tomo,

To rub it in ...

Ah, a gloater. There's a range of sub-species of homo bureaucraticus that I've had direct or vicarious experience with (tales from friends and family): a good proportion are reasonable enough; then there's the jobsworth and the sloth who employ different strategies to do nothing; the stickler gets things done eventually (if your patience holds out), and the gloater can be helpful or a nightmare depending on whether or not he has decided to torment *you*.

I'm with Mailman on the Fire TV thing, though I thought this wording in the story was interesting:

... used by criminals to offer a painless way to watch copyrighted material

Criminal to offer the sticks for sale, but is it not *also* criminal to use it?

Fair enough on the police being given a pretext to help themselves to devices, but the rot goes back a lot further.

I've had a few good whinges here about how we have done away with doctors and now only have "guideline followers". Those changed conditions have (i believe) changed the type of people who become doctors. In essence, most people with initiative will go elsewhere. The police have also seen changing incentives and are now pretty much the above homo bureaucraticus in uniform (I mean honestly, what does the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit need with "flak jackets"?). It's not about law and order anymore, it's which rules are we pushing this week?

Meanwhile, it'd be nice if Amazon (Apple, Netflix, ...) worked on making material worth stealing. I was given copies of several seasons of The Americans. I made it through the first two episodes before giving it up. Fantasy (super-duper spies) and soap opera: not an agreeable blend. Could I have some pirate copies of Dad's Army please?

Tomo,

Yeah, not sure that one is a problem. If people are basically watching something they haven't paid for then that is not right...and I say that in spite of the fact I dont care about this kind of "theft".

UK public media clampdown

and so it begins

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1765659540354183219

tomo,
As you say, it's a bit tricky to reconcile this bit of hagiography:

He was determined ... to do everything exactly correctly, ...

with the phalanx of spectators coming to witness Dryden's humiliation. While it was a lot more of a comeuppance than Collinson deserved, I wonder how many previous humiliations he'd presided over. It made sure he'd not preside over any more. It'd be nice to think that other power-tripping bureaucrats learnt by example and eased up, but reality suggests otherwise.

As for taking recordings of officials, modern notions of "privacy" might well see such evidence excluded. It's a poisonous relationship with inifinite recurse of he knows, I know he knows, he knows I know he knows, etc.

.,
Maybe he dislikes masks so much that he relies purely on the vaccine and has decided that you can't have too much of a good thing. Vaccine proponents will probably use him as evidence that the vacclines are harmless, but my N=1 mantra applies here too. 217 doses might have been harmless to him, but 1 dose has been enough to kill other people.

What the betting he's a voluble mask maniac too?

https://twitter.com/SandraWeeden/status/1765251465398906965