Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.
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@gordonjcp said in Enlightened:
@rhywden From that article: "Samsung is aware of a small number of TVs in the UK", and then further on " get in touch with Samsung directly (1-800 SAMSUNG)"...
How, exactly?
Just drive on over to the US side of the border. It's not that far.
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@Dreikin And if that doesn't fly, try Australia. All those English-speaking countries are close together anyways, right?
INB4: Canada and South Africa would like to have a word.
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@djls45 Canada is still basically Britain.
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@pie_flavor said in Enlightened:
@djls45 Canada is still basically Britain.
Firstly. It's not that cold here, we just like complaining about it. Secondly, poutine?! What the hell is that about. Also, lack of beavers.
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@cursorkeys said in Enlightened:
Also, lack of beavers.
You're just walking right into this one, aren't you?
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@cursorkeys said in Enlightened:
It's not that cold here, we just like complaining about it.
Also, we usually have much higher humidity — something to do with being surrounded by ocean — than a lot of continental America, so that emphasises the perceived temperatures. Those are really related to do with heat transfer rates, which have additional factors other than headline temperature.
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@dkf We're also a lot further north than all the inhabited bits of continental America.
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@gordonjcp said in Enlightened:
We're also a lot further north than all the inhabited bits of continental America.
Except for the inhabited bits of Alaska. Juneau is about as far north as the north coast of north-west Scotland, and Anchorage is further north than all the inhabited parts of Shetland.
Norway has cities much further north. Tromsø is like the Alaskan North Slope…
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@pie_flavor said in Enlightened:
@djls45 Canada is still basically Britain.
Minus
- intrusive video surveillance everywhere
- Internet censorship
- cops without guns
- TV licenses
- rugby
- driving on the wrong side of the road
- a switch beside every plug
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@timebandit said in Enlightened:
intrusive video surveillance everywhere
Yeah, I'll give you that one
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Internet censorship
Government mandated? We don't have that yet. From Google and Facebook? Everyone has that
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
cops without guns
Why would you want cops with guns?
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
TV licenses
So you don't pay any sort of subscription for your TV?
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
rugby
Not a great loss
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
drivinggetting towed by huskies on the wrong side of theroadice pathFTFY
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
a switch beside every plug
And an earth pin in every socket. Utopia!
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@timebandit said in Enlightened:
- cops without guns
I imagine they might prefer it (well, in the cities, anyway) if it weren't for spill-over from that country to the south of them. My Fellow Merkins tend to to take things like border checkpoints as an excuse to say, "hold my beer".
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Internet censorship
Government mandated? We don't have that yet. From Google and Facebook? Everyone has that
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
cops without guns
Why would you want cops with guns?
Because most Canadians don't have guns, so we want cops to have them to protect us from criminals that do
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
TV licenses
So you don't pay any sort of subscription for your TV?
I either pay for cable, or put an antenna on my roof. Nobody will come to collect a license for it.
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
a switch beside every plug
And an earth pin in every socket. Utopia!
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@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Because most Canadians don't have guns, so we want cops to have them to protect us from criminals that do
Here, even the criminals mostly don't. One could argue that that was partly down to the lack of escalation.
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Internet censorship in the United Kingdom
At least it's still possible to opt out. Think of the children!
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Nobody will come to collect a license for it.
Nobody comes to collect a license from me either. Are you imagining a guy in a bowler hat walking around and knocking on people's doors?
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
Nobody comes to collect a license from me either. Are you imagining a guy in a bowler hat walking around and knocking on people's doors?
Also
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
Are you imagining a guy in a bowler hat walking around and knocking on people's doors?
That's what I was imagining, but Google Images has set me straight.
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@scholrlea said in Enlightened:
My Fellow Merkins tend to to take things like border checkpoints as an excuse to say, "hold my beer".
If they move north, they'll have to switch from Budweiser to Coors…
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@dkf Shirley you mean Labatt
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@hungrier Both?
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@dkf said in Enlightened:
If they move north, they'll have to switch from Budweiser to Coors…
Not really
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@timebandit Stop bringing facts to a TDWTF discussion! :p
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
At least it's still possible to opt out.
According to the fine Wikipedia article:
A voluntary code of practice agreed by all four major ISPs[8]
So not technically government censorship. "Censor yourselves, or we'll make you do it, and you'll like that even less than your 'voluntary' self-censorship."
means that customers have to 'opt out' of the ISP filtering to gain access to the blocked content.[9] However, the complex nature of the active monitoring systems means that users cannot usually opt out of the monitoring and re-routing of their data traffic, something which may render their data security vulnerable.
I could understand filtering some illegal or dangerous content, but really ?
Categories blocked across the major ISPs include: [reordered for more lulz] Drugs, Pornography, Suicide and Self-harm, Weapons and violence, Obscenity, Criminal Skills, Hate, Cyberbullying, Hacking
Understandable, although I don't agree with mandatory censorship.
Dating,
But the people who would access those sites are all nerds who couldn't get a date anyway, so no great loss.
Alcohol and Tobacco,
Legal to buy, but not to look at online.
Media Streaming, File sharing,
Gotta protect the RIAA, or whatever the UK equivalent is.
Gambling,
Presumably https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ is exempted.
Games,
"No Steam for you!"
Nudity,
Nude is not necessarily lewd.
Social networking,
Good idea; y'all don't have to read Orange Man's stupid blathering.
Fashion and Beauty,
Toxic perpetuation of unhealthy body image.
Gore,
How inconvenient.
and Web-blocking circumvention tools
Well, of course; can't let the plebs figure out how to avoid the "voluntary" filtering.
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@hardwaregeek said in Enlightened:
users cannot usually opt out of the monitoring and re-routing of their data traffic, something which may render their data security vulnerable.
Oh, that might be the weird DNS server/redirection through their servers that Vodafone had me going through that broke imgur on SSL until I changed it to the Google DNS servers on the router
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
So you don't pay any sort of subscription for your TV?
Thing is, in the UK if you pay for a subscription to, say, Sky TV, you still have to buy a license even if you don't want and never watch any Freeview channels.
That said, I have no firm opinion on the TV license in principle. What I do have a firm opinion on is that the company they contract out enforcement to is staggeringly unethical.
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Why are you guys in the thread about Samsung's software talking about TV subscriptions or some shit?
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@blakeyrat Wasn't this thread about an open source windowing system?
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@magus said in Enlightened:
@blakeyrat Wasn't this thread about an open source windowing system?
I think it was about insulting error messages.
That said, after 1,000 posts...around here...a thread could be about nearly anything.
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@boomzilla Yeah but I hate to have to mute it because people are talking about bullshit, then later someone posts something related to the topic I am interested in but I don't see it because it's muted.
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@blakeyrat said in Enlightened:
@boomzilla Yeah but I hate to have to mute it because people are talking about bullshit, then later someone posts something related to the topic I am interested in but I don't see it because it's muted.
Yeah, I'm also often disappointed that the forum doesn't act exactly like you want it to. Or exactly how I want it to. Oh wait...
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@carrievs said in Enlightened:
@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
So you don't pay any sort of subscription for your TV?
Thing is, in the UK if you pay for a subscription to, say, Sky TV, you still have to buy a license even if you don't want and never watch any Freeview channels.
But not if you have a subscription to Netflix or Amazon Prime etc... It's only if the service shows broadcast TV.
I just use my TV for Netflix and streaming stuff and don't have a Licence.
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
So you don't pay any sort of subscription for your TV?
I don't watch TV, but if I did, it's free OTA digital.
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I occasionally wish that it would be more visible when you browse an "old" thread. Because, now, you're like reading posts and stuff and then ...
:-(
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@timebandit Show me where this "intrusive video surveillance everywhere" is?
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@gordonjcp said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
@timebandit Show me where this "intrusive video surveillance everywhere" is?
It's pretty well documented that we're the most recorded country in the developed world
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
And an earth pin in every socket. Utopia!
Hey, I'm in France, where the earth pin is, indeed, in the socket. The plug has an earth hole. (Read into that whatever you wish.)
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@steve_the_cynic said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
Read into that whatever you wish
it is!
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@jaloopa Oh, that old chestnut? Pick about half a mile of a central London street, count up the cameras, and multiply by the total length of all the roads in the UK?
By those figures there ought to be about six cameras covering the 500m of unsurfaced farm track up to my house.
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@gordonjcp said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
@timebandit Show me where this "intrusive video surveillance everywhere" is?
London is number 2.
Note that no Canadian cities are in that list
It's not only video surveillance, thanks to this law
with some very disturbing provisions, like
- allowed police, intelligence officers and other government department managers to see the Internet connection records, as part of a targeted and filtered investigation, without a warrant
- permitted the police and intelligence agencies to carry out targeted equipment interference, that is, hacking into computers or devices to access their data, and bulk equipment interference for national security matters related to foreign investigations;
Because terrorism
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@dkf said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
If they move north, they'll have to switch from Budweiser to Coors…
Pretty sure that's what happens when you move from the coast to the Rockies.
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@timebandit said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
@jaloopa said in Enlightened:
@timebandit said in Enlightened:
Internet censorship
Government mandated? We don't have that yet. From Google and Facebook? Everyone has that
As someone who has used the internet in the UK, I don't recognise that description at all. The only pages I've ever seen blocked at ISP level are assorted unlicensed movie sites, that are replaced with a placeholder stating the High Court case that saw them blocked.
I've never had to opt into or out of of any censorship or filtering plans from my ISP - which is a subsidiary of the BT, the single biggest ISP. They have an optional opt-in service, that I've never considered turning on. BT themselves have two levels of filtering - one for all your broadband, and one that can be controlled by MAC address. Both are optional and off by default.
OpenRightsGroup keeps a fuller list - some mobile phone providers do have opt-out content filtering - and some have it opt-out if the subscriber is under 18, but its really not widespread. https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Content_filtering_by_UK_ISPs
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@gwowen said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
I've never had to opt into or out of of any censorship or filtering plans from my ISP - which is a subsidiary of the BT, the single biggest ISP. They have an optional opt-in service, that I've never considered turning on
IME, there's usually a checkbox on the page where you sign up or it's a question the rep asks if you buy over the phone. You do have to specifically say you don't want ISP level filtering but they make it easy to opt out.
Mobiles are more troublesome. I've generally had to make a nominal credit card payment to prove I'm over 18, even when on a contract plan that requires the bill payer to be over 18. I haven't switched operator in about 4 years though, so that might be more seamless these days
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@timebandit said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
Internet censorship
No; but Canada still has the old fashioned kind. Ask Mark Steyn.
(To be fair, Canada did do away with those unelected psuedo-judicial "commissions" after Steyn brought suit and won, but their reputation still suffered a lot. For example, I'm bringing it up here right now.)
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
Nobody comes to collect a license from me either. Are you imagining a guy in a bowler hat walking around and knocking on people's doors?
I love this conversation every time it happens.
The twists and turns of logic British people will come up with to claim they don't pay a tax on TV, or that the BBC isn't a State-funded television network, are amazing.
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
IME, there's usually a checkbox on the page where you sign up or it's a question the rep asks if you buy over the phone.
For mobile or broadband? I've never had to do it for mobile and I change provider pretty regularly. For broadband, I've been with the same people so long its likely I've been grand-fathered in.
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@blakeyrat said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
to claim they don't pay a tax on TV, or that the BBC isn't a State-funded television network, are amazing
I don't deny that the TV license is a tax, or that the BBC is state funded.
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
I don't deny that the TV license is a tax, or that the BBC is state funded.
Nobody claimed that. Forget it Jake, its @blakeyrat. He's never seen a strawman he didn't love.
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@gwowen Broadband. Like I said, the last couple of times I've switched mobile provider I've had to prove I'm over 18 and opt out.
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@jaloopa said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
I don't deny that the TV license is a tax, or that the BBC is state funded.
You should compare notes with RaceProUK. Get on the same page.
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@gwowen said in Enlightened English Speaking Nations. Or something.:
Nobody claimed that.
You seriously don't remember that thread with RaceProUK? I guess I apologize for not having goldfish memory.