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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Close Encounters Down Under (Sky 2 History Channel)
| Travel to Queensland's farming country where rain-drenched crops meet the Great Barrier Reef. Is there a link between water and UFO activity? Blurb |
Xtnatl: Klykrin?
Klykrin: Yes, Xtnatl?
Xtnatl: You do realise we haven't given the Aussies a scare yet.
Klykrin: Coming right up.
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Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | why the forest is triangular |
Great video. On Google Earth, it looks like one side of the triangle continues offshore, maybe as part of the continental shelf.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Good spot. That doubles the mystery more than explains it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am perplexed that the BBC is going ahead with showing Masterchef programmes with Greg Wallace. Axing the series would have cost them some money, however theoretical that is with the BBC, but normally they take infinite pains to be seen to be squeaky clean.
They may not always manage it, they may go to absurd lengths to achieve it, but this is the first time--as far I can remember-- when they've said
| "Take this up the arse, suckers, we don't give a monkeys what you think of us, you'll watch it in droves, you dreary people." |
Possibly a sign they are finally coming to terms with the post-Reithian world. I predict it won't be shown though when the time comes.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The problem for the Beeb is that it was already filmed and the contestants have given up their own time, and forfeited money from regular jobs etc, to be on the show and become famous. So some contestants would have likely complained if it wasn't shown. Now one contestant (who presumably didn't win?) has complained that they are showing it as they don't want to be shown with Wallace (or maybe Torode as he has now been sacked as well, for alleged "racism") so this contestant has now been edited out from the high/low lights.
So we now have a show with two sacked presenters (one for racism, the other for sexism) minus a contestant.
It's probably going to get huge viewing figures for the first 15 minutes or so. Then a switch off as folks realise it's identical to every other episode.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I hadn't thought of that aspect. A question of equity does arise. And, as you say, the presenters' crimes were more a matter of 'bad form' than bad behaviour. Even so the BBC can be charged with running a dog and pony show. One of each.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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RE: Why is the Coastline So Straight
Amazing how similar are our YouTube recomendations. The algo believes we are the same person.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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How proud you must be.
The world is divided into two categories:
1. Those who are outraged that algorithms are tracking their every move.
2. Those who are delighted that algorithms are tracking their every move.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We're all used to telly companies and 'market share'. But here are a coupla toothsome examples from the early days.
When Lucy of I Love Lucy got pregnant (for real) there was a necessity to run repeats of previous episodes in place of new ones. This had never been done at the time (everything was live and studio film came over badly on the television receivers of the time). "Who's gonna watch a sitcom twice anyway?" being the operative frame of mind.
So the next day the nervous execs gathered round as the market-share figures came in. I Love Lucy had bombed twenty five points. Upwards! The sitcom rerun was born.
The day that Lucy gave birth to Desi Jnr was the day before the inauguration of President Eisenhower. They had filmed an episode to mirror this in the sitcom. It got a 98.4% market share, comfortably beating the Inauguration next day, shown on all three networks.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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PS The word 'pregnant' was on the banned list (and was never uttered in I Love Lucy. In fact, a pregnant woman had never been featured in any kind of TV confection before then. "It would lead to awkward questions from the children."
After strenuous objections from the studio heads and the sponsors, Philip Morris cigarettes, the pregnant-Lucy plotline was eventually green-lighted. But only after script approval for each episode from a committee made up of an Episcopalian minister, a Catholic priest and a rabbi.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| YouTube has overtaken ITV to become the second most-watched platform in the UK, according to Ofcom. Agencies |
This is pretty amazing in itself. The last time the second spot in our viewing choices changed was way back in the 1950's when ITV itself cast the BBC into it. And they stayed that way, one and two, forever in my memory, though the position must have been reversed at some stage in my lifetime.
That's not what I'm here to talk about. What I want to know is why the BBC, ITV or any other terrestrial (or cable) channel is not exploiting YouTube for its own purposes. And ours. Every day I watch
* a couple of YouTubers for daily updates on Ukraine
* an Arsenal blogger for news of transfers et al (may not survive the end of the window)
* regular but sporadic ganders at various other odds and sods
* oftentimes something recommended by Ishmael's algorithm.
Each one of them would be candidates for watching on the normal telly--highlights of, anyway. And every one of the blokes (overwhelmingly) making these delights would be delighted to get a mainstream audience rather than the '1.7K views' or whatever it says at the bottom of their screens.
And/or improving on them. If a single enthusiast can prepare a complete tour d'horizon of the the Ukraine fighting, complete with live footage and military buff-standard commentary, but using incomprehensible maps and delivered in an incomprehensible Ukrainian accent, why can't the BBC with all its millions (and that's just the staff) do it?
Yes, it may be late night BBC2 rather than Strictly Done Cooking but, jaysus, it's a public service broadcaster. It's its bleedin' duty.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Say It Like It Is, Big Man
| This Jeffrey Epstein business is all bullshit. President Trump |
| Profanity in the Oval Office! I wasn't brought up to expect that. Grey-haired CNN anchor | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Air India Crash: What Went Wrong? (Channel 4)
This was a reasonably exhaustive account of what is publicly known, which is that the plane crashed because something or someone had activated the mechanism for cutting the fuel to both engines. But it did not mention what any AE-ist would have noted immediately.
| The plane held two 'world records' |
1. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the safest airplane in the skies: several billion airmiles and not a single fatal accident
2. The Air India 787 Dreamliner had just had a brand new engine fitted (the other engine was due to be replaced later this year).
The first makes it extremely unlikely there was a fault in any standard piece of equipment eg the mechanism for cutting off fuel to the engines
The second makes it (therefore) quite likely the new engine introduced a fault in the mechanism for cutting off fuel to the engines.
Let us trust the Air Accident authorities eliminate this possibility quickly because otherwise that fault will presumably be introduced into every Dreamliner as each new engine falls due.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Twin-engined planes are designed so they can fly on one engine. If one engine--the new engine--had failed, no harm would have come to the plane. But both engines failed. So that means, ex hypothesi, the fault was in the new software that would be necessary if an engine was replacing one built half a dozen years ago.
One would think each engine's software would be rigidly separated to rule out a twin failure but, I suppose, this is impractical when an old engine has to run side by side with a new one.
| But this brings us to human intervention. Here Air India is unquestionably in the frame. |
In 2018 the American NTSB (governing safety issues for Boeings) issued a notice about the Dreamliner. There was the possibility of one or other pilot accidentally turning off the fuel so the standard 'simple' switches should be replaced with 'complex' ones.
| But it was only an advisory notice and Air India (along with other airlines) disregarded it. |
This doomed the plane if this was the reason. Because whether the pilot was acting wittingly or unwittingly he would scarcely have had time in the bare few seconds the plane was in the air to go through the rigmarole of turning the fuel off if complex switches had been installed. Even if he had, the co-pilot would have seen him doing it in plenty of time to... er... advise him not to. One engine maybe, two definitely not.
| So the Americans might be in the frame too. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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An Artist of the Floating World (BBC R4)
Although I have an indirect but personal connection to Kazuo Ishiguro I wouldn't dream of reading one of his books. Watching the (excellent) film of The Remains of the Day is as close as I have ever got to his oeuvre. So I was especially reluctant to listen to a Japan-based book of his (who knew?). I was wrong and I'm big enough to admit it. The lad done well.
One thing though. If it is read by Tim McInnerny, the silly arse out of Blackadder, it does put you off for a bit.
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