HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jpmg@eng.cam.ac.uk (Patrick Gosling)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Video Plus
Date: 10 Jan 93 10:44:19 GMT
Organization: Cambridge University Engineering Department, UK

In article <CC.93Jan8120039@arran.dcs.ed.ac.uk> 
   cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Chris Cooke) wrote:
>Huh?  From what I've seen, it's far better than Oracle ever was.  Every time
>I tried to look at Oracle, I'd get disgusting great multi-coloured adverts
>shoved in my face for fortune tellers or Nintendos or other shit.  I always
>used BBC listings whenever I could, needless to say.  But now I can quite
>happily go back to ITV, because adverts are now less intrusive.

My worry would be that this just reflects the fact that the new franchise
holder hasn't had enough time to acquire the previous holders advertising
market.  It seems to me that Oracle had a very fast increase in irritating
adverts over as short a time as a year up until December.


-patrick.
From: jkn@ohm.york.ac.uk (John Nicoll)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Clangers patterns sought & offered
Date: 11 Jan 93 17:16:16 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Electronics Department, University of York, UK

In <1993Jan6.152541.2891@lsl.co.uk> snail@lsl.co.uk writes:

>In article <1993Jan5.110235.5719@ohm.york.ac.uk>, jkn@ohm.york.ac.uk (John Nicoll) writes:
>> Now that the blessed `Clangers' is back on TV,

>Daft question, when is it back on TV? and in which TV region(s)?
>-- 
>snail@lsl.co.uk      

I can't quote chapter and verse, but it has been on around
1:45pm on Fridays in the London area (along with, for instance,
episodes of `The Herb Garden'. This hasn't stood the test of time,
IMHO). I really must look to see if it's on in Yorkshire.

	john N

-- 
john nicoll (jkn@ohm.york.ac.uk)
Department of Electronics  University of York
Heslington   YORK YO1 5DD U.K
Tel +44 (904) 433221   Fax +44 (904) 432335
From: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: VIZspeak - What is frottage ?
Date: 6 Jan 93 18:18:35 GMT
Reply-To: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Distribution: uk
Organization: Prifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth

On 5 Jan 93 12:41:49 GMT, jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson) said:

jeremy> (John McLoughlin) writes:

John> Hello, Guess who got a VIZ album for Xmas !! The subject line says
John> it all; so, just what is 'frottage' ? The word was used in the
John> context of an insult or obscenity. Any pointers from the suitably
John> depraved ?  Cheers in advance,

jeremy> Maybe you should have asked Santa for a dictionary as well ;-)
jeremy> Frottage is rubbing against someone for sexual pleasure, for
jeremy> example in a crowded place.

And, would you believe, frottage is a criminal offence in this country,
attracting fairly nasty prison terms. If the police were ever to crash
into a disco they could have several dozen criminal cases on their
hands.
--
Piercarlo Grandi, Dept of CS, PC/UW@Aberystwyth <pcg@aber.ac.uk>
  E l'italiano cantava, cantava. E le sue disperate invocazioni giunsero
  alle orecchie del suo divino protettore, il dio della barzelletta
From: grc@stl.stc.co.uk (Gary Cook)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: New teletext franchise
Date: 9 Jan 93 11:20:56 GMT
Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.3.130.15

>
>   What are peoples opinions on the new teletext service providers ?
>
>   Personally, I thik it has been completley jumbled up with pages everywhere
>   and the subtitles in the meridian area still do not work.
>
>   It has become very "tabloid-ish" with adult sex help pages etc, and 
>   local information is now split over channel 3 + 4, where as before you
>   only needed to be on channel 3.
>
>   Nathan.
>

I agree, I think that both BBC and ITV teletext services are an utter
load of crap now that they have both recently changed.  Additionally, 
the seek time is horendous. 

All of a sudden a newspaper looks a good idea.

-grc.

--
  Gary Cook,                  LL      UU   UU   FFFFFF   CCCCCC             
  BNR Europe Limited.          LL      UU   UU   FF       CC   
  Harlow,                       LL      UU   UU   FFFFFF   CC                
  England.                       LL      UU   UU   FF       CC               
  E-Mail : grc@bnr.co.uk          LLLLL   UUUUUUU   FF       CCCCCC ... & PSV.
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: ph10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Philip Hazel)
Subject: Re: Oil spills - history
Organization: University of Cambridge Computing Service
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:33:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.112639.2692@dct.ac.uk>, ccdarg@dct.ac.uk (Alan Greig) writes:
|>
|>   Dr. J. Smith, the-
|>   rapist, had just...

The longer form is something like

     Dr. J. Smith, the-
     rapist, had been pre-
     aching on several wee-
     knights.

[Since I started this thread, I can't resist trying to have the last word.
I know I'll fail, though...]

--
Internet: P.Hazel@ucs.cam.ac.uk       University Computing Service,
JANET:    P.Hazel@uk.ac.cam.ucs       Computer Laboratory, Pembroke St,
Phone:    +44 223 334714              Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Record shops (LPs)
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 13:50:10 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt) writes:
> mathew (mathew@mantis.co.uk) wrote:
> : joe@jshark.inet-uk.co.uk (Joe Sharkey) writes:
> : > CDs may be wonderful.  But:  *I WANT TO BUY LP's*.  OK?
> 
> : I want to buy LaserDiscs instead of video cassettes, for the same reason I
> : prefer CD over cassette.  But nobody else wants LaserDisc, so nobody makes
> 
> Hardly the same issue, since there ISN'T a large installed base of
> laserdisc players.  There is a huge number of people who have invested
> heavily in LP reproduction, and they are being shafted.

That's why I mentioned Betamax in the sections of my article which you
carefully deleted.  There were many people who had invested heavily in
Betamax -- would you agree that they were shafted by some grand conspiracy to
kill Betamax?

> Well, you're demanding them.  I doubt you're the only one.  If there
> was industry commitment to the format, demand would grow.  Format wars
> are led by the corporations, not the customer - remember the video
> tape format wars.

What, you mean the ones I mentioned that you deleted before replying?  You
know, I think I do actually.


mathew

Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: dave@yoyodyne.demon.co.uk (David Bisping)
Subject: Re: Video Plus 
Distribution: world
Organization: none in Particular
Reply-To: dave@yoyodyne.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:32:41 +0000

In article <1993Jan5.195232.16666@unipalm.co.uk> keith@unipalm.co.uk writes:

[stuff deleted]
>The new ITV/CH4 is much better - the presence of regional news is
>particularly to be commended. But I hope the ITC comes down hard if
>the news starts showing any of the extreme bias churned out in the
>rags produced by the News partner in the venture, Associated
>Newspapers (Daily Mail and London Standard - gak).

I cannot any any circumstances agree with you here. Personaly I think the so
called teletext service offered on C3/C4 is totally crap. Points

i) Why for godsakes stick the news service on C4. A News service should be
  24 hour. What news is on C4 is splatted by the graphics.

ii) The Time update on the main index page of C4 is totally up the spout. 
  U either get a blank time or a time that is 20 secs out date. At least
  for us with Fastext point the index page to p400.

iii) Do we have to have a 'Welcome to Teletext' splatted on the index page !

Also whats wrong with Subtitles and Fasttext access, they wre OK with oracle.

Comments??

A Very Annoyed Teletext user

-- 
--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--**--
David Bisping                       |    dbisping@cix.compulink.co.uk (perfer)
Currently 'resting' as Actors say   | or dave@yoyodyne.demon.co.uk
                                    |    Tel +44 81 531 2703   
"This new learning fascinates me Sir Bedervere, Tell me again how Sheep's
 bladders may be employed to detect Earthquakes"  Monty Python & the Holy Grail
**--**--**--**--**  PGP version 2.1 Public Key available  -**--**--**--**--**
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Transport subsidies - Was: Car Parking
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 93 17:14:05 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

snail@lsl.co.uk writes:
> In article <Fm8uwB20w165w@mantis.co.uk>, mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
> > So you *did* choose to buy them.  Or do you really swallow the "Buy one, ge
> > one free!" stuff advertisers spew out?  Borland even do different versions 
> > their C++ compiler, for those who don't want to buy all the libraries.
> 
> Don't assume so much, PCs? Hmmm, gave them up a while back, mind you my paren
> have one :-) Borlands C++ environment does look nice, pity about the editor
> though.
> 
> No I didn't choose to buy the libraries. We're talking Atari-ST here, 1987ish
> and if you wanted a C compiler, or an Assembler or whatever they ALL came wit
> libraries to support GEM and the VDI etc, despite all I wanted was an Assembl
> to knock out 68000 games with NO GEM, NO VDI etc. Oh yes and the Modula2
> compiler came with it's set.

Well, if you wanted an assembler sans libraries you could've got Fast BASIC. 
That's what I did.  I think DevPac came without libraries originally as well;
the version I had did.  If you want C, you can use gcc.  There's a free
Modula 2 as well.  Of course, those weren't around in 1987, but then the
machines were fairly new and with a fairly small following.

> Besides, as you've said you don't own a car. You are not paying for the roads
> unless you buy road tax dics each year out of sheer altruism.

I am paying for the road.  The road tax revenue just about covers the cost of
physically maintaining the existing road network, as far as I can work out
from the figures -- but only if you assume 100% payment, assume all cars pay
the full rate, assume all motorcycles are >50cc, and so on.  It doesn't cover
medical costs, or associated expenditure such as paying for traffic police,
repairs to buildings, and the like.


mathew
From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Drugs
Date: 8 Jan 93 13:41:16 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:

~In article <29962@castle.ed.ac.uk~ fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:

~~tjfs@tadtec.co.uk (Tim Steele) writes:

~~~- Alcohol makes some people aggressive; cannabis doesn't

~~The guy who killed a student with a baseball bat a few months back was
~~under the influence of cannabis (though I can't remember if alcohol was
~~also involved). I suspect that it'd be more likely that *some* people
~~are made more agressive by cannabis. Perhaps less proportionately than
~~by alcohol though.

~~FoFP

~After over 20 years of mixing with cannabis users daily, I say bullshit to 
~that idea.  The ones that are aggressive when straight are aggressive when 
~stoned, the ones that are passive when straight are passive when stoned.
~I've seen people get nervous and edgy, but not aggressive or violent, unless 
~they were already like that.

Fair enough. I simply posted to argue against the implication in the
original post that cannabis didn't make people aggressive. One of its
effects as a drug seems to be to exaggerate whatever feeling the user
has at the time. If the user generally feels agressive and violent then
it may very well increase this feeling. The murderer in the baseball-bat
case claimed that it contributed, although I suppose that people will
generally blame something else apart from themselves. The legal system
appears to accept intoxication as an excusing factor, particularly in
drunk-driving murders. The solution would perhaps be to hold people
fully responsible for any acts commited while they were voluntarily
intoxicated. If we don't assign responsibility, we can't reasonably
expect people to act responsibly.

sidenote: I read once that the effect of alcohol isn't necessarily to
make folks more active or aggressive and that there are cultures where
it makes folks passive or sleepy. The implication was that the effect
depends on expectation. I haven't done any research (other than the
usual sort - and quite a lot of that :-) so maybe someone who knows more
could comment?

Another sidenote: This thread has mentioned cannabis being used in food
for those who dislike smoking. Would it be difficult to put the active
ingredients in a drink in measured doses? If it were ever legal, I'd
expect pubs would probably sell such drinks.


>  Me, I stick to beer these days.

Personally I just like to drink beer :-)

FoFP
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Mornington Crescent rules anyone?
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:51:58 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.


Before anyone goes any further I think you should really explain the
meta-rules and the meta-meta-rules and the meta-meta-meta-rules and the....

Otherwise the rules just don't make sense.



-- 
Geoff. Lane. | Internet: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk | Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin,  Manchester Computing Centre,  Oxford Rd,  Manchester, M13 9PL
I have made a truly wonderful discovery -- after two bottles of good, cheap
Bulgarian wine ANY television comedy program will seem funny (except shows
with Mr. Beadle which require a 6-pack of Newcastle Brown in addition!)
From: cah@cs.bham.ac.uk (Ceri Hopkins)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Oil spills - history
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:21:46 GMT
	<1993Jan6.132111.21664@wraxall.inmos.co.uk>
	<JIM.93Jan6161142@hunter.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

>>>>> On 6 Jan 93 16:11:42 GMT, jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) said:

Jim> In article <1993Jan6.132111.21664@wraxall.inmos.co.uk> des@inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd) writes:

Jim>    David Shepherd (des@inmos.co.uk) wrote:

David> just read in todays guardian that it was 1967 - so my memory was right

Jim> Given the Guardian's reputation for misprints, perhaps the date was
Jim> 1976 or 1679? :-)

Things have improved a little, but my candidate for their worst howler
of 1992 was in the headline of the editorial (which makes it that much
worse), which said

"Carrott and stick for Serbia"

What on earth Jasper's going to do about the situation is anyone's
guess...

Very careless.

Ceri
--
Ceri Hopkins                                    
School of Computer Science                        C.A.Hopkins@Cs.Bham.Ac.Uk
University of Birmingham			  Tel. +44-21-414-3743
From: eset08@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Strobridge)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Solmin
Date: 5 Jan 93 19:51:48 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

snail@lsl.co.uk writes:



>And one should be very careful with paracetamol. Its a real pity these days 
>that just about all doctors immediately recommend paracetamol in favour of
>anything else. Some people die even if they follow the correct recommendations,



      And another important thing to remember is to read the contents list
on packets of any cold cure that you buy over the counter.   There were
several nasty stories last year of people who had been dosing themselves
with two or three different types of cold remedies during the day
and then going home at night and taking yet another one together with
several paracetemol.    Since most of the remedies also contained
paracetemol they ended up with an overdose.

      But then I'm not entirely convinced that these cold remedies
really do anything more than disguise the symptoms anyway and certainly
don't cure one!    


jill
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: P.A.Foulkes@bradford.ac.uk (Pete Foulkes)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Solmin
Date: 7 Jan 93 12:55:15 GMT
Organization: University of Bradford, UK
Originator: 91453585@muser

In article <1993Jan4.135658.26032@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
(Robin Fairbairns) writes: >In article
<1993Jan4.120608.9177@bradford.ac.uk>, P.A.Foulkes@bradford.ac.uk (Pete
Foulkes) writes: 
>|> Try Nurofen, they're sugar coated and actually rather nice. 
>|> 
>|>Based on Ibuprofen (sp.) I think. 
> 
>Two points: 
>
>1) Nurofen is a Boots product and is seriously more expensive than
>generic Ibuprofen (correct spelling).  If you can, buy the generic.
>

'tis not ! It's made by Oral-B (the ones who make the toothbrushes).
I used to get them free so the price never came into it !

Just being picky :-)

Merry new year.

Peter

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Peter Foulkes    | p.a.foulkes@bradford.ac.uk             |
| Bradford, UK     | or...  pafoulke@nyx.cs.du.edu	    |
--------------S----M----I----L----E----!----!----------------
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: ian@unipalm.co.uk (Ian Phillipps)
Subject: Re: Video Plus
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 12:22:30 GMT

phil@compnews.co.uk (Phil Male) writes:

>anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) writes:

>: 	Hear, hear.  I'm fed up with having to set all BBC recordings
>: to start 2mins earlier and finish 5mins later than advertised, just in
>: case.  [How do Video+ users cope with this?  If you have to tap in a
>: stream of random digits *and* *then* still have to fiddle with the
>: results, this must make the system completely worthless, surely?]

>The V+ codes are set to published times. This was a specification given to
>us by 'the big G'. But as we now handle all the late changes for the
>newspapers hopefully the pages are a lot more accurate these days :-) [duck]

Big G? Surely our esteemed Conservative government isn't involved in
this? If so, I'll complain to my MP about waste of my tax money.
I'll just have to move to the Huntingdon constituency first :-)

The last reason for using the codes just went away.
I'll stick to programming by hand, thank yew. Add 0 minutes for C4
(except late night). Add up to 10 minutes for BBC, especially ends of
thrillers.  If the word "live" appears in the program listings for the
evening, add 30 minutes.

BTW - I've never known the BBC start early. ITV sometimes starts up to a
minute early, but I've never missed anything important.

Ian
-- 
Ian Phillipps, Unipalm Ltd, 216 Science Park,		Phone +44 223 420002
Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 4WA, England.		Phax  +44 223 426868
PIPEX is a division of Unipalm Ltd. - phone 0223 424616.
From: eset08@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Strobridge)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Hypnotism
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:25:19 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Edinburgh University

Sorry, I've gone and lost the note I meant to reply to.   

I watched a programme once where people went through hypnotic
regression.   It was very convincing until they tried to check up on the
stories.   Some of the facts were accurate.   Others were totally
invented - like the Coppergate at York being a large gate made of
copper.   I'm just not happy about accepting this at face value - the
mind is quite complex enough to play tricks with invented memories
especially in a suggestive hypnotic state - which is the whole point of
hypnotism.


jill
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Record shops (LPs)
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 93 17:52:36 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

bmcgeene@gssec.bt.co.uk (Brian McGeeney) writes:
> The question of value is thus how long each format will last.
> This is where CD's tend to score - you can play them on any crap
> system and they won't wear out. The same can't be said for LP's.
> 
> If however, the LP's played on a decent system with a decent cartridge
> it's gonna last a helluva lot longer. 

Than what?  Not than a CD.

> On a related point:
> Does anyone know how long CD's last before the surface starts to oxidise
> and they become unplayable?

N+1 years, where N is the number of years for which CDs have been available.
Not too long ago N was three; I have plenty of CDs which are nearing their
ninth birthday with absolutely no signs of deterioration.

File it away with green pens, stabilizing rings, and the Rapture.


mathew
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Video Plus
Date: 11 Jan 93 08:44:41 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.

In article <1iodi8INNifa@cardamom.compnews.co.uk> phil@compnews.co.uk writes:
>: > I tried to look at Oracle, I'd get disgusting great multi-coloured adverts 
>: > shoved in my face for fortune tellers or Nintendos or other shit.  I always 
>: Unfortunately, Teletext UK has also fallen into this trap.
>
>It's known as 'making a buck'.

It's called `pissing off the viewer' by the rest of us :-)  At least in a
newspaper the ads are seperated from the editorial - they can be skipped or
read at will.

The REALLY annoying part of it is when you have a multi-screen page with an
ad screen in the middle and the following screen does NOT have an `updated
page' flag which means you are forced to display the ad if you want any
chance of getting the page you want, rather than switching back to the
picture and waiting for the updated page display to appear on-screen.



-- 
Geoff. Lane. | Internet: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk | Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin,  Manchester Computing Centre,  Oxford Rd,  Manchester, M13 9PL
I have made a truly wonderful discovery -- after two bottles of good, cheap
Bulgarian wine ANY television comedy program will seem funny (except shows
with Mr. Beadle which require a 6-pack of Newcastle Brown in addition!)
From: keith@unipalm.co.uk (Keith Mitchell)
Subject: Re: Teletext services (was Video Plus)
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 13:13:51 GMT

phil@compnews.co.uk (Phil Male) writes:

>Regional sport coverage should get better.

Another improvement suggestion, I'm afraid. I was horrified to see there
is *no* British Rail information in the ITV travel section whatever.

Is it within Teletext UK's powers to do something about this, or are
BR making their usual shambles of providing information ? The information
on Ceefax is barely adequate, but is better than nothing.

Keith Mitchell

Public IP Exchange             keith@pipex.net
216 The Science Park           keith@unipalm.co.uk
Cambridge, UK                  keith@uk.co.pipex	(non-IP JANET sites)
Phone: +44 223-424616
Fax:   +44 223-426868
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: dave@alex.com (Dave Quinn)