Smart Meter = smart move?

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

That suggests though that even not at it's best quite a lot of people were satisfied with what they had. Improvements are a game of diminishing returns, to the point where increasing numbers of people start to question just what's the point. i may have reached that point earlier than most people but there seems to be more and more people in that position. A case in point - computers reached that point a few years back to the degree that many people don't even bother buying one any more, happy with what a phone or tablet can do.

It depends what you want of a computer.

I scan documents, I print, I sample music, I organise photos. I use a PC because although a tablet/phone can do all of these, it is not as good as dedicated kit for each item.

For most people the phone is good enough. That's their choice.

Generation on generation technological advances gave us better quality music, photographs, TV etc. however the current generation is happy to accept lower quality overall in order to have the convenience of everything in hand.

 

I still sit in front of a dedicated PC* (with separate printer & scanner as well as a professional weather station.)

 

* it also has an added Soundblaster card connected to a 45W stereo amp, a high quality vinyl deck, a cassette tape player and a pair of decent bookshelf speakers.

 

[melmerby]

 

9 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

It’s worth noting that at some stage analogue radio will be turned off - but as with Smart meters take up of digital is quite slow.....

 

8 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

Like smart meters it comes across as digital for the sake of it - most people are perfectly happy with analogue radio so won't bother to switch without being kicked.

The problem with DAB radio is that the government have hobbled the broadcasters with ridiculously low bit rates so they can cram more stations in.

There are not enough multiplexes available for the number of stations wanting to use them.

When it was first developed it was for a step change up in quality but with the bit rates for the music stations now as low as 128k the quality is way below good FM radio.

There are still plenty of radios without DAB for sale. (or were last time I looked)

 

The same applies to Freeview where some of the frequency allocation was removed from broadcasting by government for more lucrative uses.

This means that some areas get something called Freeview "Light" where only about 15 channels are available, way below what was initially promised.

Edited August 26, 2019 by melmerby

[Nick C]

14 hours ago, Reorte said:

Nope, but whether it can or not be recycled by someone doesn't relate to whether it's easy or not where you are. And considering card can be everywhere it's hard to see the point in the plastic.

 

We have this problem - our local council will only recycle plastic bottles. It doesn't matter that the lightbulb packaging or food tray is probably made of the same type of plastic, they will still only take bottles. Why that is, they have never managed to explain...

[Phil Parker]

14 minutes ago, Nick C said:

 

We have this problem - our local council will only recycle plastic bottles. It doesn't matter that the lightbulb packaging or food tray is probably made of the same type of plastic, they will still only take bottles. Why that is, they have never managed to explain...

 

They are probably sorting it by hand. The sorters will recognise bottles but not have time to identify anything unusual. If you want more experienced people with this ability, someone's going to have to pay more then the derisory amount they earn for a pretty horrible job.

[melmerby]

18 hours ago, Reorte said:

Not many places that'll take that sort of plastic packaging, and why use it over card anyway? Even if you can get rid of it it's not easy to separate it from the card backing. I'm afraid it's all gone in the bin, can't put it in anything at the house and even if I take it to the tip (which I visit every now and then to get rid of the plastic bottle backlog) it'll be "general waste" there.

 

18 minutes ago, Nick C said:

 

We have this problem - our local council will only recycle plastic bottles. It doesn't matter that the lightbulb packaging or food tray is probably made of the same type of plastic, they will still only take bottles. Why that is, they have never managed to explain...

 

We are fortunate, our local council will take most plastic, except currently black although I understand that is to be included in future. Plastic bags and bottle tops unfortunately are not included.

All recycling glass, plastic, card , paper, tins etc. go into one standard wheelie bin and is sorted automatically at the depot.

They also do bins for garden waste (at extra cost) which is composted and general waste which is landfill.

These days we produce so little general waste that I only put the bin out once a month, even then it's usually less than half full.

Edited August 27, 2019 by melmerby

[Reorte]

Access to my place is a bit awkward, so we don't get any of the usual recycling bins (there are some suspiciously small garden bins that are only really of use for composting and what little food waste I produce goes in the compost heap anyway). They'll do a box that they'll collect from the house but that's only for paper, glass, and tins and I can take paper and glass them along to the supermarket, which is only five minutes away. No plastic of any kind though unless I take it to the tip, the supermarket plastic recylcing went a few years ago despite usually being full to overflowing. I think the bin at the tip was bottles and cartons only; maybe the packaging would be OK in there but it doesn't say. Whether the tins can go in the supermarket bins seems to vary from day to day... sometimes they have "bottles and cans" on the label, sometimes "glass bottles only."

[great central]

3 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They are probably sorting it by hand. The sorters will recognise bottles but not have time to identify anything unusual. If you want more experienced people with this ability, someone's going to have to pay more then the derisory amount they earn for a pretty horrible job.

 

Probably controversial, but I see that kind of job as perfectly suited to some of the less savoury elements of society currently having to fill their days on PlayStation (other games platforms are available) watching telly or trying to figure out how to get their next fix smuggled in. 

Maybe they see such apparently menial tasks as beneath them, possibly it would make them think twice about going back.

[Phil Parker]

3 minutes ago, great central said:

 

Probably controversial, but I see that kind of job as perfectly suited to some of the less savoury elements of society currently having to fill their days on PlayStation (other games platforms are available) watching telly or trying to figure out how to get their next fix smuggled in. 

Maybe they see such apparently menial tasks as beneath them, possibly it would make them think twice about going back.

 

What happens to the people who are doing the job now? Presumably, despite them having decided to do pretty horrible work rather than be on the dole, you'll punish them by chucking them out of a job and give the work to prisoners, who let's face it, won't do it anything like as well. Then once this is a success and saves someone money because they don't have to pay wages, what other jobs to you also hand over? Street cleaning? Looking after old people? Obviously, you'll need to increase the prison population to supply this slave labour but that's not an issue - other countries do it.

[ejstubbs]

15 hours ago, melmerby said:

The same applies to Freeview where some of the frequency allocation was removed from broadcasting by government for more lucrative uses.

This means that some areas get something called Freeview "Light" where only about 15 channels are available, way below what was initially promised.

 

Point of information: Freeview Light, in its historical sense as you have used it here, had nothing to do with frequency reallocation.  It was a consequence of commercial decisions by the non-public service multiplex operators not to roll out their three DTT multiplexes to all the relay transmitters.  That decision was made in the run-up to digital switchover which was completed in 2012, before any spectrum re-allocations started, and did not result in any increase in revenue for the government.

 

Since that time we've had the 800MHz clearance, which removed UHF channels 61-69 from DTT, but that was achieved with minimal/no impact to coverage.  The 700MHz clearance, which is what is happening now, was originally planned to complete by the end of 2021 but was then pulled forward to Q2 2020.  That will remove UHF channels 49-60, leaving only 21 to 48 for DTT.  The original idea was that DVB-T2 (higher bandwidth multiplexes which could accommodate TV channels displaced from multiplexes using the 700MHz spectrum) would be fully rolled out by the time that the 700MHz clearance was due to start, but the acceleration of the timescale for the 700MHz clearance pretty much put paid to that*.  That has made planning for the 700MHz clearance more difficult because you're trying to squeeze the same six multiplexes in to less than 60% of the previously available UHF TV channels (although some characteristics of DTT cf analogue broadcasting do make the job a little easier than it otherwise might have been).

 

FWIW both the post-DSO spectrum re-allocations result from international agreements on re-allocation of spectrum from terrestrial TV - which actually needs less bandwidth these days now that it's digital - to other uses including 4G and 5G mobile.  Like it or not, growth in demand for mobile services is huge, while actual consumption of DTT is falling steadily as satellite and, more recently, streaming are more widely taken up (in fact a proportion of the additional 4G and 5G bandwith is likely to be used by people streaming stuff that they might otherwise have watched on DTT).

 

As far as I can see from the Digital UK web site, the rolling programme of re-tunes will result in the same multiplexes being available as before the 700MHz clearance for all except "a small number of households" which will lose DDT coverage altogether (the obvious option for most of these would be to switch to Freesat, though even that doesn't work absolutely everywhere - and some areas have bylaws restricting the installation of dishes).  Some (estimated <200,000) folks who still have a grouped aerial will need to change it, and some (rather fewer) others may need to re-position their existing aerial to point to a different transmitter.

 

My local main transmitter has already moved its 3 PSB and 3 COM multiplexes in to the reduced UHF channel range.  It still broadcasts the "temporary" DVB-T2 COM multiplexes in the 700MHz band, but using channels in the middle region of the band that might not be taken up straight away.

 

* IMO it was always optimistic anyway: of the mainstream multiplexes only the BBC HD one is currently using DVB-T2, and there must still be a significant proportion of users who don't have equipment capable of receiving DVB-T2.

[royaloak]

16 hours ago, melmerby said:

It depends what you want of a computer.

I scan documents, I print, I sample music, I organise photos. I use a PC because although a tablet/phone can do all of these, it is not as good as dedicated kit for each item.

 

As do I and I use a 15 year old HP Pavilion DV1000 bought second hand 12 years ago and its still going strong (only needed a new battery) because it runs Windows XP and I prefer the editing programme on it compared to all the new laptops we have had since.

 

It is only used for picture editing now and isnt connected to the internet so security isnt a problem and all photos are on external hard drives with the laptop used as a go between so even if it dies the pictures are saved elsewhere, it aint broke so why fix it.

[Ouroborus]

57 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

What happens to the people who are doing the job now? Presumably, despite them having decided to do pretty horrible work rather than be on the dole, you'll punish them by chucking them out of a job and give the work to prisoners, who let's face it, won't do it anything like as well. Then once this is a success and saves someone money because they don't have to pay wages, what other jobs to you also hand over? Street cleaning? Looking after old people? Obviously, you'll need to increase the prison population to supply this slave labour but that's not an issue - other countries do it.

 

Er, well they DO pay wages to prisoners and many prisoners would be happy of the work to stave off the boredom and are quite capable of doing a good job.  Remember, its not all gangsters who are in prison - there are many in for white collar crimes.  The trouble you'll have with prisoners is whether they can be trusted to work unsupervised and this happens on a case by case basis.  Integration of prisoners back into the community is far more widespread than you may think and many recycling centres, charity shops etc, depend on them.  Other examples include "The Klinks" dotted up and down.

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

What happens to the people who are doing the job now? Presumably, despite them having decided to do pretty horrible work rather than be on the dole, you'll punish them by chucking them out of a job and give the work to prisoners, who let's face it, won't do it anything like as well. Then once this is a success and saves someone money because they don't have to pay wages, what other jobs to you also hand over? Street cleaning? Looking after old people? Obviously, you'll need to increase the prison population to supply this slave labour but that's not an issue - other countries do it.

The people doing the job now might well decide to go back to their country of origin because in various parts of the country - such as ours a lot of these jobs are filled by immigrants who are glad to get work and in many cases are prepared to accept the poor wages which go with such work.  If we didn't have those people the only way you would get the unemployed into such jobs is by giving them no choice and then you definitely wouldn't get such a good standard of work.  It's basically down to the way we - as a society - have moved in respect of low paid jobs and relying on somebody else to do them for us.

 

Prisoners - as already noted above - do work, if they can mange to get onto a work roster in their place of confinement.  it relieves the biredom and gives them an income and the standard of work they do is not bad, no worse than if it were done by those outside.  Here's an example from the Scottish Prisons Service

 

http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Information/PrisonIndustries.aspx

[JJGraphics]

We seem to have drifted a good bit from the subject of this thread.

 

Nothing has changed my view on the subject and  I’m sticking to the view I posted in this thread a very long time ago:

 

SMART METER = DUMB MOVE.

 

John

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

Prisoners - as already noted above - do work, if they can mange to get onto a work roster in their place of confinement.  it relieves the biredom and gives them an income and the standard of work they do is not bad, no worse than if it were done by those outside. 

 

Having, back in my work days, visited prisons to inspect work done by inmates on PO/BT contracts I can endorse that. It was mainly leather work such as work gloves or tool rolls.

The work was not of the highest standard but it definitely wasn't rubbish, the staff who controlled the work contingent saw to that.

Some normal suppliers would try and pass off rubbish if they could.

[sharris]

Apparently British Gas are coming to fit mine on {{Date1}}

 

 

I hope their meters are smarter than their mailmerge.

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, JJGraphics said:

We seem to have drifted a good bit from the subject of this thread.

 

Nothing has changed my view on the subject and  I’m sticking to the view I posted in this thread a very long time ago:

 

SMART METER = DUMB MOVE.

 

John

Quite amusingly there is a piece about smart meters in the online version of the Daily wail today (I like a comic to read - it's great fun looking at the stupidities it comes out with).  But really amusing, and downright scary in some respects are comments from those praising the things for the amount they have saved on their electric bills.  One bloke claimed a saving of several tens of £s each month because the smart meter tells him how much electricity he was using so he started turning-off things.  Quite why he needed some fairly basic gizmo to tell him to turn-off something when it wasn't being used is not disclosed - maybe he's the sort of person who believes nothing unless it is on a computer screen?  My big worry is that he might believe everything he sees on a computer screen.

[Bulleidboy100]

Just watching the afternoon BBC News - there appears to be numerous problems with smart meters - even the second generation ones.  As was stated by The Stationmater - do we need a smart meter to tell us when to turn something off?

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 hours ago, Bulleidboy100 said:

 do we need a smart meter to tell us when to turn something off?

 

No, but the utilities companies need to know when you're likely to turn something off so they can get in smartish to charge you!

 

Mike.

[ejstubbs]

Pithy article on techmarketview.com this morning - I can't share a link because it's behind a paywall but it's only a short article, and one of fourteen (to date) on the subject so I call fair use for quoting the following:

 

Quote

 

"The successful delivery of smart metering benefits depends upon coordinated effort from a wide range of organisations,” is the key statement in the Government’s latest report on the UK smart meter rollout programme. The ‘wide range of organisations’ includes no fewer than 86 energy suppliers, a host of smart meter manufacturers and distributors, the communications infrastructure suppliers and the blessed Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. There’s probably others too – what could possibly go wrong?

 

Well, something must be going wrong as the rate of smart meter installation has declined yet again and is now 19% lower than this time last year. At current course and speed, the rollout should be complete somewhere around the time of the Second Coming.

 

But what ires me even more is the Government’s TV campaign exhorting we, the people, to install smart meters for the good of ourselves, the country and indeed the planet. It’s shameless misinformation and I don’t understand why the Advertising Standards Authority has not stepped in and slapped their wrist very hard indeed. Let alone the millions (I assume) that we, the taxpayers, are coughing up to finance the campaign.

 

 

In the previous article in the series the author notes that nearly 20% of smart meters that have been installed are non-operational, likely because the consumer has switched supplier (as we constantly exhorted to do by folks like Martin Lewis) and the meter isn't compatible with the new supplier's system.

Edited August 30, 2019 by ejstubbs

[Free At Last]

I am finding this advert irritating...

 

"Thank you" to those who are resisting having a smart meter enforced on them.

[BernardTPM]

Trouble is a 'Smarter Britain' sees right through that...

Edited August 30, 2019 by BernardTPM

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, Free At Last said:

I am finding this advert irritating...

 

"Thank you" to those who are resisting having a smart meter enforced on them.

It really is a load of sentimentalised rubbish and it irritates n me very much.  It's almost as if those youngsters actually believe what they are saying.  And technically it's carp as well - the electricity industry knows exactly how much energy is being used and so do we if we look at the relevant website.  So a dumb meter won't tell them anything, they already know that demand goes up when folk put the kettle on during an ad break on the tv or when Sunday lunch is being cooked.  

[boxbrownie]

On 27/08/2019 at 09:55, Reorte said:

Access to my place is a bit awkward, so we don't get any of the usual recycling bins (there are some suspiciously small garden bins that are only really of use for composting and what little food waste I produce goes in the compost heap anyway). They'll do a box that they'll collect from the house but that's only for paper, glass, and tins and I can take paper and glass them along to the supermarket, which is only five minutes away. No plastic of any kind though unless I take it to the tip, the supermarket plastic recylcing went a few years ago despite usually being full to overflowing. I think the bin at the tip was bottles and cartons only; maybe the packaging would be OK in there but it doesn't say. Whether the tins can go in the supermarket bins seems to vary from day to day... sometimes they have "bottles and cans" on the label, sometimes "glass bottles only."

Access to our property is restricted also (as is most of the area we live) and the refuse/recycling has to be done in small “pick-up” type trucks (transit size) and filled by hand but we are still given a bag for each of Plastic, Paper, Card and a box for Glass, the “bin men” work hard to collect but it’s seems to work, it can be done if the willingness by the local authority is there.

[jjb1970]

21 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

It really is a load of sentimentalised rubbish and it irritates n me very much.  It's almost as if those youngsters actually believe what they are saying.  And technically it's carp as well - the electricity industry knows exactly how much energy is being used and so do we if we look at the relevant website.  So a dumb meter won't tell them anything, they already know that demand goes up when folk put the kettle on during an ad break on the tv or when Sunday lunch is being cooked.  

 

When we have the media and politicians treating a 16 year old school girl with no scientific or technical expertise in any of the relevant subjects as the new messiah on climate change this comes as no surprise. 

[jjb1970]

I must be blessed as we had one letter telling us that it would be simply splendid if we "upgraded" to a smart meter which promptly went into the paper recycling bin and have had nothing since.