A cautionary tale. There is a small land-dwelling crustacean known variously as a pillbug, roly-poly, woodlouse, or potato bug. One day, I decided to eat one to see how it was.
It turns out that pillbugs store their wastes as ammonia inside their body, so they taste like stale pee. Therefore, do not crunch them up in your mouth.
Determined, I tried again. This time my plan was to swallow the pillbug whole, so to avoid the ammonia. I picked it up, and it rolled into a ball - "Nice" thought I. "Convenient for swallowing."
Halfway down my throat, the pillbug unrolled. Now pillbugs are designed to push their way through dense litter and detritus. They have a rounded, smooth exterior, and multiple legs. Also they can tell "up" from down". So the pillbug decided to walk back up my throat. Every single step.
Turns out pillbug determination is WAY more powerful than a human's puny peristalsis, so I felt that pillbug move its way slowly up my esophagus minute by minute, until it emerged into my mouth. Feeling it had earned its freedom, I spat it out into the garden intact.
There. Now I have told the story and eaten a pillbug, so you don't don't have to. A public service from Sandy Petersen.
FULL HIGHGUARD REVIEW AFTER PLAYING
Highguard is getting way more backlash than it deserves, and honestly a lot of it feels like cope. The game is hard. It demands mechanical skill, awareness, and good decision-making, and that alone is enough to turn a lot of people off. A lot of the negative comparisons come from players expecting another Overwatch or Marvel Rivals-style hero shooter, but Highguard clearly isn’t trying to be that. Judging it by those standards completely misses the point.
The 3v3 siege mode gets criticized a lot, but it actually works really well with the current time-to-kill. Smaller teams mean individual skill matters more, and clutching a 1v3 is genuinely possible if you play well. Sure, I think there’s room to experiment with larger formats like 5v5 or 6v6 down the line, but for this mode, 3v3 feels intentional and balanced rather than limiting.
If you enjoy fast-paced movement shooters that reward raw aim, positioning, and quick reactions, there’s a lot to like here. That said, I can’t ignore the performance issues. The game is badly optimized right now, and there’s a strange blur that constantly affects visual clarity. These feel like fixable problems, but they do hurt the experience in its current state.
Overall, most of the outrage and bad reviews don’t come from bad design — they come from players who can’t keep up and don’t want to adapt. Highguard knows what kind of game it wants to be, and for the right audience, it delivers.
Oh boy this could become an essay…
So, your snake-oil foundation decided to give your peace prize to a warmongering imperialist quasifascist who publicly supported bombing campaigns on her own people…
And now, now that your pathetic liberal sensitivities are offended by said scumbag deferring her prize to full-on-fascist, genocidal-mass-murdering, pedophile-king Trump, whose overtly putrid stench you wanted kept far from your little Western-PR-campaign, imperial-whitewashing prize, and so now, now — only fucking now — do you condemn your chosen recipient?
It’s almost (exactly) like you don’t give a fuck about peace, really, just how you can use the leverage you have to advance a neoliberal Western hegemony that is singularly the most destructive force on earth.
Fuck you all.
What's extraordinary about this story is the Israelis didn't even bother to remove evidence of execution - bound hands, blindfolds - before handing the bodies back.
Impunity.
Nein, das israelische Militär hat die Sumud-Flotte nicht einfach „abgefangen“, sondern überfallen. Die Aktivisten an Bord wurden auch nicht einfach „festgenommen“, sondern verschleppt. Ihr verharmlost Verbrechen, @tagesschau.
Das ist keine Frage von Interpretation, sondern eine von Fakten. Israel hat die Sumud Flotilla bereits in internationalen Gewässern angegriffen und von einer rechtmäßigen Seefahrt blockiert. Israel hat weder die Befugnis, die Bewegungsfreiheit der Schiffe in internationalen Gewässern einzuschränken, geschweige denn die Besatzung gegen ihren Willen ihrer Freiheit zu berauben. Israel kann die Besatzung rein faktisch nicht „festnehmen“, weil keine Zuständigkeit Israels besteht. Es handelt sich nicht um einen juristischen Vorgang, sondern um einen Überfall. Der Angriff erfüllt die Kriterien der Piraterie.
Die Aktivisten an Bord der Schiffe wurden illegal verschleppt. Unter Waffengewalt hat Israels Militär die Menschen auf israelische Militärschiffe gezwungen und sie nach Israel entführt.
Jeder andere Wortlaut ist eine Verharmlosung dieser Verbrechen.
Die Global Sumud Flotilla steuerte Gaza an, nicht Israel. Die Palästinensische Autonomiebehörde hat laut Internationalem Gerichtshof Zuständigkeit für die Gewässer vor Gaza. Der Internationale Gerichtshof stellte 2024 in seinem wegweisenden Gutachten außerdem fest, dass Israels Blockade Gazas illegal ist. Die zivile Hilfslotte hatte - wie jeder andere Versuch, humanitäre Hilfe nach Gaza zu bringen - das völkerrechtlich verbriefte Recht, Gaza anzusteuern. Israel hingegen hat nicht das Recht, die Flotte anzugreifen, die Menschen zu verschleppen und die Hilfsmittel zu beschlagnahmen.
Israel blockiert die dringend benötigte humanitäre Hilfe für Gaza. Laut UN, Ärzte ohne Grenzen und Rotem Kreuz besteht eine akute Hungersnot in Gaza. Aufgrund Israels illegaler Blockade. Israel lässt nur rund 4 % des Bedarfs humanitärer Hilfe nach Gaza, wo Israel aktuell einen Genozid an Palästinensern begeht, wie die Unabhängige Untersuchungskommission des UN-Menschenrechtsrats und zahlreiche weitere Stellen festgestellt haben.
Israel is testing the waters. If nothing is done they will kill everyone on the flotilla boats and the world will do nothing about it. We are living in a dystopian reality and history will shame us all for allowing this evil to continue that long. Israel must be stopped
❗️ALERT❗️@gbsumudflotilla has been attacked 7 times in a short span! Boats hit with sound bombs, explosive flares, and sprayed with suspected chemicals. Radios jammed, calls for help blocked. Immediate international attention AND PROTECTION required!
Hands off the Flotilla!