links for 2009-10-22
Published on 22 October 2009 in Daily Links
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I used to listen to this Sunday morning show when I was in my teens and was regularly in hysterics. The premise is a phone in which basically consists of people bantering with the presenters, with the odd guest or too for good measure. On a whim I picked this Manchester institution up on iPlayer today. Sadly they don’t seem to be giving out random prizes like sending people for free meals at the Red Cafe at Old Trafford or Toppo Gigios in Ashton, but it’s still classic radio from masters of the art!
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Apparently Britain’s most famous clock tower might irritate viewers outside the capital. Never irritated me when I lived in Manchester and Durham… Does it irritate you? (Of course, Big Ben is the bell – not the tower…)
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I’m not going to tell you what I’d put.
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"BBC sources believe that the Trust decision not only marks the end of the Open iPlayer plan, but also the end of the UKs hopes of becoming a major player in the VoD market." Yep, it’ll all be YouTube and Hulu from now on…
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In London, just days after it was announced fares are going up, it’s now announced the number of bus services will be cut. Well got to pay for the scrapping part of the congestion charge, new not-a-Routemasters and the replacement of bendy buses somehow…
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Now here’s an interesting question… I wonder which people would pick – reduced rate of income tax but no child benefit, or child benefit and the same level of income tax? It’s true that benefits going to people who don’t necessarily need them is costing us money – estimated at £10bn a year – however I wonder if it helps justify the tax and welfare system to those on higher wages. Everyone puts some in, everyone gets something out at some point. Would those on the higher pay scales begin to revolt more over taxes if some of the "perks" were taken away, whilst "lazy unemployed people sit around on their free houses being paid to breed kids". You can see the Daily Mail stories now…
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Apparently every year, Norwegian tax authorities release information on people’s income and wealth. I used to work with a Finnish colleague who said it was similar over there – every year they’d post up peoples salaries on the noticeboard. Sometimes I think we should do the same…
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"It’s clear the BBC dropped the ball on this over ten years ago. Launching extra channels in an era when bandwidth wasn’t at such a premium was a mistake. It’s created a situation where people have become accustomed to watching sport and music events across multiple channels. It might have been smarter to allocate more bandwidth to the BBC’s channels, thus increasing picture quality beyond its current catastrophic level. " Yeah but at the beginning of Freeview, who would have thought space would end up being at such a premium?
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A few weekends I spent ages battling with The Gimp to make some simple round corners for a web page. It seemed ridiculously difficult for such a simple thing. Instead I could just SpiffyBox to create them, and then cut them up if I need to. Much easier.