I play on a smaller galaxy size and have a beefy computer.

It’s a mix of strategy and role-playing. Sure if you want to survive on higher difficulties, you probably need a build that is meta. But on medium difficulties or lower you can pretty much roleplay your empire as you like and there’s many mechanics in the game that help with this. Your empire can be a democratic haven for all, a mega corporation, a machine hivemind forcefully assimilating organics into its network…and much more.

There’s also a great exploration aspect of the game. Your exploration vessels regularly find anomalies that tell a neat little story and provide bonuses to your empire (which can range from a small resource bonus to making one of your leaders immortal).

Of course, there’s also the power fantasy. You start with just one planet, but you will quickly expand throughout the galaxy. You can then wage war against other empires, build a federation together with them or convince the galactic community to crown you as Emperor of the entire galaxy. But the game also regularly throws adversaries at you if the AI empires are starting to become no match for you, may it be one of the space fauna suddenly becoming extremely hostile or a Great Khan uniting a marauder horde and demanding everyone to become their vassal.

It is also rare that a bad outcome leads to a straight loss. Losing a war (usually) does not doom your empire but you only lose a bit of territory or get vassalized, both giving you ample opportunities to build up your strength again or make allies to stand together against an enemy.

Stellaris. I’m almost at 1400 hours in the game and while I now play it a lot less often than in the first 1000 hours, I still get the itch to play it again a few times a year.

Barrier of entry is marginally lower. With mastodon you’ll have to make a decision on what instance you’re creating your account. With Bluesky there’s just Bluesky.

Trump and Vance hold no actual power. Musk is now the shadow president of the USA.

There’s a third.

That’s been going on since 10 already at least.

I guess there will be many people thinking that, driving up demand->increasing prices before any tariffs even exist.

“perhaps” “I think”

In short you’ve got no clue.

In authoritarian environments, any compassion you show the declared enemy is a grave offense and needs to be punished severely.

Exactly, the moment things cost real money in the game, the design of the game changes to increase likelihood of spending. Guild Wars 2 e.g. sells increased inventory space…and it fills your inventory with so many crap items that you’ll constantly be managing your inventory without the extra space.

Firefox not getting better in the last 15 years is quite disingenuous though.

I use Pixels, it’s very barebones but that’s exactly what I wanted in a mood tracker!

Thank you for that insightful rebuttal.

If a country (Russia) has decided it wants to be aggressive, then there are really only two ways to prevent a war with them:

1. Increase your own strength
2. Decrease their strength

Usually, number 1 is the only feasible way for a country without outright opening up hostilities. However, Russia has given the world an opportunity, by attacking Ukraine, to enact number 2 relatively risk-free.

I fully believe that if Russia is given leeway then they’d just continue on. Appeasement, as World War 2 has shown, does not work with personalities like that. By supporting Ukraine in this conflict, number 2 can be accomplished.

And this war can be stopped, today! By Russia withdrawing from Ukraine. So please, aim your ire at Putin who started and stubbornly keeps this war going.

Same happened to me when I tried to sell my old powerline network adapters. Sign up, put them up for sale, 2 minutes later I get a mail that I’m banned without a reason given.

I still have those adapters lying around somewhere…

If one does that, be prepared to defend yourself against the copyright infringement lawsuit that’s coming your way eventually.

If they didn’t in all that time, it’s probably because they don’t want to keep their account.

That’s an assumption that leads to corporate bullshit like this.

In that case why block the add-ons in the first place? There is a risk that the “Mozilla is blocking privacy friendly add-ons on the behest of an authoritarian regime!” news will become more widely known than any correction. If it had been a planned PR move then any person involved in it should never work in marketing again.

I was thinking the whole week if I should vote the greens or the pirates but due to the recurring campaigns to establish a surveillance state I did end up voting pirates. Incredibly disheartened they didn’t get a seat :(