"Locale" refers to language, keyboard layout, period/comma decimal notion, and such. Flying from the US to Paris and having your desktop session change to French menus and AZERTY keyboard layout is not something you'd likely ever want.

20 seconds away was ~20 km away. None of the passengers would have even noticed it. It was a near miss in that if it wasn't prematurely detonated it would have struck the aircraft, not in that it was actually near the aircraft.

The business class used to be that intermediate class. First class was the luxury class for the monied and coach was for everyone else, including business travelers. As coach service started getting worse and worse (and being called "economy class"), the intermediate business class was made for frequent travelers. It was not as bad as economy, but not posh like first class.

I think business class cannibalized the first class business, so first class was reabsorbed into business class (even if it's still called "first class"). First class is much cheaper than it used to be and not nearly as nice. The people who used to travel in the truly luxurious first class can afford to keep or charter their own planes now, so the market for the old first class service is gone (at least for domestic and intracontinental flights).

The plan now is to make economy service so bad that upgrading to "Economy Plus" or business class becomes tempting for anyone who can afford it. The difference between economy and business/first is only like 2-3x on many domestic flights these days.

I also fail to understand the mindset that we should silently endure any cuts to our standard of living until we're as bad off as the worst among us. Our goal as a civilization and a species should be to constantly ratchet up everyone's standard of living so that we're all better off than we previously were.

All the while, the airlines will deliberately cramp people as much as possible for increased profit. The problem with (3), is that it will keep costing you more and more personal space, even while you pay more and more, until people push back. At the extremes this isn't a natural problem, it's manufactured by the airlines to maximize their profit. If you just shut up and enjoy your cramped flight as much as possible, they'll cramp you more next time.

You know that, unless the surgeon has done that specific procedure dozens of times before (and memorized it through practice), they'll review it before the surgery starts. Personally, I'll trust a surgeon that rechecks the books and videos before I'll trust one that operates based on memory of med school alone!

Your first pet's name is also known to every site that used that as a security question. You don't keep stuff like that confidential by telling it to anyone who asks.

Were you doing that for testing purposes or do you actually have that many tabs open on purpose?

Since there's no way you could actually look at all of them in a single day, perhaps you'd be better off with bookmarks than actual open tabs. What benefit do you get from having the actual pages loaded and running their rogue javascript in the background? Have you downloaded the entire web to your hard drive, too, instead of just fetching the relevant pages as you need them?

Genuinely curious... (though that last sentence had some [required] snark.)

A few powerful people independently acting in their own (aligned) interest is functionally indistinguishable from a grand conspiracy.

I agree with your overall argument and agree that the current trend will kill our republic, but there are people who are benefitting from this strife. They don't want to see it resolved and will act to maintain it.

The law you quoted states that the laws of Member States apply to data handling within those Member States, which I don't think anyone was arguing against. Of course EU/Irish law applies to Microsoft's Irish subsidiary, who is operating in Ireland on Irish data. In fact, sections (56) to (66) describe the exceptions to the prohibition on transfer to third countries, including transfers for settling contracts or legal claims.

Secondly, as a US corporation, Microsoft and all of its wholly own subsidiaries are also subject to US law. This is the same in the EU, as shown in the directive you quoted above. The directive you quoted does not say that "that US law does not apply to US entities operating in Ireland".

You're a little overeager there, sport.

European law does not specify that US law does not apply to US entities operating in Ireland, and I challenge you find a reference for that. The closest you'll find is the vague concept of national sovereignty, which limits the US from carrying out governmental operations on foreign citizens or in foreign territories.

Really, Microsoft, a US company with foreign subsidiaries, is responsible for following US law and Irish/European laws simultaneously. If they conflict, then it's up to Microsoft (the entity who entered into a situation where they're violating some country's laws) to deal with the consequences. This whole situation is a result of Microsoft voluntarily maintaining US incorporation, wholly owning foreign subsidiaries, and wading into muddy international law.

Are you arguing that under European law, European companies (through wholly owned foreign subsidiaries) could engage in any activity at all outside of Europe and have no accountability for their actions in Europe? That a European company could engage in human trafficking, summary executions, child prostitution, etc and Europeans would not pursue legal remedies if the actions were legal in the foreign countries?

[In fact, under EU law, European citizens can be criminally charged for actions committed outside of Europe which are legal in the visited country (see child sex tourism laws). So you're saying that the US applying its laws to overseas US entities is overreach, while being alright with the EU doing the same.]

He missed out on the experience of feeling an earthquake and feels let down about that. If you're not from southern California, an earthquake is a novel experience. I felt one in St Louis a few years ago and it was cool and worth experiencing. Of course, having a building collapse on you would be horrible, but that's not too likely in most of the US.

Somehow I'm not surprised.
Asperae facetiae, ubi nimis ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt.

It's just more blatant to you because you're not one of their idiot constituency. Democrats seem to be less blatant about it because you are one of their idiot constituency.

That you see one as being more blatant than the other says more about you than the politicians.