Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TV detector van

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 345 posts

Re: TV detector van

#301

Post by dzhiurgis »

disordinary wrote: post #268
jmole wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate on that? Culture shock from what? What makes NZ the best?

If you're progressive then NZ is a good place with strong social support and networks. There's definitely plenty of faults but it's not nearly as bad as other countries in most cases. There's also not the extreme rifts that we see elsewhere. If you look at reform for instance then there was broad cross party support for firearm reform, abortion reform, and euthanasia reform all in the last few months with both left a…

> irreligious, educated, and practical.

This is so true. People are just so multi-faceted here. I have a friend who's a developer, mechanic, investor, guitar player and a stripper.

Re: TV detector van

#302

Post by milankragujevic »

toyg wrote: post #264
raverbashing wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enforcement actions and publicizing of the license in the UK seem to be the most dystopian, in Ireland it's a bit over the top as well But you're right, it is present in multiple countries, I think Germany and France just turned it into a household fee

In Italy it has been merged into electricity bills. I kid you not. And of course, the state broadcaster (RAI) is still chock-full of ads on all its channels. This is because it's not a media organisation as much as a cash-machine for aides and cronies of the government du-jour, with each channel literally allocated informally to each major party. You can imagine the average production quality.

Same for RTS in Serbia, worse even because not only do we HAVE to pay the TV license via power bill, or get sued and have power cut off (I kid you not, because of the TV license fee!) (happened to me), RTS also has 8 commercial channels that are funded from the public's money, which are only available on select cable networks.

It's RTS 1, RTS 2, RTS 3, RTS HD (which is redundant since the 3 channels are already in Full HD), and then RTS 24/7, RTS Drama, RTS Archive, RTS Music, RTS Life, RTS Kids, RTS Music 2, RTS VOD and RTS SVOD, RTS [something I can't translate] (all names are translated from Serbian).

The TV service is the only one with HD terrestrial broadcasting, and yet it's production quality is absolute garbage (I mean literally, the video quality is absolutely terrible, I'm not even talking about the topics they deal with).

Basically, a money sink and waste of time. People who have SBB (United Group) watch N1 (CNN affiliate) in Full HD (with 30 Mbps bitrate, compared to 4 Mbps for RTS 1 HD).

People who don't have SBB cable, are stuck with the low level garbage channels from our state broadcaster.

Re: TV detector van

#303

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

>> The warrant stated that: "the optical detector in the detector van uses a large lens to collect that light and focus it on to an especially sensitive device, which converts fluctuating light signals into electrical signals, which can be electronically analysed.

This "especially sensitive device, which converts fluctuating light signals into electrical signals" sounds remarkably like the human eye.

Those signals, of course "can be electronically analysed". Emphasis on "can". Equivalently, "could".

Re: TV detector van

#304

Post by zwarag »

coldtea wrote: post #194

How about a small flat fee everybody pays to sustain the national broadcaster? Whether they watch it or not is not relevant. It's a nation-wide service at their disposal. Either it's worth it to have, like a dam or a highway system or whatever, and it's ok for people to pay for it in taxes, or it's not, and it should close.

What is this, communism? /s

Re: TV detector van

#305

Post by repolfx »

Theodores wrote: post #197
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child in the 80s I remember my family being scared of this van even though it probably never existed. Because of this my mum got a pay TV instead which we had to put 50p coins in periodically that paid for both the TV rental and the license fee.

The Thatcher years were harsh. I imagine you also had free school meals as your main meal of the day. The TV rental business was very much like mobile phone contracts. For this reason I am not one of those people that buys a mobile phone on contract with the 'upgrade' every two years. The 'contract' your family were on for the TV was 'pay as you go' and I shudder to think how often your family could have paid for the…

The Thatcher years were harsh

That's not really fair is it? They started harsh because the country was a wreck when she was first elected. The miners went on strike because they were used to being able to topple governments by doing so. The obsession with inflation came about in contrast to the previous obsession with employment figures, yielding a country with full employment but sky-high inflation. Thatcher argued that was wrong and you could have full employment with low inflation: several boom economies since then have shown she was correct.

After Thatcher had won three elections Britain was a first world country again. You don't see many people pining for Britain in the 70s with all the strikes, electricity outages, bailouts and 3 day weeks. Blame her for the poll tax, sure, but even then those riots were by people who wanted unfair taxation: they defined "fair" as some people having to pay more for the exact same services than others do, something nobody tolerates in the commercial world.

Remember there was no such thing as society

You're selectively quoting Thatcher here, as her ideological enemies do so often. She was pointing out that when her opponents said "society will pay for it" there was no such thing as an abstract, disconnected, third party entity labelled "society" that would magically inject money into Britain - that what such people really meant was "my neighbours will be forced to pay for it".

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689

Here's the full quote:

But it [people living on benefits/blaming society for their problems] went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

Doesn't sound so bad when you realise her alternative to the word "society" was "a living tapestry and men and women and people", that this tapestry is "beautiful" and that the quality of our lives depend on "how much each of us is .... prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate".

It's ironic yet totally unsurprising that her argument against imprecise socialist double-speak is now usually referenced via a selective quote designed to make her look inhumane.

Re: TV detector van

#306

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

soneil wrote: post #201
monkeynotes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life. Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV ev…

I don't begrudge the TV licence too much. I used to, and then I moved to Ireland - where I pay a roughly equivalent amount for a roughly equivalent licence, which funds RTÉ (and tg4? unclear) with nowhere near the same results. And still ads. It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them. When the UK has to fund a state broadcaster, it's…

>> It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them.

It's probably because in the rest of Europe national broadcasters don't badger you to pay a license even if you don't actually own a TV set.

In the UK, I get threatening red-lettered envelopes every few years- because it's easier to harass me by mail than to try and figure out whether I watch TV or not.

And the threat is quite real. The broadcaster can send people to your house to snoop around, to see if you have a TV set or not. These agents are known to take liberties with the extend of their power (they will allege that they can enter your property whether you agree to let them in, or not) and there is basically nothing stopping them from stating that you are watching a TV programme as it is being broadcast if you have have equipment capable of doing so, such as a computer, or just a smartphone.

Basically, the TV licensing people in the UK are convinced that, if you say that you do not watch TV you are lying, and they treat you as an offender by default.

Does any of this happen in any other European country?

Re: TV detector van

#307

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Udik wrote: post #286
soneil wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't begrudge the TV licence too much. I used to, and then I moved to Ireland - where I pay a roughly equivalent amount for a roughly equivalent licence, which funds RTÉ (and tg4? unclear) with nowhere near the same results. And still ads. It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them. When the UK has to fund a state broadcaster, it's…

What's dystopian is not the tv license, is their style of public communication. In general public communication in the UK feels sometimes very direct and almost threatening. The sense of authority and hierarchy implied is palpable. Not for nothing the UK is source of some wonderful parodies on the theme: for example the Scarfolk series: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digging-through-the-ar... Or one of my favo…

Or the anti-piracy ad from the IT crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEeaxI0OPU

Re: TV detector van

#308

Post by notzuck »

dylan604 wrote: post #291
notzuck wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right but moving to Australia has genuinely massively improved our standard of living beyond what i thought was even possible. I can't believe how good we have it here.

I almost didn't leave when I visited Australia and New Zealand. I telecommute, so it wouldn't matter if I was across the country or the planet. Plus, getting paid in US dollars living in NZ with the strong dollar would be like a pay raise. If only I had the 'get up and do it' enough to do it.

I work from home 25 days per month - I moved well away from the city, bought a massive house next to a beautiful surf beach and my kids could not be having a better time if they tried. My partner did the same. We make over 400k joint, all from home and in a very cheap part of the country. I can't even get over how lucky I am.

Re: TV detector van

#309

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #202
gambiting wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

It's real. The TV rental companies had a range of approaches, one of which was the very expensive option of a coin operated TV. Another common way to pay was by book and visit the TV rental shop weekly to pay a little. If you had one of the coin ops, chances are your electric and gas were on coin operated meters too - with the landlord of your flat or bedsit setting their own markup on that meter... https://www.tvobs…

>> If you had one of the coin ops, chances are your electric and gas were on coin operated meters too - with the landlord of your flat or bedsit setting their own markup on that meter...

Some friends of mine who lived in London had an electricity meter that they had to recharge with cards they got from the corner shop. This was in 2005 or so. Do you know how common this is in London, or the rest of the UK, nowadays?

At the time I had found it at the very least a huge hassle. It was one of those things when I first got to the UK that I just couldn't comprehend.

Another one: when I got my first check from my job at the time (working at a warehouse) I went to the bank to collect it and the bank said I had to wait for a week to make sure the check wouldn't bounce and I think to ensure I wasn't money laundering. I couldn't believe what they were telling me, so I asked the people I worked with who confirmed it. Except, they said it wasn't a big deal: you just go to a shop, give them the check and they give you 80% of your salary. So you don't have to wait for a week.

So wait, I work all week, then the bank will treat me as a potential criminal and some financial parasite will suck off 20% of my salary as a consequence? And the people I worked with just shrugged it off. It was considered just normal. I told people Back Home (in Greece) about all this and they just didn't believe me.

Re: TV detector van

#310

Post by pyman »

Why drive thousands of vans around the UK, hire contractors and spend tax payers money, when the government can ask Sky and Virgin to provide them with a long list of households that are paying for cable tv (~30 million)? It makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Post reply on HN