You'd think the government would make its propaganda free to watch.
Please do not write below the line
91–100 of 337 posts
Re: Please do not write below the line
#92The people who you contacted don't understand any part of what the customer facing interface to their own job which is entirely usual. Its entirely possible that there was at one time instructions for return of the letter on an envelope that the party responding hasn't actually seen in years. They like a lot of people exist in a tiny silo with limited information outside of a tiny scope.
They kept asking you to essentially call a function on the actual public api and you kept on ignoring the error messages.
If you are tempted to feel smugly superior remember they were paid for their responses whereas you wasted your own time.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's basically a whole parallel tax collection system, which is truly nuts. Like the administrative overhead alone surely outweighs any abstract concerns about independence from government, which doesn't really exist in the UK anyway.
depends on the system, austria for example used to say if you don't have a radio or tv you do not need to pay. As of 2024 you pay even if you have no tv, which means the overhead is probably near zero, as you already have lists of where people live.
Same here in Norway.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's basically a whole parallel tax collection system, which is truly nuts. Like the administrative overhead alone surely outweighs any abstract concerns about independence from government, which doesn't really exist in the UK anyway.
What's when more mental is that they are essentially all funding state propaganda agencies and so you're literally paying to be propagandised. Not that much of none state media is really that much better to be honest.
We all pay to receive propaganda, be it governmental or not. A private TV channel will spread the ideology of their owners, and it is usually an ideology that is useful to them.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#95I worked for an old company that had a lot of old processes and paperwork. Many bits of paperwork had a "do not write below the line" type areas. I always wrote something ... nothing ever happened.
I once hand delivered some paperwork (I was running late) to HR rather than using the inter office mail service. I asked them about it, they told me "Oh you must be Mathew..." I was HR famous. They didn't actually mind, the company was so process driven that having to visually double check my paperwork was just how things were.
Later on they decided to repaint the entire office because we had slightly changed the colors of our logo.
Not long after painting I jokingly put up a piece of paper on a huge white wall that read "This space intentionally left blank." The movers who took down the art put up the art on that wall again, and spaced it evenly ... around my note.
It stayed there for at least 4 years before we left for a new building.
Process...
Re: Please do not write below the line
#96Likeliest situation is all their stationary destined for send outs have the line; and in situations where the line serves no purpose it does no harm to leave it: so there is little use in having additional process around completely blank stock.
They could have told him that though if it's the case, and the mystery would be solved. But there obviously wasn't any desire (or more charitably - time) on their end to really look into the reasoning or even understand the question. ---- Edit: I will share what I think is a nice a little counterpoint story here, from a business that is clearly still interested in understanding. I sent Lego an email a while ago: I'm…
While we're here, does anyone happen to recognize the camel's tune?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKpD-KkaBHc
We never worked it out.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#97A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK. Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.
> A Licensing officer may call at your property not to collect the letters but to check that you are not watching a TV. Just the thought of this is funny. What kind of uniforms do TV Officers wear? Do they get to carry a weapon? What happens if they find you watching a TV? Amazing.
You can be sent to jail if you do not have a licence, although it is rare
Re: Please do not write below the line
#98I was really hoping for an answer at the end! I'm actually totally stumped by the whole thing. OCR doesn't even make sense, because OCR is terrible at handwriting generally. With forms they usually require you to write block letters and numbers inside of a kind of separate grid for each field. And maybe fill in some bubbles too. Anything anywhere on the page outside of the form fields is ignored. I'd find it far more…
If you look up some of these letters you'll see they have the quasi-official-looking things you'd otherwise see on scam letters, like a stamp that says "Enforcement Visit Approved" with a signature on it.
I think "do not write below this line" is just another one of those things, it makes the letter seem like its part of Official Serious Bureaucracy.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#99He also collects and displays all the previous letters he's got from the BBC: http://www.bbctvlicence.com/
They get increasingly threatening and aggressive. I'd guess that the OCR code scanning is to confirm that he's read the letter and adjust the hostility in the next letter appropriately.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#100"Please do not park next to our nondescript White Van" would suite just as much.
They don't use non-descript vans. They want you to know who they are. Now, whether the vans can actually detect anything is a different matter. Some believe they are just a visual deterrent, and don't actually do anything beyond looking scary.
That is my understanding. They certainly had a demonstration device that could deduct a local oscillator, but it is suggested it was just PR.
There is some kind of 'detector' mentioned online that can apparently look at a window and see the light of a TV flickering on the glass! Judges buy this bs and issue warrants to search.