First, great choice in reading (Im a fan of Camus as well).

As for the meaning of life thing…

Thats the neat part. You don’t.

Thats why in absurdist fiction like Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. Its not supposed to make sense and the universe is under no obligation to do so for you (the books even postulate that the universe does not want anyone to know so if someone figures it out it winks out of existance and replaced itself with something weirder, some scientists think this has happened before).

That goes back to Camus point about the remedies for the bleakness of early-mid 20th century philosophy. He proposed three options, Nhilism, a leap of faith (looking at you Kierkegaard), or absurdism, the last being what the doctor perscribes, but also requires the most effort because you have to find your question to the ultimate answer your self… Or not, who cares. Lets go spend some time by a lake that thinks its a gin & tonic.

Orzo (rice shaped pasta) and peanut butter, its ultra-dense camping food, never need to make more than a small bowl.

People will always be nostalgic for their childhood because they did not understand what was going on in the world at the time and had little to no responsibilities.

Never do anything you would be afraid to explain to the paramedics.

What do you mean? An african or european swallow?

[Queue screaming]

Some old floppy disks like the OG version would be a nice novelty, even if noone used them. EvE online did a thing like that for its 20th birthday box. They included a floppy disk with some old game data on it (I think it was part of an ARG, but I just had fun trying to read the data)

Most of the video game subs, BG3 is active enough, but I like Tribes and EvE online and their subs are sorta dead. I know niche titles wont have as much discussion, but representation would be nice.

Aww, shazbot.

Again?

Clear out the parking lot around The Ellipse and have them drive around that. Make sure he is facing away from the center so he cant see them circle around, and just keep going until he is tuckered out and gets tucked into bed.

I had some DYI hackable computer kits (ClockworkPI) that I orderd last year, both of them arrived in the last few weeks. Im very glad they made it through customs before most of this shit gets enacted.

Dito, still have RIF installed on my phone so every time I click a reddit link im reminded of what they did with a 403: forbidden error. I like it better over here anyway, nicer people who give a shit and fewer bots (or atleast fewer obvious ones).

If not friend, why friend shaped?

Think of it like one of those 3-inch swiss army knives, but for IR tech and radio. If you mean to do work. Use the correct tool for the job, but there is no reason you cant acomplish what your trying to do. They are great for learning, if I was teaching a kids about cyber security, a flipper zero would be on the required tool kit.

Yes, you can do harm with them, per the previous analogy its still a knife. However, devices not hardened against simple replication attacks or brute force acomplished by something barely more powerful than a TI-84, those manufactures and customers needs to take the security of their products more seriously.

Good bot

I get you. In light of recent events I ended up looking for answers in a philosophy text book and landed on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his social contract.

There were two points to me that stuck out, the first was that Rousseau how systems of governance become increasingly difficult the larger the group (modern communication would probably make this easier) and that the public will must be inclusive of all, not exclusive.

Looking out at the US today, I feel like it utterly fails in this philosophy (even though founders like TJ were a fan of his work), and while lot of places also fail, but the US at this point in time feels completly anathema to the concept of empathy, ethics, and the public will. Unfortunatly, the solution that historically tended to go hand in hand with these enlightenment ideals also got a bit choppy with kings, fairly revolty and that is a hard pill to swallow.

Anyone read that in the voice of Big-E from TTS?

Color me suprised that it wasn’t the War Thunder forum this time…

You are 100% correct. Im semi-retired (winning) from the game and while I remember my time cosplaying as a space bureaucrat fondly and will attempt to get involved every year or so. I do not wish some of aspects of that game on my worst enemies.

Functionally yes, being a worker bee in a large alliance is probably the most normal MMO expirence you can get. Fleets are called, you will have your own corp leaders that act as HR for the alliance, you go farm the space or just chat in stations with your friends. The power fantasy is there as well, but the process to get there involves being much more specialized and flying expensive things (Titans are 2k$ golden space coffins).

The nice part is being a cog is optional, but recommended, its a much more social game. Hell, ive been to several of my former corp mates weddings, and the Iceland/Las Vegas convention manyl times. The stress about going it alone mostly stems from the games rules of engagment. In a majority of star systems (anything not High Security space, but that opens up a new can of issues), if your alone, you truely are alone and people in the local system should be treated as hostile by default (if you can even see they are there).