Create a bogus FB account and check it out. I have a few, each for various things I'm checking out.

Join any of the closed but visible anti-vax groups on Facebook. These parties go on to this day.

... meanwhile on anti-vax FB pages that I have gotten into, they are having measles-parties, mumps-parties, and the like. Intentionally exposing their kids to disease.

Yeah encfs is great for live filesystems, no argument there. I meant for archiving and backups of things offsite, should have clarified.

I'll stick with SpiderOak and TarSnap Fully encrypted, zero knowledge from their end. A bit more money but good peace of mind.

ha ha very good!

I'll pay on GOG.com rather than free with DRM.

BGAN is a high speed satellite internet network run by Inmarsat. If you have line-of-sight to geostationary orbit it'll work.

The new Thief has a similar level: a haunted asylum. It has a shock scare early on (you will predict it, too obvious) and a few chills within but isn't nearly as scary as Shalebridge, not by a longshot.

Shalebridge still freaks me out.

I played through Dishonored several times because I was needing a stealth fix. The method of gameplay does affect the outcome but the number of those outcomes isn't huge (think Mass Effect 3's Pick-A-Colour ending). Dishonored was far too easy, I play on the hardest difficulty and ghosted it ending with a happy cutscene ending, hardest and killed everyone where plague rats ran amok and the end cutscene was rather grim and everything in between.

The Blink spell and Dark Vision spells made the game a walk in the park.

It's a very good game and does pay homage to the Thief series in a few parts. If you see it on sale, it's worth a buy if only for another type of stealthy-type game.

System Shock 2 is available on GOG.com for both PC and Mac. It is one of the finest FPS/sneak/RP games you will ever play. It is still is my #1 spot.

Because I am such a wonderful person, email me (address is visible above) with a random bunch of junk text then reply to this post with the same junk and I'll gift you the game. You can be playing it in an hour...

It doesn't help the story, add to characterization, flesh out the setting, etc, it's just there because someone wanted to get away with it and be edgy. Except that too much of it and it just becomes stupid and puerile, actively hurting the final product

Thank you! You explained my overall dissatisfaction with it far better than I did. It didn't help or improve Thief in any way whatsoever.

Save your preaching, they are only games.

We play the Thief series as pure stealth games, we don't kill (except perhaps monsters). It's like grown up Hide & Seek.

The stuff in the new Thief you see in the brothel is pretty nice (for a grownup :)) but I don't want my almost-8 year old seeing S&M or some whore riding a guy. Maybe you do, but I'd rather not.

Tell me, Freud, what is my main problem?

Oh yes, another failure is the lack of a jump button. What?! It has been replaced by a contextual 'action' button.

I love all things Thief and have since the first release of Thief: The Dark Project.

What the new Thief gets right:
- Stealth. Just as good as previous iterations.
- Lock picking. Similar to what we had with Thief: Deadly Shadows.
- Rope Arrows. Only because they are back after disappearing in Deadly Shadows- Lighting & atmosphere. I think they nailed it.
- Difficulty: Oh yes... they nailed this. The Iron Man setting looks great (you die, game over. You have to restart from scratch) as well as may other great tweaks. Like turning off that stupid Focus (see below)

What the new Thief gets wrong:
- Rope Arrows. Yay, they are back, but they can only be shot into special wood beams with rope wrapped around them. The original rope arrows could be shot into almost any type of wood, even walls and many trees, allowing for great exploration.
- Focus. This is Thief, not Dishonored. Fuck off, Focus.
- Swearing and sex. I'm not a prude, but I would have liked hearing more "Taffer" and "Benny's drunk"-type talk over "fuck fuck fuck fuck" and the hot sexness in the brothel. Some of us play these games with our kids.
- Scripted actions. Escape-type scenes. Very new Tomb Raider. Maybe it's part of 'reimagining' games that these scenes seem necessary.
I'm in to the third part of the story (the brothel) and while I am loving the new Thief as a die-hard fan, there are some serious shortcomings.