage people from having them.
I think it should be like driving, and you should have to prove that you
can use a TV responsibly before you can get the license.
--
Mike Scott
mi...@moose.demon.co.uk
PNN has frequently updated news & comment for SF fandom
http://www.plokta.com/pnn/
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>A TV licence?
[...]
>
>Quaint British customs...
>(sort of like all those extra "e"s and "u"s they use)
Japanese custom, too. And not terribly traditional or quaint.
David G. Bell
J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk "Jo Walton" writes:
> In article <74rtqf$a...@crcnis3.unl.edu>
> 0009...@bigred.unl.edu "Josh Hesse" writes:
>
> > A TV licence?
> > A few years back, I remember watching a Austrailian-produced
> > program where they showed a van, equipped with antennas, driving around
> > trying to catch people with their TVs on.
> >
> > Quaint British customs...
> > (sort of like all those extra "e"s and "u"s they use)
>
> Oh no, it's a brilliant idea.
>
> It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
> to gently discourage people from having them.
>
> But meanwhile, you don't have to pay if you really don't have a TV,
> and the money is used to pay for television that doesn't have
> advertising.
>
> You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
>
> Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
I've sometimes thought that there may be a few things which American TV,
for a variety of reasons, may do better, but then I remember that the
American TV which we see is generally the good stuff.
We do get plenty of our own rubbish as well.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
Beth Friedman
<CfDsTHAb...@shrdlu.com>...
> If enough people avoid the ad breaks by using recorders like Beth's
> then the existing funding mechanism for TV stations is going to fall
> apart. I managed to scare some people at a recent conference where
> someone gave a paper on the subject of 'Ad Avoiders'. None of the
> experts from the UK stations knew about recorders like Beth's until I
> mentioned them. (My job is media research for a rival medium.)
The thing is, my VCR only automates something people have been doing for
years; that is, fast-forwarding through the commercials. Someone, I can't
remember who, told me that companies are aware that this happens, and tend
to make sure that the product name appears for long enough that it's
clearly visible even for people fast-forwarding through the commercials.
Hmm. On second thought, there is a difference with my VCR. It has an
option to show a blank screen instead of the fast-forwarding when it's
skipping commercials. I didn't have enough faith in the commercial skip
feature to choose that setting (still don't), but that would be a complete
ad avoidance strategy.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Mitch Wagner
says...
> It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
> to gently discourage people from having them.
>
> But meanwhile, you don't have to pay if you really don't have a TV,
> and the money is used to pay for television that doesn't have
> advertising.
>
> You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
>
> Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
government men coming to my door to inspect my house for illegal
televisions.
The right of privacy and the right to be let alone are two important
civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
eroded in America today.
--
mitch w. thri...@sff.net
http://www.sff.net/people/mitchw
"This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Overrated if you ask me." -- Eeyore
Mitch Wagner
says...
> >to gently discourage people from having them.
>
> can use a TV responsibly before you can get the license.
Watching that TV show with Urkel wouldn't cause one to get one's license
REVOKED, but you'd have it suspended for six months and be required to
attend classes during that time.
Ray Radlein
>
> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk "Jo Walton" writes:
> >
> > You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
> >
> > Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
>
There are: Ads. The television commercial is the true art form of the
post-WWII era.
- Ray R.
--
***********************************************************************
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Strom Thurmond Congress wagh'nagl fhtagn.
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
***********************************************************************
Jo Walton
> In article <913413...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
> says...
>
> > It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
> > to gently discourage people from having them.
> >
> > But meanwhile, you don't have to pay if you really don't have a TV,
> > and the money is used to pay for television that doesn't have
> > advertising.
> >
> > You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
> >
> > Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
>
> My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
> government men coming to my door to inspect my house for illegal
> televisions.
They don't if you pay your license. And I've never had a TV and this
is only the second time they ever checked.
The first time was funnier actually. It was when Sasha was quite small,
and we'd just got him to sleep. There was a knock on the door, and I
opened it. There was a man standing there who I knew slightly - he
drank in our local and he always came over and cooed at Sasha when we
went in on Sunday lunchtimes to listen to the jazz. He was one of those
lonely middle aged men with no family who drink slightly too much.
"Hello?" I said.
"Oh no!" he said.
"Hello....?" I said.
"I always knew this would happen!" he said.
"I'm sorry?" I said.
"I'm never going to be able to shop my friends!" he said.
"Did you want something?" I said.
He mutely showed me his identity card, saying he was from the TV licensing
and with a photo of him on it.
"That's OK," I said. "I don't have a television, I think they're pernicious."
"Thank God!" he said. He didn't even come in, though I think he could
probably have used a nice cup of tea by that point. "How's the little
one?" he asked, sadly, leaving.
> The right of privacy and the right to be let alone are two important
> civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
> eroded in America today.
Tried not paying your income tax recently? I expect you'd have people
visiting and checking through your records? Doesn't seem very different
to me.
Morgan
<Ber...@shrdlu.com> said:
>
>If enough people avoid the ad breaks by using recorders like Beth's then
>the existing funding mechanism for TV stations is going to fall apart.
I don't see it getting that much currency here. After all, our ads tend
to be the best bits... which is another way or saying we get some
remarkably good ads.
And we get some crap tv too.
Morgan
Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
>My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
>government men coming to my door to inspect my house for illegal
>televisions.
>
>civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
>eroded in America today.
You don't have to let them in. They have no powers to search. And they
don't come randomly - they actually come to your address if a series of
computer checks and paperwork sent to you specifically doesn't provide
them with an answer that they think likely. And one person comes.
Jo would have been within her rights to send him away, but hell, it's
easer to let them see you really _don't_ have a TV. and they don't do a
search as such, just pop their heads into rooms to see there isn't a TV
in evidence.
I once sent one away - only to remember after he'd gone that the TV he
was looking for a licence for, that I'd bought recently, was two inches
tall and exempt. So I phoned the office and said "Oh you mean the tv I
bought a few weeks ago, that's two inches tall and exempt."
"Hokeydoke." they said, and that was the end of that.
And the TV isn't illegal. The lack of a licence is. And I'm not sure
if it's criminal law, or civil.
But the real point is... that the tv licence supports our electic
channel system. Without it, we wouldn't have that nice gay evening on
tv that Avedon talked about. Without it, we wouldn't have a lot of
things. Having a main non-commercial showing tv channel keeps everyone
striving for 'something else'. The BBC channels strive for popular
audiences (otherwise they'll lose the licence as not being relevant to
the people), the ITV channels strive to have higher production values
and higher quality output than ITV (and usually win). The tension
creates a fertile and diverse culture. A culture where a modicum of
risk can be taken - not as much as we'd like, but more than other
nations without that tension.
When you pay the licence, you buy a hope of good tv. The Government(s)
have been trying to persuade us to get rid of the BBC and their license
for quite some time now. We won't play ball. We know a good thing when
we see it. And the good thing _isn't_ the BBC, but the balance of
tensions that keeps ITV and BBC fighting each other on the basis of
quality and viewing figures - not viewing figures alone.
And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
Although, something interesting struck me about Jo and the box, months
ago, and I'd not had the appropriate thread in which to mention it. Jo
described being seen as not normal in her teens, as she didn't watch tv
at all. I was seen as equally not normal, because I watched too much.
Like most things (book reading, Radio 4 listening, cinema going, theatre
trips) there appears to be a 'normal' range that's socially approved.
But if you inhabit either ends of the spectrum, you are equally suspect.
So, just as Jo was strange for watching no tv, I was just as strange for
watching too much.
Equally, as an adult, Jo is strange and unnatural for not having a TV -
and I'm strange and unnatural for having a 5 tvs and 7 VCRs. And that
we both susequently thrive in our divergent opposition to normality, is
as equally bizarre to the outside world. She, having no tv, is as well
read as anyone I know and has had the time to produce words strung
togethere and sell them in a book. I, having studied TV academically
(even more bizarre than not having a tv in many eyes) am now earning my
bread by teaching tv to other people's kids. The bizarrest of
bizarroes, to many of those normal people. T'is an interesting
reflection on what it is to be 'odd' in relation to normal tv watchers.
Just the same as all of us and books, of course. I was stopped dead in
my tracks a couple of weeks back when some fellow PGCEs dropped round
for tea and had the grand tour of the house. On spotting Tre's wall of
books in the bedroom (a pitiful amount in fan terms, as she's culled
them ruthlessly in order to get them down to one wall and a bookcase
extra) one lass screeched "My Gawd, what a lot of books!". I was
embarressed for her. How could she see our starved and pitiful
collection as a _lot_ of books!
Perhaps not the most comforting thought to offer to you all. That
because we are beyond the normal, we occupy the same section of strange
geekiness that people with _no_ books in their home, occupy.
Jo Walton
Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
> And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
> quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
I'd rather people in general watched less, and pre-teens specifically
watched much less. I think Mike's idea about having to pass a test to
get a license is spiffing.
I wouldn't mind paying a license fee to listen to Radio 4, and Radio
3 as well. I tried Classic FM once, and, well, yuck, the ads were
intolerable. But it has been decreed that people with radio but no TV
are so rare - and they probably are, I don't know any others I don't
think - that there isn't a category for them.
I've just remembered something I read in Punch when I was in school,
it may have been Hunter Davies. It said that if you listened to Radio
3, knew not to refrigerate red wine and liked Brie, you were grown
up. I suppose it's crept up on me.
Vicki Rosenzweig
wrote:
>In article <79b6ehAm...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
>
>> And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
>> quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
>
>I'd rather people in general watched less, and pre-teens specifically
>watched much less. I think Mike's idea about having to pass a test to
>get a license is spiffing.
>
>I wouldn't mind paying a license fee to listen to Radio 4, and Radio
>3 as well. I tried Classic FM once, and, well, yuck, the ads were
>intolerable. But it has been decreed that people with radio but no TV
>are so rare - and they probably are, I don't know any others I don't
>think - that there isn't a category for them.
>
"Me, me! Two radios, actually, but that's just convenience: the one
I think of as the radio is a battery-powered one that will bring in
shortwave as well as the standard AM and FM bands, and the other is
part of the stereo and gets used very occasionally.
Morgan
<J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> said:
>In article <79b6ehAm...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
>
>> And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
>> quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
>
>I'd rather people in general watched less, and pre-teens specifically
>watched much less.
Hmmm...less? Or would you rather they watched the same amount but what
they watched went through some fundamental changes? More like the tv i
grew up with, for instance? Good kids programmes, quality drama, not
too many cartoons, very few kids' toys ads?
<Jo and I have talked about this before, when I found out Sasha was TV-
less at home. My experience of kids who have tv banned to them when
they are young is that they grew up to have a passion for their
forbidden fruit and it's cunter productive. Sasha, of course, is not
forbidden to watch TV and Jo takes him to the movies, so that answered
the concerns about forbidden fruit. And I was totally unaware of how
terrible the kids tv advertising had become, and do think Jo's wise to
keep Sasha from _that_. Other friends of mine have overcome such by
having a tv and VCR, but no television signal in the house. The kids
watch their videos whenever they want to, but the pernicious
advertising, and the need to monitor what they are watching, is gone.
They don't have to pay a tv licence for such, BTW.>
If it's any help Jo, older teenagers and young adults watch very little
tv at all. They don't really pick it up again 'till they are older
adults.
>
>I wouldn't mind paying a license fee to listen to Radio 4, and Radio
>3 as well.
But without the tv watchers, it'd be so expensive you couldn't afford
it.
> I tried Classic FM once, and, well, yuck, the ads were
>intolerable. But it has been decreed that people with radio but no TV
>are so rare - and they probably are, I don't know any others I don't
>think - that there isn't a category for them.
Well, I know of four others.
David G. Bell
r...@learnlink.emory.edu "Ray Radlein" writes:
> David G. Bell wrote:
> >
> > J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk "Jo Walton" writes:
> > >
> > > You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
> > >
> > > Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
> >
> > I've sometimes thought that there may be a few things which American
> > TV, for a variety of reasons, may do better, [....]
>
> There are: Ads. The television commercial is the true art form of the
> post-WWII era.
American TV advertising -- they refresh the sales projections that other
promotional material doesn't reach?
Mitch Wagner
says...
> > The right of privacy and the right to be let alone are two important
> > civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
> > eroded in America today.
>
> Tried not paying your income tax recently? I expect you'd have people
> visiting and checking through your records? Doesn't seem very different
> to me.
Does not seem so to me. TV is so ... trivial.
To my American eyes, it looks as though police had a warrant to come
search your house if they discovered you might be mis-matching your socks
after doing laundry.
(BTW, I am not entirely comfortable commenting on this thread. It's your
country, and your business how you run it. I'm just saying how I would
react if someone were to propose such a thing over here.)
Mitch Wagner
mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk says...
> In this post <MPG.10dc6ac94...@usenet.psinet.com>, Mitch
> Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
> >My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
> >government men coming to my door to inspect my house for illegal
> >televisions.
> >
> >civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
> >eroded in America today.
>
>
> don't come randomly - they actually come to your address if a series of
> computer checks and paperwork sent to you specifically doesn't provide
> them with an answer that they think likely. And one person comes.
>
> Jo would have been within her rights to send him away, but hell, it's
> easer to let them see you really _don't_ have a TV. and they don't do a
> search as such, just pop their heads into rooms to see there isn't a TV
> in evidence.
>
> I once sent one away - only to remember after he'd gone that the TV he
> was looking for a licence for, that I'd bought recently, was two inches
> tall and exempt. So I phoned the office and said "Oh you mean the tv I
> bought a few weeks ago, that's two inches tall and exempt."
> "Hokeydoke." they said, and that was the end of that.
>
> And the TV isn't illegal. The lack of a licence is. And I'm not sure
> if it's criminal law, or civil.
What happens if you send the TV man away, though?
Like I said to Jo, I'm not entirely comfortable commenting on this
thread. It's your country - your adopted country, I gather from your
other message to me - and how you run things there is your business.
Still, I'd rather have American TV commercials - even the ones for
feminine hygiene products - than have government men knocking at my door
asking me for proof I've paid my TV license.
Chris Malme
>Just the same as all of us and books, of course. I was stopped dead in
>my tracks a couple of weeks back when some fellow PGCEs dropped round
>for tea and had the grand tour of the house. On spotting Tre's wall of
>books in the bedroom (a pitiful amount in fan terms, as she's culled
>them ruthlessly in order to get them down to one wall and a bookcase
>extra) one lass screeched "My Gawd, what a lot of books!". I was
>embarressed for her. How could she see our starved and pitiful
>collection as a _lot_ of books!
I'm not sure if I've told this story here. At last year's UK Filkcon, my
mother was discussing with Roger Robinson the problem I was going to
have when I sold my flat (which is just happening now, almost a year
later).
"He's just got *so* many books," she said, "I don't know how we're going
to move them all".
Roger immediately sat up, excited, thinking he had discovered yet
another unsung great fannish library, and telling me that he was sure
that fen would help, and if I needed to hire a lorry, we could find a
driver (I didn't have my licence back then)
I had to calm poor Roger down, and explain to Mum that in fannish
terms, one 16 x 11 foot wall-full of books is by no means "a lot". (In
fact they were moved with two trips of a Renault Scenic, and are
currently insulating Mum's loft.)
On the other hand, the games cupboard...
Chris
Bernard Peek
<mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> writes
> Other friends of mine have overcome such by
>having a tv and VCR, but no television signal in the house. The kids
>watch their videos whenever they want to, but the pernicious
>advertising, and the need to monitor what they are watching, is gone.
>They don't have to pay a tv licence for such, BTW.>
This is wrong, and it's been tested in court. The offence is to possess
equipment capable of receiving video signals. Whether it can display
them is not relevant.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Chris Malme
>Other friends of mine have overcome such by
>having a tv and VCR, but no television signal in the house. The kids
>watch their videos whenever they want to, but the pernicious
>advertising, and the need to monitor what they are watching, is gone.
>They don't have to pay a tv licence for such, BTW.>
This may have changed, but I don't think so. If your friend owns
equipment that is capable of receiving a signal, regardless of whether
it is used as such, then they need a license.
If they are using tunerless devices (i.e. a video *player*, connected to a
monitor), they are in the clear.
A few years back, a friend of mine was in a similar situation, and
thought he was ok, but he wasn't. Having explained his reasoning to the
licensing authority, they agreed not to prosecute, but insisted he
bought a license. Instead, he removed the tuner unit from the TV
(connecting his video player via SCART), and sent it to them. They've
never bothered him since.
I was visiting some other TV-less friends this weekend (oh, the
sacrifice...). They also have recently been contacted regarding a
license. We discussed the fun they could have by playing a DVD movie on
their computer screen when the man called to check.
Chris
Morgan
<mins...@filklore.demon.co.uk> said:
>In article <p10+s2AdjBd2Ew$U...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>, Morgan
><Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Other friends of mine have overcome such by
>>having a tv and VCR, but no television signal in the house. The kids
>>watch their videos whenever they want to, but the pernicious
>>advertising, and the need to monitor what they are watching, is gone.
>>They don't have to pay a tv licence for such, BTW.>
>
>This may have changed, but I don't think so. If your friend owns
>equipment that is capable of receiving a signal, regardless of whether
>it is used as such, then they need a license.
Which is precisly what I told them. So they wrote to the license people
who promptly re-imbursed them with their outstanding licence (from their
old address where they had had tv) and told them they didn't need one
for the purposes stated.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Craig Macbride
>It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
>to gently discourage people from having them.
"Quaint" was putting it far too nicely. The distinction of what a TV is
is blurred. (What if you have a tuner card in your computer? Does that
count? What if you have a TV with no tuner which can only take direct
video input, such as from a VCR? Which is the tax on, the screen part
or the tuner part?)
More importantly, it is generally held (here, at least) that you have the
right to use your home in whatever way you wish if it doesn't affect others,
which includes doing whatever you wish as regards passively decoding any RF
that happens to pass by.
>Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
I'll bet collecting the fee costs quite a lot. So, simply funding it from
other taxes would be vastly more efficient. There are times when user-pays
makes sense and others in which it just costs the community as a whole
dearly, in a way totally disproportionate to any possible advantage it
might bring.
--
Craig Macbride <cr...@glasswings.com.au>
-----------------------http://amarok.glasswings.com.au/~craig---------------
"It's a sense of humour like mine, Carla, that makes me proud
to be ashamed of myself." - Captain Kremmen
Morgan
Practically nothing. They don't collect it from us, we give it to them.
And it is _not_ a tax, so it can't be collected as a tax. Would you buy
your postage stamps as part of your taxes because it'd be done in one
transaction?
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>On Fri, 11 Dec 98 21:50:28 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) wrote:
>
>>It's a tax on television. I think it should be at least quadrupled,
>>to gently discourage people from having them.
>
>I think it should be like driving, and you should have to prove that you
>can use a TV responsibly before you can get the license.
Yeah, right. With tests that have to be approved by the government
after the Daily Mail gets a look at them and exposes the "scandal"
that some licencees might actually be people who like to watch _Drop
the Dead Donkey_ and _Have I Got News For You_.
(And I may not necessarily want to confine myself to watching what
_you_ approve of, either!)
Avedon (cix.co.uk)
"PG-13 (contains scenes of desperate stupidity and political posturing
which may be inexplicable to the more sensitive members of the viewing
audience)"
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>I've just remembered something I read in Punch when I was in school,
>it may have been Hunter Davies. It said that if you listened to Radio
>3, knew not to refrigerate red wine and liked Brie, you were grown
>up. I suppose it's crept up on me.
So which is the radio station, that tells you the things I grew up
learning from my mother (and it's not like she gave me _much_ useful
information) - you know, about how cold water sets stains, and sugar
cuts the acid in your tomato sauce, and like that?
Whatever it is, I sure wish more people listened to it.
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>In this post <CfDsTHAb...@shrdlu.com>, Bernard Peek
><Ber...@shrdlu.com> said:
>>
>>If enough people avoid the ad breaks by using recorders like Beth's then
>>the existing funding mechanism for TV stations is going to fall apart.
>
>
>I don't see it getting that much currency here. After all, our ads tend
>to be the best bits... which is another way or saying we get some
>remarkably good ads.
>
>And we get some crap tv too.
Yes, but have you seen the ad about the soft drink that has a little
bit more bite? I really never thought I'd see a food-type product
advertised as making your piss cut through porcelain....
No _that_ is art!
Avedon Carol
wrote:
>And the TV isn't illegal. The lack of a licence is. And I'm not sure
>if it's criminal law, or civil.
Whatever it is, most of the women who are in jail in this country seem
to be in for failure to pay their licence fee or failure to pay the
fine for not paying their licence fee.
Morgan
<ave...@thirdworld.uk> said:
>Yes, but have you seen the ad about the soft drink that has a little
>bit more bite? I really never thought I'd see a food-type product
>advertised as making your piss cut through porcelain....
Oh, haven't caught it yet. Something to look forward too!
Morgan
<ave...@thirdworld.uk> said:
>On Sun, 13 Dec 1998 10:55:34 +0000, Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>And the TV isn't illegal. The lack of a licence is. And I'm not sure
>>if it's criminal law, or civil.
>
>Whatever it is, most of the women who are in jail in this country seem
>to be in for failure to pay their licence fee or failure to pay the
>fine for not paying their licence fee.
Which is about how the courts discriminate against females, particulalry
females in court for debt. BY the time they get to court for prison
they're in court for not paying a previous fine, even if it's been set
at a fiver a week.
Not defending the poverty levels, just pointing out it isn't an A to B
progression.
John Richards
>
> In this post <CfDsTHAb...@shrdlu.com>, Bernard Peek
> <Ber...@shrdlu.com> said:
> >
> >If enough people avoid the ad breaks by using recorders like Beth's then
> >the existing funding mechanism for TV stations is going to fall apart.
>
When I went back over my off air recording of the Beiderbeck Tapes, one
of the first shows I ever recorded, I found that I had also recorded one
of the few appearences of the Margaret Thatcher Heinz Baked Beans ads.
This was part of a campaign which showed a child asking if they ate
their baked beans they would grow up to be famous at the end the famous
person whom the child was supposed to have grown up to be was shown
still eating baked beans. In the Thatcher ad the scene opened on an
edwardian scullery with a harrassed mother and a small, rather priggish
girl. Girl speaks, "Mother, if I eat all my Heinz Baked Beans do you
think that I could grow up to be Prime Minister." Mother puts down plate
of beans muttering, "you might Margaret." As she turns away her face
falls. "You just might..." Turns back to the girl, snatches up the plate
of beans and exits.
--
JFW Richards South Hants Science Fiction Group
Portsmouth, Hants 2nd and 4th Tuesdays
England. UK. The Magpie, Fratton Road, Portsmouth
Doug Wickstrom
<r...@learnlink.emory.edu> modulated the bit stream to say:
>David G. Bell wrote:
>>
>> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk "Jo Walton" writes:
>> >
>> > You'd really rather have ads? Fine.
>> >
>> > Most people here who like TV would rather pay the license fee.
>>
>> I've sometimes thought that there may be a few things which American
>> TV, for a variety of reasons, may do better, [....]
>
>There are: Ads. The television commercial is the true art form of the
>post-WWII era.
So how come UK TV has better ads? (On the whole, that is. There are
some real stinkers.)
Japanese TV, OTOH, has mostly bad ads, with peculiar English phrases,
such as "sawayaka tasty," "Speak Lark," and "let's perming," and with
really intense color saturation, rather like Japanese color film,
which leads me to believe that Japanese color vision is less acute
than that of the rest of us.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Tsuyu to ochi, tsuyu to kienishi. Waga mi ka na?
Naniwa no koto mo, yume mo matayume." --Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>In this post <751skp$t5n$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>, Craig Macbride
><cr...@glasswings.com.au> said:
>>I'll bet collecting the fee costs quite a lot.
>
>
>Practically nothing. They don't collect it from us, we give it to them.
>
>And it is _not_ a tax, so it can't be collected as a tax. Would you buy
>your postage stamps as part of your taxes because it'd be done in one
>transaction?
If you own a television receiver, you pay, whether you use it or not.
If you don't pay, they send round a nice policeman with a search
warrant, who, on finding a TV, reports this to his superiors, who
prosecute you in a criminal court for not paying taxes.
It's a tax.
Jo Walton
Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
> In this post <913562...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
> <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> said:
> >In article <79b6ehAm...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> > Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
> >
> >> And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
> >> quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
> >
> >I'd rather people in general watched less, and pre-teens specifically
> >watched much less.
>
> Hmmm...less? Or would you rather they watched the same amount but what
> they watched went through some fundamental changes?
Less. Definitely.
I know eight year olds who come home from school at 15h30 to a house
where the TV is on and remains on until they go to bed. Some of them
have toddler brothers and sisters who are in front of the television
all day. Some of them have twelve year old brothers and sisters who
come home and do their homework in front of the box. I'm not making
this up, this is real experience.
More like the tv i
> grew up with, for instance? Good kids programmes, quality drama, not
> too many cartoons, very few kids' toys ads?
It would be better, if they are forced to watch it, that it be better
quality and not game shows, yes. But I'd much prefer less. People
who watch TV responsibly are aware that the set has an option of "off".
> >I wouldn't mind paying a license fee to listen to Radio 4, and Radio
> >3 as well.
>
> But without the tv watchers, it'd be so expensive you couldn't afford
> it.
Why? It wasn't in the 1930s when BBC radio was introduced.
There's a very interesting bit about that in Anthony Burgess' autobiography,
first volume :Little Wilson and Big God:, which is in many ways a very
good book.
> > I tried Classic FM once, and, well, yuck, the ads were
> >intolerable. But it has been decreed that people with radio but no TV
> >are so rare - and they probably are, I don't know any others I don't
> >think - that there isn't a category for them.
>
> Well, I know of four others.
It still appears it isn't common enough for there to be a box for it
on the license form.
Jo Walton
> In article <913541...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
> says...
>
> > > The right of privacy and the right to be let alone are two important
> > > civil rights, even in small things, and ones which are being hideously
> > > eroded in America today.
> >
> > Tried not paying your income tax recently? I expect you'd have people
> > visiting and checking through your records? Doesn't seem very different
> > to me.
>
> Does not seem so to me. TV is so ... trivial.
TV without ads is funded by a license. People without TV don't have to
pay the license. They can check you really don't have a TV.
> To my American eyes, it looks as though police had a warrant to come
> search your house if they discovered you might be mis-matching your socks
> after doing laundry.
>
> (BTW, I am not entirely comfortable commenting on this thread. It's your
> country, and your business how you run it. I'm just saying how I would
> react if someone were to propose such a thing over here.)
Oh goodness, Mitch, the temptation to tweak you by saying we've been
paying taxes on tea for the last two hundred years and some people will
whinge about any least little thing! I could go through the whole Bill
of Rights saying how we don't need it. But someone would take me
seriously.
P Nielsen Hayden
>Oh goodness, Mitch, the temptation to tweak you by saying we've been
>paying taxes on tea for the last two hundred years and some people will
>whinge about any least little thing! I could go through the whole Bill
>of Rights saying how we don't need it. But someone would take me
>seriously.
Probably because you have countrymen who would say it and _mean it_
seriously.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Eddie Cochrane
wrote:
>In this post <36766cbb....@news.demon.co.uk>, Avedon Carol
><ave...@thirdworld.uk> said:
>>Yes, but have you seen the ad about the soft drink that has a little
>>bit more bite? I really never thought I'd see a food-type product
>>advertised as making your piss cut through porcelain....
>
>
>Oh, haven't caught it yet. Something to look forward too!
Not strictly speaking a 'soft' drink, it's for Lemon Hooch.
--
Cheers, Eddie Cochrane
Purveyor of bananas to Fandom since 1997
Redemption'99 A Blakes 7/Babylon 5 Convention http://www.smof.com/redemption
David G. Bell
xnims...@aol.com "Doug Wickstrom" writes:
> On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 02:37:36 +0000, Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> modulated the bit stream to say:
>
> >In this post <751skp$t5n$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>, Craig Macbride
> ><cr...@glasswings.com.au> said:
> >>I'll bet collecting the fee costs quite a lot.
> >
> >
> >Practically nothing. They don't collect it from us, we give it to them.
> >
> >And it is _not_ a tax, so it can't be collected as a tax. Would you buy
> >your postage stamps as part of your taxes because it'd be done in one
> >transaction?
>
> If you own a television receiver, you pay, whether you use it or not.
> If you don't pay, they send round a nice policeman with a search
> warrant, who, on finding a TV, reports this to his superiors, who
> prosecute you in a criminal court for not paying taxes.
>
> It's a tax.
According to New Scientist, they have just developed a hand-held gadget
which locates TVs by the magnetic emissions from the tube, just in time
for the emergence of flat-screen TVs which don't generate magnetic
fields.
Ken Walton
>
> In this post <913562...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
> <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> said:
> >In article <79b6ehAm...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> > Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk "Morgan" writes:
> Hmmm...less? Or would you rather they watched the same amount but what
> grew up with, for instance? Good kids programmes, quality drama, not
> too many cartoons, very few kids' toys ads?
After ten years without a TV, I'm now back to living in a house that has
one, and its amazing how unentertaining I find it. I spend the first few
weeks watching lots of stuff, just to see what I'd been missing, and the
answer was, not much. I'll watch a decent movie on TV, but very little
else grabs me. Most of the news is really annoying, because a lot of the
time they have to show gratuitous film, when there's nothing to see. A
report on Radio 4 about Saddam Hussein will talk about the facts of the
case; a similar report on the TV will tell the same story while showing
archive footage of tanks, or people marching about in uniform, or
whatever. The visuals are usually far more dramatic than the story being
told. I find a large number of the documentaries have gratuitous visuals
- I find myself thinking "why are they showing me this? It isn't giving
me any information." I maybe watch the news once a month or so, just so
I know what various politicians look like. Drama, never. About the only
things I watch regularly are "The X-Files" and "Have I Got News For
You." I might watch a music concert with others in the house, but more
of a social event than "watching TV" as such. Thankfully, living in a
shared house, I only have to pay 1/6th of the licence fee, but even so,
I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth.
There again, there's a radio in virtually every room in the house tuned
to Radio 4, so I guess I *do* get my money's worth after all...
--
Ken Walton mailto: k...@sacnoth.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.sacnoth.freeserve.co.uk
================================================================
This space has been left blank for you to write your own special
message.
Bernard Peek
<mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> writes
>In this post <751skp$t5n$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>, Craig Macbride
><cr...@glasswings.com.au> said:
>>I'll bet collecting the fee costs quite a lot.
>
>
>Practically nothing. They don't collect it from us, we give it to them.
The cost of checking compliance is part of the cost of collecting it. So
the letters they send and the salary of the man who knocks on your door
are paid for out of the license fee.
Taking the whole of the cost of the BBC from general taxation would make
it more efficient, but that's only half of the story. If that were done
then the BBC would become one of the things that the government could do
to cut costs. Pretty quickly they would demand that the BBC break-even,
and the only way for it to do that would be to show commercials.
We pay one government department to take tax away from people with
income. We pay another department gives money to people with no income.
It would be more efficient to pay a fixed income to everyone paid out of
a flat percentage payroll tax. Efficiency isn't everything.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Arthur Hlavaty
: Although, something interesting struck me about Jo and the box, months
: ago, and I'd not had the appropriate thread in which to mention it. Jo
: described being seen as not normal in her teens, as she didn't watch tv
: at all. I was seen as equally not normal, because I watched too much.
: Like most things (book reading, Radio 4 listening, cinema going, theatre
: trips) there appears to be a 'normal' range that's socially approved.
: But if you inhabit either ends of the spectrum, you are equally suspect.
: So, just as Jo was strange for watching no tv, I was just as strange for
: watching too much.
: Equally, as an adult, Jo is strange and unnatural for not having a TV -
: and I'm strange and unnatural for having a 5 tvs and 7 VCRs. And that
: we both susequently thrive in our divergent opposition to normality, is
: as equally bizarre to the outside world. She, having no tv, is as well
: read as anyone I know and has had the time to produce words strung
: togethere and sell them in a book. I, having studied TV academically
: (even more bizarre than not having a tv in many eyes) am now earning my
: bread by teaching tv to other people's kids. The bizarrest of
: bizarroes, to many of those normal people. T'is an interesting
: reflection on what it is to be 'odd' in relation to normal tv watchers.
I do not think it is possible to be known for watching "too much" TV in
most of the USA. At least not with only one set.
--
Arthur D. Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius In Wile E. We Trust
\\\ E-zine available on request. ///
Rob Hansen
>In <913632...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
>
>>Oh goodness, Mitch, the temptation to tweak you by saying we've been
>>paying taxes on tea for the last two hundred years and some people will
>>whinge about any least little thing! I could go through the whole Bill
>>of Rights saying how we don't need it. But someone would take me
>>seriously.
>
>Probably because you have countrymen who would say it and _mean it_
>seriously.
Some of whom, unfortunately, are in Parliament.
Rob Hansen
================================================
My Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
Feminists Against Censorship:
http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
Morgan
Wickstrom <xnims...@aol.com> said:
>So how come UK TV has better ads? (On the whole, that is. There are
>some real stinkers.)
Because of the dialectical tension created by the licence holding, non
advertising BBC channels, in competition with the advertising channels,
both pursuing agendas of popularity and quality simaltaneously.
<Discuss>
;-)
Morgan
<edd...@cobrabay.freeserve.co.uk> said:
>On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 07:26:14 +0000, Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In this post <36766cbb....@news.demon.co.uk>, Avedon Carol
>><ave...@thirdworld.uk> said:
>>>Yes, but have you seen the ad about the soft drink that has a little
>>>bit more bite? I really never thought I'd see a food-type product
>>>advertised as making your piss cut through porcelain....
>>
>>
>>Oh, haven't caught it yet. Something to look forward too!
>Not strictly speaking a 'soft' drink, it's for Lemon Hooch.
>
Ah, in which case it literally would make you piss through porcelain.
<I've heard a lot of complaints about very sore teeth ont he morning
after the night before. All that citric acid they pour in it.)
Morgan
<J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> said:
>
>Less. Definitely.
>
>I know eight year olds who come home from school at 15h30 to a house
>where the TV is on and remains on until they go to bed. Some of them
>have toddler brothers and sisters who are in front of the television
>all day. Some of them have twelve year old brothers and sisters who
>come home and do their homework in front of the box. I'm not making
>this up, this is real experience.
>
Ah, so you don't really want them to watch less TV, you want them to
have better parenting. The less tv would be a side effect. Look at it
the other way around - the tv being there doesn't cause the bad
parenting, but gives the kids an internal focus. How would they be
without it? It's the bad parenting that's the issue. (I'm not
advocating tv is a good babysitter, I'm just trying to take it out of
the 'bad' side of the equation as itself. After all, it's unlikely in a
bad parenting situation that the child is going to be confident, skilled
and motivated enough to go find things to do, like read a book.)
>
>It would be better, if they are forced to watch it, that it be better
>quality and not game shows, yes. But I'd much prefer less. People
>who watch TV responsibly are aware that the set has an option of "off".
Again, this is a parenting issue, not one to do with tv.
Morgan:
>> But without the tv watchers, it'd be so expensive you couldn't afford
>> it.
>
>Why? It wasn't in the 1930s when BBC radio was introduced.
because you can't uninvent technology, or cultural habits. Even if you
repressed them by banning tv and forcing everyone back to a tv less
existence with radio available, all that would happen is that tv would
become an illegal sub culture. Even in the unlikely scenario that
people did go back to radios and paid for them, the programming would
change substantially and you'd lose the radio you love so well.
Also, if you look at the price of radios and the licence in the 1930s,
it was more for the poorer household than a tv and licence is now.
(Yes, I'm sure.) Unlike the USA, which had a much more universal access
to the radio, Britain in the 1930s, had an elete with access. This is
why the programming was so staid, respectable and repressive. (Yes, I
mean repressive).
If we had had no tv invented, radio would now sound like tv, as the
growing accessibility would have brought the same dynamics into play as
came into play with tv post war.
Face it Jo, tv keeps your radio alive and affordable. Sorry. :-(
>
>It still appears it isn't common enough for there to be a box for it
>on the license form.
>
I rather think that the box has nothing to do with how common it is, but
to do with how many people would automatically tick 'no tv' in a
dishonest way. I think the form forces you fit into categories in order
make you face the unavoidability of paying your license for the vast
majority.
Morgan
Wickstrom <xnims...@aol.com> said:
>If you own a television receiver, you pay, whether you use it or not.
>If you don't pay, they send round a nice policeman with a search
>warrant, who, on finding a TV, reports this to his superiors, who
>prosecute you in a criminal court for not paying taxes.
>
>It's a tax.
So, being arrested for shop lifting is because you failed to pay your
taxes?
A tax is a specific thing - it's money raised by the Government for
Government expediture. The Government levies a charge for certain items
and services in general curency and uses the money to run Government
and provide services to the public.
That's a tax.
The licence fee does _not_ go to the Government. Not one penny of it
goes to the Government and not one penny of it is spent by the
Government in providing Government services.
It is _not_ a tax.
B. Vermo
"Beth Friedman" <b...@wavefront.com> wrote:
|
|My new VCR encourages me to tape shows and watch them later, even if I have
|time to watch them when they're on. It has a newish feature called
|"commercial skip" where, after it tapes a show, it goes back and marks
|portions of the tape that it determines are commercial segments.
|
Why does it record them in the first place?
I hve not seen any such recorders offered here - it seems they only
sell the cheap VTRs, while the TV sets are almost all top-of the
line widescreen sets with umphteem megabyte of text-TV memory
and digital stereo sound. I know they started to sell them in Japan
quite a few years ago. It was reported that the companies like Sony,
who make professional broadcast equipment, dared not market such
things because they feared reprisals from the broadcasters.
I guess the broadcasting authorities use the opposite function, which
has to be custom-built, to record only the commercials (with timestamps).
They want to see if the broadcasters are transmitting more commercials
than they are allowed to, or with a proscribed content (targetted to
children, based on discrimination, for alcohol or tobacco, with political
or religious content etc).
B. Vermo
J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) wrote:
|In article <74rtqf$a...@crcnis3.unl.edu>
| 0009...@bigred.unl.edu "Josh Hesse" writes:
|>
|> Quaint British customs...
|> (sort of like all those extra "e"s and "u"s they use)
|
|Oh no, it's a brilliant idea.
|
But it is not a Quaint British Custom, it is the normal way in
countries which have public service broadcasters. A public service
broadcaster is supposed to make programmes which are too controversial,
appeal to a too narrow audience or are too important to be entrusted
to commercial operators which may be inclined to think about the
sensibilities of their advertizers.
Alas, they also seem to be rather too fond of competing on the home
ground of the commercial ones, looking at rating figures and airing
a lot of mush which could preferrably be left to the commercial channels.
And sometimes, they are too aware of the sensibilities of politicians.
This is why it is best to have both kinds.
B. Vermo
Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote:
|Commercial TV stations are monitored so that the advertisers can be sure
|that their ads really were broadcast at the times the station promised.
|
Here, it is not possible to book a certain time. The TV stations are
bound by the same editorial rules as newspapers, and are required to
make certain the advertisers do not get in a position to influence
editorial content. They sell exposure to a certain number of viewers,
and keep showing the ad until the specification has been met. The
viewer count is done by a neutral agency, usually Nielsen.
B. Vermo
thri...@sff.net (Mitch Wagner) wrote:
|
|My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
|government men coming to my door to inspect my house for illegal
|televisions.
|
You do not have to let then in, at least not in Norway. They only
come to the addresses where no licence is registred, ask if you
have a TV and give you the opportunity to pay if you have one.
If you say you do not have one, they may parade one of their (not
very efficient) locator vans in the neighbourhood to give you the
option to get cold feet and call in to tell that you just got an old
set from a friend and want to pay the licence for it, please.
If this repeats every year, the neighbours might start talking in
some neighbourhoods but not in others.
Oh, and you're not allowed to have a TV antenna if you do not pay
the licence. A cable connection is OK if you only use it to receive
radio stations.
B. Vermo
Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
|
|And our TV licence pays for Jo to listen to Radio 4, so she's probably
|quite happy the rest of us do watch the demon box.
|
Thank you ever so much!
B. Vermo
Bernard Peek <Ber...@shrdlu.com> wrote:
|
|I haven't seen a TV detector van for years, rumour has it that they were
|never reliable enough to provide evidence in court. (All TVs emit some
|radio-frequency signals that are theoretically detectable from outside
|the building.) Of course it may be that the detection equipment is now
|small enough to fit inside an ordinary vehicle.
|
Oh, it was never bigger than a portable radio. The vans are only to
make them conspicous. They are rather unreliable, but if somebody
is knocking on the door in prime time with a detector in his hand,
most people prefer to pay rather than to bluff their way out.
B. Vermo
|largely measured on its ratings.
I liked the position of the manager of the Spanish cultural radio channel.
When confronted with the fact that only 4% listened to his broadcasts,
his reply was that no more than 4% of the population was in the
culture-bearing groups which was his target audience. If they got
more listeners, thsy would have to narrow their scope.
Commercial channels are good at catering for broad tastes. Let them
do so in peace.
Morgan
Morgan
Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
>My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
>government men coming to my door
Don't you have postmen in the States?
;-)
Bernard Peek
<xnims...@aol.com> writes
>So how come UK TV has better ads? (On the whole, that is. There are
>some real stinkers.)
Received wisdom here is that in the the UK, media usage is 5-10 years
ahead of the US who are in turn 5-10 years ahead of China. This is
likely to change because there have been a few acquisitions recently, US
companies buying media selling expertise over here.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Gary Farber
Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: In this post <MPG.10dc6ac94...@usenet.psinet.com>, Mitch
: Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
:>My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
:>government men coming to my door
: Don't you have postmen in the States?
: ;-)
Nope. Mail carriers. Quite a few of whom would be surprised at the news
that they're men.
--
Copyright 1998 by Gary Farber; Web Researcher; Nonfiction Writer,
Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfa...@panix.com; B'klyn, NYC, US
David G. Bell
r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk "Rob Hansen" writes:
> On 14 Dec 1998 08:12:33 -0500, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
> >In <913632...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
> >
> >>Oh goodness, Mitch, the temptation to tweak you by saying we've been
> >>paying taxes on tea for the last two hundred years and some people will
> >>whinge about any least little thing! I could go through the whole Bill
> >>of Rights saying how we don't need it. But someone would take me
> >>seriously.
> >
> >Probably because you have countrymen who would say it and _mean it_
> >seriously.
>
> Some of whom, unfortunately, are in Parliament.
And I've seen some convincing arguments that they have been repeatedly
ignoring provisions found in the British Bill of Rights -- "An Act
Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject" passed in 1688. The
Act includes specific procedures to be followed by Parliament when
debating legislation which may affect the Rights specified.
But I'm no lawyer.
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>Also, if you look at the price of radios and the licence in the 1930s,
>it was more for the poorer household than a tv and licence is now.
I'm not sure that's really valid. For a commercially-produced
amplified set, yes. But a crystal or razor-blade set is essentially
free, being made from cast-off materials. It's not much of a radio
receiver, but it works.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Tsuyu to ochi, tsuyu to kienishi. Waga mi ka na?
Naniwa no koto mo, yume mo matayume." --Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>In this post <36a0e5fc...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Doug
>Wickstrom <xnims...@aol.com> said:
>>If you own a television receiver, you pay, whether you use it or not.
>>If you don't pay, they send round a nice policeman with a search
>>warrant, who, on finding a TV, reports this to his superiors, who
>>prosecute you in a criminal court for not paying taxes.
>>
>>It's a tax.
>
>So, being arrested for shop lifting is because you failed to pay your
>taxes?
>
>A tax is a specific thing - it's money raised by the Government for
>Government expediture. The Government levies a charge for certain items
>and services in general curency and uses the money to run Government
>and provide services to the public.
>
>That's a tax.
>
>The licence fee does _not_ go to the Government. Not one penny of it
>goes to the Government and not one penny of it is spent by the
>Government in providing Government services.
>
>It is _not_ a tax.
I'm sorry, the BBC isn't owned by the government? The government
doesn't collect the fee? The government doesn't _force_ you to pay
the fee, even if you don't use the service?
We have subscription TV over here. You pay the provider. If you stop
paying, the provider cuts off the service. The government doesn't
come into it, unless you attempt to obtain the service without paying.
There is _no_ _way_ the provider can collect monies from you for the
service if you do not use it. That is fee for service.
You have a tax.
The Japanese use an identical system to finance NHK, right down to the
folks who come round to see whether you have a TV. The top of the
form contains the word "zeikin" (tax).
Bernard Peek
writes
>I guess the broadcasting authorities use the opposite function, which
>has to be custom-built, to record only the commercials (with timestamps).
>They want to see if the broadcasters are transmitting more commercials
>than they are allowed to, or with a proscribed content (targetted to
>children, based on discrimination, for alcohol or tobacco, with political
>or religious content etc).
There's a marker signal broadcast with ads on TV in the UK. Ads are
checked for offensive or illegal content before they are broadcast. The
off-air recording is so that the broadcast companies can prove to the
advertiser that the ad really was broadcast at the time they promised.
The off-air recording is done by independent monitoring companies.
--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com
Elisabeth Carey
>
> In <Idn2WGAS...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> : In this post <MPG.10dc6ac94...@usenet.psinet.com>, Mitch
> : Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
> :>My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
> :>government men coming to my door
>
> : Don't you have postmen in the States?
>
> : ;-)
>
> Nope. Mail carriers. Quite a few of whom would be surprised at the news
> that they're men.
Also, they haven't been "the government" for several years.
And they never demanded entrance into people's homes.
Lis Carey
Dorothy J Heydt
Yes, but they generally don't come to the door--rather, they
deposit the mail in the mailbox and move on--unless they need to
collect for postage-due mail or something.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
_A Point of Honor_ is out....
Marcus L. Rowland
<mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Whatever it is, most of the women who are in jail in this country seem
>>to be in for failure to pay their licence fee or failure to pay the
>>fine for not paying their licence fee.
>
>Which is about how the courts discriminate against females, particulalry
>females in court for debt. BY the time they get to court for prison
>they're in court for not paying a previous fine, even if it's been set
>at a fiver a week.
ISTR that the reason it's mainly women is that it's more likely to be
the woman who's in the house when the inspector calls. Never mind if
it's the husband / boyfriend that watches TV 99% of the time.
BTW, whatever happened to the magistrate who suggested that most of the
women charged with this offence could earn the money by prostitution if
they tried? Forget his name.
--
Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/ http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
Elisabeth Carey
>
> In this post <36819b49...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Doug Wickstrom> No.
>
> And you don't pay the fee to watch the BBC, you pay it to receive
> television transmissions.
>
> >The government
> >doesn't collect the fee?
>
>
> The Post Office does.
>
> >The government doesn't _force_ you to pay
> >the fee, even if you don't use the service?
>
> service, she doesn't pay.
>
> Nice of you to completely avoid what a tax actually was.
I have a car.
I pay an excise tax on the car.
If I didn't have the car, I wouldn't pay an excise tax on a car.
It's still a tax.
Lis Carey
Cally Soukup
> On Sun, 13 Dec 98 15:29:26 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
> wrote:
>>I've just remembered something I read in Punch when I was in school,
>>it may have been Hunter Davies. It said that if you listened to Radio
>>3, knew not to refrigerate red wine and liked Brie, you were grown
>>up. I suppose it's crept up on me.
> So which is the radio station, that tells you the things I grew up
> learning from my mother (and it's not like she gave me _much_ useful
> information) - you know, about how cold water sets stains, and sugar
> cuts the acid in your tomato sauce, and like that?
My mother taught me that HOT water sets stains, and cold water gets
them out. Also that salt is good for preventing red wine stains, but
since I don't drink the stuff, that knowledge is purely academic.
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
Doug Wickstrom
modulated the bit stream to say:
>In article <369fe5e8...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Doug Wickstrom
Whereas actually watching US ads leads to the belief that the next cue
will be taken from the Japanese, ghu help us. My wife's nephew, on
watching a recent Volkswagen commercial wherein an office worker
sitting in front of a CRT pulls his desk over to a window so he can
stick his elbow out, said, "I don't understand. What are they
selling?" I understand the confusion even if I did get the reference.
There wasn't an automobile to be seen. And the Nissan commercials
with the elderly Japanese gentleman and his dog were clearly produced
with Japanese advertising tastes in mind, right down to the
overly-intense color saturation and peculiar English.
Vicki Rosenzweig
>In <913632...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
>
>>Oh goodness, Mitch, the temptation to tweak you by saying we've been
>>paying taxes on tea for the last two hundred years and some people will
>>whinge about any least little thing! I could go through the whole Bill
>>of Rights saying how we don't need it. But someone would take me
>>seriously.
>
>Probably because you have countrymen who would say it and _mean it_
>seriously.
>
So do we.
Morgan
>
>>it was more for the poorer household than a tv and licence is now.
>
>I'm not sure that's really valid. For a commercially-produced
>amplified set, yes. But a crystal or razor-blade set is essentially
>free, being made from cast-off materials. It's not much of a radio
>receiver, but it works.
>
Please note I did make statements about the UK, rather than the USA.
Crystal and razor-blade sets were not common here and the technology to
make them at home was not the issue, but the cultural mores of the radio
listening public.
Morgan
gee, that might be why I snipped the bit about going into people's
homes.
And added a smiley to boot.
Morgan
No.
And you don't pay the fee to watch the BBC, you pay it to receive
television transmissions.
>The government
>doesn't collect the fee?
No.
The Post Office does.
>The government doesn't _force_ you to pay
>the fee, even if you don't use the service?
No. If you don't use the service, you don't pay. Jo doesn't use the
service, she doesn't pay.
Nice of you to completely avoid what a tax actually was.
Morgan
Rowland" <mrow...@ffutures.demon.co.uk> said:
>ISTR that the reason it's mainly women is that it's more likely to be
>the woman who's in the house when the inspector calls. Never mind if
>it's the husband / boyfriend that watches TV 99% of the time.
Nope. For the women who end in prison for defaulting on court fines are
usually single.
>
>BTW, whatever happened to the magistrate who suggested that most of the
>women charged with this offence could earn the money by prostitution if
>they tried? Forget his name.
He obviously went on to be the DSS officer who suggested that those too
ill to be in normal employment become life models, posing nude for the
local art colelges.
Chris Malme
>I'm sorry, the BBC isn't owned by the government? The government
>doesn't collect the fee? The government doesn't _force_ you to pay
>the fee, even if you don't use the service?
No. The BBC is a Corporation legally independent of the government, but
holding a Royal Charter. The following excerpt gives a rough idea of the
history - the full Charter is available at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/BBCcharter/index_cf.htm
Quote begins--------
ELIZABETH THE SECOND by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories
Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith:
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING!
WHEREAS on the twentieth day of December in the year of our Lord One
thousand nine hundred and twenty-six by Letters made Patent under the
Great Seal, Our Royal Predecessor His Majesty King George the Fifth
granted unto the British Broadcasting Corporation (hereinafter called
"the Corporation") a Charter of Incorporation
AND WHEREAS on divers dates by Letters made Patent under the Great Seal,
further Charters of Incorporation and Supplemental Charters have been
granted unto the Corporation, the last such Charter having been granted
to the Corporation on the seventh day of July One thousand nine hundred
and eighty-one ("the Existing Charter")
AND WHEREAS the period of incorporation of the Corporation under the
Existing Charter will expire on the thirty-first day of December One
thousand nine hundred and ninety-six and it has been represented unto Us
by Our right trusty and well beloved Counsellor Virginia Bottomley Our
Secretary of State for National Heritage, that it is expedient that the
Corporation should be continued for the period ending on the
thirty-first day of December two thousand and - six
AND WHEREAS in view of the widespread interest which is taken by Our
Peoples in broadcasting services and of the great value of such services
as means of disseminating information, education and entertainment, We
believe it to be in the interests of Our Peoples in Our United Kingdom
and elsewhere within the Commonwealth that there should be an
independent corporation which should continue to provide broadcasting
services and should be permitted to provide other audio-visual services
pursuant to such licences in that behalf as Our Secretary of State for
Trade and Industry and such agreements in that behalf as Our Secretary
of State may from time to time grant to and make with the Corporation
Quote ends--------
The law on licences is set out in the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 (as
amended), the Broadcasting Act 1990
(http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/summary/01990042.htm) and the Wireless
Telegraphy (television licence fees) Regulations 1998.
The Broadcasting Act 1990 made the BBC responsible for licence
administration who essentially subcontract it to TV Licensing, a trading
name used by SSL, a part of the Post Office.
Note that the Post Office is owned by the Government.
To summarise... Her Majesty's Government has laws saying that folk must
pay a TV licence. An independent corporation has a constantly renewed
agreement to collect such monies, in exchange for providing a specified
service according to their Royal Charter. Said corporation subcontracts
the collection back to a government organisation.
So the BBC *isn't* owned by the government and the government doesn't
collect the fee. But yes, the government does _force_ you to pay
the fee (by law), even if you don't use the service, and, in a way,
the government *does* collect the fee (as the Post Office, on behalf
of their customer, the BBC)
Clear as mud? I thought so.
Further things I learnt by browsing. The latest amendments to the
various acts now allow that if your receiving equipment is not connected
to an arial, and is used only for, say, videos, then a licence is not
required. This is what I got wrong in my response to Morgan's post. It
appears this change to the law was largely because of the large number
of schools and colleges who needed to use audio-visual equipment.
However, I was surprised to read that even if you cannot receive any of
the "normal" channels (BBC1, BBC2 ITV, C4 & C5), and just watch Sky on
cable, then yes indeed, you still need a licence. The deciding factor is
the reception of a transmitted program, be it by arial, satellite or
cable.
>You have a tax.
I would tend to agree, although I whole-heartedly approve of this tax.
Chris
P Nielsen Hayden
Craig Macbride
>In this post <751skp$t5n$1...@news.mel.aone.net.au>, Craig Macbride
><cr...@glasswings.com.au> said:
>>I'll bet collecting the fee costs quite a lot.
>Practically nothing. They don't collect it from us, we give it to them.
You've got to be kidding. We've just heard about men coming to the
door to check on whether someone has a TV or not. Labour is expensive.
How many homes in the UK need to be visited? Tends of millions. That
adds up to a gigantic cost. ... 109.5 million pounds per year.
(97/98 BBC financial report)
Now, tell me how 109.5 million pounds is "practically nothing". Please
send me "practically nothing" for Xmas.
>And it is _not_ a tax, so it can't be collected as a tax.
A government authority collecting money to fund a government activity.
Try to call it a something else if you like, but it is, in effect, a tax.
>Would you buy
>your postage stamps as part of your taxes because it'd be done in one
>transaction?
If, to make the comparison fair, 95% of people used the same number of
stamps each year, of course I would.
--
Craig Macbride <cr...@glasswings.com.au>
-----------------------http://amarok.glasswings.com.au/~craig---------------
"It's a sense of humour like mine, Carla, that makes me proud
to be ashamed of myself." - Captain Kremmen
Beth Friedman
<HHVd2gRD...@bigblue.no>...
> In article <01be2546$b23e0520$b9d0...@bjf.wavefront.com>,
> "Beth Friedman" <b...@wavefront.com> wrote:
> |
> |My new VCR encourages me to tape shows and watch them later, even if
I have
> |time to watch them when they're on. It has a newish feature called
> |"commercial skip" where, after it tapes a show, it goes back and
marks
> |portions of the tape that it determines are commercial segments.
> |
> Why does it record them in the first place?
Why does it record the commercials? Two reasons, I suppose. First of
all, it can't do the commercial marking in realtime. It goes back
through the recorded material and looks for markers indicating
beginnings and endings of commercial segments and marks those; it can't
do that on an open-ended basis, I gather. Second, there's the
redundancy feature. This way, if the marking fails (even though, as
I've said, has only happened as showing commercials, not skipping over
real show bits), I can back up and watch it.
> I hve not seen any such recorders offered here - it seems they only
> sell the cheap VTRs, while the TV sets are almost all top-of the
> line widescreen sets with umphteem megabyte of text-TV memory
> and digital stereo sound.
On the other hand, my understanding is that a great number of European
VTRs will play PAL, NTSC, and black-and-white SECAM; while
multistandards American VCRs are vanishingly rare.
> I know they started to sell them in Japan
> quite a few years ago. It was reported that the companies like Sony,
> who make professional broadcast equipment, dared not market such
> things because they feared reprisals from the broadcasters.
One of the few things I remember from the novel _Contact_ was a
throwaway about someone who got rich by inventing a device that
detected commercials (and muted the TV?), this starting an escalating
war between the advertisers and broadcasters trying to defeat the
technology and the guys with the gimmick ever improving their ability
to detect commercials.
That's one reason I was surprised that a) such technology was ever
developed and b) that it works as well as it does.
--
Beth Friedman
b...@wavefront.com
Ray Radlein
>
> Whereas actually watching US ads leads to the belief that the next
> cue will be taken from the Japanese, ghu help us. My wife's nephew,
> on watching a recent Volkswagen commercial wherein an office worker
> sitting in front of a CRT pulls his desk over to a window so he can
> stick his elbow out, said, "I don't understand. What are they
> selling?" I understand the confusion even if I did get the reference.
> There wasn't an automobile to be seen. And the Nissan commercials
> with the elderly Japanese gentleman and his dog were clearly produced
> with Japanese advertising tastes in mind, right down to the
> overly-intense color saturation and peculiar English.
Imagine Nissan commercials showing a Japanese influence.
Anyway, if you get ESPN where you live, you might want to watch their
commercials for their made-for-TV sports extravaganza, The Winter
X-Games. The commercials are a perfect example of what they are trying
to be an example of.
- Ray R.
--
***********************************************************************
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Strom Thurmond Congress wagh'nagl fhtagn.
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
***********************************************************************
Fran Dowd
filklore.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <36819b49...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, xnims...@aol.com
>wrote:
>
>>I'm sorry, the BBC isn't owned by the government? The government
>>doesn't collect the fee? The government doesn't _force_ you to pay
>>the fee, even if you don't use the service?
>
>No. The BBC is a Corporation legally independent of the government, but
>holding a Royal Charter. The following excerpt gives a rough idea of the
>history - the full Charter is available at
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/BBCcharter/index_cf.htm
>
>Quote begins--------
Aargh! Thank you Chris, I got so involved in this that my pirogi dough
has over-risen and oozed all over the top of the stove - I caught it
just before it could attack the defrosting raspberries. And I don't
think caraway dough would taste very good in chocolate truffles ...
although I may be wrong.
On the Who Can Come to Your House and Make You Do Things front, I have a
friend in Minnesota whose front lawn was mown by the local government,
and she had to pay for it, because the grass was too high. And they sent
a policeman to warn her about it several times before they actually did
it. And she was annoyed about it because she bought the property when it
came under different zoning regulations - But Nobody Thought There Was
Anything Wrong ... except the visiting English couple who were
absolutely appalled.
--
Fran Dowd
Jo Walton
mins...@filklore.demon.co.uk "Chris Malme" writes:
> No. The BBC is a Corporation legally independent of the government, but
> holding a Royal Charter. The following excerpt gives a rough idea of the
> history - the full Charter is available at
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/BBCcharter/index_cf.htm
>
> Quote begins--------
>
> ELIZABETH THE SECOND by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great
> Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories
> Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith:
>
> TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING!
>
> WHEREAS on the twentieth day of December in the year of our Lord One
> thousand nine hundred and twenty-six by Letters made Patent under the
> Great Seal, Our Royal Predecessor His Majesty King George the Fifth
> granted unto the British Broadcasting Corporation (hereinafter called
> "the Corporation") a Charter of Incorporation
Having legal documents use language like this is almost sufficient in
itself as an argument in favour of monarchy.
<huge snip>
> >You have a tax.
>
> I would tend to agree, although I whole-heartedly approve of this tax.
I agree with that too. I think the comparison to road tax is a very
good one.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.
Chris Malme
>In this post <36809a85...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Doug Wickstrom
><xnims...@aol.com> said:
>>On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:09:35 +0000, Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
>>modulated the bit stream to say:
>>
>>>Also, if you look at the price of radios and the licence in the 1930s,
>>>it was more for the poorer household than a tv and licence is now.
>>
>>I'm not sure that's really valid. For a commercially-produced
>>amplified set, yes. But a crystal or razor-blade set is essentially
>>free, being made from cast-off materials. It's not much of a radio
>>receiver, but it works.
>>
>Please note I did make statements about the UK, rather than the USA.
>Crystal and razor-blade sets were not common here and the technology to
>make them at home was not the issue, but the cultural mores of the radio
>listening public.
My father taught me to make a crystal set in the late 60's. His dad
taught him when he was a lad in the 40's. Don't know nuffink about the
thirties, but crystal sets were not that uncommon in the UK, believe me.
Hmmmm... I wouldn't know where to start these days, if I ever had a
sprog of my own. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, and hope it all goes
'digital' before that event ever happens.
Chris
James Nicoll
Morgan <Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In this post <3675AC23...@mediaone.net>, Elisabeth Carey
><lis....@mediaone.net> said:
>>Gary Farber wrote:
>>>
>>> In <Idn2WGAS...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
>>> Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> : In this post <MPG.10dc6ac94...@usenet.psinet.com>, Mitch
>>> : Wagner <thri...@sff.net> said:
>>> :>My quarrel with that notion is that I recoil with horror at the notion of
>>> :>government men coming to my door
>>>
>>> : Don't you have postmen in the States?
>>>
>>> : ;-)
>>>
>>> Nope. Mail carriers. Quite a few of whom would be surprised at the news
>>> that they're men.
>>
>>Also, they haven't been "the government" for several years.
>>
>>And they never demanded entrance into people's homes.
>
>
>gee, that might be why I snipped the bit about going into people's
>homes.
>
>And added a smiley to boot.
I was a little surprised to find out the electric company had
a key to my house. They were surprised as well but for a different reason:
the first meter reader to use his key set off the alarm so I grabbed
the biggest knife I had and went down to investigate. Probably should
have put on some clothes first, in retrospect.
Jamsine doesn't like me arming myself when I hear odd thumps.
Knives aren't my first choice but the gov't would frown me using a
shotgun indoors.
James Nicoll
--
March 20, 1999: Imperiums To Order's 15th Anniversary Party. Guests include
Rob Sawyer [SF author], Jo Walton [game designer and soon to be published
fantasy author] and James Gardner [SF author].
Imperiums is at 12 Church Street, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Aahz Maruch
James Nicoll <jam...@ece.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> I was a little surprised to find out the electric company had
>a key to my house.
Did you change the lock?
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> -=> http://www.rahul.net/aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
"Just because I'm selling you into slavery doesn't mean we can't be
friends." B-movie cliche Hall of Fame (_Bounty Hunter: 2002_)
Morgan
<mins...@filklore.demon.co.uk> said:
>My father taught me to make a crystal set in the late 60's. His dad
>taught him when he was a lad in the 40's. Don't know nuffink about the
>thirties, but crystal sets were not that uncommon in the UK, believe me.
Chris, you've just said you don't know a thing about them in the 30s,
and we were actually taking specifically about the 30s!
I give up. It's probably me, I mean I'm under a lot of stress, ill and
tired, but every little thing I say on here at the moment becomes a
discussion point - one step away from what's actually being discussed
and its starting to get to me.
I think it may be time to consider a little time out.
Morgan
<cr...@glasswings.com.au> said:
>You've got to be kidding. We've just heard about men coming to the
>door to check on whether someone has a TV or not. Labour is expensive.
>How many homes in the UK need to be visited? Tends of millions. That
>adds up to a gigantic cost. ... 109.5 million pounds per year.
>(97/98 BBC financial report)
You've got this all wrong. The people only come to the door if they
have already sent you a note and it comes back without reason for having
a licence. And that isn't done regularly.
Jo hasn't had a tv for years, and she's had two visits in all that time.
There just arent' that many visits made - probabaly a couple of thousand
a year.
Maybe we need to be looking at it the other way. Consider that the vast
majority of people actually paying for this service and talking about it
in here are perfectly happy to do so, and actively defend it - what on
earth is the button it pushes to cause such as adverse reaction to it
from other meners who _don't_ live with the system?
I mean, _why_ are you all so intent in trying to express how evil this
system is - up to and including semantic debates about its nature? I
think it's your reactions we should be looking at at this point: we
might get further.
Alter S. Reiss
> [. . .] And the Nissan commercials
> with the elderly Japanese gentleman and his dog were clearly produced
> with Japanese advertising tastes in mind, right down to the
> overly-intense color saturation and peculiar English.
Amoung my small circle of friends, it became a rule that one must
either stare in horrified fascination at those commercials, or run
screaming away. There was something horribly sinister and surreal about
those ads.
--
Alter S. Reiss --- www.geocities.com/Area51/2129 --- asr...@ymail.yu.edu
"Allright, I think I've figured it out. It can go up
or down, but not side-to-side or backwards in time."
John Lorentz
<asr...@ymail.yu.edu> wrote:
>On 15 Dec 1998, Doug Wickstrom wrote:
>
>> [. . .] And the Nissan commercials
>> with the elderly Japanese gentleman and his dog were clearly produced
>> with Japanese advertising tastes in mind, right down to the
>> overly-intense color saturation and peculiar English.
>
> Amoung my small circle of friends, it became a rule that one must
>either stare in horrified fascination at those commercials, or run
>screaming away. There was something horribly sinister and surreal about
>those ads.
>
And they're produced right here in Portland by our own Will Vinton
Studios. (They don't do just Claymation anymore.)
I actually like them--probably because they _do_ seem horribly
sinister! <g>
--John
David G. Bell
fr...@dowd.demon.co.uk "Fran Dowd" writes:
> On the Who Can Come to Your House and Make You Do Things front, I have a
> friend in Minnesota whose front lawn was mown by the local government,
> and she had to pay for it, because the grass was too high. And they sent
> a policeman to warn her about it several times before they actually did
> it. And she was annoyed about it because she bought the property when it
> came under different zoning regulations - But Nobody Thought There Was
> Anything Wrong ... except the visiting English couple who were
> absolutely appalled.
I'm considering setting the Internal Drainage Board on one of my
neighbours, who seems to believe that water can run uphill...
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
David G. Bell
mins...@filklore.demon.co.uk "Chris Malme" writes:
> In article <tf5f2BAq...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>, Morgan
> <Mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In this post <36809a85...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Doug Wickstrom
> ><xnims...@aol.com> said:
> >>On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:09:35 +0000, Morgan <mor...@sidhen.demon.co.uk>
> >>modulated the bit stream to say:
> >>
> >>>Also, if you look at the price of radios and the licence in the 1930s,
> >>>it was more for the poorer household than a tv and licence is now.
> >>
> >>I'm not sure that's really valid. For a commercially-produced
> >>amplified set, yes. But a crystal or razor-blade set is essentially
> >>free, being made from cast-off materials. It's not much of a radio
> >>receiver, but it works.
> >>
> >Please note I did make statements about the UK, rather than the USA.
> >Crystal and razor-blade sets were not common here and the technology to
> >make them at home was not the issue, but the cultural mores of the radio
> >listening public.
>
> My father taught me to make a crystal set in the late 60's. His dad
> taught him when he was a lad in the 40's. Don't know nuffink about the
> thirties, but crystal sets were not that uncommon in the UK, believe me.
>
> Hmmmm... I wouldn't know where to start these days, if I ever had a
> sprog of my own. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, and hope it all goes
> 'digital' before that event ever happens.
Trouble is, you need amplitude modulation and a fair bit of power from
the transmitter. But the circuit is simple enough. It's getting the
right parts which could be tricky, even if you wind your own coil.
But it reminded me that there was an old book in the school library
which included instructions on how to make your own telephone, including
hand-winding a special transformer, and using pencil leads to make a
microphone.
And I'm not from Yorkshire, honest. It's just that my grandfather did
the electrical wiring for some cinemas in Bradford.