What is Digg?Sponsored by Bing
How Many Calories Are In Alcohol? view!
bing.com - Handy guidelines help you get your drink on and keep the weight off.
175 Comments
- amabaie, on 11/13/2009, -1/+106What? They get both black AND white?
- IvenomI, on 11/13/2009, -10/+71"Black and White? That's just madness!"
"Madness? THIS. IS. MONOCHROME!" - Angostura, on 11/14/2009, -1/+60This is likely to have something to do with the fact that a colour TV licence costs £142.50 per year and a B&W licence only costs £48.
The B&W license was left deliberately cheap to help those on low income.
I had an old B&W TV in the kitchen until about 3 years ago. - NuWeb, on 11/13/2009, -4/+60The stats are false, persons who have problems with hearing or vision, get to buy B&W even though colour.
Press eh, no research. - nahsrocketeer75, on 11/13/2009, -1/+46Unquestionably the most surprising fact I've read today. ... I distinctly remember going to a friend's house in the late '60s to see color TV for the first time (it was "Batman" and the coolest thing I'd seen to that point.) My family had to wait a few more years ... but not a few more decades.
- ohreilly, on 11/14/2009, -0/+38How many of those actually have a house full of HDTVs yet pay for a BW licence to stop the nastygrams telling you that you don't have a licence?
(and before the paranoid types pipe up, you are quite free to own a TV without a licence for specific reasons like a monitor for a DVD player, games console etc. You can also own a freeview box without a licence for radio. You can freely ignore the nastygrams and unless they have a warrant the people that may visit don't have to be let in. The "detector vans" are also a myth - nothing more than a bog standard transit used to scare you into buying a licence. - LarkStew, on 11/14/2009, -0/+37"Our arrows will block out the colour..."
"Then we will fight in shades of grey!" - salinungatha, on 11/14/2009, -1/+32Hmmm, how many of those 30,000 are vision impaired and simply don't care about colour?
- RichRoast, on 11/14/2009, -1/+31You'll end up paying for any content you get, be it in bandwidth, subscription fees, watching mind-numbing commercials, buying stuff you don't need because of said commercials, content full of product placement, getting caught stealing it...
The idea behind public funding of the BBC is to maintain its integrity and values by allowing it to be free of commercial influence, whilst guaranteeing its income. Most Brits don't complain about it in principle, although the BBC is oft-criticised for the ways in which it sometimes chooses to spend this money, and the heavy-handed approach that has been taken in the past prosecuting those who try to evade paying the license. Many friends of mine have been unfairly harassed by TV Licensing; they possess no television set. - animatedtripod, on 11/14/2009, -1/+28Most industrialised countries in the world have public broadcasting that's either paid for by a license, or funded directly through tax.
- Steeple, on 11/14/2009, -0/+26it's weird seeing US shows that are covered in those censor blurs. even on a documentary about breast cancer they were showing the open insides of a breast, wiith all the gore n'stuff, but blurring out the nipple. -boggle-
- susie13, on 11/14/2009, -0/+26In the UK - not just England.
- waydee, on 11/14/2009, -2/+26Funds the BBC - no advertising.
- rockerdudeman, on 11/14/2009, -1/+24Colour TV licenses are expensive!!!
- danjwray, on 11/14/2009, -9/+31It's worth it for the real news we get.
- nunney, on 11/14/2009, -1/+22What's a TV?
- Vodd9, on 11/14/2009, -10/+29TV ***** licenses?
Yet another reason that makes me glad I don't live in the UK. - Tarkaan, on 11/14/2009, -0/+19In England, you need to pay a fee to own and use a television. The proceeds go to pay for national broadcasting and production of television programs. It's a use-tax - if you use the service, you pay for it, but if you don't use the service, you don't pay for it.
- KooperG, on 11/14/2009, -1/+18somehow the lower income-households always seem to own the largest TV's in town...
just a matter of priorities i guess (if you got nothing to do all day, better buy a large TV) - Rudegar, on 11/14/2009, -0/+16where can I buy a 50" black&white lcd tv ? :P
- subliminalurge, on 11/14/2009, -0/+16"(IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer)"
Looks more like a grammatically incorrect offer of sexual favors.... - acceleration, on 11/14/2009, -0/+16I always like how US shows seem to blur out people using their middle fingers, as if it's something terribly obscene
- CUNTFACE1, on 11/14/2009, -1/+16As long as you're 12
- Karmashock, on 11/14/2009, -0/+15... all I know about english tv is that I turned it on once while visiting and there were naked ladies on public tv "painting" each other sloppily...
*jaw drops*
You don't see that in the states on anything but porn channels... and you have to specially request and pay for those. To just see that on public over the air tv was bizarre for an American. And yes, they were in color. Blue, green, yellow, purple, red... you know... colors... - Averness, on 11/14/2009, -1/+16Stay off my lawn!
- maccagrabme, on 11/14/2009, -0/+15How is that any worse than people still listening to radio, cassette tape or vinyl? For a lot of people tv is background company so does it matter if its only displaying b/w, they probably aren't intensely watching it as such. Plus they get a discount on the license fee in the UK so perhaps they have the right attitude as there is very little worth paying for nowadays.
- 0tis, on 11/14/2009, -0/+15(IANAL?)
I love the licensing people, they're always good for a laugh. Their method for finding people who are dodging the licence is to harass anybody who isn't registered as having one, and they regularly claim to have more power than they do.
Those TV licence detector vans? Don't work, and even if they did, no evidence from them could ever be used in court because the BBC won't divulge what's inside them.
The BBC have some great content, and I pay my licence fee, but we need to start sorting out what they do with it. - kyle212, on 11/14/2009, -0/+14We are.
- Evari, on 11/14/2009, -7/+21You're old!
- confuciussay, on 11/14/2009, -2/+15License to make sure that Fox News style has no chance..
- AdmiralHalsey, on 11/14/2009, -0/+12The US still hasnt fully walked away from its puritanical origins, unfortunately. I still remember visiting Ireland when I was a kid... boobs in the newspaper?::gasp::
Be afraid of the human body, it's obscene! - subliminalurge, on 11/14/2009, -2/+14Eh, that makes him just a few years older than me, probably in his mid forties. Not old at all.
It's easy to understand how that must seem like the dark ages to current kids, though. My 8 year old has her own cell phone (long story) and our PS3 is hooked up to a 50 inch plasma. Yet I remember when Pong first came out and it was the coolest thing ever, even hooked up to a tiny TV. Then there was the day my dad brought home the 27". Holy cow! Talk about a giant screen! I remember when watching movies at home involved checking out laser discs from the library, along with the player (which weighed only slightly less than a compact car). And cell phones? *****, I was around to see the first cordless phones come out. (Do kids these days even realize that you used to be required to rent your phone from the phone company? No such thing as picking out the one you liked at Wal-Mart.) Later, when cell phones finally did come out, I wanted one, but I had to suffer through a decade of waiting for them to become affordable. Can kids today even imagine what it's like not having a microwave? (and not because yours broke. because they were approximately as affordable as a private jet.)
Then there's computers. I still laugh when people tell me my 17" laptop looks cumbersome to carry around. My first computer was gigantic and cost several thousand dollars. Yet, in terms of processor speed, screen resolution (and color, for that matter), memory, storage and communications ability, it is outclassed in every way, by orders of magnitude, by this iPhone that I can slip in my pocket. Heck, I remember the first time I overclocked a computer. It wasn't a menu option in the bios, back then you had to get out the soldering iron and replace the crystal on your motherboard. I cooled it with a ziplock back full of ice cubes.
So, we're not old. The rest of you are just really, really young... :) - richi, on 11/14/2009, -5/+16I love the way the BBC News article subtly implies that you need a license to watch iPlayer (you don't, unless you're watching a live stream).
Disclaimer: IANAL. - rocknog, on 11/14/2009, -0/+11Neat. Over here, there's simply no way to legally watch TV without commercials. Even if you pay, you still get commercials. Ironically, the only way to get TV without commercials is to get it for free, by pirating.
- elijahyossie, on 11/13/2009, -2/+13My parents only got rid of their black and white TV a few years ago - until then, it was in the spare room upstairs, in case of conflicting views on what to watch (-:
- RichRoast, on 11/14/2009, -1/+1130,000 licenses in 26 million households is a pittance (0.1%) and unsurprising - those who simply never bothered to get a new TV (people act as though I have snakes for hair when I tell them I have *no* telly), antique TV collectors, the (colour?) blind looking to save on license fees... if this is a surprise then the OP needs to get out more.
- ohreilly, on 11/14/2009, -0/+10There was once a radio licence but that was abolished in the 70s I think.
What I meant by "a licence for radio" was that you can own a freeview box to listen to the radio stations on it without a TV licence providing that it isn't plugged into a TV.
Since you live in London I'd have thought you'd know about a radio licence if one still existed. - susie13, on 11/14/2009, -0/+10old people will not change their tv till it breaks down. Young people on low incomes seem to get the biggest tv possible.
- Electric_Sheep, on 11/14/2009, -0/+10Not technically true. You don't need a licence to OWN a TV
You just need a licence to watch TV programming through satellite, cable or terrestrial signals.
You can use your TV for game consoles, DVDs or anything else without having to pay the licence. - animatedtripod, on 11/14/2009, -4/+14@AtroPunk
I think the UK's record in slaughter and acting superior has been well and truly topped by a certain superpower. - ohreilly, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9To add to that reply, you only need a licence to use a receiver capable of viewing broadcast television, if you are using it to watch television as broadcast. There are many reasons for owning a TV that don't require it.
- oliversan, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9If you own a TV license, then radio funds come from that, but if you don't have a TV license, you can still listen to the Radio for free.
- anagoge, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9I Am Not A Llama
- domdunc, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9It's not that surprising considering the license fee is cheaper if you have a black and white TV.
- j32407, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9Yep, lived there for 4 years and never paid the fee. I only used my DVD player, X-box and mostly downloaded all of the shows that I wanted to watch from the states. I would watch all of the BBC programming and SKY at friends' houses. Everyone would warn me about the little vans that went around and could detect if you had a telly and didn't pay the fee. 4 years and I never had a problem. I think the van was more of a scare tactic. Maybe they just didn't search in my area (East Anglia) that much though.
- Angostura, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9I would like to invite you around to my gran's house. She still has a B&W telly.
- palehorse864, on 11/14/2009, -0/+9This is what Doctor Who looks like on B&W TV.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s2_07galler ... - JasonDelta, on 11/14/2009, -0/+8Oh, so like a properly funded PBS? Funded by viewers like you!
- RichRoast, on 11/14/2009, -0/+8The BBC does not earn revenue through commercial advertising and relies upon TV licensing to fund its activities - while many (justifiably) believe that the BBC squanders money and that the license fees are too high, it is no surprise that it exists.
- kyle212, on 11/14/2009, -1/+9Well that was a nice advertisement for iPlayer
-
Show 51 - 100 of 178 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 