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Comment Re:We need Google (Score 3, Interesting) 27

And now we just give up and find ways to reword everything.

Google was better than Altavista when AV was a thing. Once the effective competition disappeared and the term "Google" became synonymous with searching, they broke their product in the name of "engagement".

The really weird part to me is why none of the modern alternatives (DDG, Startpage, etc) are better. How hard could it be to implement a hard "include only these words, exactly as I spelled them"?

Comment Re:Aren't they the same thing? (Score 1) 85

Apple Hardware before 2012 cannot run operating systems other than those branded OS X or Mac OS X. While, technically, anyone who bought hardware before 2016 or so could be sticking with the OS that came with their machine, anyone with such a machine will get nagged and will not be getting updates to Safari.

The more likely explanation is this is bot traffic using older UA strings and SC's figures are BS.

Comment Re:If they're looking at overall platform usage (Score 1) 85

OS X has been macOS for a while, and Apple, alas, makes its hardware obsolete after about 5 years (say one thing for Microsoft, they usually - recent TPM/Win 11 stuff aside - allow much older hardware run its latest OSes), so I'm wondering what's going on there. Are there really a lot of users of Macs from 5 years before whenever the rebranding started in 2016? That means a lot of people using Macs from before 2011. A huge number. Which genuinely surprises me. I have a Mac mini from 2014 and it crawls to the point of being borderline useless

So... maybe "OS X" is referring to something else? Maybe this is bot traffic using older user agent strings? I've never trusted StatCounter, I used to manage a set of websites that had millions of users across a relatively broad set of demographics, and what we were seeing via Google Analytics didn't remotely match what they were claiming. And by not remotely, I mean not even in the same ballpark.

The idea that they're not even checking whether the traffic is bot generated wouldn't surprise me.

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.

Comment Re:Now do it for groceries (Score 2) 123

Yes, but the itemized labels are not going away.

- The headline is wrong
- The first sentence is misleading. The labels will be still there, they're just going to not necessarily be on the main page advertising the product but will be linked to in that instance.

And in the end, as you point out,the fees making up the final price are bullshit, so you're interested in the final price. And ISPs are now required to publish the highest possible price you may be charged, even if you might be charged less.

They can itemize all they want, but they still have to give a final figure that includes all the pre-Biden-era "itemizations" when advertising the product, which is ultimately what we want.

Comment Re:Now do it for groceries (Score 2) 123

If you read the summary, it contradicts the headline:

> Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the Trump FCC has steadily whittled away at requirements imposed under Democrats. An order (PDF) released in draft form last week would eliminate the requirement to itemize passthrough fees and let ISPs list them in a single "up to" amount. The "up to" amount can include both government fees and fees charged by non-government entities such as owners of utility poles.

> ISPs will be allowed to provide links to price labels instead of displaying the full labels prominently on ordering pages and account portals, and will be allowed to stop making the price-label information available in machine-readable spreadsheets.

So the labels aren't going away. The ISPs will be required to advertise the highest amount they could possibly charge the customer, including all taxes and fees. And they'll be required to have those labels. The only thing going away is the requirement the label (not the price) be on the same page as the offering, and the ability to download the information in spreadsheet form.

I hate Carr as much as the next guy, but this is a tweak of the Biden regulations, not an "end to", and it's completely 100% reasonable.

Comment Re:InB4 (Score 2) 123

Well you'd be wrong. They've always regulated this kind of thing, even back when they were regulating telephones and radios (no feeds for the latter, obviously.) This is under their jurisdiction, and because of that the FTC, which would normally regulate this kind of thing, doesn't.

Also I don't plan to bitch about this if it's what the summary is claiming: requiring they publish the most it could cost a victi... uh customer, and then link to a breakout, seems fairly reasonable to me.

I'd like them to go further and brand different classes of Internet service: ie:

Gold tier: Ports either unfiltered, or filtered but user can turn off filter via a web portal, no restrictions on usage beyond bans on "commercial" usage for residential users. IPv6. IPv4. No traffic limits or per-byte billing outside of an AUP that allows only temporary throttling during periods of high congestion.

Silver tier: As Gold but CGNAT allowed given difficultly of getting IPv4 addresses.

Bronze tier: As silver, but some ports permanently blocked.

Brown tier: arbitrary restrictions on "servers", or no IPv6, or lobotomized IPv6 (no DHCP-PD, or IPv6 range changes more than once a month), traffic limits.

If you're going to describe something as "Internet", you should be clear about what it is you're selling. Tiers like the above would improve things dramatically.

Comment Re: How many beers? A LOT (Score 1) 68

It's one of those things that "This is a type of X, people are familiar with the concept, we will only do it when we make X" type thing.

It's like frozen Indian meal makers tend to focus on Butter Chicken. You can get Butter Chicken in a Walmart in Alaska. Interested in something that's not Butter Chicken? You're asking too much! They might have a couple of other types, but even those are things you've tried a million times before.

I used to like IPAs, but have gone off them simply because it's the same old thing every time.

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