http://philtheone.com Right-leaning Blackpool blog covering South Shore, North Shore, Marton, Bispham, Cleveleys and the rest of the Fylde discussing politics, local life, tourism, national issues and the rest of the world. Lively discussions encouraged! Thu, 17 May 2012 08:20:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://philtheone.com/2010/04/contentious-digital-economy-bill-passed-but-only-a-third-of-mps-voted-yes/ http://philtheone.com/2010/04/contentious-digital-economy-bill-passed-but-only-a-third-of-mps-voted-yes/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:13:59 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=2069 The heavily lobbied Digital Economy Bill, part of Gordon Brown’s Digital Britain strategy, has been powered through Parliament in the annual wash up. Perhaps it has been intentionally kept below the radar due to the immense opposition to it, although one could ask whether MPs even knew about it given the disgracefully low turnout. The [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2010/04/contentious-digital-economy-bill-passed-but-only-a-third-of-mps-voted-yes/feed/ 39 http://philtheone.com/2009/11/digital-economy-bill-guilty-until-proven-innocent/ http://philtheone.com/2009/11/digital-economy-bill-guilty-until-proven-innocent/#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:50:02 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=837 I’ve spoken in the past about Gordon Brown’s so called Digital Britain, which to summarise briefly is a collection of legislative powers that will be implemented with the intention of reducing file sharing on the internet. Despite the Digital Britain report being authored by Lord Carter it is The Prince of Darkness, Lord Mandelson, that [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/11/digital-economy-bill-guilty-until-proven-innocent/feed/ 17 http://philtheone.com/2009/08/longer-than-we-would-like-part-2/ http://philtheone.com/2009/08/longer-than-we-would-like-part-2/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:07:56 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=459 This is a continuation of my previous trials and tribulations with Virgin Media’s business arm in relation to a simple query. I spoke to a bird called Gemma at Virgin Media a month ago and based on the fact we’d been paying £100 per month too much on our contract with them for 4 or [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/08/longer-than-we-would-like-part-2/feed/ 22 http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-part-2/ http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-part-2/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:21:09 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=456 It turns out there may have been something behind the recent and sudden shift in timescale for the Government’s proposed anti-file sharing measures. I may be miles behind on this given that the Sunday Times reported it a few weeks ago, but it appears on the face of it that Handy Mandy is behind it [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-part-2/feed/ 3 http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-gordon/ http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-gordon/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:29:22 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=414 Today it seems our illustrious Government have decided to bring forward proposed legislation to block file sharing protocols on the internet. Previously scheduled to come in in 2012, there is now some kind of urgency to get the laws in place. No, I’ve no idea why either, but I’m sure large amounts of cash were [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/08/smash-the-machines-gordon/feed/ 2 http://philtheone.com/2009/07/longer-than-we-would-like/ http://philtheone.com/2009/07/longer-than-we-would-like/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:06:11 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=215 I’ve just had the misfortune of phoning Virgin Media. Actually technically it was NTL Telewest business, but it’s all the same thing now, leasing the name from that ginger bearded attention seeker. After all my rants and raves about how I hate this company, I guess it makes me a hypocrite for having Virgin Media [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/07/longer-than-we-would-like/feed/ 1 http://philtheone.com/2009/07/snip/ http://philtheone.com/2009/07/snip/#comments Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:24:24 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=211 More ISP madness and lobby group loving! I’ve just read on TorrentFreak that another UK ISP, Karoo, has been disconnecting users on request of third parties such as the BPI. I’d not heard of Karoo before, but it is owned and operated by Kingston Communications in the Hull area. Kingston is, if I recall, run [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/07/snip/feed/ 0 http://philtheone.com/2009/07/ruling-the-airwaves/ http://philtheone.com/2009/07/ruling-the-airwaves/#comments Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:49:00 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=89 If you could get away with committing an offence knowing that from the point of view of the authorities someone else did it, would you? I opened my netbook today and decided to search for wifi access points within the vicinity of my home and discovered a total of 14 unique networks including my own. [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/07/ruling-the-airwaves/feed/ 3 http://philtheone.com/2009/06/branson-pickle/ http://philtheone.com/2009/06/branson-pickle/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:11:00 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=84 According to the Evening Gazette, Blackpool’s “broadband connection” is about to become “one of the best in the country”. These opening words in the article left me a bit confused. Is journalist Nick Hyde telling us that Blackpool is so behind the times that it has only one broadband connection? Or maybe, just maybe, he [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/06/branson-pickle/feed/ 9 http://philtheone.com/2009/06/vive-la-legislation/ http://philtheone.com/2009/06/vive-la-legislation/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:50:00 +0000 Philtheone http://philtheone.com/?p=77 Lord Steve Carter and Ben Bradshaw have revealed their plans for “Digital Britain”. Application of a £6 per year phone line tax to fund the 2MBit broadband expansion into rich suburbs. ISPs are forced to hand over customer details on request to Ofcom which can be dished out to media conglomerates so they can monitor [...more]]]> http://philtheone.com/2009/06/vive-la-legislation/feed/ 2