CRTs were so incredibly hard to manufacture it kind of blows my mind!

Also they were heavy, fragile and difficult to import. The components were usually shipped to the target countries and assembled there.

We must be around 10-15 generations in to LCD TVs at this point.

a modern lcd is also a wonder but it's infinitely more suited to automation

My son has "autism". He is 25 and needs constant supervision and care.

I feel that the word "autism" is now meaningless. I must know 50 of his cohorts and even though they're all "autistic" they can be quite different.

I also agree that his needs are underrepresented and drowned out by those mildly-affected who have the mental capacity to speak out for themselves.

They're also planning some overlap.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/innovative-use-of-spectrum...

I can't get my head around it sometimes. I know most end up doing duties that a PIC-chip could do but the fact you can get a WiFi enabled microcontroller few a few bucks blows my mind.

The IO co-processing on the Pico is so powerful, I hope they expand on this.

It's also not really clear that using some of the more powerful chips for simple things is really a "waste" in any reasonable sense of the word. The packaging of a PIC/CH32 is probably the majority of its cost and environmental "footprint".

An RP2040 is not much more physical material.

An ESP8266/ESP32 is rather bit more material, but still not egregious.

The big waste is battery power, which for many hobby things is not that important. For comparison, RP2040 quiescent current is like 400μA, FRAM MSP430 is approximately 0.1μA in interruptible sleep.

Right? Especially when I remember paying $20 each for an 8-bit microcontroller with less than 1k EPROM.

Same for me, after a while you just want to do something the "managed" software doesn't support.

Now I just run Ubuntu/Samba and use KVM and docker for anything that doesn't need access to the underlying hardware.

If BlueSky want to be the Yin to Twitter's Yang i'd be okay with that.

The TVLA is borderline criminal.

It's the main reason I hate the BBC now.

What other service is openly accessible but you get fined if you use it?

Use the bus without a ticket? Drive without insurance? Road tax?

Kids can't accidentally drive a car or ride a bus (and most towns in the UK have pay-to-ride buses).

I wish they would just lock it away behind a licensed paywall.

I used to be quite positive about the BBC, but since my daughter went to Uni, she has been hounded by the TV licensing company.

Now I am extremely negative about the BBC and I won't shed a tear when it loses its funding.

Are you concerned what the media landscape could turn into without the BBC, though?

The BBC turns out a lot of sh*te. Even its ostensibly high-brow documentaries are overemotional and condescending compared to what they used to be, and the corporation's impartiality is very very tenuous. License fee needs to go and be replaced by a subscription, because they're decades beyond their remit.

Yes, if they offer a "news only subscription" at a reasonable price I would buy it.

I literally watch 0 British TV apart from the news.

I wish they would block iPlayer if you don't have a TV licence.

I personally haven't had a TV antenna or dish attached to my TV for years.

Most of my entertainment is YouTube!

> I wish they would block iPlayer if you don't have a TV licence.

It's not totally blocked but you do need a license for iPlayer legally. I wish they'd let me tie my license to my account so it stops making me answer whether I've got one.

Clicking yes == not blocked at all.

Well, there's Reuters for that.

My wife's Galaxy Tab S7+ does this. It's configurable in the battery settings, 85% == 100% unless you disable the battery saving function.