HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: joe@jshark.inet-uk.co.uk (Joe Sharkey)
Subject: Re: Hi-fi TV sound?
Organization: Independent Network (UK)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:42:05 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.164637.11134@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>Is it possible to obtain, fairly cheaply, devices which pick up television
>signals and output decent stereo sound through an amp to speakers?

Haven't seen any for years, sorry...

They were doo-danglies that picked up the (still "radio") sound signal
and fed it through a decent demodulator and into a hi-fi.  Sound quality
should be comparable to FM radio in most respects.  "Dual-mono" (not stereo)
but were only a few pounds  --  but that would be quite a few pound now...

Maybe someone still has one?  Maybe the "enthusiast" shops in Practical
Television can help?

And Nicam is probably better - maybe not much...

>especially noticable when I'm watching opera on the box: the voices are
>horribly distorted and the orchestra sinks into mush.

Isn't opera supposed to sound like that - maybe I need a new whisker from
the moggy ;)

>Stephen Wilcox

joe.
-- 
Joe Sharkey      joe@jshark.inet-uk.co.uk      ...!uunet!ibmpcug!jshark!joe
150 Hatfield Rd, St Albans, Herts AL1 4JA, UK        Got a real domain name
(+44) 727 838662           Mail/News Feeds (v32/v32bis): info@inet-uk.co.uk
From: gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Mornington Crescent rules anyone?
Date: 7 Jan 93 13:56:34 GMT
Reply-To: gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

In article <726409702snz@palnu.demon.co.uk> neil@palnu.demon.co.uk writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.214123.7118@lut.ac.uk> L.H.Wood@lut.ac.uk writes:
>
>>Does anyone fancy a game of old Mornington?
>
>Mind terribly if I join you?
>
>Starting at South Kensington and travelling to Hammersmith Broadway

Er, excuse me, but what exactly is this game?  It can't be any known
variant of Mornington Crescent because in that game each player
names a single station/street/district.

--
Guy Barry, University of Cambridge | Phone: +44 (0)223 334757 
Computer Laboratory                | Fax: +44 (0)223 334678
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street  | JANET: Guy.Barry@uk.ac.cam.cl 
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England, UK     | Internet: Guy.Barry@cl.cam.ac.uk
From: cah@cs.bham.ac.uk (Ceri Hopkins)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Drugs
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:46:13 GMT
	<1993Jan7.142137.23932@tadtec.uucp>
	<1993Jan8.100615.5420@infodev.cam.ac.uk>
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

>>>>> On 8 Jan 93 10:06:15 GMT, rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) said:

Robin> In article <1993Jan7.142137.23932@tadtec.uucp>, Tim Steele <tjfs@tadtec.co.uk> writes:

 |> Secondly, a friend showed me his toxicology textbook which had a whole 
 |> chapter devoted to arguing the case for banning alcohol and replacing it 
 |> with cannabis.  
 [...]

Robin> On the other hand, it would surely be discriminatory against those of
Robin> us who can't cope with smoking.  I've only ever experienced the stuff
Robin> once, in rock buns (of all things), and was told that its lack of
Robin> effect was to be expected - I should have been smoking it.

Alternatively you could have eaten more rock buns.

Ceri
--
Ceri Hopkins                                    
School of Computer Science                        C.A.Hopkins@Cs.Bham.Ac.Uk
University of Birmingham			  Tel. +44-21-414-3743
Xref: sparky uk.misc:2463 talk.bizarre:44290
From: ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson)
Newsgroups: uk.misc,talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: Hyphening
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:05:43 GMT
Followup-To: uk.misc,talk.bizarre
Organization: William's Wonderful Wonky Widget Warehouse


In article <3363@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:

#  Is the word "rape" ever funny? Not in my book. 

Then your book obviously isn't the Flanders and Swann Song Book.

-- Ken Johnson  "Have some madeira, m'dear,
                 The words seemed to ring in her ear,
                 Until the next morning
                    She woke up in bed
                 With a smile on her lips
                    And an ache in her head,
                 And a beard in her ear-hold that tickled and said
                 Have some Madeira, m'dear!"



A BEER TOKEN TO THE FIRST PERSON TO XPOST THIS TO
ALT.SEXUAL.ABUSE.RECOVERY. 


-- 
Son, all the pretty, intelligent, healthy     #    Ken Johnson, AIAI,
young women are taken. It's a basic rule of   #    80 South Bridge, Edinburgh
the universe, and if you don't like it, go    #    Tel 031-650 2756 
somewhere else.        -- my dad  1906-1992   #    Fax 031-650 6513
From: pcunnell@micrognosis.co.uk (Paul Cunnell)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Light (Bulbs)
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:30:56 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Micrognosis, London, UK.

In article <2367@mrcu>, mark.whalley@uk.co.gec-mrc (Mark Whalley) writes:
|> Help,
|>  I am looking for one of those 'light bulb' things which show the effects of 
|> solar radiation pressure. You know what I mean, a large light bulb, sealed, with
|> a vacuum inside and 4 squares (one side black, one side white) each fixed, 
|> paddle like, to an arm of a, horizontal, cross and the whole lot balanced on a
|> point.  When you put it in the light - it rotates!
|> Problem is WHERE CAN I GET ONE FROM????
|> 
|> Ta in advence for any help
|>                          Mark
|> 

Just about any of the junk shops around Carnaby Street should do you.

BTW, my understanding was that these things worked because of the 
small amount of air left in the 'bulb'. The vanes get hotter on the
black side than the white side, thus air molecules get hotter when 
colliding with the black side, and rebound faster. The resulting
reaction causes the thing to rotate.

But I may be talking rubbish here. Doubtless one of the JET people
will be qualified to correct me ;-).

-- 
Paul Cunnell (pcunnell@micrognosis.co.uk) 
Micrognosis, 63 Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4N 4UD, UK +44 71 815 5294 
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: mclaggan@movies.enet.dec.com (Dougie Mclaggan)
Subject: Re: Video Plus
Organization: Digital Equipment Co Ltd, Livingston, Scotland
Distribution: uk
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:05:38 GMT


In article <1i9amvINNqps@cardamom.compnews.co.uk>, phil@compnews.co.uk 
(Phil Male) writes...
>keith@unipalm.co.uk (Keith Mitchell) writes:
>: ian@unipalm.co.uk (Ian Phillipps) writes:
>: 
>: >I'm not sure if this should be posted to sci.crypt, but does anyone
>: >know (or even better, has anyone reverse-engineered) the code numbers
>: >appearing in the Radio Times for the Video Plus device?
>: 
>: Yes, they have been published on the net.
> 
>Sorry guys:
> 
>From DaviD W. Sanderson (dws@ssec.wisc.edu) posting in alt.sources:
>>Example 3:  encode 1 4 93 5 900 30
>>                 You have asked for the VCRPLUS code of a tv show
>>                 on January 4th of 1993, channel number 5, at 9 o clock
>>                 (in the morning), that lasts for 30 minutes.
>>                 The program answers back:
>>                  1   4  93   5  900    30    VCRPLUS_CODE=    19297
> 
> 
>: phil:sage$; gemc -v 5 4 1 93 9 0 9 30
>gemc: channel 5 date 4/1/93 from 09:00 to 09:30
>Gemstar code: 2571128
> 
>The encoding system in the UK is different. Just thought I would save you
>some time.
> 

The decoder posted to alt.sources correctly decoded the five digit codes I
tried from the Christmas edition of "What's on TV", so the coding scheme
must be fairly similar.

I had to change the bit_shuffle() routine slightly to get all the five-digit
codes to work, and six digit codes give the correct date but the wrong
channel no. and index into start-time/length look-up table (these are out by
a constant factor each time).

I haven't tried the encoder, but the readme file says that it can't produce
7-digit or 8-digit codes.


Dougie.

PS: What does a real VideoPlus machine make of the code (19297) given above? 

>--
> 
>phil 
>   ___/   /
>   /_/)  /             Phil Male, Director, Information Systems
>  / /_ '/  Computer Newspaper Services, The Bishops Manor, Howden, DN14 7BL
> / / ///    +44 43043 Tel: 1100 Fax: 1108/2022  email: phil@compnews.co.uk


----------------------------------------------------------------
Dougie McLaggan                   <mclaggan@movies.enet.dec.com>
VMS Engineering, Digital Equipment Co Ltd, Livingston, Scotland.
From: tgll@datasci.co.uk (Tim Lyons)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: NEWSGROUP: uk.misc
Date: 11 Jan 93 13:17:10 GMT
Reply-To: tgll@datasci.co.uk (Tim Lyons)
Distribution: uk
Organization: Data Sciences, Farnborough, Hampshire, UK

Please include me as a vote for splitting out uk.transport, so as
to decrease the transport traffic on this group.

Tim.
From: A.J.Robinson@lut.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Light (Bulbs)
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:19:08 GMT
Reply-To: A.J.Robinson@lut.ac.uk (Alan Robinson)
Distribution: uk
Organization: Loughborough University, UK.

In article <2367@mrcu> mark.whalley@uk.co.gec-mrc (Mark Whalley) writes:
>Help,
> I am looking for one of those 'light bulb' things which show the effects of 
>solar radiation pressure. You know what I mean, a large light bulb, sealed, with
>a vacuum inside and 4 squares (one side black, one side white) each fixed, 
>paddle like, to an arm of a, horizontal, cross and the whole lot balanced on a
>point.  When you put it in the light - it rotates!
>Problem is WHERE CAN I GET ONE FROM????
>
They're called radiometers (I think) and you could try novelty shops,
'hippy' type shops (sorry-dont know what else to call them- we have a 
couple in Chesterfield and I love them. Theyre full of incense
sticks, novelty games, childrens toys, expensive glass ornaments +
nick-nacks - you must know the genre), or any shop that sells 'anything'.
Any catalogue catering for xmas/birthday gifts might also have them.
Go anywhere you would go looking for a present for someone when 
you haven't a CLUE what to get them.


Hope this helps,

Alan.
From: 90sra@eng.cam.ac.uk (S.R. Atkins)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Light (Bulbs)
Date: 10 Jan 93 22:12:05 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: cam.eng

'Fraid I've no idea where you get the beasties from (but I'd be interested if
anyone has any suggestions tho')

The properly evacuated bulbs do indeed work by the difference in photon
pressure between matt, and reflective surfaces, but those with a softer
vacuum (such as all the ones I've ever seen) work by the difference in
temperature between matt and shiny sides bouncing gas molecules off at
different speeds (and so rotate in the opposite direction.....)

Try cross-posting to sci.folklore (?)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm an engineer - you shouldn't believe my physics....
From: maj@cl.cam.ac.uk (Martyn Johnson)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Video Plus (a few questions) Phil?
Date: 11 Jan 93 14:45:26 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

In article <1993Jan11.123039.11145@ohm.york.ac.uk>, nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk (Nigel Metheringham) writes:

|> I haven't 2 teletext TVs to try out time sync between channels, but
|> when BBC2 transmit text in vision (cheap programming!!), if you put
|> your set in mix mode (and don't send your eyes mad), the synch
|> differences are visible.

Oh come on... at the differences we're seeing these days, any old
digital watch will do as a transfer standard for comparing channels.

At the moment, only BBC1/2 seem to be any good. Their teletext time
is generally very close to the truth. We are told that it drifts
when MSF is down, but I have never checked this myself.  Oracle
used to be not bad, but the new Teletext time is terrible.  The
various channels I get on cable are pretty ropey; some usually
within a few seconds, but I observed one recently wrong by around
ten minutes.

-- 
Martyn Johnson      maj@cl.cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Computer Lab
Cambridge UK
From: des@inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Shrewsbury Station on a Sunday Afternoon
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:18:11 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Brian O'Donovan (odonovan@inmos.co.uk) wrote:
: If things go according to plan, I will be on Shrewsbury Station from
: 4:48pm to 6:41pm on Sunday 17th January, along with my wife and two 
: kiddies.

: I would like to know what the station and surrounding area are like.
: Is there anything to see, do or eat there at that time?

you could always take along anoraks, thermos flasks and notebooks 
and pretend to be trainspotters :-)


--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk                     tel: 0454-616616 x 625
                inmos ltd, 1000 aztec west, almondsbury, bristol, bs12 4sq
                New Year Resolution for 1993: Start using capital letters.
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Transport subsidies - Was: Car Parking
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 93 18:06:20 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt) writes:
> mathew (mathew@mantis.co.uk) wrote:
> : > : If I leave little bottles of nitroglycerine on the road, and some damn 
> : > : goes and knocks one over, the resulting explosion is entirely his fault
> : > : Therefore he should pay, right?
> : > 
> : > You appear to be feel that even if the accident is the fault to the
> : > cyclist, the car driver should somehow be blamed for having a bigger
> : > vehicle.
> 
> : He should certainly take some of the blame for doing something
> : unnecessarily dangerous.  Or is the mad bomber similarly not to blame?
> 
> That is a completely silly analogy.  Explosives in the road are not
> the expected norm, but roads *are* expected to contain moving
> vehicles; that's what they are *for*.

IRA bombs in railway stations are certainly the expected norm.  If they're
triggered by movement, does that mean the person who kicks the litter bin and
sets the bomb off is the one who's to blame?

Cars are only the expected norm now because we've developed a
multi-billion-pound car industry with its own car culture.  It doesn't have
to be that way at all.  Roads didn't use to be crawling with cars, and
there's no reason why they have to be that way for all time.

> OK, here's a thought for you.  Your perfect world now exists and
> everyone cycles or uses public transport.  If a cyclist causes an
> accident in which he gets killed by a bus, who would you blame?

That would depend upon the specifics of the situation.  The point is that by
cycling or travelling by bus or train one can minimize the chance that one
will be responsible for the death of another.  Letting everyone have cars is
inherently a dangerous way of allowing people to travel.


mathew
From: smgf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Steve Freeman)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: 1 bedroom furnished flat available in London
Keywords: flat rent london
Date: 8 Jan 93 14:51:32 GMT
Reply-To: smgf@computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk
Distribution: uk
Organization: Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, UK

I have a one-bedroom furnished flat available in Camberwell from 
February, rent about L130 p.w. All very tasteful... suit single, couple or
two singles. Minimum period six months (assured shorthold tenancy), 
longer than that open for discussion.

for non-email replies, please call 0223-61108.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steve Freeman, Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, UK
Steve.Freeman@computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk

"The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder"
   Sir Astley Cooper.
Newsgroups: uk.misc
From: keith@unipalm.co.uk (Keith Mitchell)
Subject: Re: Video Plus
Organization: Unipalm Ltd., 216 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4WA, UK
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 19:52:32 GMT

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

>anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) writes:
>: 	My reaction exactly!  Thanks, Phil, for the good news, and for
>: all the hacking you're doing.  It already seems to me that the revised
>: ITV/C4 teletext is much better than the old -- sadly, BBC1/2 has gone
>: the other way.

>I liked the layout on Ceefax at first, probably because it was a change more
>than anything... and I've been staring at the layouts for "Teletext on 3/4"
>for so long, but after using it for a while I tend to agree with you, it's
>a mess, the side bars are a waste of a good three characters.

I think the new Ceefax layout is dreadful - they have removed the
single page I used the most (Newswatch 102). The side bars are worse
than a waste of space - if your reception is slightly dodgy, a whole
line can be garbled into graphics, instead of just missing some
letters. BBC 1 has almost no info of use, and BBC 2 is interminably
slow. My feeling is there have been too many changes to Ceefax
layout lately, they were only just getting things right after the
last overhaul. Analogies with Radio 3 and Classic FM, I think ?

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).

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
From: simpsong@dns0.bham.ac.uk (Glyn Simpson)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: New teletext franchise
Date: 11 Jan 1993 10:26:09 GMT
Organization: The University of Birmingham, England
Reply-To: G.Simpson@bham.ac.uk
NNTP-Posting-Host: dns0.bham.ac.uk
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

The Unix Guru (ndl@unix.brighton.ac.uk) wrote:
> 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.

I found that some of the fastext buttons wouldnt work - i havent really
tried it yet, sop it may have been a glitch on January 1st.

> 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.

I had just about got used to the old one! The new BBC style isnt as good as
the old one - it seems that pages are everywhere with this now !

I quite agree about the local info - i'm not sure where to look yet, and havent
found the local cinema listings or soap updates which i found i read a lot!
Not that i watch any soaps......

--
Glyn Simpson, Systems Officer,  //  Voice: +44 (0) 21 414 6575
University of Birmingham        //  Fax:   +44 (0) 21 414 3952
Email: G.Simpson@bham.ac.uk     //  NIC Handle: GS56
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Hi-fi TV sound?
Date: 8 Jan 93 12:31:46 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre

In article <1993Jan7.164637.11134@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

>Is it possible to obtain, fairly cheaply, devices which pick up television
>signals and output decent stereo sound through an amp to speakers? I ask
>because although I can very happily live with a cheap small television's
>picture (it comes with the house so there's no cost above the licence) I'm now
>so used to hi-fi sound that a tinny mono speaker grates on the ears. This is
>especially noticable when I'm watching opera on the box: the voices are
>horribly distorted and the orchestra sinks into mush.
>-- 

It costs about the same as a decent hifi tuner, coz that's what it is.
If your telly is nowt special, maybe some wizzkid in your uni's electronics 
dept (if oxford soils its campus with such mundane stuff) could trick out 
the decoded audio from your tv onto a wire to connect to your hifi.

Actually just substituting a decent speaker might be enough to mollify your 
ears.

        Never believe an experiment until it is confirmed by theory 
    Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England    (44|0)61-275-6033
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Transport subsidies and Record Companies
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 15:58:37 GMT
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
X-Newsreader: rusnews v0.98

snail@lsl.co.uk writes:
> I don't understand the repairs to buildings or medical costs bit though.

It's quite simple: it costs money to repair the damage done by cars and by
the chemicals they pump out.

Hell, I won't even begin to mention the suffering caused to the families of
the thirty people who are killed by motor cars in the UK every day of the
week, as it's very hard to evaluate the cost of such anguish.

> Back to the original idea: when I buy a CD of music and there is a track on it
> that I don't like, I don't make use of that music, so maybe I should have
> a refund (much like you want a motorway refund).

There was a system on Tomorrow's World where you could pick the tracks you
wanted from a list and have them recorded onto a CD specially for you.

>                                                 What pisses me off about the
> music industry, is putting one really good track or collectable track on each
> of the (now four) formats for the chart. So poor old collector has to go out 
> and buy all the formats just to get the four elusive tracks but also has
> to pay for multiple copies of the other stuff also on each format.
> Then again, record companies in this respect, are a cartel and you don't
> support cartels, so no argument there I suppose?

Indeed.  Personally, I don't buy multiple formats, I don't buy compilation
albums (with one exception), and I don't buy anything in a DigiPak.  If that
means I don't get to hear the latest track by my favourite artist, so be it.


mathew
[ Awkward customer ]
Xref: sparky uk.misc:2236 talk.bizarre:43691
From: ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson)
Newsgroups: uk.misc,talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: VIZspeak - What is frottage ?
Date: 6 Jan 93 15:18:24 GMT
Followup-To: talk.bizarre
Organization: William's Wonderful Wonky Widget Warehouse


In article <C0FnMG.Fx0@demon.co.uk> gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham
Toal) writes:

#  What's the word for having sex with someone's (presumably someone
#  *else*'s ;-) ) armpit?

`eugh', interj., noise made involuntarily immediately before vomiting,
induced by thinking about Graham Toal having his willy cradled in his
friend's armpit. 

verbally,  Ken Johnson


-- 
Son, all the pretty, intelligent,      || Ken Johnson                           healthy young women are taken.         || A I Applications Institute
It's a basic rule of the universe,     || 80 South Bridge                       and if you don't like it,              || Edinburgh,  Scotland   EH1 1HN
go somewhere else.                     || Phone 031-650 2756   Fax 031-650 6513
               -- my dad  1906-1992    || E-mail ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk