Comment Re:Easy part's done (Score 1) 97
They solved 90% of the problem and think they're nearly done, when it's more like having solved 90% of perpetual motion.
No amount of pattern recognition is ever going to be enough.
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: If they're looking at overall platform usage (Score 1) 86
The 2013 rMBP can run OS XI, aka macOS 11 Big Sur. There are either a lot of people who didnâ(TM)t update their OS or a large number of very old devices out there, or both. Well, Mac hardware of good and it lasts along time. Yes, I have a Core 2 Duo-based 2007 MBP I still use.
Comment Re:Well...let's run some numbers. (Score 1) 49
Electrodynamic Tether propulsion tests have been conducted that generated more than 4 newtons of force -- 9 orders of magnitude more than a nano-newton.
The tethers were much longer than a shoe box, but achieving milli-newtons of force with a shoebox sized superconducting magnet isn't unreasonable (near the earth).
Although in theory you could push into higher and higher orbits until you reach escape velocity,
I think this is only going to be good for station keeping -- basically just enough propulsion to cancel air friction/orbital decay, or maybe lift from NEO to GEO over a long time.
Comment Re: Bypassing notarization (Score 1) 38
And you Terminal is listed under "Developer Tools" in Privacy & Security? FWIW, mine is also listed under "Full Disk Access".
I'm on an Intel MBP. lldb never requires a password. I only debug command line apps - maybe that's it?
Comment Re: Always Worry (Score 1) 38
Iâ(TM)m wondering whoâ(TM)s typing passwords these days for elevation. Havenâ(TM)t all Mac laptops had Touch ID for years? I have an external keyboard, but itâ(TM)s still easier and faster to reach over to my MBP for one touch authentication.
Comment Re: Bypassing notarization (Score 1) 38
I donâ(TM)t get prompted like this. Is this is an extra step in Apple Silicon machines or Iâ(TM)ve just granted more permissions to my terminal?
Comment Re:Concorde was LOUD! (Score 1) 131
Oh yes! I remember being at an air show on a small RAF base and a Vulcan did a low-level turning pass with the belly to towards the crowd. It was probably one of the loudest things I've ever heard. Military engines certainly have different priorities to civilian ones.
Comment Re:Silver linings (Score 1) 96
we no longer live in First World countries where you can rely on the power to stay on
Speak for your country, not the rest of the First World. I haven't experienced a power outage since I left N. America in 2008. Given the lag in grid investment here in the UK to reshape it with all the changes, that might change. But for now, it's been incredibly stable.
Comment Re:Concorde was LOUD! (Score 1) 131
Maybe I wasn't clear: Concorde was loud, irrespective of whether the throttle was fully on and afterburners lit, or not.
I'm also glad we don't get any 747s anymore, which were quieter than Concorde. 777s are definitely the ones I've noticed to be loudest these days, especially when planes are coming over every three minutes from 04:30-05:00 in the morning. They're offensively loud compared to the 787s and A350s, and even A380s. But this is a different story.
Comment Re:US senators ae shiteaters who swallow (Score 1) 131
I think you've downplayed the flight time on a conventional passenger jet for LHR-JFK by an hour at least and exaggerated the Concorde time by 30 mins.
Concorde's prices were determined by a number of factors such as fuel, but one of main ones was exclusivity/privilege.
Comment Re:US senators ae shiteaters who swallow (Score 1) 131
I've heard this theory too, including from my own father. Maybe that's how it was portrayed in the British media at the time? I can't really find much evidence for it on the internet though. As far as the written history on the Internet goes, it's mostly about the noise. Maybe hysteria about the topic was whipped up for political reasons, but where's the evidence now?
There certainly were bans put in place for political reasons, such as India and Malaysia banning Concorde because they couldn't get the access they wanted in terms of landing slots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Comment Concorde was LOUD! (Score 4, Informative) 131
It wasn't just the sonic booms, this plane was just all around loud. It was a civilian plane afterburners! As somebody who lives about 500m directly under one of Heathrow's landing flight paths, I'm happy it's not coming over anymore.
I've always liked this video though. It starts off so quiet, suburban and banal, and then Corcorde roars over and shatters the scene, setting off a car alarm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Of course, there are lots of videos like this one too, also setting off car alarms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Comment How many checks? (Score 1) 183
I remember a story a while back, diamond couriers were losing too many packages due to theft. Their solution? Send the diamonds via regular mail.
Losses in the mail were tiny compared to targeted thefts.
I wonder if it's mail that's the problem, or if it's banks cashing checks they really shouldn't and trying to blame their customers for the banks own negligence.
Comment Re:Raises hand (Score 1) 70
No, forwarding doesn't work either. For both reply and forward, all you get is the dividing line and the header info of the original message (sender, recipient, date, etc).
Switching to new Outlook works, but then that comes with the bunch of other issues that makes me stick with legacy Outlook. That said, the previous update to this broken one also seems to have resulted in a bunch of missing emails, even after rebuilding my profile in a different folder and verifying that I can see them in new Outlook and in the browser via OWA. An older version of Outlook on a different Mac that can't be upgrade due to it running on Big Sur has no such problems. I think Microsoft just aren't testing legacy Outlook properly anymore and rolling back to known older versions is difficult with their continuous delivery approach (or at least I don't know where to download the installers from for older versions).
