The corollary of that line of thought though is that by preventing tech companies from dabbling in microprocessors you reduce competition in the microprocessor space- a sector which has proven very prone to the formation of monopolies/duopolies. If anything, we want to encourage more new competitors in that space, not fewer.

Also, it’d be essentially arbitrary. Is it OK for Apple to design its own microprocessors, but not Amazon- and if so, why? Is Google allowed if it uses them in phones like Apple, but not if it uses them in data centres like Amazon?

What with Trump recently declaring (in his usual completely coherent and not at all deranged manner) that Google Are Bad, the Supreme Court might not necessarily be feeling so keen to help out on this one.

All licence applications cost the same in the UK, regardless of what you apply for (or to be more exact: the cost scales with the size of the venue according to fixed bands related to “business rates” valuations).

Licensing conditions are actually entirely fluid and negotiable between the applicant and the local council, who act as the licensing body. Not only with regards to opening hours, but also to all sorts of weird and wonderful additional terms. In practice when it comes to opening hours, a lot of pubs and bars apply for (and are granted) licenses quite a lot later than their actual intended closing time, as it gives them leeway to open late for special occasions without the need to apply for a temporary extension, and gives flexibility for “lock ins” (i.e. continuing to serve customers after they’d normally have shut up shop).

Yes, “24 hour licensing” means that bars can apply for any licence they want, but they don’t need to apply for a full 24 hours if they don’t want to; they can apply for any licence terms they like.

They also don’t need to open for the full terms of their licence. Just because they’ve been granted a 4am licence, it doesn’t mean they can’t still shut up shop at 10:30pm if they like. It’s permission to open during those hours, not an obligation.

The UK already has 24 hour drinks licensing in theory, and lots of bars have a late licence. But in practice, very few bars actually open through the night; it turns out that the economics of keeping a bar staffed and open when most of the customers are in bed just doesn’t work out.

It’s pretty much just nightclubs that make any use of it.

The UK isn’t quite that far, but it’s absolutely the dominant text messaging and calling app in the UK. Nobody uses the built in Android or Apple tools anymore, and I’m as likely to receive a WhatsApp voice call as an actual phone call these days.

I have Signal on my phone, but I’ve literally never had a cause to use it; I’ve simply got no contacts on there.

One of these days someone should write a script that just automatically adds all the Amazon Prime games to your various Epic/GOG/etc. accounts.

I say “someone”, because I’m far too lazy to do it.

But anyway, it would take a lot of work out of the job of mindlessly hoarding games I’ll never get round to playing.

See, now I’m fine with that. I pay for Netflix and I want what I pay for to stay ad-free. Having an ad-supported tier with no fee in addition to that means that there are options for other people without enshittifying my experience.

That’s a world of difference to what Amazon have done where they’ve shoved ads into the service that I thought I was paying for, and then offered to charge me even more to get my original ad-free service back.

They said wrong answers only, wtf.

When ordering meat or fish; you should be aware that, while much effort has been taken to remove any bone, meat and fish products are nonetheless served alive. You will need to slaughter them yourself. They have been pasteurised at birth, so cooking them first is not recommended, but advised.

This is high art. Kudos on all the talent.

Something between trolling and a wish fulfillment fantasy from Farage here, but the fact that this sort of story isn’t even absurd is a prety damning situation for the old Tories.

Most local parties have something in the region of 500 members, the vast majority of whom aren’t active canvassers. Losing 48 door knockers would suck, but I’d bet good money that all 48 weren’t door knockers.

Losing 48 passive members would be nothing; membership fluctuates by almost that margin for mundane reasons over the course of a few months anyway.

could have been interpreted as an alien abduction (or Satanic ritual abuse).

Why not both?

It always seemed weird to me that most companies just discontinued their traditional sugary variety and went diet only, instead of having a diet version and the sugary version just at a higher price.

The death of original Irn Bru is a bit of a tragedy, and I’m not even sure what the point of low sugar Lucozade is supposed to be.

That’d be a turn up for the books; usually it’s the student who gets shafted by the Tories, not the other way around.

This feels like something you should go tell Google about rather than the rest of us. They’re the ones who have embedded LLM-generated answers to random search queries.

I am completely satisfied with the idea that all doctors should be career doctors who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of medicine.

I am not entirely as satisfied with the idea that all politicians should be career politicians who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of politics.

Parliament would be a much richer and more effective place if it were populated by people from a range of backgrounds and specialisms. I don’t think it’s a good thing that a sizeable fraction of them all studied the same politics degree at the same two universities.

Old article, recently reposted on The Other Place, but a good long read.

I’m no fan of Wes Streeting, but the Canary is trash and is doing its usual of selectively quoting.

We will go further than New Labour ever did. I want the NHS to form partnerships with the private sector that goes beyond just hospitals. Here’s one example. High street opticians have the staff and equipment to provide basic tests. Meanwhile 220,000 patients have been waiting more than 18 weeks for eye care. Specsavers have welcomed Labour’s plan to use high street opticians to cut waiting lists, saying they stand ready to help.

Personally I’m not enormously bothered about high street opticians taking NHS appointments (within their competency). This is essentially the same model that GPs and dentists already follow (and always have done).

There’s plenty to be guarded about, but let’s not catastrophise based on half-quoted electioneering material.

Realistically, they could just move their servers abroad to a country with less problematic copyright rules and wind up their US operations. It would make no difference to the end user, unless ISPs are also ordered to block access. And even then it’d only be a VPN away.

The risk of total data loss is not zero, but it’s also not the likely outcome.