I think that yes, a spinoff featuring Kari, Grant and Tory would be a good idea, and I would also think that they should work under the Mythbusters brand. However given that, I would have no idea what exactly the show would be about with these three. Maybe if Mythbusters is getting back to basics, the spin off could get more serious... show be called "Myth Re-Busters", take certain earlier "plausible" myths and re-do them but using more stringent scientific methods. Leave Adam and Jamie to do the laughs and the bangs. That way people who got too turned off by the presentation and the showmanship of the original series can turn on to something more to their liking... and if the general public are ready for something a bit more serious then ratings shouldn't be a problem either.

I agree on the recaps on one point alone: some features are split up, often with "The Star in the Reasonably Priced Car" segment of the show. When the main feature is returned to, then yes there is a brief recap.

However, on domestic BBC TV, there are no adverts.

Not true. My Google Nexus 5, and my wife's iphone 4S have SIM card slots, with actual SIMS in them. We've been with Sprint in what seems like forever. The SIM is required for the GSM part of the phone to work.

... oh he said Arial... not Ariel... now if it was a rant against Ariel.... said hearing officer has more problems than just about fonts...

Sounds like a plan to me... a well regulated infrastructure provider providing the "last mile" and different ISPs competing to provide services down this "last mile" (which is owned by the ISP but the infrastructure provider is required to maintain). Mandate the infrastructure company to supply fiber to the premesis as much as is possible. The UK have this kind of arrangement - Openreach runs and maintains the infrastructure, other communications providers purchase use from Openreach. There's no need to make it a government owned company, or even separate the ownership between the incumbent telcos / cablecos. This can be done in the USA, on a regional basis, and ensuring that the "last mile" company is in itself a separate business entity from whoever owns it, even if it is the present incumbent companies.

Some might be skeptical of separation between a "last mile" company and a communications provider when both are owned by the same company. Again, it is regulation that is key. In the financial sector, larger financial companies may own more than one bank but these separate banks have to operate at arms length from one another. Banking regulations make this a requirement. It makes it interesting when the two "banks" are in the same building... an employee of one bank is not to talk about their work or what their bank is doing with employees of the other bank - even though the two banks are owned by the same company and the employees of both banks get their paycheck from the same parent company.

Doctor Who has a number of things going for it. One, it's about fifty years old, so it didn't have an awful lot of television competition. Two, it did build up a cult following over the 1970's and early 1980's. Doctor Who *did* get axed. It got axed because the Controller didn't much care for the show, it got scheduled against Coronation Street (the #1 TV show then in that particular time-slot) and using the excuse of low audience numbers, the axe fell. Though officially the show was "resting".

That cult following actually led to Doctor Who coming back again. Funny when the children who grew up on Doctor who become Television Producers. .

... the Roku channel in question is most certainly not termed as "beta" in any shape or form. Neither is their Android app (can't say about the Apple one, no Apple product here).

I do see the same problems... anytime after 6pm of a weekday evening the Roku app is slow to load, and does crash my Roku (yes, it's a N1000 but it still gives good service for a device that initially came out just for Netflix). The Android app at least is more stable but its interface is quirky and requires some figuring out.

Funimation on Roku - best usability but worst reliability.
Funimation on Android - worst usability, best reliability.
Funimation on website - balanced between the two.

IMO the Funimation Channel should be taken "private" on Roku until a reliable service is in place. When it works right, then customer satisfaction will be better. But with competitors like Crunchyroll coming along, who knows?

But then I think Funimations' main business is to distribute the shows and to dub (re-version) into English, and make sales on DVD distributions, which is their chief source of income apparently. Obviously streaming isn't their #1 priority. IMO Funimation should get in contact with Amazon and work something out, as Netflix uses Amazon's service to do video distribution.

I'm more concerned whether these data centers will stand up to a Zombie Apocalypse. You know, breaking in, ripping all the wires out...

Seriously, datacenters in NC aren't on the coast. But there is a nuclear power station south of Wilmington, NC that's pretty much on the coast. If *that* is hit by a Category 5 hurricane - then I don't know what would happen.

A nuclear power plant going kaboom is more concerning to me than a datacenter going kaboom.

Depends if your PBS affiliate is carrying it or not. In NC, UNC-TV repackages the PBS Kids shows into its own UNC-TV Kids Channel - all kids, all the time. Other PBS affiliates offer the PBS IQ package which is kids at day, and progressively targets an older audience throughout the day. Some don't at all - the folks in Mississippi don't get IQ, they get Create... not targeted at children. I guess they have a much tighter budget than UNC-TV who operate four channels (3 are over the air, the 4th is exclusive to Time Warner Cable customers). It's not as if there isn't the broadcast bandwidth - Mississippi Public Broadcasting's HD channel is replicated in standard definition. UNC-TV on the other hand does not do this. Its main HD channel is not simulcast over-the-air... ok for end consumers, and if they are watching on an older TV with a converter they can choose to crop or letterbox. For cable/satellite companies they have to make the decision when rebroadcasting UNC-TV on their 4:3 SD channel.

Just tried to go to www.facebook.com - and got a 503 error.

In any case I wonder if there is a way to re-direct email to my so-called facebook email address over to someone else at facebook... or elsewhere for that matter?

It's odd that apple doesn't have apple.co.uk but they have apple.fr, apple.de, apple.se ...

In any case ITV plc is a producer of television programming and sells it worldwide, so it has every right to the itv.com domain.

In any case both ITV and the BBC had to pay a lot of money for their names, since they *had* concentrated on .co.uk and realised too late that they needed the .com rights.

Indeed there is. http://www.radiobirdsong.com/ explains all... for those who don't want to follow - birdsong was used as test transmissions before the launch of Classic FM in the UK, and then later on as a filler station on a DAB network. Proved very popular on DAB, its removal resulted in a lot of complaints to No. 10 Downing Street., and estimated listenership of about half a million people.