I was using the term "dialer" to refer to a native application that responds to a challenge issued by a network access control server on a LAN or WLAN. When the user connects to the ISP through a LAN or WLAN, the user's machine is initially quarantined behind a captive portal offering only downloads of the dialer for Windows and macOS. The dialer then assesses the device, ostensibly to ensure that an antivirus approved by the ISP is running, and relays this information to a server that grants access to the network. Users of iOS or Android can download the ISP's dialer through cellular data.

If "dialer" is inappropriate for the client side of a network access control protocol, what term is appropriate?

See also "Trusted Network Connect" on Wikipedia.

Unless the cable and fiber ISPs for your area require a dialer application that is exclusive to macOS, iOS, genuine Windows, and certified Android.

If I had to make an objective measure of whether a district looks prone to gerrymandering, I'd start by applying measures of eccentricity to the border of each district of a state and taking the geometric mean. Some of these measures are ratios of the area of some shape related to but larger and rounder than the border to the interior area of the district. This could be the district's convex hull (convex = 1.0), the quarter perimeter squared (square = 1.0), or the area of a circumscribed circle (circle = 1.0).

Then I'd see how the mean for each state correlates with the actual measure of gerrymandering, which is difference between the two major parties' seats-to-votes ratio in the state's legislature. I'm aware of the Goodhart-Campbell law stating that measures like this tend to become gamed as optimization targets, thereby losing much of their value as measures.

As I understand it, Republican leaders want individual income tax compliance to feel like a burden to build support among the electorate for repealing it. I've gathered over the past decade that they want to replace the income tax with import tariffs and something like FairTax, which is a national sales tax combined with a universal basic income equal to the sales tax on a federal poverty level's worth of purchases.

I'll reduce the problem to something falsifiable. You might prove presence or lack of neo-Nazis in EV industry leadership like this:

1. List all electric vehicle makers registered to trade in the US market.
2. List their top leaders, particularly the chief executive, operating, and financial officers.
3. Find political parties with a strongly socially conservative national-populist platform, such as Alternative for Germany (AfD, Germany), the National Rally (RN, France), and the Republican Party (GOP, United States). These parties tend to draw credible comparisons to the NSDAP. Add extra points for parties promoting natalism or eugenics.
4. Look for news articles in which a top leader of an EV maker has publicly supported one of these Nazi-aligned parties.

This procedure would identify Tesla head Elon Musk, who has spoken before AfD.

Even if a publicly traded company's headquarters is outside the United States, the company can still be at least partly American-owned. Japanese-headquartered automakers Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) and Dutch automaker Stellantis (STLA) are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Some other Japanese companies, such as automaker Nissan (NSANY) and video game publisher Nintendo (NTDOY), instead trade on the OTC market in the United States. Their symbols end in "Y" which I think stands for an American depositary receipt of a Japanese company.

Or at least that was the case until Daimler and then Fiat bought Chrysler.

I don't understand how international travel even works. I've read that even doing your own chores at the house you're staying at is considered "work" and therefore forbidden on a tourist visa, and in the 2020s decade, countries' immigration enforcement agencies are stepping up enforcement of this.

Also I would probably need serious help to find a day job that pays more to become able to afford to travel internationally on a regular basis.

Mad was one such magazine, introducing ads after a long run without them.

There's the difference. The web is flexible enough to allow two such editions and print largely isn't.

Researching, writing, and hosting aren't free. It sounds like now that AI-driven search no longer relays messages from a site's sponsors, you would prefer that all the major news organizations go out of business. Then who would have the privilege of asking follow-up questions to the press secretaries of the executive branches of governments?

Exclusive syndication of subscription video on demand (SVOD) was mostly a problem before most of the studios started their own SVOD services, and before everybody but Disney pulled out of Hulu (which was originally a joint venture).

I don't understand how that helps if the band never comes near your city, or if the band plays venues that forbid guests under 21 years of age and then stops touring before you (or your teenage children) turn 21. I also fail to understand what the counterpart to touring is for media other than live music, such as electronic music or TV series or web video series or video games. Who can help?

That's fine until one of several things happens. One is a film and its sequel being exclusive to different services, which I'm told is true of Dune. Another is services hiking the monthly rate to offer a deeper discount when paying for a year up front. "Buy 3 months, get 9 free!" A third is when your friend group keeps mentioning a film or TV series that's not available on any streaming service in your country.

For the task of comparing and contrasting 27 film and TV adaptations of a 19th century children's novel by C. Collodi[1] or 7 adaptations of a 1930s Christmas story by Robert L. May,[2] cycling among services each month isn't quite as practical.

[1] "Ranking Every Version of Pinocchio" by There Will Be Fudd, 2022-12-03
[2] "I Watched Every Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Special" by TheHappySpaceman Reviews, 2024-01-27

Good luck with that when the shipping courier (such as USPS or UPS) and the trading platform (such as eBay) take half of what you're selling it for.

So long as the movie or TV series is lawfully available on disc in your region. I can think of a lot of things that aren't. The film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night was released on VHS but not on DVD or BD in North America. The TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea never got a North American home video release at all.

Magazines and newspapers have had the combination of ads and a cover price for longer than I've been alive.