You didn’t read them in the car on the way home?

You’re taking the utterings of keyboard warriors as reflective of reality?

…I think that might be less far-fetched. After all, our black VP is competing for her next job with a guy who’s a few oranges short of a basket…

That’s not what I’ve seen. The stories I’m familiar with usually involve defending those things where they already exist, not establishing them. Even in cases where that needs established, as often as not, they’re usually protecting someone else who embodies that ideal.

I’m sure there are stories similar to what you’ve described, but I don’t see that in the stories I’m familiar with.

It’s always seemed strange to me that earth never made any sort of meaningfull technological progress despite having access to a galaxy full of new tech.

This actually seemed reasonable to me - if alien tech is anything like ours, we lack the parts to make the parts to make the parts to make the tech, so we can’t mass produce any of it yet. And we’re a bit of a backwater - what resources we do have of galactic interest (vibranium, maybe?) isn’t for sale. So we make do with what scraps do find their way to earth.

Stories don’t need to be told, humans need to tell stories. That’s what makes us human, and is how we spread ideas like honor, justice, and even civilization itself.

Hero stories reinforce all of these ideas, and others besides.

I certainly hope that happens. But it’s not a reliable enough consequence to justify the currently low level of fines, which was how I read your earlier comment.

That seems like a pretty weak consequence, and not an intended one. Worse, it’s one likely to be least impactful for the worst offenders - a megacorp isn’t going to care much about fines, and the market won’t see any danger to their investment in them.

…it didn’t occur to them to even start learning Russian before they went?!

I’ve been trying to avoid soap labelled antibacterial for this reason, and it’s tricky to even find any that’s not labelled antibacterial.

Been wondering if they don’t just slap the label on any soap, because it could be considered antibacterial by its nature. Apparently not?

About a year ago, I was playing with my younger kids watching. I had a home base above an extensive cave system that featured a ladder up a large stalactite as the main way in and out, as I figured that was plenty safe from mobs.

Was messing with something in the cave system, picked up a creeper on the way back, and dashed back to the ladder and started climbing out. Looked back down and the creeper was climbing the ladder after me! I’d never seen any mobs use ladders before! So I’m making these panicked shrieks in between laughing at my potential demise, the kids are cracking up, and I eventually get to the top and close a door behind me - but that panicked, giddy rush still sticks with me!

(I never looked into it - how long have creepers been able to climb ladders? And can most mobs do that now, or just them?)

Dead? Really? Cuz Portal and Minecraft are my kids’ top two games!

Dragon’s not completely gone; she’s just attending to other stuff while the characters are handling their slice of things. She does show up more towards the end, IIRC. I think she also had some plot resolution; though my memory is fuzzy here.

And some of my other favorites feature in Ward!

More of a callback, I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/grilledcheese/comments/2or1p3/you_people_make_me_sick/

I think that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

People who live in an area should be empowered to push back against outside interests coming in and changing things to the detriment of the residents, like the HOA posted earlier that protected their forest and watershed.

The problem is that this power is often turned back onto the residents. This sounds to me like hyper-local politics - and so the answer is to get involved and vote out the assholes in power, not ban the existence of the political body!

(Edit) I didn’t realize this, but some HOAs are controlled by outside developers, rather than local residents? That I can get behind banning!

Mine has been docked for months at a time. I recently started shifting it to be near the kids when they’re home; but not undocking it wouldn’t strike me as strange at all.

But not the stem!

And if you’ve been letting Steam store your save data, you should find that your save files for most games will still be available in Linux! Mileage will vary per game of course, but jumping between OSes has been pretty seamless for me!

True! I’ve been too focused on our local politics lately!

Well, until the President decides otherwise, anyway.