Alistair Young @cerebrate@schelling.pt

Given the sheer quantity of still-relevant options in its section there, I want a picture of me standing in front of the Group Policy Management Editor being handed an Internet Explorer icon.

"It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!"

"I do have my service pistol, a latest-model Pacifier. The design's elegant - an electrolaser stunner with a minimal-burn expert system on top with tangler and sniffer-perfume glob launchers integrated with the core mass driver. Not something I'd choose, though; every time I draw it in the field, it means a better plan failed."

(2/2)

#WritingWonders July 10: MC POV: In a fight, what is your weapon of choice?

"Reason. And authority - the proper kind, the kind that comes from competence and respect, not brute intimidation.

"Or cunning, which will do if that fails. I have this trick with the station autodrags - killing the motors for a couple of seconds will flip a handguide rider into mid-air, which isn't dignified, but won't hurt them and then it's all over but the pickup.

(1/2)

#eldraeverse

I will forever be disappointed that the description of the #GroupPolicy "Lock the Taskbar" _at no point_ includes "If you disable this setting, Shareef won't like it".

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtphSIeMstY )

Using a bloody television as an improvised monitor because the goon squad couldn't tell the difference between a tablet and a portable monitor.

#justfedthings

"And that's dangerous for me. I've escorted people who have done much more damage to arraignment, but it's these who make me think fondly of -- unapproved uses for airlocks, before I quash it. And that they can make me think that, even for a moment, that makes me angriest of all."

(6/6)

"Hurt and smash and wreck not for greed or other profit, not even for revenge upon their target, but just because they can, and it - I'd say it pleases them to do so, but it is hard to imagine real pleasure coming from such. These I do not understand, and it is hard to temper anger without understanding.

(5/6)

"What I've never been able to understand about these people -- these are people who set out just to make the universe a little bit worse for their existence in it. Destroy or desecrate things just so that other people can't enjoy them. Go out of their way to ruin someone's day, or week, or decade, not as a side-effect, but as the point of their actions.

(4/6)

"They're zero-sum crimes; desire and greed and unfortunate passions are things we all have, and they're not even wrong in themselves, only in how some folk handle them. Even the murderers - I've never hated anyone so much I couldn't stand to share the universe with them a moment longer, but I can understand how someone might.

(3/5)

"We get - I'd say a lot, but this is still Imperial space, so let's say an anomalously high level of crime here. We get slash-traders, commercial fraud, thieves grand and petty, stowaways, dockside brawls, too-long-aboard-syndrome, on and on, everything a major trade station attracts like flies. But even if you slice off the truly desperate who need a hug, a hot meal, and someone to walk them to the Eleemosynary Exodochium more than what most think of as justice, I can understand them.

(2/5)

#WritingWonders July 6: MC POV: Name one thing that is guaranteed to make you angry? Why?

"Angry? The cases that fall into, in our legal code, 'destructionism'.

"Why? Because I don't understand it.

(1/4)

#eldraeverse

(Not even reading half of these because I'm pretty sure they amount to "Enable this to recreate the bug you idjits have been depending on us not fixing since 1987.")

Also, of course, noting the zillion GPs for Excel, because any time anything is changed in Excel the entire number-using universe feels a cold shiver of doom down its spine...

@WS_Dandelion

Thanks for the follow! Just had to send a request to follow back when I saw you'd written for some of my favorite games and indeed inspirations.

#WritingWonders July 7: What is your favorite stage of writing a story? Why?

Supervillains have presentation. Writers have inspiration!

Specifically, that stage after the "hmm, that seems like an interesting idea" and before "and now the detail work" when The Idea just pours through your brain like lightning, as if you were channeling it right from the Muses' very own high-tension outlet.

There's nothing quite like it!

Leaving aside, of course, all the GPs that amount to "Turn off the scary new feature lest someone see it and be scared right out of their cubicle by an icon they don't recognize".

(To be clear, I mean the cubicle IN THEIR BRAIN.)

3. "Why is this even an option? Who would ever want this? Why? No, seriously, why was this worth paying for?"

(2/2)

One of the fun things about setting up #GroupPolicy again from scratch is contemplating the engineering thoughts behind some of the professional, coporatized descriptions. Especially:

1. "If you don't turn this option on, you're crazy. It should be on by default. Why isn't it on by default? Don't ask."

2. "If you turn this option on, you're crazy. Unfortunately, some idiots have lots of money to spend on Windows licenses. This is for them."

and

(1/2)