OnlyAwfulNamesLeft

I think Jordies wording of "police terror units to prosecute and intimidate me was deeply unsettling" was very smart. When anti-terror units are used in the way they were against him and his editor, they themselves become the source of the terror.

If only there was some kind of legislation that protected an open and fair internet...

Selfishness is coded into us by evolution. It's genetic. Lots of people will agree with me on this.

What I get a lot of pushback on, is that selflessness is the same. It has evolutionary benefits for a familial group, and so gets selected for.

I loved the "anyone can be special" message, even when rammed down our throat by having the slave stable boy force pull the broom to himself at the end of the movie.

I hated them undoing that and going "hahahaha, no, you're actually one of the two special families!!" in Rise of Skywalker.

I quite enjoy the Baroque Cycle. I am yet to read Snowcrash.

My Sa'cea Tau were always supposed to be night fighters. Sa'cea is the closest thing to a "hive world" that the Tau Empire has, and in one paragraph in the third ed codex it mentioned that they were skilled night fighters. But the grey armour Sa'cea wear is very close to Tau flesh, and I wanted helmet less Tau to stand out, so I figured out what Tau, Kroot, and Vespid would look like with severe vitamin D deficiency (and this is back when Tau had cyan, cobalt-based blood) so my Fire Warriors are an unhealthy grey-green, the Kroot are a really dark green-brown, and my Vespid are a calcinated beige/white. It's explained that they spend too much time in the training grounds, and too little under mandated-use UV lamps. Also, bright orange and white markings aren't the best for night fighting, so the Cadre uses a deep red and grey instead. But the Ethereal attached didn't know this before deploying with them, so is covered in garish orange and has a healthy skin tone, which actually helps them blend visually with the army when it's on the board, but still stand out.

Federal law enforcement agencies can request app Devs put backdoors into their apps, so the cops can steal data. What's more, the Devs aren't allowed to tell anyone that they have done so.

Very important legal distinction here: we have laws about spying on our own citizens, so we let our allies do it for us, while we openly spy on our allies citizens, and then share that information back with each other. Totally different bro! /s

The sister makes some noises about her parents being guardsmen before she was orphaned. My money is on that being her mum. The infected guardsmen completely ignored her, so almost definitely a hallucination.

Tax incentivsed rubbish cover is the best way to put it. Taking out private cover (and never using it) is cheaper than paying the lifetime loading Medicare levy surcharge for most households earning over $100k a year. And all that money goes into some corpo's pocket rather than to the government to help fund our public health system (although, let's be real, even though it's labelled as a "Medicare levy" the money would probably still go to buying nuclear submarines).

Had a close friend in school who was collecting Ultramarines. That was about the time 2nd Ed came out, and for Christmas my brother and I split the starter box. I was going through a bit of a crisis of faith, and the imagery and background of warrior monk Space Marines really grabbed me. Later I got hooked by the really old metal Imperial Guard (I have a soft spot for underdogs) and I was permanently hooked. I later lost that friend who got me into it in a car accident near the end of high school. Whenever I see ol' Marneus Calgar I think of him.

For Hobby History, I recommend Arbitor Ian. He's an old grognard like me who has been collecting for decades, and explains some of the interesting changes and old lore of the setting (stuff from as far back as when Space Marines all had "born to kill" type graffiti all over their armour). He also does a "Tale of four gamers" type thing with some other hobbyists, and it feels a bit like those old White Dwarf articles come to life. Lots of nostalgia, but also new lore too.