“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

-Gandalf the Grey / J R R Tolkein

Only you can really answer that question, but here’s my take at least.

When we are young, the world feels magical and mysterious. We are convinced that there’s dragons living in the mountains, and kraken in the oceans. We are so sure that we spotted a fairy in the garden or a mermaid at the pool And then there’s the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause who leave an obvious trace. But as we get older, that magic seems to fade. We instead see the world for the boring corporate reality that it is. And yet there’s still a part of us that hopes. Hopes that Bigfoot is walking around out there somewhere. Hope that Nessy really is swimming around in some undiscovered cave network beneath Scotland. Hope that the fuzzy photo of a smudge really is an Alian spacecraft come to make our world feel magical again.

As the great Sir Terry Pratchet once wrote

“All right," said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

By my understanding, it was more of a grey area. It seemed like the system was technically allowed according to the wording of the rule but clearly against the spirit of the rule. Prior to Miami, the FIA made it clear that they would interpret things like this as a breach of the rules, effectively allowing teams to remove them without punishment before they were caught.

Short version that doesn’t require technical knowledge is Red Bull Racing (RBR) were using a system on their brakes that wasn’t allowed but it was suspected that teams were using anyway. The rules were publicly clarified before the Miami GP. Ever since then Max Verstappen and Red Bull in general have started to lose pace compared to other teams, breaking Max’s long run of victories. The tweet is suggesting that Max’s break issues that caused him to DNF in the Australian GP were due to a fault in this system and the loss of pace is due to it’s removal.

Edit to correct detail that I mis-remembered. Max did not DNF in Miami, in fact he finished 2nd. It was Australia that he retired from.

I once worked with a guy who did the opposite of this. He just randomly mentioned that he had a twin brother one day, which no-one believed given how long we had all known him. But he persisted by casually talking about him in regular conversation. Nothing overly noticeable, just enough to plant the idea in people’s mind that he did indeed have a twin brother. Around the same time he started growing his beard out and really made it his personality for several months to be the guy with a beard. It all came together one day, he finished his shift around lunch time and left like usual with his glorious beard. Unbeknownst all but a select few of us, he hadn’t actually left. He left the store and drove his car around the corner to the other car park then used the sink in a nearby public toilet to completely shave his beard off and changed his clothes. Then he just walked in through the front door, introduced himself as the name he had been using for his fake twin brother and asked if his brother was there. He always had a reputation as a joker, but I don’t think any of us truly believed anything he said after that. Not that he cared. It still cracked him up years later when folks were telling the tale to the newbies.

I know the feeling. I payed for a new computer with specs higher than needed for any new release game at full settings, and yet the main game I have played on it so far was built for Windows 3 and is best played in a web browser.

I’ve been thinking the same thing. While I like the idea that publishers are responsible for maintaining the needed infrastructure, I can only see that resulting in even more predatory pricing to cover the costs and unreasonable pressure on smaller publishers leading them to fold and leave behind the greedy ones

Or the even more frustrating OP reply “fixed thanx” with no details on how they fixed it leaving everyone else in the dark.

Saying that out loud is the quickest way to curse yourself to be adopted by the most chaotic till fur gremlin imaginable.

I’m quite proud of the system I have for the Orcs of my world. Essentially they live in tribes with a clear leader who sets all the rules and expected behaviours for their tribe known as traditions. Tribe members follow the traditions without question most of the time. But there is a cultural expectation that if any tribe member feels a tradition is wrong or no longer necessary, they must call this out and be ready to stand by their ideas. The leader must provide the tribe member time and opportunity to gain followers to their traditions and then gift them resources to start their own tribe. In this way the tribes with the best traditions tend to grow and the tribes with poor traditions either die out or are absorbed by larger tribes.

I like the idea that a new player coming to my games will be able to make assumptions about orc culture based on preconceptions made from other depictions of orcs over the years, and it would be fairly accurate for my world on a surface level, but there’s so much more to it.

Brilliantly said. Chasing those “higher highs” can feel like an obligation at times. But I think it’s important to understand that it’s a feeling that is coming from yourself and your own deeper needs as a person. And not, as I believe the person I was replying to was thinking, some sort of societal pressure to conform and “do the right thing.”

Both interpretations of the word “obligation” are technically correct. But I think that it’s one of those things in life where the only way to truly understand the intended interpretation is to have been a parent for yourself. Somehow it can be both a great chore and burden sometimes, but it’s one you choose to put upon yourself because the rewards are sooooo worth it.

As a parent myself, I love this. I feel that the single most important thing you can do as a parent is to actively tell (and show) your kids that you love them. Everything else can grow from there.

“I’m not feeling in the mood right now but I am aware that every moment is precious and pushing through this momentary feeling will result in a far greater feeling of happiness for both me and my child into our future when the opportunities to just play together become few and far between.”

Sometimes you have to look past the choice of words to see the message being conveyed. The point wasn’t that they were dreading playing with their child, it was that despite other factors in their life, they wanted to cherish the moment. And that is the wholesome message you think it is.

No. They would rather effective age verification that doesn’t negatively impact the privacy and liberties of their users. They want a solution, not just a ham fisted excuse to start building the foundations of a social credit system

All three corporations involved are scumbags trying to game the broken legal system to profit at the expense of the consumer. None of them deserve your support. You should be able to buy what you want and emjoy, in a manner that’s convenient for you, at a reasonable price, without having to navigate a labyrinth of corporate deals and user agreements.

I’m personally a fan of Noah Caldwell-Gervais. His essays can be quite long, like several hours long, but it’s always very thought-provoking. I like to watch them on a second monitor while doing something brainless to wind down at the end of the day

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There’s heaps of psychology research into therapeutic approaches and all that stuff out there if you’re willing to essentially do a degree on the topic, but personally I like to keep things as simple as possible so anyone can start applying it straight away.

I usually start with the picture story book The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside (there’s a read along of it on youtube) to frame the conversation. It helps to set up the idea that the “worries” are real and are having an effect on the individual. Also that many people struggle to know how to deal with them and end up giving bad advice, often because they are carrying their own bag of worries. I also at this point remind them that we are unlikely to get rid off all the problems, eg I can’t cure your depression or rebuild your brain to make it neuro-typical, but we can make it so they are the only things in your bag making it a lot easier to carry.

Then I’ll talk about a Catastrophe Scale. This is where we take a worry and rank it on a scale out of 10 of how bad is it really. 1 is a minor problem that will go away on it’s own, and 10 is an extreme issue that will have a permanent impact on your life. Like in the book, many problems stop being an issue once you realize they are only a 1 or 2 on the scale. This is the “just get over it” point. Other’s need some attention but can easily be solved or passed on to someone else in your support network to handle, but once you’ve spent that small amount of energy, it’s gone. This is the where we see the value of another piece of despised advice, “stop worrying and just do it” or “have you tried going for a walk outside today”. Once again, often spouted advice by people who think of it as the only thing needed without understanding how it fits into a complete treatment plan.

Finally that just leaves the real problems, the ones that are less easy to deal with. But without having to carry the weight of the whole bag of worries, we now have a capacity to take those worries to therapy or a doctor to medicate etc, and just generally do the more difficult and complex work that’s needed.

The problem is that a version of this advice can be very helpful. As someone who has suffered from ongoing mental health issues and also work in an industry where I regularly support people with mental health issues, one piece of advice I often give is to identify what traumas are you unnecessarily holding on to, which are contributing to your depression/anxiety etc.

When you can let go of some of the more mundane stresses in your life, you have more energy to tackle the real issues you’re facing. Of course this is much easier said than done and has to be used as part of a more wholeistic approach, but sometimes the advice to just learn to let it go is very good advice.

Unfortunately, many people don’t understand that intricacy and so just repeat the surface level comment which is far from helpful. And this in turn also leads to a push back in the other direction where people who could genuinely benefit from letting go of some of their stress refuse to do so because they have spent so long being told that’s all there is to it.

As an Australian, I am ashamed at how long I sat here saying “care-sore… queso” to myself over and over listening to how strangely similar they do sound when I think about it