Smoke

Oh, it occurs from time to time. Jones will shotgun tons of contradictory predictions, then quietly drop the ones that don't work out and never shut up about the one that actually happens.

Not only that, but trust from a self contained community is not the same as safe for the general public outside of context. Imagine asking for a summary of the Gamestop shortsqueeze and getting an answer from Superstonks.

honestly, not sure I -ever- found a useful answer on Quora.

Reading them taught me one thing, Quora had/has a weirdly strong hardon for Steve Jobs and is/was all too happy to talk about anecdotes of him buying the authors' lunch or reconciling with his estranged daughter. The only time I read criticism of Apple or him was when the question specifically asked for it.

In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they’re publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

Indeed, the BBC cannot be seen to give in to government pressure.

There's ways to rate limit, like increasing response time per IP address per hour to make rapid, massed requests slower and easier to handle. Taking them all down at once is an extreme move.

Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don't question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don't ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it's answered as a gag in one of the videos). They're not presented as realistic, and I don't expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like "Where's the ammo box on that thing?" and "Who's maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?" and "Scratch that, who's making them?" and "If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?"

The author is the host of Behind the Bastards, and produced a pair of episodes to accompany the article on the same subject: https://pca.st/episode/96a1d3d1-7966-412b-bc8b-492c817b9f93

I can say I was put off at first glance by the "realistic" aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.

No, no more than its illegal for a detective to use evidence seized in a raid against a thief ring, to arrest drug dealers because there was a photo of them holding big bags of cocaine with "We Love Dealing Drugs" written and autographed on the back. They'd never have a search warrant for the dealers' house normally, but because it was robbed by someone else and the photo turned up somewhere else for them to find, it's fair game.

The commentary said they wanted to do rival criminal gangs, which would have made a lot more sense than the construction magnates they went with, but my guess is they realised West Side Story already did it.

The Federation makes it quite easy to quit a term of service before completion (even during war time)

I'm fairly sure it's mentioned that once war broke out Rico was no longer allowed to leave, but he didn't pay much attention because his two years weren't up anyway.

once someone has quit they are never allowed to enroll again. This is to ensure that all volunteers are dedicated, whilst also discouraging people from leaving.

On the contrary, the Federation deliberately makes leaving as easy as possible to get rid of anyone who would otherwise leave later, or worse stay and let his squaddies down in a way that would get them killed. You can't just up and leave (though no effort is made to find you if you desert), but at any time you can ask to see a superior, get your papers voided, and walk out off base.

This is because Federal Service is tough and dangerous (by design). It can involve joining the Military, being a Human Guinea Pig, testing survival equipment or Manual Labour.

This is a funny one. On the one hand, in execution it's mentioned those physically unfit to serve in the military do get any pointlessly dangerous job available. But in principle, many speeches are made specifically saying military service is what makes someone worthy of political rights, because of the responsibility of military service. Someone counting the hairs of venomous caterpillars (an example job given in the book) has no responsibilities that could harm or help the country he's serving.

his father told him everyone needed a basic understanding of it.

Three hundred years later and some things never change.