jackfrost

That reminds me of a Microsoft-branded USB WiFi adapter that I was making heavy use of back in mid-2000s. The MN-510. You could buy it brand-new circa 2006. It had a $75 launch MSRP, about $114 adjusted for inflation. Come 2009, we find out that Windows 7 wasn't going to support it. And given what we know about OS development cycles, they presumably made that call in '08 or even '07. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the major catalysts for me to reconsider Linux as a drop-in replacement. Because, wouldn't you know, the adapter kept working just fine when I tried it out in Ubuntu. Support was simply there in the kernel. Plug-and-play. I suddenly had this whole other operating system providing an it-just-works network connection, for free. It was amazing. So I used that adapter for several more years until I could afford a network upgrade. And I'm still using Linux the majority of the time today.

Looks like someone is in denial...

This is such an absurd distortion of the evidence I have provided that you surely have a vested interest in trying to gaslight people about a standard business operation.

Spoiler: The gaslighting isn't working. That was actually pretty embarrassing.

Why would that be considered outrageous?

This has been reported on for years.

Example 1, Example 2.

I'm sorry, I don't follow. What did I say that would be considered an outrageous claim?

I'm saddened by the phenomenon because there's plenty of evidence that the audiences for these most of these games hate the experience, but they can't stop playing because they've become victims of predatory psychological tactics designed to keep them addicted and their wallets wide open. These publishers and studios literally hire psychologists who specialize in generating this addiction, using models optimized to prey on their own users as much as humanly possible. It's sickening. The sports games are especially shameless about this. Ruining people's finances and their core sense of financial responsibility to fatten their pockets. I don't know how they sleep at night. Sociopaths, the lot of them.

You sure are going to unusual lengths to (poorly) defend this behavior. Maybe there's something you should be disclosing about who you really are.

It turns out that there is a paladin option. But you have to do some evil stuff to recruit her.

• Half elf Order of the Ancients paladin
• Shadowheart light domain cleric
• Karlach beast ranger
• Wyll champion fighter

I wanted Karlach in the party, but I didn't feel like I had room for her at the time as a barbarian. Booted Astarion and made Karlach a ranger so that I could still have rogue-like utility. Rogue or bard didn't make sense for Karlach lore-wise. Made Wyll a fighter because it turned out that I could have another melee fighter, and I simply cannot figure out a way to make warlocks as combat-effective as the other classes. And I don't like the absence of a proper spellbook anyway. But I like his personality. I chose paladin half-elf for the player character because there isn't a good-aligned paladin option otherwise, and half-elves get a +2 charisma racial bonus and fey ancestry.

At this point, I could probably restore Karlach as a barbarian and make Wyll a ranger. I like rangers because of the tactical options provided by pets. Particularly birds, because of how few enemy types are immune or resistant to being blinded. Plus, birds can cover ground quickly by flying, without using up an action. It's effectively a teleport that you can use every round.

Playing without a pure offensive caster seemed crazy at first, but it's going all right on the standard difficulty. Shadowheart's light domain spells fill in a surprising number of gaps -- and they are particularly effective in Act 2, which is where I'm at now.

The nice thing is, if I change my mind, reclassing is pretty inexpensive. Unlike many other games of this type, the price does not scale with the number of times you do it, or with character level, or anything else. It's always 100 gold.

Funny how Firefox can be at least as secure without it having to phone home every time you click on a link.

Usually when this happens, we call it spyware, nuke it from orbit, and find an alternative.

Since when did we need to flip a coin on issues like this? Spoiler: We don't! There are plenty of resources to go around.

If anything was a waste of time, it was this poll. Go home, Pew Research, you're drunk.

Decades of pervasive propaganda across multiple mediums, coupled with a systematic assault on public education and the very concept of critical thinking. The most noteworthy propagandists masquerade smugly under banners like "conspiracy theorist" or "patriot" rather than "liar" or "fascist." They transformed the human-shaped turd Donald Trump into a folk hero, and they're successfully pitching ordinary center-right statesman Joe Biden as a radical leftist.

I wonder if Donald Trump has ever washed a dish in his life. Or a piece of clothing. If he's ever put a bag of trash in a trash can. Changed a light bulb. Boiled an egg. I don't think he would even know how. He's indicated at least once in interviews that grocery stores are completely unfamiliar to him. He literally doesn't understand how they work. Food just materializes at his table, at the appointed time. Including his favorite, well-done steak slathered in ketchup.

I think if Donald Trump had to fend for himself for one week, even with a million dollars in a bank account, he would starve to death in dirty underwear. Yet about one half of America is convinced that he's a man of the people who can relate to our daily struggles. Because of the machine.