Yes, I think they do. At least I do. I just happen to like his pompous asshattery.

No. It's a non profit, licence funded public organisation. Slightly differnt but the difference matters.

The licence fee may be considered a "tax", but it goes straight to the BBCthe BBC. It doesn't go into the general tax pool.

It is explicitly separate from government and while it's impossible to keep them completely isolated from each other, this separation is taken very seriously. The BBC has no qualms about upsetting the government, and any government that tries to exert pressure will be very unpopular.

Mind you - a good chunk of this would be across Siberia and another chunk through Alaska and a sparsely populated chunk of Canada. Can't imagine the Irkutz - Fairbanks stretch being all that popular and there's really not a lot between them - about the same distance as London-NY.

Essentially our big problem with going the short way round is that silly puddle between Europe and America.

I've heard that in Britain, our telecoms monopoly (BT) is obliged to provide service for a standard connection fee. There are occasional remote locations that they've been obliged to connect for a nominal fee of £130 or so.

It's not a complaint. It's simply an observation that perceived wisdom isn't always correct.

Let's build some robots first, and if they start interfering with the operation of each other come up with protocols that handle actual situations rather than hypotheticals.

Real world data is really useful!

Best suggestion I heard for thow the series should end was Chris carter, with a flip chart, expaining how everything fits together.

Yeah, I probably could have put that better. You absolutely can have a romantic interest as a fully developed character. It's one of the problems with the test.

But there are movies where the only thing that the female character is for is as motivation. The character could be replaced by a favourite pet or even an inanimate object that the protagonist happens to value, with minimal changes. Willie Scott from Temple of Doom could have been replaced by Indy's hat without affecting the plot!

Or there are a couple of genetic anomalies :)

Hey, 47,XYY syndrome and 48,XYYY syndromes exist (and even 49,XYYYY).

The Beschdel test is based on the idea that many writers will create female characters not as actual characters but as a love interest. Hence the qualifiers. It's not a perfect test but you can at least see how it is likely to correlate to a specific type of poorly written character.

So what ae they testing for here? Are they saying that female developers are just macguffins?

Then you pay for a full version and exploit your creation for all the money you like.

It's basically working on the honour system as it is. Once you have the licence to make money you're in the clear.

You don't. But you now have the choice. Having an option that you happen to not like doesn't mean you can't use Blender.

It doesn't cost money.

Look in a dictionary. It will have "costing nothing" as a definition.

In that case, Starbucks UK gets taxed because there is a part of the company with a presence in the UK. And it's quite obvious to everyone that the arrangement only exists in order to dodge taxes. The profit is clearly being made in the UK.

If I send money to a company that exists entirely online, for all the difference it makes, I could be a sole trader living and working in Micronesia. If I sell online services to British companies who are they going to tax? My customers? I guess they can, but I think most people would agree that my company is genuinely and legitimately operating in Micronesia. Just the same as if I was exporting Micronesian bananas.

It is a lot easier for Google, or other online companies to operate in a different country from their operations though. Unlike Starbucks, who, at the very least need outlets in the UK to sell coffee here, Google could run everything from a single location anywhere in the world, yet still trade with any other country.