It’s good to see the spirit of ZZT and Jill managing to live on in current Epic.

And both US parties deliberately intend to radicalize young adults, especially young middle-class white men.

No, there are no exceptions. If the power button is pressed, it should shut down and cease drawing power immediately. If it’s so critical that it can’t be shut down safely, don’t include a power button, and add a battery for backup purposes.

Have played Apocalypse World. And kp4s, too. Baker’s best game is the one he disowned, Dogs in the Vineyard. I dislike PbtA systems - any game whose dice rule could’ve been used to play Monopoly isn’t an RPG with mechanics that interest me.

Plus, I hate the core concept of having to constantly describe my own failures. If the DC is so high that I can barely ever succeed, I just won’t do anything that requires a roll where I don’t have at least a +6 and some variety of points to spend. That behavior has gotten me to have to leave two different PbtA one-shots early, because I refused to make moves that weren’t guaranteed in some way, or where failure wouldn’t be able to hurt me or allies.

On Tumblr (and LJ), the indie devs get to be honest about their feelings. On BSky, it’s all advertising. Because I’ll tell you this - every dev who’s not part of Hasbro despises them. So do most players.

This, unironically.

So what happened to Ion Storm, then? If Indies are the future, where are the Daikatana sequels that fans should obviously be clamoring for?

Compare that to the other IS office, which published through Eidos and created Deus Ex and Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3. They operated like a proper studio and worked professionally.

Small and efficient studios have always been the way. Hands-off publishing has always been the way. It’s not indie vs. AAA. It’s just professional development and support.

That’s specifically octopi, right? Because there were cephalopods around that lived through the Great Dying.

You’re not wrong though, I’ve heard the same anecdote. But it sort of sticks by my point. It was solving problems. Radio astronomy is important, and so is someone looking at the math and the machine and saying “hey, we can do stuff that X-Rays can’t with this!”

I mean, I think it’s fair to ignore it 99% of the time. Frankly, as much as I love space science and science in general, we all should have a responsibility to solve real problems here and now. That’s been my issue with a lot of science, currently - we need problem solvers rather than idle explorers.

I get that completely.

I mean, that sucks, but that’s not the end of the world. You can still communicate with her, and either of you can emigrate.

I use Mint, with Cinnamon. It looks like Windows, and 99% of the time works like it too. The only issue I have is the lack of good small accessibility tools, and the difficulty of using arbitrary executables. It’s easy to use, and it works reliably.

The more Windows-like an OS is, the happier I am to use it. Note that Win11 is not very Windows-like in my view. It cuts out power user functions and adds so much useless bloat and tracking that I don’t want to ever touch it. If I ever have to, outside of work, the first day or six will be spent with the thing offline, basically deleting out half of the OS and remodeling the half that’s left.

That was my life. Then I found a woman who loves me. I have a lot to rebuild, sure. I was badly affected by the lockdowns and the depression they caused. I don’t think it’s hopeless, but I realize that the chapters of my life ahead will be far simpler and more isolated than those behind.

There are two approaches: Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat.

Black Trenchcoat says no one should know you were there.

Pink Mohawk says that if there are no survivors, no one can know you were there.

Both are considered stealth.

I don’t know about that. The current administration are definitely trying to nuke out every regulation they can, starting by shutting down the regulating agencies. A law that isn’t enforced is a polite joke - every one of the people in charge have seen that, so they’re ending enforcement.

Best possible, yes; but you’re defining it wrong. The best possible product is always the thing that makes the thing that makes the most profit. The ideal is to generate massive profit for zero cost. And if the company has the sense to corner the market and create an irreplaceable product, the will of the consumer ceases to matter.

See, that’s why the current admin wants to abolish the FDA. The food manufacturers consider that accurate labeling law onerous, and want it gone. Caveat emptor, etc.

Yes, that is how the free market works. If people don’t notice or are entirely focused on price, then they’ll accept the lower-quality product. There will be a place in the market for luxury goods, but cheap alternatives need to exist as well for the price-conscious.

Permits? We don’t need no stinkin’ permits. Give the goods or we make sure you get copyleft.