It is a real problem.

At the moments it is more like a duopoly.
Expedia Group: Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Trivago, Orbitz, Venere
Booking Holdings: Booking.com, Kayak, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, Momondo

Those aren't even all their subsidiaries. They also run OEM search engines that various smaller companies use.

A friend ran an apartment hotel and he cursed them all to hell and back. The first time he told me about expedia fees it was in the order of 40%. I see a website now lists it as up to 25%, but I guess there might be some numbers that vary depending on sales tax (ie, the booking engine wants a commission of 25% on the total amount billed, including taxes, so what the hotel ends up might be 60% or less)

Next there were a lot of other conditions, as you could not list the hotel at a cheaper rate anywhere else. So you couldn't undercut the search engine.

Now, in a highly functioning free market, the commision from the hotel to the search engines should drop to very low percentages because competition, economy of scale etc. I mean, the system is developed. The owners do all the work of updating the listings etc. Instead they have remained high and I guess the Spanish government has now had enough of their pricing practices. Which I agree, it's about time.

While having almost all of the worlds hotels available through one site is a true benefit to me as a consumer, it doesn't feel quite right that they get to keep so much of the cost of a stay.

Okay great, they have their bonus/loyalty programs, and I see that they have to cover the cost of that, but I would rather they scrap that program and instead lowered their commission by 10%.

Your travel insurance (and the airlines etc) will most likely call this a Force majeure and you will get nothing.

Another European here.

Neither Biden nor Hillary would be a better candidate than Trump. Now, if you had offered us Bernie Sanders.. then perhaps.

But in general I am curious as to why, in a nation of 300+ million, you managed to limit the choice to the current bunch of old men

US politics at the moment seem to be "it's more important that the other side lose, than who wins". It's amazing that you can be split into more or less two parties, and everything is about two issues: guns and abortions. With these two topics, I would expect there to be 4 parties (2 bits equals 4 possible values).

Because people are stupid and regularly vote against their own interests.

Would car manufacturers install seat belts if not forced to by legislation?

Would people ask to install (and pay for) seat belts if they had a choice?

I've had an EV for 3 years now. It's awesome. But it still has regular service, and let me tell you that those aren't cheap. Might be because of less competition. And people don't know what they actually do on a service checkup.

I saved $80 or so by changing the $10 air filter myself. But since the EV uses the brakes so seldom, I had to replace the brake discs as they were covered in rust. Now I know to force-brake more often.

I enjoyed that series!

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0...

Some systems use offline timezone database to change to DST based on what date it is.

Linux has tzdata, Windows has something. If a system is EOL and there are no new packages and the repo is gone, some systems will use the old dates.

Not to mention systems that aren't beeing updated automatically.

I have some clocks that change based on date. No way to update them. Would have to adjust the clock 4 times per year to keep up with the old dst and new dst.

Sure, might not be THAT many, but there are some.

Can you have monologues/conversation with yourself inside your head?

Do you have to read out loud/move your lips while reading something?

I was surprised to learn that there are people out there that does not have an inner voice.

This might sound insane, but how long of a stretch is it that an large airline could develop their own airplane?

Would United or American have enough money on the books to start a airplane manufacturer subsidiary? Imagine the savings..

Or what about Emirates? Why wouldn't an middle east state with a lot of oil money invest in a airplane manufacturer?

And yes, I understand that the barriers to entry is high, but with so much money on the line there must be someone willing to gamble.

Have you seen the new M320/777 from Musk Aerospace?

Yeah, exactly like "This program contains product placement".

Totally meaningless.

Calling atheism a religious view is like calling "off" a TV channel.

Exactly.
We sell oil because someone wants to buy oil, and our future pensions are based on the fact that we have sold (and continue to sell) oil. Without oil and no alternative to oil, we will revert back to a poor country.

Cut the demand for oil and we will sell less oil.
If we sell less, then others will just sell more to fill the gap, as long as there is a need.

And it's not like oil is cheap at close to $100/barrel. OPEC is doing it's best to keep oil prices up. The alternatives should be flourishing.

Perhaps we need to get the price up to $200/barrel to add some incentive. But of course, that will also lead to more expensive flights..

Besides from having 97372 (more or less) persons, including "observers" from the various environmental activism organizations around the world, flying to Dubai, this changes nothing.

If your country wants to "completely phase out coal, oil and natural gas", just do it.

Is there a country out there that does NOT want to move to renewable energy in the long term?

We need cheap, available technology to support this transition, and it better not be based on unobtainium like it appears to be from the agreements.

Even my country, Norway, said "we should do more!". Well, nothing is stopping us from doing more. But I don't exactly see us investing endless amounts of money into technology that can give us income post-oil either.. so where does that leave us?

I also feel people are focusing too much on only fuel. We also use oil for plastic. Why are we still using plastic? Where are the alternatives?
The most exciting thing I have tried myself are Chitin straws, which are must better than these silly paper straws.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2F...

(disclaimer: at home we use glass straws)

This reminds me of the DOS-days of running a program to optimize DOS startup by rearranging the startup files by trial and error, doing a few reboots to see what worked.

I guess they can call bruteforce for AI now?

I would guess they are afraid of radiation reaching their brains by holding it up to their air.

Or that they get sweaty ears by pressing a glass surface against the air.
Which is strangely enough also why their ear feels warm. The phone is warm, of course the ear will feel warm if you press a warm glass plate against it.

I can't recall anyone saying any of these statements. It also would be quite stupid to say this, based on the wast experience we have with vaccines.

What MIGHT have been said was, and consider what was known at the time, so you can add a "with what we know so far" condition to all of these:

- It is unlikely it originated in a lab / it does not look man made.
- Wearing a mask will limit the spread of the virus (as in, you wearing a surgical mask, will stop most droplets from you hitting other people. That's why surgeons use them, to not infect the patient). Maybe someone had a slogan, "wear a mask, stop the virus", but that is not what you claimed someone said.
- The benefits of the vaccine outweighs the risks / So far no dangerous sideeffects have been registered. All vaccines carry some miniscule risk.
- The CDC changed the definition of a vaccine to match the evolution of vaccine research and development - https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Ffac...
- Early trials show 95% efficacy
- Vaccinated people are significantly less likely to transmit the virus,

Not even a polio vaccine is 100% effective. But when you get the percentage high enough you are able to more or less eradicate it.

And here is what Neil Armstrong said: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

Look forward to seeing links to people saying what you claim they were saying.