rsynnott

17 ms·

451.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
And the prize for the most HN comment goes to...
452.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Ah, yes, but they're onto you; they've started _changing_ it quite regularly.
453.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
They will, entertainingly, try to sell you train tickets even if the airport doesn't have a train station. They also send _constant_ emails about car rental (I assume it must be a profit centre for them). Yes, Ryanair, I will definitel
454.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> but...again, for grown adults with families/kids, do you really fly Ryanair? Every time I'm on a Ryanair flight to Spain, it's very family-heavy. Like, why wouldn't families go on Ryanair? If nothing else, they have
455.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Well, the thing is they historically weren't a budget airline. They've taken on some budget airline attributes, but mostly not the dark patterns. Yet. They'll get there.
456.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> because the Irish always come across as actually morally superior to many other people, and I thought that would extend to just implementing good and honest business practices at the expense of profit Ahahahahahah. See https:/&#x
457.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
My personal favourite is Ryanair in Brussels airport. Ryanair generally use airstairs, and, as you say, often queueing outside. Brussels airport doesn't allow the use of airstairs. So Ryanair found a solution to be appropriately annoyi
458.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Ryanair haven't had unallocated seating for years (I don't think it's generally allowed anymore); if you don't choose a seat you just get one allocated for you.
459.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Well, I suppose the argument is that Ryanair et al fundamentally changed the European market, and without them the European market would be like the US market, and way more expensive. Which is definitely _plausible_, but kinda counterfactua
460.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Aer Lingus is a slightly weird case; they have essentially become a budget airline (at least for their European business) to compete with Ryanair, but they haven't yet gotten around to adopting most of the dark patterns.
461.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
It's amazing; I take maybe five or six Ryanair flights a year, and every single time checkin is worse than the time before. Unfortunately, they're often the only option from Dublin->wherever with reasonable times; unless I want
462.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil. I think they may actually have gotten in trouble for that one; they've stopped doing it (as noted in the article it was from eight years ago).
463.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Sure, but there's no reason that _has_ to be the case. Like, there've been attempts at standards; the volume is just never really there to make any of them _the_ standard. Underground metro systems mostly started off as deeply wei
464.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. This may be a country-specific thing. They seem to be pretty common in new-build apartment complex
465.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Aw. I may have been the only one, but I kind of liked those.
466.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Closing lines in the 90s would be unusual; the big spurt of line closures was generally _far_ earlier in most places, generally 50s or 60s.
467.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
This one seems to work... surprisingly well, considering how bonkers it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn I've always wondered why they've been so generally unsuccessful; conventional el
468.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
He seems not to be a Russian asset. That’s a big change.
469.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
This is a station which exists solely for transfer between two lines. It has no entrance. Idea always made me a bit nervous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manulla_Junction_railway_stati...
470.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> Brought to you by the only country to have a space programme and abandon it. I mean, so did France; they both essentially folded theirs into ESA.
471.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
... Eh? No. No current large-scale production car uses axial flux motors. You're talking concept cars, plus a few oddities like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Artura
472.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> Worryingly, European populists are espousing more assertively anti-Ukrainian views. Viktor Orban focused his unsuccessful election campaign to remain Hungarian prime minister on that theme. Meanwhile ECFR’s polling shows that voters of
473.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
I mean... so? The immediate alternative is gas, where most of the _fuel_ comes from various dubiously-friendly regimes. At least once the solar panels are in place, China's permission isn't required for them to produce power.
474.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
No; nuclear and coal can't _really_ be used for peaking. They're too unresponsive. Peaker plants are pretty much always gas these days.
475.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Bob is gas, here, generally. Gas is the supply of last resort pretty much everywhere. Though in Germany in particular, Alice is beginning to be big enough that the dynamic is beginning to break down; this March spot prices started to go zer
476.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> Solar is a massive maintenance liability ... Wait, which maintenance is this? You'll probably eventually have to replace the inverter (or, at least, solar panel warranties are normally considerably longer than inverter warranties)
477.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> you're looking at an ROI of nearly five years. Fine if you can float that kind of cash to feel better about yourself, Huh? 5 years to ROI, _after which you get free energy for the next 20 years_, seems like a pretty good investmen
478.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
Ah, I see. > primarily peracetic, or peroxyacetic acid, which is essentially a mixture of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide The NPR should possibly hire a science editor. Peracetic acid is not a _mixture_ of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, a
479.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
The issue here isn't EU privacy laws (which Apple has been historically quite good at complying with, by big tech standards); it's EU _competition_ laws.
480.
by rsynnott 5mo ago
> These are relatively recent and may have come into force after development began, definitely after Siri development an initial integration into personal data. The DMA was substantially finalised by 2020, and came into force in 2023. Ap

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