Myno 🐀fun fact: the uk tv license rules say im allowed to watch TV on my laptop when im at uni, but ONLY IF said laptop is not currently plugged into the wall
daisychaining 3 battery packs together so i can bingewatch taskmaster without having to stop to use the wall outlet
do the tv license people still patrol around looking for rule breakers, is it worth me investing in a magsafe cable so i can dramatically unbreak the law if it comes to it
Aria 🏳️⚧️ 
@mynotaurus *breaks through the door with a swat team* Stop right there, criminal scum! Your unlicensed tv watching days are over!
@indirectferret you joke but i think this is the exact vibe theyre trying to make thieves scared of lmao https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/detection-and-penalties-top5 "visiting officers" and "detector vans" sjcjxisizj
Cat Pandering@indirectferret @mynotaurus https://worldcat.org/title/317922618 I remember learning from this book that the first prosecution for radio piracy was a sham—the wife of an engineer working in the group supposedly making detector vans. Possibly misremembering the exact sham. The book is rather dry, but if you enjoyed the farce that is this battery vs. plug rule, you might like the book.
Shoku the MN Wolf 🏳️🌈@mynotaurus are you telling me that the Magsafe cable is cheaper than a license?
@TheMNWolf "A standard TV Licence costs £159 and a black and white licence costs £53.50." huh so... maybe just about lmao
Daniel Dreher 🌪️@mynotaurus @TheMNWolf Black and white licence... What year is it again?! 😂
@dee @mynotaurus That's for people who mainly watch BBC 3. I have no idea if that's actually funny, but if it is I just rolled a nat 20.
Pomax@mynotaurus Maybe one day the UK will read a book on how the existing tax system can already be used to solve these kind of problems without needing any kind of TV license in place. Then again, brexit taught us many things about the government's ability.
Cadbury MooseNo. They have a database of every single street address in the UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and assume that every address has a television set and is watching the Tory Propaganda pumped out by the BBC and the drivel excreted into the electromagnetic spectrum by the independents. Any address that does not have a TV Licence is assumed by them to be breaking the law and will be bombarded by vaguely threatening letters. I have a large collection of these letters.
Irina@Cadbury_Moose @mynotaurus It used to be like that in the Netherlands, too. We once had a woman visiting us looking for our (nonexistent) TV. She opened a cupboard "because that's the kind of cupboard that people hide their TV set in" and found only the wine glasses. Also she smelt like a whole perfume store and scared the baby.
Katie@Cadbury_Moose @mynotaurus the best bit is that you are under no obligation to respond to those letters, let any "inspector" it, or even tell any "inspector" the truth, or even acknowledge them.
Richard Troupe@Cadbury_Moose @mynotaurus You can literally have a TV and just watch a non-live streaming service on it like Netflix and they can't do anything about it.
I have a lot of TVs in my house for gaming, and we don't watch live TV at all, nor have the proper means to receive it. 😅
Jakebob@mynotaurus personally I reckon eating the device before they can nick you is the best idea. And if they push the subject, tell 'em you ate a toaster.
Amicable Animal@mynotaurus No joke, in the past I've had threaten to get security on the TV License people as they used to walk into unlocked student rooms on campus to check for things. Thankfully, I don't think they do patrol any more...
impossible ortolan
Johannes Vonk and the Clogheads - Radar Van
Sayuri 💛⬜️💜🖤 ΘΔ@mynotaurus I just imagine the "excuse me, have you got a license!?" meme guy popping out of the supply closet at you or something
The Doctor@mynotaurus Don't forget the PV panel and regulator!
Martin Hamilton@mynotaurus I only looked away for a moment and I swear they've added a whole new bunch of rules... 
0x10f/kalle/qalle
Lyrenhex@mynotaurus Oop, careful! The battery packs aren't the laptop's "own internal battery" ;)
(but yeah, it's comically silly)
This actually sent me down a rabbit hole of whether TV Licensing is correct to use that wording - it looks like their wording is pretty explicitly copying that of the law, tbf:
"A license [...] for the use anywhere of any television receiver powered solely by its own internal batteries by the licensee or by a person normally living with the licensee at the specified location." (The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004, Schedule 1)
Weird.
Katelyn Gigante
Eleanor LNR Blair
Jonathan HendryNot sure inductive charging would count as being plugged into the wall...
robryk@mynotaurus ... and stuffing them into the laptop, so that they are "internal" :)
historic drystone sheep dyke@mynotaurus the moment you plug in your ipad fifty beefeaters plunge through the door and hack you to bits with enormous halberds
Philippa Cowderoy@hannah @mynotaurus Before realising it's been a horrible mistake and you'd only connected it to a backup battery
The Witch of Crow Briar@mynotaurus Dates back to when "battery-powered" meant an ungodly number of D batteries just to keep something with a 3 inch black and white screen and a telescoping antenna powered on for twenty minutes 🤣
rapaz@mynotaurus I would really love to know if you could get away with using a solar charger
@kageRapaz god id love to test it but i expect this rule might be enforced literally never
GayPunkRock 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@mynotaurus what the actual heck 😂
artemist@mynotaurus "use case for wireless charging"
@artemist oh my godddd lmao
Sijmen@mynotaurus time to get a huge usb-c powerbank and use that to charge your laptop
@mynotaurus What if there's an isolation transformer or a UPS between the mobile device and the mains?
Edit: What if you convert water into hydrogen using mains power and move the tank to a hydrogen fuel cell that powers the mobile device? Is it still legally mains power?
Edit 2: What if you mined uranium using rechargeable tools recharged in your dorm room and operated a nuclear reactor there to power your tablet?
Oceanotter 
@mynotaurus this is so unenforceable
sqncs
Codey McCodeface@mynotaurus @emacsomancer “Wotcha in for, mate?”
“I was watching the BBC on my phone while it was plugged into a charger.”
(The other criminals slowly slide away from me on the bench, avoiding eye contact.)
ExperiencersInternational 
🇵🇸@mynotaurus tbh after seeing how messy the TV license page is, I kinda want to plug in a TV to a portable power bank which is outside the house and see whether TV licensing would say anything about it
@mynotaurus my favorite rule is that licenses for black and white TVs are cheaper, and you can still get one
@roywig ive always wondered what the rules are for them in the modern era. can you just set the saturation of your monitor to 0 and save £100?
Don Whiteside@mynotaurus @cstross This is remarkably similar in tone to the way the Amish allow the use of things like refrigerators, where using one powered by electricity - a connection with the outside world - is not allowed, but a unit that is powered by propane (ie, generating the electricity locally) is okay.
mlppropane powered fridges don't use electricity at all
@mlp @mynotaurus @cstross Fair, I should have said energy. But it remains that they use a fuel to create the compression&evaporation and the Amish consider it acceptable because it’s not connected to the outside world by wire. I’d say that trucking in propane as a stored energy source is identical in philosophy to this “it’s okay if it’s battery operated” thing being floated in the shared text.
Amazing. Surely based on rules drafted when license fee payors started using portable TVs while camping, at sporting events, or whatever.
Rob Synnott@mynotaurus Simply get a diesel generator.
@mynotaurus (I’m assuming this is the result of a court decision, or at least a legal opinion - the law is good at this sort of “makes no sense” outcome…)
@rsynnott either that or a rule that hasnt been updated in decades
adamrice@mynotaurus Pretty sure this rule was formulated by a committee of Talmudic scholars.
Anthony Dean@mynotaurus I'm speaking as an American, but did the UK ever consider just adding an extra tax just for funding TV/the BBC on top of whatever other taxes Britons already pay, vs what sounds like a complicated set of TV license payments/rules?
@dtgeek i think every time politicians go to scrap the license fee, its to cut costs rather than replacing the funds with taxes, everybody gets mad about the potential loss of funding to TV, and it never gets very far lol
vurpo 🏳️⚧️ (2869)@mynotaurus @dtgeek due to streaming, Finland scrapped the TV license and replaced it with an extra tax that applies to everyone. If you look at the itemized breakdown of your taxes in Finland, you'll see a separate item on there called "Yle tax" (Yle being the equivalent of the BBC)
@vurpo @mynotaurus and here in the US, PBS just relies on private donations (and a small amount of government funding, which conservatives hate). Though donate $5 a month and they'll give you access to their streaming service, "PBS Passport." (Though most local PBS affiliates live stream online for free.)
Steve Bellovin@mynotaurus Imagining an iPad with rabbit ears… And what happens if your computer is plugged into an Ethernet cable instead of using WiFi? (In days of yore, when laptops used PCMCIA WiFi cards, some had jacks for external antennas…)
Dr. D'nar@SteveBellovin @mynotaurus In that case, due to a weird loophole in the electrical code, it's only a violation if the laptop ISN'T powered by Power Over Ethernet.
@drdnar @mynotaurus I'm not even going to ask…