Propaganda is most effective when it's least expected. Citizens of the USSR knew the government was lying to them regularly, and developed a healthy skepticism of its statements. I think many Americans believe their free-speech society is propaganda-free, and as such, have a poor "immune response." Maybe a pervasive fake news problem will hone the citizens' bullshit detectors. Here's hoping.

Germany didn't start the Great War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did. Or, possibly Russia did, with its "pre-mobilization."

Good examples, but don't forget every Ubisoft game.

This is exactly what I do. About one search in 20, I nope it on over to Google. Just stick a !g in front of your query, and off you go.

Seriously? Shit's bad, so why not accept a pittance to make it worse? Also, cash and Amazon gift cards aren't quite the same thing.

This is what you do when you can't make a better product for your user base; you make a better product for those who prey upon you user base, bill the predators, and if not enough victims show up, you up the incentive.

This is basically what I do, but with a theme: my phrase is always a line that I would have delivered in a movie, had I been a character in that movie. I can leave myself hints like "Heat" or "12 Monkeys" and because the line doesn't appear in the movie, even feeding the whole damn screenplay into a brute-force program won't work.

At this point, anything broadly considered to be a "major US news outlet" has, at best, a tangential relationship with "news." CNN is hopelessly clueless and out of touch, while Fox & MSNBC are the propaganda arms of their respective parties. The NYT sat on a vitally important story, clearly in the public interest, in order to help GWB's re-election campaign. These groups are marketing organizations, who sometimes publish news as a means of promoting their brand.

On the plus side, a major US journalism outlet, The Intercept, is on it.

Relative to its size, sure, that's at least plausible if not outright likely, but that thing is enormous. I'm pretty sure any SARH missile made in the last 30 years would be able to hit it.

If being kicked off Twitter makes you angry enough to murder strangers, probably your ex's comments about your sexual inadequacies will beat Twitter to the punch on that one.

My sweet summer child, I used to be you. Bless your heart. Offering the benefit of the doubt is a noble and generous act.

Wait, so you know about this shit? You know they have a history of dishonesty and bad faith? I'm afraid I must now take a less charitable view of that first thing I quoted.

Origin was never about serving the customer better, it was always about EA making more money per sale and having more control. Ditto for the MS app store. Probably, ditto for FB/Unity. There's no way that anyone looks at the gaming market and says, "wow, Steam is failing to meet its customers' needs, so I'll get right on that and create something better!" They're looking at the gaming market and saying, "wow, I wish all that money was going into my pockets." There's nothing wrong with making a profit, but it's supposed to be the reward for providing value to your customers, not corralling people into your locked-down walled garden.

I've boycotted Origin (and, therefore, all EA games) since its inception five years ago. I've been periodically tempted by Battlefield games, but mostly, I just don't feel like I've missed out on anything. I will feel the same way about whatever FB/Unity come up with.

Except that we're running out of helium, can't make more, and we need it for things like MRI machines. Considering that we already use highly combustable jet fuel in aircraft, I'm not sure the risk to passengers of using hydrogen outweighs the risk to modern medicine by running out of helium.

Well, a heat-seeking missile won't lock, but radar-guided would, and laser-guided or wire-guided missiles don't need to lock. Also, a lot of air-to-air warheads are wrapped in a kind of chain-link fence structure that would rip long gashes in the blimp's skin at detonation.