So many assholes, it’s hard to keep up with 'em.

Brocolli Balls?

Oh I’m aware 😉 I have an old copy of his short story compilation, “Buy Jupiter” and he comes right out and says it in the author’s notes.

Longest shaggy dog story ever.

I think the “optimism” cited is that this would ever end.

Now that’s a deep cut.

There’s a book series, the first of which is called Dark Eden, which is set on a planet substantially like that 🙂

Yep 🙂

I kinda need to hear the terrible pickup line, though.

Right now I’m reading The Little Dummer Girl by LeCarré, and it’s plenty depressing already. But I’ll put this on the queue.

I’ve been thinking about muckers ever since I read the book back in the early 2000s. Wish more people knew about it.

“Properly” and “should” are doing a lot of work here.

Hail my gimlet brother! I’ve gotten back into these in a major way over the last couple of years for the exact same reasons.

Is it time for an Al/Al ticket?

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has been my model 😉 And Wired aside, it does work phenomenally well. But I will take a look at your suggestion.

I use Block This! on my Android device, which essentially a pseudo-VPN that blackholes ad requests (as well as some trackers and miscellany). Wired bounces me immediately if I have it enabled.

They also paywall some ad-blockers.

I feel personally attacked

Anyone have a non-paywall link?

My understanding is that if you run a rogue discoverable DHCP server in a local network with a particular set of options set and hyper-specific routing rules, you can clobber the routing rules set by the VPN software on any non-Android device, and route all traffic from those devices through arbitrary midpoints that you control.

But IANANE (I am not a network engineer) so please correct my misinterpretations.