Aside from airports, the only place I get asked to show ID is occasionally when I buy alcohol and at my age that is a complement.

The previous conservative government introduced the requirement for voter ID in the UK not because there was any voter fraud, repeated investigations found almost none, rather it was a half-arsed attempt at US style voter disenfranchisement and all it did was give the opposition a huge majority. Also this is how the British do non-compliance. People vote with any kind of ID, bank cards, work IDs, anything to comply with the letter of the law but giving a two fingered salute to the spirit of it.

Elnor and his companies were always like this, it's just that they aren't even pretending like they're hiding it any more.

That would depend on which anglophone culture you're from. To Brits and Australians the word "bullshit" is not that vulgar, we've far, far more vulgar language.

Russians do not mind a boot on their neck, so long as it's a Russian boot.

I've recently started to read a translation of Tsushima by Alexsey Novikov-Priboy. He was a sailor in the Imperial Russian Navy at the battle of Tsushima (1905 for those playing along at home) and it does a really good job of explaining why people supported Communism, it wasn't that Communism was good, even back then people knew it wasn't but the system in place was even worse. Unaccountable leaders, the wealthy being untouchable, no benefit and lots of burdens for the common man... Sound familiar?

To put that into perspective, an 8 hour shift at 60 MPH (maximum speed limit for a HGV in the UK) is 480 miles, that would be for an owner operator who, as you pointed out, often does more than 8 hours. Company owned artics and lorries are often run 24 hours a day as different drivers operate the same lorry in shifts. Especially for local delivery vehicles (which are the ones likely to be doing fewer miles in town), when the first driver finishes his shift and gets back to the depot, the next driver climbs into his farts.

Brexit has already shrunk our economy by at least 60%.

Both major parties are in the pockets of big business and they'll put a stop to this nonsense before it gets that far. Yay corruption.

The thing is, the UK safety laws don't apply in China where you can sell unsafe toys to children.

That's the crux of the matter, UK law applies in the UK only. #Chan is right to tell OfCom to go pound sand (with a 21" retractable baton).

By and large the UK gets laws right, safety without giving up liberty (despite what the far right propaganda says) however this is one of the cases where they've got it horribly wrong simply because they didn't understand the technology involved. The people who created these laws (previous conservative government, for those who didn't know) genuinely think that the internet is like broadcast TV and that people will regularly be accidentally exposed to "the porn".

The problem isn't that there is not a way to deal with this, the problem is America, specifically the overriding belief that "government bad, company good" despite all evidence to the contrary.

They fail to understand why the EU regulating tech giants is so important and why Europeans agree with it... and that it's pretty much the only thing protecting them and still they'll rally against any attempt to reign in the unchecked power of large corporations.

We're talking about politicians here, they don't want to understand what they're doing, they just want to make it look like they're doing something.

The problems are not being caused by the existance of quarterly reports, rather with what certain people demand of them. Ever increasing growth and profit at the expense of everything else.

Getting rid of the reporting won't make change this one iota... It just makes it easier to hide the poor state of the economy and potential wrong doings of rich people.

I thought DLSS helped on Cyberpunk 2077 but didn't do a damned thing for STALKER2.

However I came to the conclusion years ago that graphics don't matter.

The most damning evidence came when I played Mass Effect Andromeda, the Mass Effect trilogy is beloved for many reasons and it's not necessarily the graphics (which were bad and highly consolidated even for 2007) however it had a story, an atmosphere, likeable characters and above all else, good gameplay. So good the gameplay still largely stands up today without mods. Mass Effect Andromeda had eye meltingly good graphics but everything else about the game sucked. The weapons were underpowered, enemies were bullet sponges, too much pointless running about/collecting... however that could be fixed with mods and it revealed that underneath all that were bland, unlikeable characters, a cliched and unimaginative story that dragged on for way too long, boring sidequests and far too many unmarked scavenger hunts. The graphics were phenomenal for 2020 but the gameplay would have been horrible for the late 90s and the story and characters were so design by committee that the game as well have been called Bland McBlandface in the I Don't Want Upset White Middle-Class Manchildren.

Hence I've come to the conclusion that graphics don't matter.

Now I'm a PC gamer so this kind of AI slop is not for us, it's for the console gamers. Consoles have been more expensive than gaming PCs for years now, the difference being that you paid for the hardware up front with a PC and then the savings started in earnest. A console sold you hardware at below cost but then charged you for everything as much as they could. With new consoles approaching the price of an entry level gaming laptop (the new Playstation is £700, you can get an ACER laptop with a RTX5050 for £650). It's just a new way to lock something else away behind a paywall and get console peasants to pay for something PC gamers take for granted, consoles have always lagged behind PCs on graphics (everything really) but now they're not just going to lag, they're going to pay for it.

A casino is an entertainment venue where there is often a lot more to do than gambling. A better analogy is that this is a dodgy bookmaker in a piss stained alley but with even less legal protection for the punters when things go wrong.

Blame Uber.

They decided that they weren't going to be called an illegal taxi company (or employer) and claimed they were a "ride sharing" company. As no lawmakers have bothered rumbling this obvious lie, other businesses have realised they can get away with it. You're not running an illegal brothel, it's "body sharing", don't call it a speakeasy, it's "drink sharing" so you're clearly not running an illegal betting ring... it's a "prediction market".

And those who demanded that Uber get a free pass because they wanted cheap taxis regardless of the cost are to blame... and this is just part of the cost.

BTW, this is not unprecedented, legitimate bookmakers have been taking bets on almost anything for decades now, it's never really been a problem as they were complying with laws. This is just an effort to skirt laws and regulations designed to stop and weed out dodgy operators.

Shock horror, racism no longer a valid excuse.

I hate to break it to you, but scams didn't start with foreigners, locals were doing it long before anyone with a funny accent and broken English came onto the scene. We're going to have to go back to the tried and tested methods of being smart enough not to fall for obvious scams and for those who aren't... letting them suffer the consequences of their own stupidity.

Those of us who grew up poor in the 80s and 90s know full well that there are dozens of people around every corner who'll happily deprive you of your meagre possessions and income, some through violence, others through words. People who grew up safely ensconced in middle class neighbourhoods never experienced this, thus never learned if you don't want to die poor, you learn to spot and handle the scammers and swindlers (and you had to learn to handle them because there was no avoiding them). This is the only reason the far right has had any kind of success, modern society has become so safe that people no longer have a standard bullshit filter which enables them to spot and reject obvious bullshit.

Right now, the stupid are being protected from the consequences of their own actions. As long as this continues, scams and grifters will continue to enjoy unprecedented success.

This may come as some surprise to Americans but in most countries it's illegal to advertise something that isn't true, doubly so if you know it's not true.

And what may be even more surprising is that you usually don't need to start a class action to get your refund (besides, a class action usually results in you getting about $3.50 back because the lawyers hoovered up most of the settlement, especially after the appeal).

This is just part of those evil "consumer rights" that Americans seem so dead against.