Posts by Ralph Beales

The truth!

I read half way down and got bored. One commentator was correct the rest seemed to be flights of fancy. The local oscillator, produces a signal at a set frequency - 4.33 MHz I think, long, tong time since I did anything with this stuff - and that frequency is transmitted from the telly. A receiver can pick up the signal on that frequency and therefore know that a telly is in use. Needs a tuner and a local oscillator. Forget all the guff about CRT/LCD and the rest; as long as it's got a tuner - which differs between colour and monochrome tellys - you'll have a signal. Live in a Faraday cage if it's that much of a problem. Also, 'license' is a verb and 'licence' is a noun. Learn the Queen's English you ill-educated oafs; now go and buy a licence so all those nice senior managers from the USA, currently employed at the British Broadcasting Corporation can keep their big, fat salaries and keep churning out dross and USA-centric news.

Did you know BT aren't part of the GPO anymore?

Howabout that! Apparently, they were sold off in 1984, in order to reduce all our taxes and to allow them to get a new phone to us, in less than 3 x weeks.

Apparently, they've got new owners (they're the ones who handed over their money to HMG for drinkies in the private bars at HP) and those new owners (seem to be the people who run my pension fund, probably yours too) actually expect BT to make a profit now and then give the money to the new owners!

Gosh, no wonder those nasty people at BT aren't rushing around putting fibre into my house, in order to allow me to download stolen software.

I do like BT vision though, much cheaper than the offering from those skanky bods who own the squarial company.

As someone who works for BT

.. and actually sees the numbers that relate to SPAM (as in >90% of emails sent) it's a major headache for the company.

My job isn't involved in anyway with the BT Retail operation or even BT Exact, who are responsible for the security issues but whilst BT often pi55 peeps off with customer service, there are some serious problems with SPAM email and something has to be done to resolve it.

Rather than constantly whining and moaning about it on El Reg, would some of you lobby for execution of the spamming b@stards who cause the problem? You know, a bit like China and drug dealers, where they shot 6,000 of 'em and got rid of a lot of problems. Or would that require too much effort ;)

Wrong ship?

@ Mr. Chris

I thought it was an INF2 ship being used? Your link is for an INF3

http://www.pntl.co.uk/pntl-fleet/bnfl-ships.asp

suggests it's the Atlantic Osprey being used, in which case, I'm sure you can check the local paper for shipping movements or the Lloyds List and it will tell you when it docks and when it will embark.

This really is a 'non-story' though. Don't go on your hols to Cornwall, you really will be irradiated. I suspect most of those having a grumble also complain about electricity pylons/mobile phone masts and wear copper bangles.

For crying out loud

If something is good, it doesn't need to be advertised. If it's being advertised, then it's something that doesn't cost a lot make and is being sold for a high margin. Chances are, it's at best average quality.

Once you realise this, you'll make a point of not buying advertised goods. I'll give you a good example, Roger&Gallet. You can only buy it from certain retailers (I get mine from John Lewis) it's never advertised, it's one of the best bathroom products on the market. Does well on word of mouth alone.

See Aston Martin advertising? How about Ebuyer/DABS et al? No! Plenty for PC World, not so much for Maplin; compare prices.

So, targeted ads eh.............gosh, something else for the firewall to block/be ignored.

Why is El Reg trying to make such a mountain out of this molehill? Don't you read your readers' own comments?

FM? AM?

Interesting comment re-the analogue signal for the telly being deliberately degraded (or at least delivered in such a way as to ensure an inferior signal)

Anyway, there's no such thing as an FM band, or an AM one for that matter. There's Long Wave and Medium Wave and Short Wave(lots of those) and there's Very High Frequency (these are all names for a range of frequencies on which radio waves may be transmitted) but there doesn't appear to be a Frequency Modulated or an Amplitude Modulated radio band, so any comments with reference to such things are clearly worthless and written in ignorance.

May I suggest Charades? If lacking a good-quality wireless signal, then this wonderfully stimulating parlour game, negates a need for the dross churned out on Radio1.

Fantastic news..........

.......... no more computers in the home fewer in the office. Does this mean we all get our lives back? Spend longer in the pub? Don't go home from work and carry on working? Make the planet 'greener' by using less electricity? [Yeah right ;)]

Well, after reading all the comments and being transported back 25 years, I'll go and dig the Sinclair QL out of the attic. No namby-pamby 48k Spectrums, a full-on 128k with micro-drives