News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

mrcodedude

Re:Twstalker.com as a Twitter alternative front end on Tuesday March 19, 2024 @01:53AM (#39753295)
How do you figure it's an EFF project?
Re:FCC rules AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal on Thursday February 08, 2024 @06:15PM (#39309119)
Then look up the missed number and call them back if you think it might be legitimate?
> So no, it doesn’t pay to use a travel aggregator. It’s great for discovery or maybe a quick last minute purchase, but generally it’s better to book directly with the hotel.

And yet:

$465/nt through IHG - https://i.imgur.com/nTdZTnM.png

$342/nt through Priceline - https://i.imgur.com/3jabBss.png

> All the major hotel chains IHG, Hilton, Marriott, and Wyndham, which collectively account for over 98% of hotel properties across their various brands, now offer best price guarantees.

The claimed Best Price Guarantees are all junk.

Marriott did the same thing for me with the New Orleans Ritz. In their case, they said the OTA room isn't guaranteed, direct is, therefore, different class of room.

Do you actually have any experience with these best price guarantees? Because I've only tried a handful of times and every time I end up booking through the OTA.

Look how fast you walked back your initial claim:

> Every major hotel chain and many independent properties have "Best Price Guarantees" that, well, guarantee you'll get the best price with them.

> Certainly not all garbage, though IHG (and Hilton) are two of the worst.

That's no guarantee.

> And get $100-200 in amenities such as resort credits, complimentary breakfast, and late checkin on top of that.

That sounds like standard FHR perks.

These best price guarantees are all garbage, though.

They'll say that the room type offered on the OTA is different than the room type booked direct - even if it's the same room.

I stayed at the Kimpton Epic Miami. Paid almost $150/nt less through Priceline. Tried to use IHG's Best Price Guarantee and they said it's a different class of room.

$465/nt through IHG - https://i.imgur.com/nTdZTnM.png

$342/nt through Priceline - https://i.imgur.com/3jabBss.png

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread.

Re:We Chat, They Watch on Friday May 08, 2020 @02:58AM (#23112118)
That's not what I said.

China is using its position to propagate and censor media both domestically and globally.

Not liking the actions of a government doesn't mean you're racist against that population.

https://screenrant.com/movies-changed-for-china/

> Decisions to cast Tilda Swinton as a 'celtic' incarnation of the Ancient One, typically a Tibetan character, alongside the choice to move Stephen Strange's place of spiritual enlightenment and training from Tibet to Nepal, have created significant controversy online from those who argue that Marvel Studios is whitewashing Strange's backstory to better appeal to the Chinese government.

Propaganda doesn't have to look like a commercial from a tourism board.

Re:We Chat, They Watch on Friday May 08, 2020 @01:10AM (#23111598)
It's a racist conspiracy that China is using its financial leverage to influence creative decisions by American-based companies?

Why do you think the last few Transformer movies were made?

Re:We Chat, They Watch on Friday May 08, 2020 @12:58AM (#23111544)
Probably a decent security idea to have minimal PIE requirements for a dating site.
Re:I stopped watching TV, how about you? on Saturday February 15, 2020 @02:29AM (#22333904)
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EVxI0uGzeY (worst ad ever)

I think you meant "best ad ever," because that was amazing.

Re:I stopped watching TV, how about you? on Saturday February 15, 2020 @01:02AM (#22333589)
I watch sports, so I'm kind of stuck. But I'll usually be on my phone during the ads, looking at Twitter/Reddit/etc.

All cable and network shows I don't watch live so I can either skip through or completely avoid the commercials.

Re:What I Learned Co-Founding Dribbble on Thursday June 27, 2019 @01:06PM (#20296343)
Or Dribbble is lying. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re:What I Learned Co-Founding Dribbble on Thursday June 27, 2019 @01:03PM (#20296317)
That is very obviously not what happened.

https://dribbble.com/turnislefthome

50k followers, no new shots since February. This isn't a "rogue account" posting "inappropriate content."

Don't you think it is suspect that his account (no activity in months) is "flagged" on the same day the CEO blocks him on Twitter for legitimate chirps?

Re:Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight on Thursday March 07, 2019 @09:49PM (#19334701)
> In most hotels where I know a member of staff, they freely admit to having several 'worse' rooms which are given to booking.com/priceline etc guests first, regardless of availability.

You don't think Hotel Tonight is lumped in there with booking.com and Priceline? They're all OTAs. They're all treated the same.

Re:Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight on Thursday March 07, 2019 @04:49PM (#19332861)
"My experience using other booking sites for 'cheap deals' has been that you're often treated as a lower-tier customer, for example being given worse rooms (ground floor, no windows etc). The HotelTonight experience is the opposite. ~25% of the time, I receive a room upgrade without asking"

They're all OTAs. You're just as likely to get a "good" room with HotelTonight as you would with Priceline, Hotwire, etc. The quality of room you receive is mostly dependent on room availability and the check-in agent.

Re:Airbnb to Acquire HotelTonight on Thursday March 07, 2019 @04:42PM (#19332777)
You can save even more if you use a cashback site when booking through Priceline, Orbitz, etc.

The Best Price Guarantee is largely a lie. It's a Best Price Guarantee on a rack-rate rooms. The problem is most OTAs will offer a significant discount (sometimes more than 50%) for a non-refundable room. The rooms are exactly the same, they just classify them differently, so they don't have to actually have the best price.

Re:New Dell XPS 13 developer edition now available on Thursday January 24, 2019 @05:30AM (#18987461)
Windows. I don't think it was broken, it was a similar quality to the HP Spectre I bought (and also returned).

Maybe the Latitudes have a better touchpad? I don't mind the Lenovo T-series touchpads and they look similar.

Re:New Dell XPS 13 developer edition now available on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @05:45PM (#18983981)
I bought (and returned) an XPS 13 9360 last year. Touchpad was trash - overly sensitive, skipped, unrecognized movements, etc. I understand part of that is software, but it's embarrassing how much better the touchpads are on Macbooks.

It seems all the trackpads got worse when they went button-less to copy Apple.

Re:Google Phishing Quiz on Tuesday January 22, 2019 @08:05PM (#18974685)
My workaround for this is to set up a dummy email address that I use for all travel. That email address then forwards the emails to both [email protected] and my personal email address.
> District officials expected some pushback when they released the new school schedule on a Thursday night in December, with plans to implement in the fall of 2018.

That's a ~9 month notice?

Easiest way for me to never visit a site again.
https://www.dklo.co/

> Welcome to WildFly 10

> Your WildFly 10 is running.

Looks like it's down.

Wingz works for getting to the airport. But the two hour advanced reservation system doesn't work well for a regional airport like Austin where the majority of flights are routed through a major hub.

If my connecting flight is delayed an hour, I'm SOL because my original reservation is no longer valid, but I can't make another reservation because I'm within two hours of my (new) expected arrival time.

It looks like she already took the deal, or at least some variation of it - http://artuitive.com/recent.html