The problem was that some hosts required guests to do it AND charge a fee for getting it done.

That's not wrong for being plain wrong, but for being a wrong blanket statement.

"Labor in Europe" is a range from Germany to eastern Bulgaria or southern Italy. You may not get Africa-cheap or India cheap, but not everywhere is expensive.

I don't think there is any kind of loyalty or gratitude to be expected on any side. If they stayed after their greencard process was done, it was probably because you were an ok-ish or better place to work.

Well... more than a quarter of Americans voted for a government that is against their own interests. Or just Google "funny things Americans say". How many Flat Earthers?

But even most of those 40 million are not stupid, they may indeed not be skilled in the very narrow band of skills most H1B are looking for. I don't think many H1B are looking for skilled graphic artists, teachers or musicians. so these people aren't a 1:1 match for the work visas.

But that ALSO means that what MS et al pulled here IS some kind of fraud. They did NOT fire 6000 janitors and now suddenly require 6000 rocket scientists. Give or take 20%, they fired 6000 tech people and are looking for 6000 tech people. They got hired for being smart, not for carrying heavy things. There is no reason why most of them should not be able to be retrained except for department A not knowing about upcoming demand in department B. That's management failure.

But Flock (or other technology) is fuel or at least a catalyst to such "bad police".

Second in place only to the habit to cover up police misbehaviour.

Everyone who talks about "just a few bad apples" needs to remember that the saying is that "Just a few bad apples will spoil the batch"

Well, Dr. Strangelove explained the logic behind such Doomsday Devices. Like it's not a deterrent if you keep it secret and so on.

Yes. As i wrote in another rant\b\b\b\b post in this thread, they used to be story first. (mostly) good stories that just happen to be about "woke" subjects. Now it feels like the other way

Was it?

To me it sounds like another idea how to come up with an interesting alien race without a high makeup/FX budget. Trek often did that. Introduce a flat character defined by one single trait and alien race background, and develop it from there.

I wouldn't be surprised if that metaphor was developed after the concept resonated with transgender fans. And then develop it naturally. And entertaining.

Yes, at one point Trek forgot to make it entertaining. And we need a word for that. And if we go with the "Trek was always woke", we need a new word for that. I wouldn't mind reserving "woke" for that and say that old Trek was good at how it did it and not uninspiredly woke.

Preference doesn't necessarily imply a decision. I never decided to be a straight guy, but sexually, I still prefer women.

That probably depends on your definition of "woke"

Yes, it was always addressing controversial subjects, was progressive and diverse and inclusive. From a black woman on bridge to low-gravity wheelchair-Arielle in DS9. If that was "woke", it was an inspired wokeness that the viewer had to grapple with, challenge his own prejudices.(*)

What happend to that? Today's "wokeness" feels like a producer mandated LHGBT-Quota, a checkbox to fill during casting, or a right-in-your-face lecture. Again, not because anyone is invested in showing mankind a way to progress, but to please and appease some lobby or viewer target group.

Old Trek never FORCED those "woke" subjects on you. It used to tell great stories, that sometimes were about those subjects. And sometimes it was "monster of the week". But that variety worked. Today, it feels the other way round. "We need to fill those checkboxes. Let's engineer a story around them. By commitee." (**)

Whatever Star Trek always was - woke or not - it's something different today.

Orville has that spirit now, progressing from dick jokes to "Twice in a lifetime"

(*) granted. there were better and worse takes at that. TNG:Justice anyone?

(**) or vice versa. "People notice our checkbox-driven writing. We need to insert some tactical goofiness. Let's do Muppets!"

Explain to me why for a while facebook almost only presented me midgets in bikinis on my timeline? That was weirdly and overly specific.

Max Headroom did this already in its pilot. ("Blipverts").

And the episode "Dream Thieves".

And almost every other episode...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)#Episodes

Anyone has been wondering why that show is never on re-runs?

As I read the story, the limitations were only set in the web GUI, like limiting date selection or not offering a button to cancel a reservation. And honestly, that sounds like something someone would be like "nah, just limit the date picker in the GUI and keep the API as flexible as possible"

Here you can sign up for it up to 4 times per year and get the pick up date.

Who would use a website when there is an API?

I remember times past when half of the /. users would prefer writing a curl script over going to a website to get things done if there was an API.