Instigate

Probed on whether Queen would be able to win a BRIT gong in 2021, he was reported to have responded:

“We would be forced to have people of different colours and different sexes and we would have to have a trans [person]. You know life doesn’t have to be like that. We can be separate and different.”

Apparently he was ‘ambushed’ and ‘stitched up’ and his words were ‘subtly twisted’ but he never stated what his original words were, if they were different from the quote. I’m not usually a fan of people who use terms like “a trans” or who lament “cancel culture” because gendered categories are removed from awards ceremonies.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/11/28/queen-brian-may-brit-awards-twisted-trans/

They definitely did learn. They learned that they could charge for mods and people, sadly, will pay. They’ve learned that they can make more money by paywalling what should be essential patches and bugfixes. They learned that the average gamer is willing to be fleeced. They learned that they can run an IP into the ground and still extract maximum cash from it.

They’ve learned. They just didn’t learn the lesson that we here on Lemmy wanted them to learn. That’s a sad fact of being part of a minority community.

In the NSW (Australian) emergency services, there’s now a division that’s been slowly rolling out called the PACER (Police, Ambulance, Clinical, Early Response) program where Police can have mental health clinicians who are based with them attend to a call to provide immediate advice, support and mental health therapy in some cases. It’s still a pilot program at the moment but where it has been rolled out it’s significantly reduced mental health presentations to hospital at the very least. I’m keen for statistics to be seen around reductions in arrests or charges, because I think they’re likely to follow.

Thankfully Police shootings in NSW are generally pretty rare, but they still happen. Recently (2023) a 95 year old woman using a walking frame and wielding a knife was tasered by a cop and died a week later from her injuries, and back in 2019 a man was executed by three shots to the back while having a psychotic episode after officers ~~disabled their bodycams~~ (edit: I misremembered - the cops that stormed the house weren’t wearing bodycams at all). We don’t have it as bad as some do, but it’s still not a great situation.

Although we in Australia are pretty frickin arse-backwards and conservative about stupid shit, I do have a lot of faith and hope in programs like PACER. I just hope it can be expanded and become mandatory statewide, but the cynic in me says that’s not likely. As someone who’s had to call Police for a relative’s mental health crisis before, I can definitely understand the fear.

I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t have been. I’m pretty sure the rules around what is kosher and not were set a few thousand years before infant formula was invented, and so if it wasn’t kosher then literally every Jewish person would have been breaking Jewish law until they could move onto solid foods.

So it looks like the frogs mentioned in this meme are microhylids, and for some further info:

Crocraft & Hambler (1989) noted that the frog seemed to benefit from living in proximity to the spider by eating the small invertebrates that were attracted to prey remains left by the spider. The frog presumably also benefits by receiving protection: small frogs like this are preyed on by snakes and large arthropods, yet on this occasion we have a frog that receives a sort of ‘protection’ from a large, formidable spider bodyguard. Hunt (1980) suggested that the spider might gain benefit from the presence of the frog: microhylids specialise on eating ants, and ants are one of the major predators of spider eggs. By eating ants, the microhylids might help protect the spider’s eggs.

This is also super cute behaviour:

Young spiders have sometimes been observed to grab the frogs, examine them with their mouthparts, and then release them unharmed.

Apparently the spiders’ protectiveness can also be pretty overt:

Karunarathna & Amarasinghe (2009) reported how several Poecilotheria were seen attacking individuals of Hemidactylus depressus (a gecko) after the latter tried eating the eggs of the frogs the spiders were sharing their tree holes with.

And some ideas on why this might be an example of mutualistic behaviour rather than commensalism:

…the spider seems to benefit in that the frogs eat the ants that might ordinarily attack the spider’s eggs. Due to their small size, ants are presumably difficult for the spiders to deal with, and they might be effectively helpless against them.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/tetrapod-zoology/tiny-frogs-and-giant-spiders-best-of-friends/

I’ve always been partial to [email protected]

I’d suggest that a minor contribution to this would also be stagnating wages; inflation; and increased cost of childcare. Now the ‘adult’ activities we want to enjoy are more expensive; we’re earning less money (in real terms); and childcare is more expensive, leading to a lot of people on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum to be faced with the choice of ‘take your kids or don’t go at all’.

I definitely agree with you though. Western societies have been becoming more individualistic and entitled and that’s likely the biggest cause. I just don’t think it’s the only cause. As with everything in life, the reasons why something happens are usually varied and can rarely be boiled down to one thing.

Which other Obsidian titles felt like that? Neverwinter Nights 2; South Park: The Stick Of Truth; and Fallout New Vegas all felt like very well fleshed out games to me. I don’t think I’ve played anything else from their catalogue.