... Greedy arbitrary 'bureaucracy' at its worst.

And a blight upon us all for polluting the environment and holding us back on 1990's supposed 'stop-gap' old fragile tech...

Aptly, just in the news today:

High charges for rural broadband investigated...
wrote:

Ofcom is to investigate why BT is quoting some people thousands of pounds to get broadband connections...

... in Cumbria, and currently gets 4Mbps broadband. He told the BBC he was given a quote of £152,000 to provide fibre broadband to his home and five neighbouring properties.

Another person, living in south Cheshire - only 2.5 miles from the telephone exchange - told they BBC they were quoted £133,000.

"While the cost of some connections will be high due to the remoteness of any of these premises, we are concerned that BT may not be complying with the regulatory conditions correctly where it assesses excess costs..."

That's rather politely worded for such profiteering from an effective monopoly...


And all for overly fragile connections for those continuing to suffer the old long outdated ADSL service dangling off of old wooden poles:

Internet: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

(ADSL is particularly sensitive to interference, even from just your neighbor surfing the internet!)



There has to be a better way...

All in our greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... And all for overly fragile connections for those continuing to suffer the old long outdated ADSL service dangling off of old wooden poles:

Internet: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

(ADSL is particularly sensitive to interference, even from just your neighbor surfing the internet!)

Piggybacking ADSL onto existing old (POTS) telephone wires is well known to suffer high attenuation and to suffer from increased attenuation when the wires get wet due to the weather... All causing your internet to 'slow down'...

As a more recent 'fix' for that, we have recently witnessed a new pollution of an extravagant excess of new roadside cabinets to enable ADSL to be connected to homes and businesses over shorter distances to reduce the attenuation and so boost the speeds possible by a little. (Somehow, BT/Openreach get away with the lie that somehow that is the much higher speed "fibre-optics connected internet"!)

And so we have this "New Tech" that tries to dodge some of the inevitable interference that is suffered when trying to push ADSL slightly further/faster: VDSL2 vectoring

The crazy thing is: Fibre-To-The-Home/Premises is long ago more effective, vastly faster, lower maintenance, vastly more reliable, and lower cost than continuing to string along with rusty old wires.

There has to be an effective monopoly at play?...


There has to be a better way...

All in our greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I think you over-simplify, Martin.

Even before I moved into my current house in 1993, I was an active user of, eg, FIDO bulletin boards and messaging systems, using a variety of modems from 300 baud upwards. In this house, and still using the pre-existing copper connection, I've transitioned through 56K modems, ISDN, and the first ADSL service to be called 'broadband' - when 'extended reach' became available at 512K (Alcatel frog modem) in 2001. I'm now up to 70M FTTC.

I have never identified a cross-talk interference problem in all those years. My reaction to the Welsh TV story was that it more likely related to a local broadband service distributed by WiFi, which would be more susceptible to RF interference generated by, I assumed, an old CRT TV. But those details never make it into a 'funny' news article.

The only realistic alternative to the copper service round here would be the coaxial 'cable TV' service now managed (after many local amalgamations) by Virgin. The village had been surveyed for cable TV before I moved in - I could tell by the green spray-paint on the pavements - but the domestic service was never built. We have a trunk line which services the local primary school, and a mobile phone mast, but nothing else. I was told that even if a domestic service started, I wouldn't be able to subscribe, because the cable company du jour didn't have a wayleave over the unadopted access road.

The only other internet brand-names I'm aware of are all retail resellers of the OpenReach wholesale infrastructure.

That's rather politely worded for such profiteering from an effective monopoly...

I see not much has changed in 40 years then.
Had 1st BT landline installed in 1980 at an installation fee of £120.
Several years later relocate. House here already had a line installed.
To get it activated, had to pay an "installation" fee of £120.
Several years after that NTLworld arrived in the city. Bye bye BT.

That's rather politely worded for such profiteering from an effective monopoly...

I see not much has changed in 40 years then.
Had 1st BT landline installed in 1980 at an installation fee of £120.
Several years later relocate. House here already had a line installed.
To get it activated, had to pay an "installation" fee of £120.
Several years after that NTLworld arrived in the city. Bye bye BT.

It costs £120 for them to have the lines punched down in their office to reconnect them. What? Did you think it was for stringing cable?

It costs £120 for them to have the lines punched down in their office to reconnect them. What? Did you think it was for stringing cable?

The original installation? Yes. The reconnection? No.
Same fee, c'mon, you're having a laugh.

In a post-Covid world, the ICO may not be as gentle.

Will we see pigs flying?
Dowm from an estimated £183m to £20m

You never know, we might just see pigs flying. :-)

What feeble excuses.

The transition is far from straightforward and critics have accused governing bodies of making a "data grab" by insisting that clubs and players supply email addresses, dates of birth and gender details.
"We asked for those so that we can identify 640,000 people and make sure we start off with the best possible foundation platform to ensure their golf identity really is theirs."
One central calculation hub, one central library with one algorithm to calculate people's handicaps.

On dangerous ground

one repository for foreign governments to exploit.

Amongst other things. That's the "Special Relationship" at work.

The World Handicap System, devised by the sport's ruling bodies, the R&A and United States Golf Association, is being described as a "seismic" change to how the club game is administered.

Continued monopoly profiteering and gouging at its best:

'Cut off' village still blighted by slow broadband
wrote:

... people in Pandy, Wrexham, said it was abysmal only having broadband speeds of 1Mbps or less, limited mobile phone signal and no 4G.

Alison Bendall said it was "very frustrating" she could not video call her grandchildren.

BT said it was working to connect the "hardest to reach households"...

... poles carrying fibre in the village became active in the summer - only to deliver fibre to another area of the valley... some people lived just yards from active fibre cables, but were unable to connect without paying high costs...

"Four poles away, we actually have fibre, so I got really excited, but when the quote came in it was £85,000 just to connect our house. "They've 'updated' that to £8,000, but even 8,000 is just too much."

... "The costs for this area have been reviewed and been brought down to under £10,000 for the whole build, connecting 44 premises...

All just a cynical game to gouge government money to then profit from that paid-for infrastructure?...

Meanwhile, people be damned...



IT is what we allow it to be...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I've been trying to think where this could fit in the profits thread but can't see how.
However, it does show just how I.T. is being used & not always for the best.
Cancelled a Barclays Life policy in 2004 (no longer required).
Windsor Life (in trouble at this time), merged with Barclay Life 2008.
Finally integrated Jan 2012 & Co rebranded to ReAssure.
In the Assurance/Insurance Industry, happens regularly (Big money in those industries).
All good, until this morning.

Note dates. :-)
Received a letter from ReAssure dated 30/10/20 - Please confirm your details - WTF?
Gets worse, note the 2nd paragraph...

Barclays policies were transferred to ReAssure Ltd. We believe you're the policyholder of a former Barclays policy.

We've used an address we hold on our system to try & contact you about this policy. However, Royal Mail informed us that you no longer live there.
We then asked a tracing agency to find you & we've been giving the address above to contact you.

Much worse...
...further in the letter details on how to contact is given either by telephone or online - BOTH require that security will be required under that old chestnut "Data Protection Act".

Trying to get past the DPA on the phone is like watching paint dry. :-(

Argh! I hate computers.
Here's a puzzle for you all, genuine answers accepted.
Finished updating & consolidating my media library at the weekend.
Before adding any more films/TV Series/Episodes, cleaned up Kodi's library & database.
Win 7 machine runs Kodi 16.1 (have problems upgrading so happy with it as is).
Win 10 machine runs Kodi 18.9 (latest stable version).
Computer shows a total of 1,418 Films & 156 TV Series.
Kodi (Win 10) shows 1,420 & 143.
Kodi (Win 7) shows 1,424 & 145.
Which is correct?
Using an old dos command, printed out list of sub directories in TV (each sub directory is name of Series) & list of filenames in Films.
Not really bothered about the missing films, if any, but the TV is bugging me no end.
The actual list of the TV sub directories is 158 (however, there are 2 shows not being able to be picked up)
The problem is that I have checked off all the series on the list with Kodi.
Yet the total on both versions are 143 & 145.
:-(

Yet the total on both versions are 143 & 145.

Are there two file/folder names that have 'special' characters in them?...

Or are there two video files or video parts/fragments that are in a new format that only the more recent Kodi recognizes?

Good luck!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

No. Where there are 2 films/TV series with the same names, the year is provided.
The problem is that all on the printout are recognised, with the exception of those few not being picked up.
So, both versions should total 156.

Yesterday was a learning curve. Found 8 ghosts on the TV side. Checking on the folders on the new drives, found that the 8 only contained various media files except MKV. All the ghosts held them. Sorted but still had numerous issues so took the nuclear option, deleted Kodi's library & user data & restarted. Film folders didn't take too long but the TV folders I let run while I grabbed some Zzzzs around 6 am Thurs).

Resumed in the afternoon with both versions (16.1 & 18.9), still some missing but only a few on 16.1.
18.9 was weird, clicking the folder tabs for each source gave the correct total:
D 439
H 91
J 892
Yet the total in the main Movies tab was 1,254, so nuked the database & reinstalled 18.6. Not long finished with a total of 1,421.
Now for the remaining 4 missing TV shows. No joy so back & forth between TVDb & TMDb.
Neither version is picking up "Family of Spies". Its not on TVDb but is on TMDb as a TV Movie(mini-series)
Of the 4 TV shows, 3 were finally picked up - naming convention is pretty strict with these databases.
2 of the shows had the correct titles but the episodes did not follow conventions so renamed them leaving just the one left.
The 3rd had an exclamation mark missing from the title.
Just one continues to cause issues with 16.1 yet 18.6 now picks it up.

What I find confusing is that previous versions (including 16.1) picked them all up.
Knowing that it meets the naming convention, can only feel that it is an issue with the scrapers in use.
Have a drive with just 16 shows on so far, so going to shift it to that drive & change scraper from TVDb to TMDb.
If it messes up, changing it back to TVDb shouldn't take too long.
Did have several which were not picked up in eith films or TV due to them being in the wrong catergory.
Example, The Bourne Identity, even though it specified the year (1988) it was displayed on all versions as the Matt Damon movie.
Moving it to TV & putting file in its own named folder worked a treat.

Okay, that didn't work. Ended up losing another 3 shows with a 4th showing garbage.
It's why I like TVDb. once a show has ended & has sufficient data, it is locked to prevent further changes.
TMDb should really stick to movies. :-(

Mmmm...

Not sure what you're trying to mix...

Note that a "!" in a filename can have a special meaning or be specially 'interpreted' by some systems...

Are you trying to run multiple different versions of Kodi on the same one collection?

Or is this where you are trying to run Kodi on the same set of folders that are also accessed by a 'smart' tv/dvr?

Have you got one of the shared systems running an automatic purge to delete files/folders that have gone past an expire date? Or are there automated deletions to maintain free disk space??


Good luck for some good sleuthing!

Cheers,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)