A new, more computerised television production system being tested at the BBC could help feed the organization’s promised “Creative Archive”:https://blog.org/archives/cat_online_media.html#000861 of publicly-downloadable BBC content. Among the new capabilities on offer:

New footage will be catalogued after it is shot, so different producers can access the same content simultaneously.

“In theory, all newly shot material will be digitised so it can be made available to all BBC programme makers. Think of the advantage: you don’t have to go to an editing suite with four hundred tapes,” Ms Romaine [the BBC’s director of production modernisation] explained.

Computer-based production can allow programmes to be enhanced with additional information (metadata) enabling archiving and content searches based on internet technology.

One might think this sort of thing would already be routine in a large, well-resourced organization like the BBC, but it’s hard to change complex production processes to keep up with the changes that technology makes possible. I hope this experiment proves successful, because it is not until new production techniques like this one become routine that the Creative Archive will really start to take off.

Prospect Magazine has an interesting article – “Europe is Strong”:http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/ArticleView.asp?accessible=yes&P_Article=12246 by “Philippe ‘globalization is good’ Legrain”:http://www.philippelegrain.com/ on why you shouldn’t necessarily believe what you may have read about America being the economic powerhouse and Europe being a basket case. Turns out that once you factor in that Europe’s population is not growing while America’s is and Europeans work fewer hours, much of Europe is more productive than the US, hour for hour. I also didn’t realise that cross-border investment within the eurozone quadrupled in the first two years of the Euro.

Thanks to “Crookedtimber”:http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000586.html for the link

… Then as I was about to post this up, “Arts & Letters Daily”:http://www.aldaily.com/ led me to a columnist in The Daily Standard who argues the more traditional “neocon anti-Europe case”:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/123ezraq.asp. Neither article alas gives the key detail that would definitely enable me to decide one way or another – what’s the average European produce in an hour, how fast is that rising and how does that compare to the same measure in the US?

I find it interesting that “Irwin M. Stelzer”:http://www.namebase.org/xste/Irwin-M-Stelzer.html (the columnist) argues (correctly) that Europeans may find it difficult to trade less leisure for more income without acknowledging that Americans probably find the reverse even harder to do. I would also like to see the evidence that, “millions of Italians, Irish, Germans, and other Europeans have voted with their feet in favor of America’s balance between work and leisure, with no discernible flow in the opposite direction.” But maybe that’s because I am one of those shirkers who moved from Canada to Britain at least in part because of the work/life balance issue.

I “never thought it would happen”:https://blog.org/archives/cat_online_media.html#000861, but here’s a major media organization that is going to produce and promote its own peer to peer application. The BBC’s new media director Ashley Highfield just revealed plans to produce, “a fully flexible, platform-neutral, super EPG… that will allow TV content to be recorded TiVo-style.” I’m guessing that it won’t be designed to allow general p2p file sharing – only sharing of BBC content. It’s a little unclear at present whether we’re talking about a set-top box application or something for PCs or both. I hope more detail will emerge soon…

I’m even more delighted that the BBC is going to try to produce ‘ultra-local TV news’ accessable via iTV. I hope this move will not be led merely by the local radio stations but will also give a variety of local groups access to the media.

Thanks to “Techdirt”:http://techdirt.com/articles/20030918/068232.shtml for the link

There seems to be a gulf between what the BBC reported its head to have said and what a transcript of the speech revealed. There has been some excited discussion by Danny O’Brien and Alan Connor (and, inevitably, on Slashdot and kuro5hin) that seem based on what they would like this announcement to be rather than what it is.

Matt Jones (who works at the BBC) says the move is, “brave and disruptive – and will have to be executed as such, with no half-measures or compromises to vested interests.”

In fact, while BBC News’ summary suggests Dyke said the Creative Archive would contain “all the corporation’s programme archives”, the speech actually promised to allow “parts of our programmes, where we own the rights, to be available to anyone in the UK to download” (emphasis mine). Nothing there about all of the BBC’s archives. And the example he uses – kids downloading, “real moving pictures which would turn their project into an exciting multi-media presentation” make it sound like a collection of digital clip-art.
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The BBC’s director general has announced “plans to give the public full access to all the corporation’s programme archives… everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet.”

Well, the announcement certainly sounds huge, but as Danny O’Brien reflects, “Sorting out the contractual issues with anything but completely internally produced content will be difficult ” – a huge understatement! And who will pay the cost to digitise and index all that content? Who will decide when enough has been digitised? Will it be seen as a waste of license fee payments to “super-serve” the broadband-using public? Will the BBC actually encourage the use of file sharing applications in order to reduce its bandwidth charges? The list of questions goes on and on…

But even if a fraction of what is possible is achieved, this is a great step forward and it will open a number of important debates.movies blonde free sexfree throat deep moviemovies pussy eating freefacial movies gay freeporn gay movies men freefree samples movie gaymovies free gay postporn movies free granny Map

Foreign Policy and the Centre for Global Development have produced an interesting “generosity league table” which balances rich countries’ aid, trade, investment and environmental policies to measure their overall effect on poorer nations. (I think it’s a mistake to put in a measure of environmental impact alongside the other straight economic measures, but let that pass).

Japan, which I always thought of as one of the good guys (it was until recently the largest foreign aid donor) turns out to be at the bottom of their league table because they don’t welcome foreign goods or workers and the large past aid loans are balanced by large debt repayments by poor countries.

Turns out the most generous countries are Denmark and the Netherlands and (to my surprise) Portugal, New Zealand and Switzerland. The UK is, “Consistently middling across categories, and dead center—11th—in the overall standings” while Canada’s extensive participation in peacekeeping operations is undercut by low aid and high greenhouse gas emissions – it ends up just 18th out of the 21 countries surveyed. The US is second lowest of developed countries – only Japan scores worse.

Of course you could change the weightings and come up with a different league table but still I think this table is thought provoking.one monitoring 3 in creditscore one 3 credit inneed credit american consumerstax 2007 federal creditaccreditation healthand credit services education americaneducation accounting credit5 card credit start Maptechnician psychiatric in schools california accreditedonline aba degree accredited lawcredit affinity in mn unionsunion utah america ogden credit firstchase aarp card credit bankarea cosmetic accredited in bay dentistveterinarian at-home degrees accreditedcredit american personal card express Map

Another gem from my “blog this one day” archive – Sir Clive Sinclair, who created one of the first attempts at a mass market electric transport – the ill-fated C5 – has told the BBC he plans a successor – details as yet un-specified. Good to see someone still plugging away at alternative transport solutions. I don’t suppose it could be much less practical than the Segway!rugby accrington leaguenokia verizon ringtone free 6015ibasketball adam harringtongirls 21st century ringtone2way ringtoneabsolutely country free ringtones wireless cingularfree 3595 ringtone nokia logocingular a split second ringtone Mapand credit consumer of disadvantages advantagesbarbados in agency accreditationrealtor accredited professional stagingexpress american card credit travel rewardsteam credit agricole cycling 2006accredited reo home loanscredit express earning true card americanpersonal acredited training certifications Map

I have always preferred cold weather to hot – and yesterday London suffered its hottest day in recorded history – 35.3 degrees C (96 F). There may be Americans out there who scoff at such weather but in countries like the UK homes don’t have air conditioning and office air conditioners often don’t work (because they are rarely needed!)

Fortunately it’s a little better today but the latest is that the temperature may go back up on the weekend. This is the last thing I need now that I am trying to put together the first draft of my dissertation – I can hardly think! The rest of Europe is suffering, too…

Sorry I’m a bit late with this – it’s from last week’s Sunday Times which I picked up in a train. The Sunday Times used to be known for its investigative journalism. This article Fancy a Rubbish Job? on the front page of the News Review section, which I took at first to be a serious investigation into “ridiculous public sector jobs” turns out to be nothing but a politically motivated hatchet job.

From the start it is full of cheap shots at the “monumental effort to waste the billions of pounds that taxpayers are being forced to pour into Gordon Brown’s grand design to revive the nanny state.” Or as I like to think of it the slow and long-delayed process of restoring the welfare state after years of neglect under the Tories.

The writer puts the boot into, “Mr Rights the anti-racism co-ordinator, Mrs Strict of the council’s smoking cessation unit and Miss Celery the healthy eating officer from the digestion support team. Look, there’s Mr Lengthy-Forms the targets monitor, to make sure they all measure up to government standards”. Hmm… Should councils not be working to improve public health then? A little prevention effort now could save billions in bills for health services needed down the road. And if the government didn’t set targets the same writer would doubtless lambaste them for throwing its money away without even trying to find out its work was effective.

In the end this so-called investigation amounted to little more than the writer having a flick through the Guardian’s jobs pages, ringing up his pals at the Adam Smith Institute and attending a few interviews. He didn’t spend a day actually doing any of the jobs he criticised or talking to anyone who did.

I suppose it’s my own fault for taking the paper seriously. It’s clear that it has been thoroughly tabloidised since the last time I looked at it and that the “News Review” should be wrapped up alongside the ST’s Comment section. Then binned.jeans tight pics ass inlawrence porn interracial eveatk brunette hairyhighschool sex amateurmature sleazy interracial sex galleriestgp young non-nude modelspics granny fat oldanal teen insertioncum whores xxxfat grannies fuck

In the run-up to what the BBC is calling “Asylum Day” (23rd July) News Online’s Dominic Casciani is performing a valuable public service by producing a series of articles debunking myths about asylum seekers like, “aren’t they economic migrants?” and “aren’t most of their applications found groundless?” I learned some things myself:

Although only 10% of refugee applications are successful initially (the figure which stuck in my mind at least), a further 25% are given “exceptional leave to remain – a mechanism which allows people to stay because the government accepts they need protection but does not want to give them refugee status” and another 15% or so are granted asylum after an appeal. That means half of asylum applications are eventually successful – and about a third of those rejected are turned away because of “non-compliance” – which can be as simple as failing to fill in the right forms.movies teen hardcore freemovie tiava freemovie topless starsmovies tushymovies free xnxxampland free moviesbi moviesmovie cops bustynude movies celeb11 dbz moviemovie bukkakefree movies masturbation femalemovie free pornfacial moviesmovie makingold posters movietrailers xxx moviebukkake movies bukkake Map