The non-use of collected data is the most ridiculous part of all this. I work with many companies that collect tons of data and only use a small percentage of it. All they're doing is building a bigger haystack.

This is partially due to the fact that Google Analytics is free and the default for most website/app builders. But, still, it's ridiculous.

Ken Kesey of merry pranksters fame "discovered" LSD via being a volunteer in the CIA's MKUltra experiments. So, interestingly, the CIA's experiments were one of the major triggers for the whole 60s counterculture.

I believe the issue isn't specifically with anonymised IP addresses in GA. The problem is that the Google Analytics code is loaded from a third party server and, to do that, this server gets your IP address even if the data sent by the GA code itself contains an anonymised one.

I've seen people enter their email into those intrusive "sign up for our newsletter" popovers because they think that's the only way to bypass them. Which is probably one reason why sites keep using them. Not everyone is as web savvy as we like to think.

As mentioned by others, Amazon owns them. I used to use them until I found out about that, then switched to https://blackwells.co.uk/ and https://wordery.com which are usually pretty close price-wise and also offer free shipping.

I found reading "Whole Body Barefoot" by Katy Bowman was a good primer.

I get that cycling is complex to route but when I ask Google Maps for directions to the city centre from my apartment, it sends me over a huge row of stairs.

I notified them of the issue a couple of years ago and it got fixed a few months later, but it came back again. At that point I gave up as I don't really use the service for cycling anyway. I know my city well enough and when I cycle outside of it, I use Strava.

It's not super clear but, if I'm reading it correctly, the 7 days are 7 days of use. So if you don't open the site for 3 days, the counter is still at 0.

Brings back great memories of long nights spent making ansi screens in TheDraw. I still have the muscle memory for all the keyboard shortcuts (it seems weird nowadays to imagine drawing with the keyboard).

I was even a minor member of iCE for a while. My first experience of impostor syndrome :)

There are still artists making great ansi art today. You don’t even need to draw with the keyboard if you don’t want with new editors like Moebius. http://www.andyh.org/moebius/

Give it a whirl, you’d be surprised how your fingers remember how to mash the function keys to shade!

What was your handle in iCE?

There is a human looking at the photos. When you take the Eurostar you can see them sitting in a booth after the gates. If you look into the booth as you pass, you'll see a grid of photos on screen. I'm assuming they're overseeing it all rather than checking everything manually.

I noticed that these gates were quite slow ID'ing me the first couple of times I went through them but now I hardly have the time to see my face flash on the screen before the gates open. Maybe there's a human check on initial passes. Either that or their code has gotten way better or they store data that helps matching after a few uses.

The human is only a second-level control in case the confidence level is too low, or the system can't match the face with the passport photo. Also, the face is matched against the photo stored in the electronic passport, not against a central database. With respect to resolution etc., there are specifications in place about the quality of the passport photo. If your photo doesn't meet them, you will be asked to submit another photo for your passport application.

I've had a beard and not, a shaved head and not, and mine feel slower than others. Tough to verify with an N=1, but that wouldn't really surprise me if they were.

I'm also flying to Kenya and other E. African countries so it wouldn't be surprising if they flagged me.

I always assumed they are storing every photo to help recognition because it definitely seems to get better the more you use it. You're right there is a human there though monitoring it, I assume they only step in when the system cant identify you.