Week of 22nd September, 2008

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Monday, 22nd September

New shift fortnight starts today, a 10 o'clock start.

Moderately busy. Not too much material delivered, so we could discuss developments - among which, the HD ingest kit is being moved downstairs on Wednesday. That is the operator interface bits - servers, etc will remain upstairs. I wonder how long it will be before we can do productive work downstairs - maybe not long, but who knows in this place?

Ally's battery went flat on me this morning - he wouldn't start, so I had to borrow Hopalong. It'll do Hoppy good to have a bit of a run - normally he just circulates around the loal area, never really getting warmed up.

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Tuesday, 23rd September

Another quiet day, although electronic submission of commercials is ramping up - we had as many electronic spots as taped deliveries. Of course, promos still have't been sorted out - we still get those on tape.

Of late, and maybe it's due to software "upgrades", the ingest system has slowed down quite a bit. Certain things entail a significant wait before the screen repaints - and during that wait you can't do anything. Mouse clicks and typed input are ignored. I have been, for some time, of the opinion that the back-end hardware is overloaded - and it seems to be getting worse. Mark you, 29 output streams being updated with a new day's schedules will bring anything to it's knees - although computers don't have physical knees, but you know what I mean...

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Wednesday, 24th September

My 60th Birthday

The which gets me entitlement to free off-peak travel by public transport, via a special card called a "Senior Citizen Bus Pass" - I think. Must speak to the local Council about this - it is they who administer the scheme. Not that public transport is particularly quick or convenient, but it'll make travel into Central London much cheaper. I'll still need a car for work, due to the weird hours, and the fact that it takes at least twice as long to get to work by train as it does by car.

On the day: Pressies first - A new long-sleeve top to add to the collection that Jane likes me to wear: and a new radio alarm clock. Since the move of MSF from Rugby to Anthorn, Northumberland, the MSF time signal strength has dropped to the point that reception is sometimes problematical, so the old clock (an Audioline) sets itself to an erroneous time. Add to that occasional cat-related issues, where Tabitha treads on the buttons, and turns on the alarm, resulting in wake-up calls at weird hours, and Jane was not best pleased.

So she bought me a new clock radio. This is a Logik DAB/FM device. DAB transmits a time signal as part of the multiplex, and the clock can set itself to that. All that works, as does the radio. But there's no manual, and some of the setting routines are obscure. Let's see if the service 'phone line can help.

Well, they gave me a URL for a download. At Apple.com? I don't think so. But I tried it, and of course, it wasn't. So I'll visit the shop, and see what they can do.

I did - and the shop were not helpful. Their opinion was that the functionality was described on the box (which it is) so a manual wasn't needed (it is) When I said as much, they offered a refund. But I thought this wasn't right, so I asked about stock at other branches. And the mega-branch in Ruislip lists as having 4 units. OK, so I'm off to Ruislip.

But first, visit the Council offices. And it turns out at I can apply for my over-60 Bus Pass at any Post Office. Later.

Then off to Ruislip, to the mega-branch of the shop. And the customer service people there were understanding. They looked out the box for their display unit, and there was the manual. Not wanting to give someone else the same hassle, I asked them to photocopy, which they did. Result! Except that I left the receipt on the counter. I'll need to recover that - it's the warranty, as well.

It so happens that my tame Skoda dealer is near to this shop, as is a favoured car exhausts place, so I resolved to get quotes for Ally's blowing exhaust (UKP92 and change, if the exhaust catalyst is OK, add UKP100-odd if it isn't) and a new alternator, which should fix Ally's charge problem (UKP206 - ouch!) But I have to plug Ally into a wall first. To do which I have to move him closer to the house. To do which, I'll either have to push him, or do a jump-start.

And they're resurfacing the road, starting Monday.

All this before lunch.

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Thursday, 25th September

After yesterday morning's rushings about, I relaxed.

In the evening I got more pressies from the girls - Jenny provided new slippers for home wear (my old pair were disintegrating) Katy gave a pair of books about M$ Vi$ta (probably as a bribe to make me more enthusiastic about the Philips laptop) and Sarah's gift escapes me for the moment (I told you on the home page that my memory can be short-lived)

We also had Jane's Mum round for a celebratory meal - and she brought a bottle of wine and a couple of bags of chocolate raisins. We had the wine, a Chateauneuf du Pape, with the meal.

I also retired the Audioline clock radio, in favour of the Logik DAB/FM box. And that works fine, albeit the LCD backlight is bright - it lights up the bedroom. Must fnd the read the manual to see if there's a backlight dimmer.

Now to get Ally charged up. I'm unsure whether to take the battery out, or do a jumpstart and move him into the drive, so that I can plug him into a wall with the battery in situ.

<pause>

I jumpstarted Ally, moved him into the drive between our house and our neighbour's and plugged him in - 3 amps of charge at 12 volts, immediately. The battery was definitely flat. That charger is rated at 4 amps, but never seems to give more than 3.

And the LHC has hit teething problems, after they hit the ground running earlier this month. It now seems that something like a liquid helium leak from the magnets in one sector of the ring has allowed those magnets to warm up above the superconducting threshold - a so-called "quench". Ths has likely delayed futher commissioning while the affected magnets are warmed to room temperature for repair, and cooled again afterwards. But in a colossal project like this, such things are only to be expected.

Later: It turns out that "Bus Pass" is the old name - it's now called the Freedom Pass, but is still available on request to people aged 60 or more, and is now valid for off-peak bus travel country-wide. I've got the form, now to fill it in...

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Friday, 26th September

It got busy late on today, after a slow start. But by quitting time the missing list is empty - this is a rare occurrence, but very gratifying when it happens. Getting to that state required selective ingesting of about 15 promos - there are probably well in excess of another 100 clips that need to be processed over the weekend. Not to mention 29 music videos.

The HD kit is working downstairs after the move on Wednesday, and one new ingest station should be up next week.

What to do about the global financial crisis? One thing seems clear - whatever the rights and wrongs of mega-bonus payments - those responsible for this debacle, particularly those in receipt of said mega-bonuses, shold be turfed out on their ear. After all, they caused it. There is anecdotal evidence that Governmental meddling may have made the problem worse - I have heard that the guarantees offered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were instrumental in permitting American mortgage lenders to lend to people who, not to put too fine a point on it, couldn't afford to repay their loans, and hence should not have been the recipients of such loans in a sensible financial climate.

Of course, those "sub-prime" mortgages were than packaged up into Collateralised Debt Obligations, with a veneer of better quality paper wrapped round them, and sold on, probably several times, with each intermediary taking a cut of the deal. Eventually, when no-one could fathom out who held how much of what, and recipients of these CDOs started asking "What have I got inside this wrapper?" they realised that they had plenty of impressive promises, but no useful financial instrument. And that's when things turned "toxic" and the bottom fell out of the market as people realised that there was an awful lot of bad debt on their books.

Everyone pulled in their lending horns, and the financial markets went into free fall, with the results we have seen recently. The suggested $700 billion bail-out for the American banks should, once the politicians get their noses out of the trough, come with conditions. I would suggest that new management teams should be a minimum, together with a legal requirement not to sell-on any loans they make - that way, some degree of sense should prevail. You don't lend to anyone who hasn't a reasonable probablility of being able to repay what is being borrowed.

This would automatically take the steam out of the housing markets, which I believe have been fuelled by an overly easy lending regime. When I bought my first house, back in 1981, loans were typically not more then 3 times main salary, plus up to the second salary - this was normally man and wife respectively. Our mortage has never exceeded this guideline, even at its peak, and it has sometimes been a struggle for us to keep up. Of late, it seems that loans of 4-to-6 times joint salary have been made, sometimes 100% of the purchase price. And as soon as something untoward happens, you end up owing more than your house is worth.

That said, although the up-front cost might well be $700 billion, the mortgages being guaranteed are secured on things that do have a value (maybe not as high as their face value but a value none-the-less). Anything recovered from such guaranteed mortgages should be returned to the lender - Government - and ring-fenced to reduce the taxes that will probably be raised to finance the bail-out. It should certainly not be retained by the financial institutions.

Or so it seems to me. But what do I know?

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Saturday, 27th September

Lots of clips ingested, for a total of 1000+ over the two days. Missing list will be clear for tomorrow, and there will only be about 30 commercials to ingest, plus the music videos. So tomorrow should be peaceful. Mem: do not pull missing lists too early - I missed something for 18:00 toorrow, because it was outside the look-ahead period on that server, and I'd pulled missing lists at about lunchtime today. But that should be sorted by the late man tonight, or, if not, I'll have plenty of time tomorrow.

Of course, I had to reject a number of items, because they were not correct - 10 clips for one channel with wrong aspect ratio, and another 40-odd for another channel because they only had one audio track on them, not the two we require. And 6 of those last will be required Monday evening - but there will be time to repair them on Monday.

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Sunday, 28th September

And so it all proved - although I had a few more commercials more than I was expecting. Even so, barring one line feed, I did nothing after about 5 p.m., except watch it all run.

And the missing items I was expecting to see were indeed missing for tomorrow, exactly as I thought. But all is clear before 6 p.m. tomorrow, so there's time to fix.

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