This is the first time I wish I could donate against something. Like, pay them $100 so they subtract $50 from the collected donations :)

Considering the teams tasked with containing political opinion manipulation campaigns were the first to go, I think that is exactly what the acquisition boils down to. A license to manipulate and meddle in public discussion for anyone rich or powerful enough (and of a political disposition agreeable to Musk’s increasingly GOP/Russia-indoctrinated mind).

It’s a “public town square” where the major approvingly smiles as groups of paid shills and remote-controlled opinion pushers insert themselves into discussions and roughen up people they notice going against the opinions they push.

Regarding the “novelty wears off” thing, another side: I’ve been running for two decades, starting from a sedentary lifestyle, but it only became fun later on. I started running shortly after a friend, probably out of some youthful ambition or inferiority complex, so I ran alone and picked routes where as few people as possible would see me struggle. I don’t know why I didn’t drop it like so many other things, but I learned to yearn for it and it’s part of my identity now.

Yes, in various ways.

One part is immediate. When I’m nervous or keep worrying about something, going for a run almost certainly resets my flow of thoughts. It also burns off most of the tension, at least I have a much easier time relaxing after a workout.

The other part is more long-term. Despite many, many years of running, it merely helped keep my weight in check rather than give me a dream body, but it seems to have changed my thinking a bit – not like some motivation guru’s story where someone forces themselves through hardship to develop a warrior mentality stuff, though. It’s more like becoming aware, long after the change happened, that, woah, I may have skills now.

As in, there is no mental talk-back or willpower needed for me to run up a steep mountain trail in my area, the gist is more: no question that I can do it, it will be cool to experience it again. For a long time, I wasn’t even aware that it’s not always been that way. It also doesn’t seem to rub off on other areas of life like one would hope, but just having proof in myself that I may have built up to something is a small confidence booster.

Maybe at some point, his best buddy will decide that he’s more useful as a Martyr, rather than having him slowly drag down his base as he falls. I can imagine some good headlines already “Orange guy murdered by secret cabal assassins. have Antifa Super-Soldiers returned?” 🙃

Uh… I swear I wanted to contribute just 2 or 3 games, but as I wrote, I kept remembering one gem after another… oh well… :)

Outer Wilds - So hard to describe, it’s an exploration game, but what you’re exploring is a star system going supernova, in a wooden spaceship no less. And a strange way of (not) time travel is also involved, which could be the root of the whole game loop.

Axiom Verge - A platformer that is such a labor of love that it hits just the perfect mix of approachability, exploration, story development and that “huh?” factor where right until the end you’re not sure what your abilities actually mean - i.e. if you could glitch through walls in the real world, would that imply the real world is a simulation?

Stardew Valley - A somehow utterly satisfying farming simulator in the style of the first Harvest Moon games. Such a nice getaway game - it begins with your avatar quitting their office job and moving to a farm inherited from their grandfather. No taxes, no boss, no stress, just rise with the sun, plant, water, harvest and fix. Change your rhythm with the weather and the seasons, investigate charming little mysteries of a beautiful place.

Broforce - Another platformer, this one a bit more brutal. Far over the top 80s action heroes bring freedom to the world, but whether you play as Robocop, Schwarzenegger, McGyver, Snake Plissken, Ripley or another 50 heroes is almost random and each hero has completely different weapons and skills. Destructible environment and even a large Xenomorph outbreak (how the heck did they get the license or grant?).

Protolife - This one uses such a madly simple recipe for complex gameplay. Seen top-down, you’re a robotic loader than can put down dots. That’s all. But certain arrangements of dots are guns, long range guns, flame throwers, area denial, missile silos, barriers and so on. You’re attacked by insect-like creatures, but instead of building tanks, you have to attack via well-placed guns slowly pushing the swarming enemies back.

Alien Shooter 2 Reloaded - Simple top-down shooter where you’re the lone soldier seeking to contain an alien outbreak. Goes for the time-honed recipe of character stat upgrades (speed, health, accuracy) and purchasing weapons and weapon upgrades. The interesting part is the insane hordes you’re up against and that all the corpses stay. It’s not unusual for entire corridors to turn into flesh hallways of blood and carapaces.

Moons of Madness - I hope this is actually indie, the graphics are near AAA level. It’s 50% walking simulator, 50% cosmic horror, set on Mars. You’re an astronaut doing maintenance on an outpost, but rather than go for the “freaky alien attack” recipe, reality itself seems to be somehow bending. Cthulhu, is that you?

Lumencraft - Top-down game. You begin as a miner in an underground base. Something really bad happened to humanity and now you’re digging underground for metal and for “lumen.” To feed the reactor that keeps humanity alive, you have to meet harvesting goals and dig tunnels, but various enemies attack in waves, so you have to spend part of your resources on fortifications and turrets and avoid opening up too many avenues into your bases.

Carrion - 2D platformer-ish. In a secret place, scientists are holding a horrific, tentacled bioweapon locked away, but it escapes. Twist: you are the tentacled bioweapon, slithering through pipes, circumventing security systems and trying to escape from the lab.

Nuclear Blaze - 2D platformer. You’re a fireman sent to contain a fire the broke out in some kind of installation in a forest. But one building has a shaft that leads deep underground where a high-end containment facility is suffering a failure. Takes place in the “SCP” universe and your only tool is a fire hose. Extremely fun trying to extinguish fires in a way where they won’t spread again.

Mothergunship - This is a first-person shooter where you’re bording and destroying (from the inside out) an army of AI space ships. But instead of a traditional gun, you have gun parts you can stick together. How about a triple rocket launcher with two shotguns in the middle? Or a shield generating laser with a sawblade attache to it, and maybe two shotguns just to be sure? It doesn’t grow old with new weapon parts being introduced right until the very end.

Space Run - 2D base building. You’re a mercenary cargo pilot fending off space pirates. But you don’t do it by controlling a turret, instead, your spaceship is a building surface and you have to build the right kind of engines, turrets, shields and power generators (in mid-flight no less) to be able to shoot down incoming rocks and pirate ships. Extremely well balanced and fun.

Creeper World - 3D real-time strategy. But your enemy is not actually present on the map, you’re just fighting a simulation of liquid, a gooey slime that pours out of several spots. You have to keep shooting, bombarding and containing the splashing, pouring slime until you can neutralize the slime outlets. The story is cool, too. The slime is actually some extinct species “gift” to the universe which dissolves everything into data, transmitted to some eternal storage space at the center of the universe.

I’ve seen these people pop up a lot here, too.

I just assumed that this is the flavor of far-right influencing campaigns we get to see on Lemmy. Since the normal “far-right and Russia good, liberals and EU/Democrats bad because {manliness/financial elite/globalism/cabal}” angle is pretty much a lost cause here, the next best thing they can do is reduce turnout via resignation and bitterness.

…and, hear me out, that will be perfect for keeping messages untraceable by the government. Every single of those 200,000 computers will have full copies of all the messages ever transmitted, unencrypted, but they’ll never be able to tell who wrote them and who they were for.