I say try writing "drop table;" at the bottom and post it back. :-)
Please do not write below the line
271–280 of 337 posts
Re: Please do not write below the line
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not just a U.K. thing. Many European countries have something similar, although it might be called something else. It’s a form of tax that pays for public service broadcasting, including radio stations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#
Yes, but the UK is the only country with a license ridiculous enough to offer you a 50% discount _if you're blind_.
I mean, TV is an audiovisual medium. Audio/Visual. 50/50. Blind people can still listen to the TV (though arguably not have half the experience). The real question is if deaf people get the same discount.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#273A "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.
The BBC is prized in the UK, and rightly so. Most national broadcasters have strong public interest provisions but the Beeb has a history and culture of strong independent journalism, incredible childrens and family output and acts as a mainstay anchor to support a creative industry. There is plenty to criticise but the weird ring fenced tax that we pay is incredible value for money (films, tv, web, journalism for th…
I used to think this, but it's no longer true. BBC radio is pretty good value. CBBC is valuable in having an ad-free service for children. But the rest of terrestrial BBC is .. tired. It's not really changed since the advent of streaming services and youtube, which have eaten its audience from younger ages.
And BBC politics is awful. Question Time is full of planted audience members. BBC journos give softball interviews to their friends in the Conservative party.
Personally I'd split the BBC into National Archive (all the material before 2000) and BBC Ongoing, and make the latter into a normal private company which sells streaming subscriptions. And abolish the absurdity of the TV license and its often oppressive enforcement against the very poor.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite thing when moving at the big co that owns my co is that they give you these stickers for desk items to show up... whatever you put the sticker on comes along to be by the desk. WHATEVER YOU PUT IT ON. The movers just do what the stickers said. One coworker got every white board in the area. Another got a sandwich and some empty coke cans. Another got a sofa and an empty trash bag. The Machine Works.
WHATEVER YOU PUT IT ON. A company I worked for a long time ago paid to move me across the country. It hired both a moving company and a packing company. They both arrived on the morning of the big move and I told them to take everything, as I'd already packed everything I needed for the drive in my car. Ten days later, the moving truck and unpacking company showed up at my new place, and among the items they unloaded…
Apparently it’s the same way if you work for the military. The movers show up, pack _everything_ into the truck, and it ends up at your new home a week or two later. You might not want that sandwich meat or ice cream any more, but it’ll arrive all the same.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
On-topic? Every reply seemed evasive to me. (Regarding how he got them to reply at all, this is required by law of public authorities.)
To me, it didn't come across as deliberately evasive. It came across like tier 1 helpdesk not really understanding how a query fits into their pre-defined categories, and trying to be helpful anyway without really understanding the problem. The later reply about it being because OCR does use what's below the line and it shouldn't be obscured looks like the ticket was escalated to someone who understood what was reall…
Except that you might be missing the key fact: the letter is just a letter. It’s not a form that requests information from the recipient, and the recipient is not instructed to return it. Scanning it would be pointless, because all of the information on it was printed out by them!
Re: Please do not write below the line
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much taxpayer money is wasted on the accounting, the enforcement, and the scary-sounding letters? Wouldn’t it be better if the government just gave taxpayer money to the BBC directly?
You mean "how much money is given to people to do those things"? Because the money doesn't magically disappear in the pockets of "big beeb", all those tasks are performed by people who get paid for that, drawing an income and then spending the money they earned by economically participating in society. There is no money being wasted. Although it might certainly be a case of paper being wasted.
Perhaps we should also have a mandatory fee paid to the thumb twiddling association? They too will be happy to be employed after all.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#277Likeliest 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…
Capita would probably reply to a customer inquiry with this level of care and attention if appropriate.
Individual license holders are not customers, though. The customer is the BBC and its executives who administer the contract paying Capita huge amounts of money to extort people on their behalf.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds weirder than that to me: > colour TV: £169.50 per year; monochrome TV: £57.00 per year; blind people: 50% discount People who can't see their color TV at all pay more than people who can but have an old black-and-white one?
Do the discounts stack? If you’re blind should you just buy a monochrome tv and pay £28?
On the other hand you might end up paying quite a bit more for a monochrome tv than for the cheapest color tv you can find.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many European countries are worse about it than the UK; even people who do not own a television are required by law to pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
The absurdity in the UK is that it's a License fee and that there is this whole absurd enforcement system. In other countries it's a tax if you don't pay it, you are essentially not paying your taxes. I am OK with a universal tax for a universal service even if I don't use that service. What I am not okay with is fraudulent threatening letters, weirdos creeping in the bushes trying to see if I am watching TV and goon…
It's the same situation in German except they removed the TV requirement since the broadcasters put up token online content that you can watch/read on your phone an surely everyone has one of those. So no more visits from cunts trying to get you or your co-inhabitants to admit that you have a TV because ist now a 100% mandatory fee but it's still not officially a tax though and therefore collected by a non-government entity who have had to rebrand due to how unpopular they are.
Re: Please do not write below the line
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am assuming because the BBC is a government organization? I am not sure about the UK but where I come from the government is legally required to answer your request. They have to. Doesn't mean they'll answer your question but they'll answer something. (plus they have to confirm reception/delivery and stuff like that)
The BBC is independent, and funded by the TV licence. The TV licence scheme is _administered_ by Capita on behalf of the BBC. Those responses are coming from Capita.
Except its complicated. The licence fee is effectively a tax, with criminal consequences for non-payment.