Its not required to "look at a screen". its required to watch broadcast TV and use the BBc's online TV services. You can watch as much as you like on Youtube or Netflix or whatever without paying it.
it was very good value for money when half of all TV output (and the better half) was from the BBC and ad free.
> You can watch as much as you like on Youtube or Netflix or whatever without paying it.
Careful here because there is live TV on Youtube and a valid licence is required to watch that. There are also live shows on Netflix, which may count as "live TV programmes" so requiring a licence.
Yes, you highlight that a TV livence may be required for some content on Youtube. It is apparently also required for some content (live) on Netflix [1]. For example it seems that WWE Raw, which is live and on Netflix is deemed "live TV" [1]:
"Services include YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go, BBC iPlayer, ITVX and more. Live TV or events can include:
Champions League matches or live channels on Amazon Prime Video
The UK law is specifically designed to cover this. It's not some weird thing. Any "live TV" requires a license even if you watch it via streaming services.
The law did not really intend this as it was written when "live TV" meant sitting in front of an actual TV. Since then it has been interpreted as covering everything, I think to protect revenues and deter even more people from ditching their TV licence.
It's a historical accident. At first there was no TV, so when the BBC started broadcasting I suppose it made sense. Moving away from that seems to be difficult without them introducing advertising for live TV, which would be a quick fix, but that seems to be a diminishing market.
It's not an accident. Funding state media with a licence fee instead of from the taxes/state budget, makes it harder to exert political control over said state media.
No accident at all, in fact Lord Reith wanted the BBC to create the correct British values, i.e. to speak with a particular accent, to be loyal to the royal family and not to get involved in anything that was a threat to the system. The service was very much centred on London, with some paltry "regional" services.
The creation of ITV was supposed to provide an alternative, but was all too cosy and even today ITV pushes much the same programming as the BBC in outlook and news etc. The first real threat was pirate radio, which proved more popular than the BBC, and forced them to introduce Radio 1 for pop music.
Channel 4 was supposed to provide further competition, but in fact it was VCRs and video hire that really undermined the BBC's monopoly in the 80s. By the 90s, they were outclassed by satellite broadcasting (particularly sports and films). By the late 1990s, internet was breaking the state stranglehold on news and information... Leading to a crackdown in the 2010s with whatever scarestories they could come up with like cyberbullying, terrorism, pro-ana, porn etc.
Now the BBC are saying they want a fee for mobile phone and internet usage, although they haven't succeeded in that yet. Both of which are pretty much mandatory now.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the catch-and-release of car thieves drove up costs for everyone. If I change my address away from the craziness, my policy drops by half.
I have always only purchased maximum liability only insurance, and my premium went from $40 per vehicle per month to $50 per vehicle per month over the last decade. In Washington.
The weird bit is that the UK is the inbreed/incest hot zone of Europe:
"It is estimated that approximately 55% of marriages within the Pakistani community in the United Kingdom are between first cousins. This practice, often referred to as consanguineous marriage, is culturally favored within certain communities, leading to higher rates of inbreeding coefficients, which can be comparable to those found in other regions with high rates of cousin marriage, such as in the Middle East."
The UK refuses to make it illegal. That would be racist. The worst crime ever.
I once read the dating life in Iceland can be kind of difficult. The total population is around 400k after being settled for almost 1150 years. Thus, it's quite common on first dates for both individuals to go through their family trees. Not to see if they are related, but to make sure they aren't too related.
It turns out that Icelandic people even have an app for it now.
I am not sure about the stats in the UK particularly but the "consanguinity rate" per capita wise is a lot higher in the middle east.
"The consanguinity rate in the UAE has increased from 39% to 50.5% in one generation."
From what I have learned, it has a lot to do with "wealth preservation". Something important I guess if you are a millionaire sheikh and get regular allowances from the ruling royal family according to your family title/name.
I love TMBG, and I tried to get my wife into them, but it never really vibed with her, which is fine.
That said, we went to a TMBG concert in Brooklyn about 11 years ago, and she actually had a really good time, and was even singing along to some of the songs. With music, the context of "how you're listening to the music" is equally important to the music itself.
I listened to TMBG early on in my music life and eventually came to "not particularly enjoy" them. Talking Heads, on the other hand, have only gotten better and better in my opinion.
Exactly representative of the single anecdotal examples designed to equate all immigrants to criminally illegal villains. You may have a point if this was the typical example of the kind of people Dumpty is rounding up. But they are pulling people from their immigration hearings. You know, the ones "doing it the right way" they promised wouldn't be rounded up. That is the majority of people being rounded up in Dumpty's domestic immigration attack.
> Chandee therefore was granted permission to stay in the U.S. and work so long as he checked in with immigration authorities periodically. He has not missed a check-in in over 30 years and has not had another criminal incident.
> After Chandee completed his prison sentence, he finished school and became an engineering technician. He worked for the City of Minneapolis for 26 years, became a father, and his son grew up to join the military.
Why would a country be unwelcoming to people like this?
Here in Washington Statue, we hardly elect Republicans. There are several reasons, but one of them is that the Republican Party runs really weird candidates.
The two people who could have gotten Donald Trump elected ran against him. That's how bad the candidates the Democrats ran were: The voters would rather have Donald Trump.
This is the point many people overlook. Biden won because a lot of voters said, "anyone but Trump" and Biden was acceptable. WaPo even pointed this out, just before Biden dropped out the anyone but Trump voters couldn't really accept Biden after the debate. Harris was not a strong candidate, especially after saying, on "The View," she said she would not change anything.
I lived through this, and it captures the era well. I'm trying to see through young eyes, but I can't stress how new things seemed every year during this era. Nowadays, there doesn't seem to be as much progress, just better iteration.
I am a bit younger but I agree. Going from the SNES/Genesis to Playstation/N64 with 3d graphics was amazing. It was like having an arcade machine at home. Going to the PS2/Xbox and then 360/PS3 was again a massive jump. Every console jump was a very noticeable improvement in graphics, so it became a big deal. PS4/PS5/XBONE these were just such minor improvements, there is no big wow factor.
The snes to N64 jump to me is definitely the biggest. It wasn't just graphics, the gameplay completely changed too.
By the end of the snes era I had grown out of games due to endless platforms and 2d fighters (I was 13ish). I was 16 by time I started playing them again. Wave race 64 was just mind blowing. And like nothing else I'd played before.
The best example I’ve come up with for progress in this era is to look at the release schedules of Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, and X, and compare their graphics.
For me, phonics was a lifesaver. Sure, you have to learn a corpus of typically common words that don't follow the pattern, but that's ok. I went from functionally illiterate to loving language.
Think the point here is that the US's party line that mexico is peddling death to the states is quite obviously outweighed by the suffering it pedals back, and globally. The US, and the US only, is responsible for the flow of drugs across its borders. No smoke without fire, no supply without demand.
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