Ummm... it's Ryanair. And the EU has been forcing US tech companies in general, and particularly Apple and Google, to demolish their security models, strip protections from mobile (and desktop and server) OSs, and give every fly-by-night outfit in the world unrestricted access to (In gates-speak) ring 0 or (to the rest of the world) the kernel. I mention microsoft and ring 0 in this context because it's another fine and recently notorious example of the EU's overreach screwing over people by demanding lax security. But "permissions" and "require"? Come on... this is Ryanair! They absolutely will harvest and sell every single byte that can get their filthy mitts on. I mean... google the name and read any site but their own. They really are just the worst.

And... again... it's Ryanair. So you KNOW their app won't be available on the legitimate App Store or Play Store. It will be on the EU-mandated Cydia Mark 2; which will inevitably degenerate into the same morass of spyware, malware, spamware, and all-around crapware that the original Cydia did back in the jailbreaking days. And with no app reviews, no sandboxing, no security checks, no memory or kernel protections? Damn skippy an outfit like Ryanair will trawl through you entire phone, and any account it is connected or logged in to, in order to spy on you and sell your data for every red cent they can extract from it.

Heh... I put off getting dear leader's dumbass "real ID" too. I mean... I have my passport, passport card, and global entry card, all of which actually benefit me. So why should I waste my time jumping through stupid and unnecessary hoops to appease dear leader?

In my neck of the woods though, the DMV simply forced the issue by no longer allowing online renewals; and now I have to actually go in to and renew my license in-person. So as long as I had to go through the hassle of the stupid and unnecessary hoops for my ID itself, I may as well jump through a couple more stupid and unnecessary hoops while I'm already stuck at the benighted place. And my California drivers license is now tainted with that mark of MAGA. Gross. Fuck MAGA. Fuck trump. Fuck ICE. And fuck realID.

The same thing will probably happen to you.

I was going to go into all the alternate uses of hydrocarbons. It took away from the main point, which is that mostly we're just burning them to get around and heat our homes (About 63 million US houses use natural gas heating and 5 million still use heating oil). I counted on people here being bright enough to know there are far better things to do with hydrocarbons than simply burning them.

Have you figured out yet that a major shift toward electric vehicles and electric heating would put a huge load on a grid that can't handle it?

Thanks for understanding the subtext, which the guy you're correcting clearly didn't. I was going to explicitly mention all the uses for hydrocarbons that don't involve just burning them, but it turned into a major digression, so I cut it out. I count on people here mostly being pretty well informed. Some are not.

This is what happens when you give savages an infinite supply of money from the fossil fuel subsidies our corporate-owned governments have provided for decades in order to secure access to Middle East oil. And that's not counting the cost in blood and treasure of military support for a bunch of Middle East client states that hate our guts, but love our money.

If we had spent even a small fraction of those hard-earned taxpayer dollars spent on developing solar, wind, tidal and even next-gen nuclear power, we could have just walked away and left the whole godforsaken lot of them to engage in the war of mutual extermination they've craved for millennia. And there's the added benefit of not leaving an environmental mess for our kids and grandkids to clean up.

Should I assume you need to eat the whole breakfast in order to figure out that the eggs are rotten?

I'm certainly capable of that, but I've learned when not to waste my time. Your statement is pretentious nonsense, and I treated it as such.

> On the other hand, if your card got refused at that
> grocery line - would you go back? Likely not.

Oh, I would absolutely go back. And after I unload my entire cart, including meat, dairy, and frozen foods; if they reject my card, I will just say "Oh? Okay. Never mind then." and I will walk right out... repeatedly... until they knock off the shenanigans.

It's pretty clear you don't understand vertical integration, and how easy it is to show a small net profit at any stage of the stack you want to.

One of my relatives was around at the dawn of HR at a major multi-national corporation. She was head of their Salary Payroll division. She always told us that the company put their hard-to-fire f^ckups in HR, because it was an area that had little impact on the actual operation of stuff that mattered. Department heads could always hire who they wanted, and tell HR to approve it or else. Over the years, of course, that has changed...with predictable results.

Yes. It's avoiding NoScript, too. I have UBlock Origin as well, and no better luck with it.

Bullshit.

From TFA: "The hands-free experience is meant to turn Google Maps into something more like an insightful passenger able to direct a driver to a destination while also providing nearby recommendations on places to eat, shop or sightsee..."

English translation: "We encourage businesses on all major routes to contact us right now for priority placement on our list of 'recommendations'. Bring lots of cash. Maybe one of your children, also."

Sure. First, lower the copyright term to match that of patents. Second, restore the latter (both) to the original 14 years. Once there is a reasonable balance between all of the interested parties again, let's talk. But the conciliatory ship sailed with Lars and Hillary and has never had reason to return to shore. And so long as one side is an abusive cartel with regulatory capture with absolute power to screw over the other everyone else, fuck 'em.

In theory, yes. The district attorney's office is supposed to be completely separate, independent, and skeptical of the police. That's that whole "separate and equally important" soundbite from the Law and Order intro. In practice, here in the US the DAs are so corrupt and in bed with crooked cops that the two departments may as well be one and the same. In the vast overwhelming majority of cases, all a cop has to do is say to a DA: "he done it" and someone will be in a cell and charges will be filed, no actual investigation or confirmation of the cop's story.

And, of course, the abomination of injustice that is qualified immunity makes it all but impossible to see the dirty cops and crooked DAs who arrest and/or charge the innocent properly punished.