QR code for menu is.

Take out phone
unlock phone
launch app
scan code
open URL
scroll around / pinch and zoom around

vs

read the menu

I prefer the latter

You know what the EU does that the US doesn't?

Regulate -- at least not to the same extent

In the EU there's compulsory roaming, so providers don't need to build redundant coverage where its not economical to do so.

They also only let providers charge other carriers for roaming on a cost-plus profit basis. The carrier still makes a profit, just not as much as the US where the rates are entirely up to the companies (so most just decline to allow it).

It's like the US was prior to the national carriers coalescing .. lots of regional and super-regional carriers. The divergence was when data was classified as a value add service rather than an essential one.

There's different levels to that. The problem becomes the coverage map is a measure of signal strength primarily .. and they're right, they can say they transmit a signal of x strength into an area.

The problem becomes lost in the details of soft handoffs, QOS able to support the requirements, local interference and all that.

it is possible to eliminate _almost_ all of these if you have a sufficiently important QCI settting, but that's not feasible for normal web traffic.

(There is FirstNET on AT&T on a seperate band just for public safety, but it isn't immune to dropouts.

(And the edge cases are very common .. stuff like handing off between a lightly loaded sector to a maxxed outt one. Calls generally won't driop because they have a latency and bandwidth QOS applied, but internet bound traffic never does so it'll stop)

It isn't autonomous is it needs a cellular connection.

Ive worked in cellular for 20 years .. the KPIs around connectivity (time active on LTE/NR) are above 99% in most areas of the US .. but never 100%.

e.g. these autonomous cars _will_ hit moments of no connectivity.

That is what happens when you put any faith in an external system that can and has change the rules after the agreement was made...

It sounds like a former employer .. they got rid of our pension plan and upped the 401K contribution to make up for it. 2 years later they zeroed out the employer contribution because (contrived reason 1 2 3).

This is why I see so many more EVs in Europe than I do in the US. (portions of) EU has significantly more investment in rail and public transportation, making it the cheaper and better option for medium to long range trips.

The American ideal of just piling into the family auto and driving 1000 miles just isn't the same when the car has a 150 mile range and extended charge time.

There are ways around both of course, bigger/newer batteries and more charging infrastructure, but that's investing in the supply half of the equation rather than demand.

You'd think the savings of pushing the cost of providing office space off on employees would be enough to have kicked off this trend with or without the pandemic.

We want the fruits of investment without actually making the investment.

e.g. there are huge benefits to electrification of things, but only if we make the investments now to actually support the load.

A friend of mine is an EE at a power company, her number one headache is planning for EV load. Meaning to age old engineering balance of spending the absolute minimum amount of money to support the requirements.

This is as opposed to how people in Nordic countries approach a problem which is to look at the requirements 20 years from now and do the investments _now_ to meet them. e.g. overbuild transmission facilities at a higher short term cost but at lower long term operations cost.

In other news

Water is wet
Sky is up
earth is round
trans people exist

Of course it was used to launder money .. that's practically its reason to exist.

Hell, the ubiquitous BTC ATMs that are still around me have very llittle other usage.

AKA you can buy a burner SIM for $5 or less to get past the phone based wallet authentication. You insert $xxxx in cash into the machine and get a BTC equivelent. Now that can be moved at will.

So again, working as designed.

I'm not a teenager, but hasn't the writing been on the wall for decades?

VR is neat in certain niche areas like VR gaming, but trying to built it into something like metaspace -- something with no real utility apart from crass consumerism.

Or who knows .. maybe it is useful, just not in any way that's been presented. Because I don't want to go shopping at a virtual walmart with a virtual assistant hanging in my field of vision (virutually) telling me things that are adequately conveyed with text or simple browser graphics.

Than the NYPD leadership should be held in contempt of (State) congress until they comply

You can't have it both ways .. you can't have the government keeping hands off financial institutions to let them do their thing, but at the same time preemptively fund bailouts for funds that are explicitly at risk due to amount of funds or the type.

For the longest time its been socialize the risks, capitalize the profits.

From what I've read, this bank lobbied successfully to ensure they were not held to the same stress test and capitalization requirements as other banks.

So, they reap what they sewn.

As far as Biden commenting on it, largely irrelevant in the scheme of things.

I apt still the default engine for ubuntu?

I've been a debian user since forever, but UB has its charms.

Senator Hawley is absolutely the last person we should be looking to for moral guidance.

He's the kind of man who likely has enough same sex porn retained that he wants to ban it.