Re: [backstage] who to ask? weather feeds: why is the explanation of the symbols not used consistently
there is a fair amount of duplication not sure why this might be 2.gif and 7.gif for instance. perhaps they have different alpha transparencies? Jonathan, The BBC weather icons dovetail with the Met Office ones [1] but the Met Office have different icons for weather events at night to those during the day and the BBC don't make that distinction. 2.gif corresponds to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/images/symbols/w2x15.gif - Partly cloudy (night) 7.gif corresponds to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/images/symbols/w7x15.gif - Medium-level cloud A curious thing: the two sets don't completely tally - the BBC's 32.gif is Hazy, in the Met Office's set they don't have a 32 but they do have 33 which is Haze. Best wishes, Al [1] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/guide/key.html
Re: [backstage] iMP and alternative models to DRM
Tom, Perhaps the 'unit' is the key. We're moving away from the physical unit to pure data. I remember when CD's came out that there were some people who felt a little short-changed, in terms of the difference in 'commodity' between a 12 vinyl LP and the smaller CD. Nowadays people are happy to download data and not bother with any tangible item. At the moment we still require a file, to load on to an iPod or burn a CD but will this necessarily be the case in the future? What if high speed wireless connections were ubiquitous? Would there be any need to own the file if you could just stream it from a server* to whatever device - personal stereo, hifi, car stereo - that you want to hear it from? Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, record companies will have morphed into musical content providers and we will subscribe to different channels (be they channels for individual artists, groups of similar artists or a particular genre of music). On preview: Yes, like a TV license - we pay a fixed rate irrespective of how much content we actually consume. I think it would be great if there was a meritocracy whereby artists were paid in proportion to their popularity but I don't suppose record companies would be too happy to see the link between artist and audience become so transparent! Al *Tangential side note: Given that the volume of data being stored is climbing, and that this data has to sit on a server somewhere consuming precious energy, perhaps in the future there will be a tax on data and it will be essential to share files from a single source rather than wastefully having duplicate files in a number of different places. On 12/8/05, Tom Kerswill [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: tom coombs wrote: interesting, but would people not try to get around paying? or one pays and shares the goods. Yes... a bit like the TV license I suppose. But you can imagine a situation in which a music content license was as ubiquitous as the TV license. I mean, if there are about 50 million music listeners in the UK, a tenner per month each pays for quite a lot of musicians ;-) Okay, I'm getting a little simplistic and off-topic here! and do heavy users pay the same as light users ? another Tom Tom Kerswill wrote: Good point! Hopefully that kind of thing would be fairly easy to pick up though :-) I suppose it's a bit like chart-rigging or spamming Google or anything else - a bit of a pain but hopefully possible to get around it. Tom David Sargeant wrote: I like this idea in theory but, and putting data protection aside, what is to stop people just cracking the revenue share info (or 5 'idle' PCs playing my songs on loop for that matter) and earning themselves lots of money? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Kerswill Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 11:55 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] iMP and alternative models to DRM Hi backstage people, I'm a bit of a lurker on the list and have been catching up! Especially on the iMP and how its DRM has apparently been cracked. Someone mentioned alternatives to DRM and I just thought I'd throw something I've been thinking about into the melting pot. I was thinking of it in terms of the music industry mainly, but it would be applicable to any kind of content. Rather than stopping people listing to what they want by using DRM, how about every user paying a license which allows them to listen to any music, but then sample / monitor what they listen to. For example - last.fm tracks what I am listening to on iTunes, whether it's a CD, a download from iTunes, or a bit of music from a website. Taking all the data, you can build a profile of who's listening to what music. You can then split the revenue from the license amongst all content creators, depending on how much their content has been listened to. Just like the PRS does with radio airplay. Going back to the iMP. As it is really an extension of a radio / tv player --- albeit one where the user chooses when and what content they listen to --- why not just treat it like any other TV / radio / content channel? Sample what everyone is listening to and pay royalties based on that? I know that this is a huge simplification --- and probably licensing laws for old content don't allow it --- but surely in the future this is going to be the simplest way to do it? Because it does always seem that people work out how to crack DRMs eventually... ... even if the cracking is as low-tech as simply plugging an mp3 player into the phono output of your computer while playing a BBC show. Tom - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive:
Re: [backstage] now/next RSS feeds for radio stations
This is great stuff Mario. On a related note, is there a way to make tracklistings (example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/vic_mcglynn/tracklisting.shtml) available as feeds? It might only be 6 Music that has them (I haven't researched extensively) but here are a couple of ideas of what you could do with them: 1) You could extend your now/next to show the last track played. If I was looking for a radio station to listen to then I might make a more informed decision if I could see what the last 10 tracks played were. 2) If you tie up the tracklisting with the listen again files, then you could have an application that could index listen again files. If you were to provide the application with preferences (using Last.fm data perhaps) then it could cue up relevant tracks. I've looked at these tracklistings pages whilst listening to the shows and it seems that the tracks are added after they've finished, usually within about 5 minutes. Now if they were added just *before* they were played (and were available for all BBC Radio stations) then you could have an application that scans across all the stations and picks between different stations according to what they're playing. You could set a preferred station (a default that it uses if it can't find anything that you like) and then a list of artists that you like. If the application finds a track about to play on another station that you like then it will crossfade to that station. You could extend this further by using something like the 'Similar Artists' part of Last.fm (example: http://www.last.fm/music/Buck+65/+similar) with an 'adventurous' setting - strict (only play the artists I listed), near (uses the top 10 similar artists), go on surprise me (uses the top 50 similar artists). Hope I haven't rambled too much/off topic, Al On 12/2/05, Mario Menti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Due to popular demand (ok, there was one request for it), I have started to produce now/next RSS/Atom feeds for all available radio stations. Full list of feeds can be browsed at http://backstage.menti.name/atom/, or (with brief explanations added) at http://backstage.msurveys.com. Now that I've added radio feeds, the naming for the non-channel-specific TV feeds isn't ideal anymore, but since it looks like there are some people actually using these feeds, I haven't changed any existing feed names. Added feeds for all available radio stations: * radionownext.xml what's on now/next on all BBC Radio channels * radionow.xml what's on now on all BBC Radio channels * radionext.xml what's on next on all BBC Radio channels * radio1.xml what's on now/next on Radio 1 * radio2.xml what's on now/next on Radio 2 * radio3.xml what's on now/next on Radio 3 * radio4.xml what's on now/next on Radio 4 * radio5live.xml what's on now/next on Radio 5 Live * radio5extra.xml what's on now/next on Radio 5 Extra * radio6music.xml what's on now/next on Radio 6 Music * 1xtra.xml what's on now/next on 1Xtra * bbc7digital.xml what's on now/next on BBC Seven Digital * bbcasian.xml what's on now/next on BBC Asian Also, in case anyone wants them, combined TV and Radio feeds: * tvradionownext.xml what's on now/next on BBC TV and Radio * tvradionow.xml what's on now on BBC TV and Radio * tvradionext.xml what's on next on BBC TV and Radio - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iMP: accessibility, is the smell really that bad?
I can see it now - a site for appraising weather forecasts: IsItHotOrNot.com On 11/7/05, Mark Simpkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How about a 'Rate this weather' option? Just grade how accurate you thought the weather forcast was for your area. Mark. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Murray Walker Sent: 07 November 2005 13:05 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] iMP: accessibility, is the smell really that bad? -Original Message- From: Gordon Joly (Ignore that fact that temperatures forecast may differ by as much as 5 degrees C:-) Reminds me of an old idea... Weather from Yahoo, BBC, Met Office all regularly seem to differ quite widely, based purely on personal subjective checking. So... * Poll sites on a regular basis and log, * add after the fact data on what it actually turned out to be * build stats on accuracy obviously hard to do nationally, but I keep meaning to do it for my local area. And/or build a site that allows people to log actual results for their area. Thinking about it, with all the physical weather stations, it ought to be possible to automate even that part (logging actual measured weather, vs 5 day forecast) Maybe someone already has... either way, all seems rather strange given that I assume all the data comes from the met office originally. Or maybe yahoo get it from weather.com or some such... Anyway ... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] CSS changes based on weather conditions
Dunstan Orchard's blog? http://www.1976design.com/blog/ On 10/20/05, Kim Plowright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, Asking the backstage uberbrain because I'm snowed and can't find anything quickly via google. Does anyone know of a site that changes design (via CSS) according to the status of an external feed? In particular, one that changes according to the local weather conditions? I *seem* to remember some sweet user-time based design changes somewhere, but can't track them down. Thanks. k Kim Plowright New Product Development SCP, BBC iDE MC1 D6 08, Media Centre, BBC Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TQ http://www.bbc.co.uk/entertainment http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
