Comment Re:In related news... (Score 1) 94
Facebook is not in chronological order.
Comment Re:Being too wealthy really is sociopathic (Score 1) 173
People do not tell the truth about their motives when answering polls. News at 11.
Comment Re:Private or public funding? (Score 1) 173
What in the world are you talking about???
Comment Re:Being too wealthy really is sociopathic (Score 1) 173
"avoiding the homeless" is NOT the reason Americans don't take public transit.
Submission + - Europe's New Entry/Exit System Is a Mess, and It's Not Going Away (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: European bureaucrats are standing firm on a security program that has led to long lines, confusion and missed flights at airports this summer, despite an urgent plea from the aviation industry to suspend it.
The Entry/Exit System, or E.E.S., requires members of the 29-country Schengen open-border area to collect biometrics like face photos and fingerprints from travelers upon arrival and to confirm their identities upon exit. Since the system took full effect in April, airports and airlines have reported widespread chaos — including hourslong security checkpoint lines and confusion over procedures — and have feared the headaches could worsen as peak travel season begins.
The problems led senior officials from the European aviation industry last week to ask the European Union to suspend the E.E.S. requirement this summer. The system is "undermining Europe’s reputation, European tourism and connectivity," said the open letter to the president of the European Commission.
But on Tuesday, European Commission bureaucrats officially rejected the request in a meeting with industry stakeholders, saying that the new system’s security advantages outweighed its inconveniences.
E.E.S. is used in the 29-country Schengen area, which includes 25 European Union members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The system applies to most visitors to those countries who are traveling for a short stay (up to 90 days in a 180-day period), regardless of whether they have a visa.
Since the system began to roll out across Europe in October, travelers have encountered an inconsistent set of procedures, taking anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Some airports have self-service kiosks where travelers can register their biometrics. At others, border control officers manually register travelers. Only two countries, Sweden and Portugal, currently allow travelers to use a dedicated app. E.E.S. is intended to be an automated system, eventually.
"At present, the system is failing to deliver one of its core objectives: facilitating efficient border crossings while maintaining the smooth functioning of Europe’s transport network," the aviation officials wrote in the open letter urging the European Union to act.
Summer travelers are being forced to “endure needless passport control chaos,” Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.
“Passengers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer,” he added.
In Rome, the airports have already been suspending biometrics collection on a near-daily basis this summer, said a spokesman for Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the city’s airports. Rome Fiumicino, Italy’s busiest airport, expects around 11 million passengers in June and July, which could be up to 180,000 passengers on peak days, the spokesman said.
The Entry/Exit System, or E.E.S., requires members of the 29-country Schengen open-border area to collect biometrics like face photos and fingerprints from travelers upon arrival and to confirm their identities upon exit. Since the system took full effect in April, airports and airlines have reported widespread chaos — including hourslong security checkpoint lines and confusion over procedures — and have feared the headaches could worsen as peak travel season begins.
The problems led senior officials from the European aviation industry last week to ask the European Union to suspend the E.E.S. requirement this summer. The system is "undermining Europe’s reputation, European tourism and connectivity," said the open letter to the president of the European Commission.
But on Tuesday, European Commission bureaucrats officially rejected the request in a meeting with industry stakeholders, saying that the new system’s security advantages outweighed its inconveniences.
E.E.S. is used in the 29-country Schengen area, which includes 25 European Union members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The system applies to most visitors to those countries who are traveling for a short stay (up to 90 days in a 180-day period), regardless of whether they have a visa.
Since the system began to roll out across Europe in October, travelers have encountered an inconsistent set of procedures, taking anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Some airports have self-service kiosks where travelers can register their biometrics. At others, border control officers manually register travelers. Only two countries, Sweden and Portugal, currently allow travelers to use a dedicated app. E.E.S. is intended to be an automated system, eventually.
"At present, the system is failing to deliver one of its core objectives: facilitating efficient border crossings while maintaining the smooth functioning of Europe’s transport network," the aviation officials wrote in the open letter urging the European Union to act.
Summer travelers are being forced to “endure needless passport control chaos,” Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.
“Passengers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer,” he added.
In Rome, the airports have already been suspending biometrics collection on a near-daily basis this summer, said a spokesman for Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the city’s airports. Rome Fiumicino, Italy’s busiest airport, expects around 11 million passengers in June and July, which could be up to 180,000 passengers on peak days, the spokesman said.
Comment Re:Volvo but not Polestar? (Score 1) 125
The reason there are extreme left candidates is that the Democrats picked the ONE candidate they will run in the main election. At best they will pick an average Democrat, but because they are NOT using RCV they will probably pick an extremist who appeals to the greatest fraction (far less than 1/2) of them. In RCV there would be a bunch of Democrats and Republicans and others running in a SINGLE election. Yea you can vote for your favorite extremist as #1, but you will also rank people in the middle higher than your opposing side, and since this happens in both directions, the center will win.
It is obvious that opponents of RCV are resorting to outright LIES now. Pretty low.
Comment Re:Odd choice (Score 1) 29
Sterilization probably is not needed for the Moon. Most things die and we have already contaminated it plenty anyway.
Comment Re:Isaacman is not immune to the disease (Score 1) 29
I agree there is something fishy about this. Not only will it leave the 2 landers on Mars without a test platform on Earth, it will also leave PROMISE without a test platform on Earth! I'm also surprised the test platform has a working RTG generator when there probably is a wall outlet it could have used instead, though perhaps they wanted to be absolutely authentic.
Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 216
Last I checked power plants are not free.
Comment Re:Volvo but not Polestar? (Score 1) 125
You are lying. It is not becoming. Ranked choice would prevent the extreme left candidates we are getting. You know that.
Comment Re:Volvo but not Polestar? (Score 1) 125
Also I believe various ranked-choice algorithms will elect centrists, even if the extremes are not equidistant from the center. The main problem is that the candidates have to be distributed in a way that matches the population, it may be that only extremists want to get into politics. In that case ranked-choice will choose the extremists nearest the center and still be an improvement.
Comment Re:Volvo but not Polestar? (Score 1) 125
I would agree MAGA has moved much more to the right than the "DSA" candidates have moved left. However they have both moved away from the center.
Comment Re:Volvo but not Polestar? (Score 1) 125
Both parties are electing extremists. This is because our voting system is broken.
Some sort of ranked choice or approval, and STV for electing more than one representative per election, would work. Unfortunately the party in charge (of either side) does not want that because it means their extremists will lose. So this likely will never be fixed.
Comment Re:Trump is lost in the past (Score 1) 250
The advantage of small reactors is that (in theory) you could build a plant with 20 or so of them. This would make them less expensive because they would all share the support infrastructure. The reason this would be less expensive than a single big reactor is that they can be individually shut down for maintenance, so a SMR that only works 50% of the time is useful, while a big reactor has to work 99.9% of the time. Obviously as you stated they also have to make SMRs work at all and at a price that is less than 1/20 of a big reactor, which has not been proven yet.
The fantasy that towns would put a single SMR in their town square or a data center will put it in their basement are just that, fantasies. But clusters could be a deal changer for nuclear.
Comment Re:Reduce reliance on credit cards? (Score 1) 96
It's transaction fees that are the problem with credit cards.
