No no no, fucking no. I didn't want a cell phone and then I had to have one for work and now they want my biometrics? Every bit of identity and every ha'penny you have must be accessible and on display at all times with this fucked up society. They won't be happy until we're all just walking around naked carrying every dollar we have fanned out in our hands so it can be counted faster.

All convenience paid for with intrusion.

Music is a good one. Especially electronic instruments, mostly because you can play and record with headphones and it's easy to get a lot of different sounds to play with.

I know a lot of people liked the first game and are anxiously awaiting this one but, I'm just biding my time waiting for Control 2

I'll add to the analogy and say that "downhill" is an apt word choice for where things will go if you let them. Nothing wrong with letting a river take it's natural course but if we want it to work for us it has to be directed and controlled. We can have both aspects of language we just have to conscious of what we want and where it's going.

Maybe we should start an /AskSex Magazine and redirect it all there.

Raising even more concerns and questions when it's used. Very good.

I'm replaying Ghost of Tsushima. Sure it's an open world, go-to-icon, action collectathon but it looks beautiful and is punctuated with enough genuine fun to keep me interested. This one and Horizon Zero Dawn as last gasps of the PS4 are much better than they needed to be.

I like the idea of the Agents knowing to some degree when and where the Heroes are going to arrive. Played right it could add a lot of tension. If jump-drive has a predetermined destination I imagine that once it kicks in your ship is locked into its path--only being able to be knocked from it or, as you suggest , something is done to slow the Heroe's ship.

How it could work dramatically: the Heroes slip away from the Agents using the jump-drive. The Agents quickly activate some device (a pulsing buoy, technobabble) in the last place the ship was seen. It lets off three thumps in every direction. The Agent's ships rock back with each pulse after which they retrieve the buoy. A little dialogue about waiting for the pulses to dissipate before engaging their own jump-drive ("we don't want to get caught in the pulse's wake") and they're off.

Cut to the Heroes ship in the jump-space: They think they've made a quick escape but the ship stumbles and an alarm goes off. A quick look at their instruments tells them the ship is dropping speed. This happens twice more-the three pulses catching up to them-each time slowing them not quite out of jump-space but enough to know they're heading into the trouble they thought they's just outrun.

This could be used in universe as a something that is rarely deployed because it does affect every ship that engaged jump-drive in that area within a certain timeframe (pick your area of effect and time factors for best storytelling) so it's quite a statement as to how badly the Agents want to thwart the heroes. When the 'pulse buoy' is used, yes, you may slow them down but you may have also affected local commerce, local military and even other Agents in the area by using it. It's effective but costly. You've just broadcast your location and the desperation of your goals to everyone in that area.

I'm with you in the Pitfall era. Spent hours playing Gangster Alley, Combat, Space Invaders, Frogger, Frostbite, Seaquest and countless others. We got our system well after the new, fancier Intellivision and Coleco systems came out so the prices had dropped enough to afford it. So much fun for so many years.

There's also a fun little cheat I'll do when I'm frustrated trying to create something. I'll try to ape someone else's style. See how close I can get to creating an original piece (for me it's writing and music) that is completely in another artist's voice. It instantly takes the pressure off because it's more like an exercise but keeps me interested enough to finish it and see how close I can get.

I always learn a few things; new techniques I might have never tried or discovered on my own, finding my own unavoidable fingerprint in the end result (no matter how good the imitation) is a clue to what I sound like and almost every time it makes me want to do my own very different new thing.

Yeah, between 'eight inch snail' and the words 'parasite rat lungworm' all in a row I'm pretty much horrified. And if that isn't bad enough then they say Florida and meningitis. This article is just creepy pasta.

I don't have a driver's license and can't really think of a situation where I'd need one. Seems like a pointless expense.