phx

There are a few episodes where various people mention putting a lot of time and wish into building holodeck sims. I'm guessing it's more like having a futuristic version of Unity/UnrealE/etc, with a common asset pool and an AI assisted interface

With the efforts to neuter regulatory and inspection agencies, it's surprising they caught this, but who knows how long it's been going on even just the one company

Thing is, many of these things grow over time, and - especially with the active gutting of regulatory and oversight bodies - there's a decent chance that the list isn't comprehensive.

It's also one of the reasons why I have avoided US meat products and grabbed stuff with a maple leaf instead, because it wasn't hard to see this coming (and coming and coming)

I'd be surprised if a single one of them got the payout, and I don't feel sorry for any of them

But if they were open source they'd have the worst name possibly, and possibly an equally awful UI.

I guess we can be glad that "the GIMP" is taken so nobody will reuse that for a future FOSSeporter

Oh dear lord. Yeah I could definitely see a variant where the hell dimension is just "work all the hours that it would have taken to traverse in normal space so that EvilCorp can generate profit for the pan-dimensional empire"

Assuming age ID wasn't invasive and stupid to begin with, there could be other ways to set it that would be much less invasive for many devices, such as setting an "IS_ADULT" flag on devices (or even an associated account) at the time of registration.

"Hey Mr Smith, it looks like you've never registered a device on our phone network before but you've got a driver's license from 1979 so we'll just set the age code on your account aaaand, done".

Then you get a sheet of random scratch-off AV codes pulled from a drawer that you can use on other shit, similar to how VPN providers do to separate payment vs login. Nothing should ever say who you are or even your age, just "hey this person is old enough, fuck off and let them at it".

It's still annoying, but less privacy invasive. And it'll never fly because what they really want is to tie all communication back to a person not just an age.

They don't give a shit about any of that they just say "jump" and expect people to do something in response

The are other methods from Star Trek that could potentially be size as well.

Like "hey you actually travel through this other dimension where your physical form is undisturbed and no time passes in this dimension"

Which sounds ok, but "by the way it's kinda a hell-dimension and your consciousness gets tortured for a distance-relative time there but won't retain the memories after..."

Nah, Google would just lift your interests and then inject time-delayed ads into your brain...

I think Enterprise covered it fairly well. They definitely started it more towards the science/exploratory side but quickly ran into the "1000001 ways to die horribly in space" and started jerry-rigging stuff like phasers and photon torpedoes from what was formerly mining equipment etc. Even then they did still have a command structure similar to military, which just makes sense from a practical "who's in charge of what" perspective. They also do have a mix of civilian and more military-style ranks.

Starfleet may have an overall scientific mission/objective, but it definitely developed along the the structure of a military protectorate or coalition, though again that was likely due to a certain amount of necessity. I'm pretty sure that exploratory or trading vessels in historic times tended towards that in some regard.

He's not (supposed to be) above the law now. The problem is the system and those who should hold him to it are equally corrupt so stuff like impeachment goes nowhere

You'd need a way to charge, prosecute, and penalize a sitting president even even the deck is stacked with his cronies, and one that couldn't be used to drown a future non-shitty president in bogus charges