Funny how the key distinction is that developer-sanctioned private servers are usually for games monetized through a single, up-front purchase of the client rather than a subscription service with which the private server would compete directly. I’m sure that isn’t relevant to the context this argument was used in at all.
There’s actually plenty of material to compare to, with a swath of Pal designs that are clearly original, in a similar style with similar inspirations. Then there are models with almost precisely the same silhouette and proportions as iconic Pokemon, which are frankly just worse designs for it, since the altered colors and markings clash with the original concept and result in a generally forgettable whole. They clearly had the skill and motivation to innovate more within their niche, but instead the game is half-full of what feel like hastily painted over placeholders.
A kitchen sink monster taming survival sandbox game with Pokemon-like cute creatures, a handful of reaaaaally familiar designs, edgy shock factor marketing featuring gun violence and animal abuse, and enough obviously Pokemon-inspired gameplay elements that Nintendo decided to bring out all the IP big guns, from copyright infringement down to bullshit mechanics patents and claims that mods don’t count as prior art. (if a modder invents something, no they didn’t, and a developer that puts the same feature in a game years later can sue anyone who imitates the mod, according to Nintendo.)
No, all the danger to children comes from satanic pedophiles cold-messaging strangers from trailer parks in hell. Billionaires can always be trusted with sensitive data and photos of children. Parents also notoriously never do anything bad to their children.
9 months is a typical direct transfer, using a traditional rocket engine whose thrust is so high you can basically treat it as infinite: accelerate up to your transfer speed in a few minutes and coast until you need to slow down in a similarly negligible amount of time. You need to set a lot of gas on fire in those few minutes, though. Electric propulsion is so low thrust that it can’t put you on that kind of direct trajectory in one go, so the trip is more of a slow spiral around the sun with continuous thrust the whole way. The tradeoff for everything taking forever is unbelievable fuel savings, which is a surprisingly common occurrence in space travel.
It’s the difference between “shooting and crying” and “shooting and laughing.” there’s no shame anymore, 0 back pressure against the worst possible depravity, no reason to waste money on PR anymore that could be spent on more bombs, because what’s anyone going to do about it?
So, snake oil but for text.
Israel’s entire edge in the tech sector is in lax regulation and a steady supply of experienced, amoral ex-military software engineers. Western entrepeneurs who would otherwise have had trouble finding willing professionals and maintaining legal cover for their adware, data mining, or cyberweapons startup in a home country more concerned with ethics and international relations flocked to Israel over the last couple decades and singlehandedly propped up the local economy.
In return, the US, for instance, gets to wash its hands of the whole affair and say they’re not the ones selling spyware to the Saudis and other western-friendly authoritarian regimes, it’s all out of their control, while American venture capital reaps the rewards of investments in Israeli companies.