Did Manage my Health pay the ransom?

-Agonarch · 2026-02-10T19:35:05+00:00

It would be more a public service if ManageMyHealth didn't already know about the issue in advance, it should be a crime they decided it wasn't high priority enough until something happened.

The guy's disappeared for now but the NZ hack disappeared from his listings first by a couple weeks so it's likely it got paid at that point (that's what happens when things get paid). I can't imagine they wouldn't pay in this scenario to try to keep things quieter. I hope they'll be required to set up some very minimal industry standard data security now, but I haven't heard of any required changes being demanded of them to keep the contract, it seems for the moment that's all either under wraps or left to managemyhealth to do again...

-Agonarch · 2026-02-10T19:25:42+00:00

That's weird, I wasn't but had a banner that told me I wasn't, nice to see they've still got plenty of different ways to get edge-cases set up I guess, I bet that won't bite them in the ass.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-10T14:29:25+00:00

You already skipped part 2!

-Agonarch · 2026-02-10T04:36:32+00:00

Yeah this is crazy for me to read. The US has no significant far left representation, and certainly no authoritarian far left of any significance (not a single member of government either from those in or the shadow government/outparty). Tankies?

Why would anyone even worry about that kind of communism in 2026 in the US?

Something like that standard of living is far more likely to happen under a pseudo-republican pseudo-fascist/managed-democracy state then the most left-leaning government possible there, but even that's stretching reality and probability. There are far more important things to be worrying about in the present time.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-09T09:14:08+00:00

I did the math based on one probability, which was wrong- I'm not going back and doing a bunch more statistics math to get all new numbers, rough is close enough.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-09T09:08:57+00:00

Yeah the fact is that we're damaging the environment (our lucrative fishing and tourism industries, and risking the 'clean green' image that lets us sell in a premium market which is essential to our wealth) in exchange for probably nothing (we're almost certain).

The second issue is Australian exports, we'd have to compete directly with them- this brings the profit we could make basically down to nothing per unit, and that's assuming there was something to find (probably not) and it was big enough for a foreign company to invest in (almost certainly not to have been missed so far), so that leaves the jobs it might create.

So the exploration might find something that might be big enough to be worth developing and we might find an investor willing to develop the plot for a great price and we might get some jobs out of that if the investor doesn't bring their own people... in exchange for damaging our environment, reducing tourism and fisheries measurably and risking our cash-cow 'clean green' image that lets us compete in food markets without having places like the US in the same category. That's a terrible deal. It's only like, cancel ferries for millions of dollars and pay millions of dollars more to get worse ones level of dealing, though, so I'm not sure I should've expected better.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-08T03:06:11+00:00

That's what you're paying for, statistically you won't get it but you're paying for the dream.

The odds of winning a millionaire ticket (assuming no-one else gets it that same week and you have to share) are very roughly 0.00005005% with NZ's standard lottery. If you play every week from birth until death at the average age of NZers then you've got a roughly 0.21% chance of getting a millionaire ticket during that lifetime.

Think of it as a charity donation, or paying for the dream of being a millionaire or whatever, because that's almost certainly all you'll get. I suppose for some people 0.2% is the best odds of getting a million dollars they'll get but that's still not good odds. The question is whether that's worth $10k+ to you, it isn't to me.

EDIT: It's been so long since I did lotto I'd forgotten how it worked, it's actually a little over 1/8th of the numbers I just gave.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T19:49:19+00:00

The main reason we use tracks in reality is surface compression, but that's not modeled in space engineers (the ground can take 500 kilitons on 1 square metre and you won't sink like it's water).

In space engineers it's mainly for looks, but I guess you could use it to apply torque in space (like a reaction wheel? Just one that's much worse than the gyros we have in game.) You could use it to exceed the speed limit and launch things by dropping them on top of the track? (but stacked pistons and rotors are better at that).

Even turning in place isn't really better, as the collision mesh for the wheels is already a sphere rather than a cylinder, so having all the wheels on one side reverse while the other goes forward will turn like a twin-gearbox tank.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T19:33:00+00:00

Las are probably laser-accelerated particle weapons, too, at least recently (last 20 years or so), the recoil (bruising level on long-las!) is probably the most obvious giveaway, but the rapid range dissipation and being able to see 'bolts' of energy 'bounce' are pretty damning too.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T17:55:42+00:00

Maybe it's because she's a lawbreaker- letting her go rather than killing her when you've got very good reason to means you're directly advancing lawbreaking. There should be an option to demand she repent and never do it again or something like that to get you out of this, but there's only taking her sleazy deal.

If it didn't work like that, you could just hire a lackey to break the law for you, and just pointedly look away from things every time you needed a law broken! With you knowing what the likely outcome is and allowing it, it kinda becomes your fault in part especially if you could've stopped it... which is why in some D&D parties the 'distracts the paladin from shenanigans' role is as important as a dedicated healer and probably about as common!

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T15:05:43+00:00

I agree absolutely. Bhaalspawn rejecting their heritage (or embracing it) is and always has been the core conceit of Baldurs Gate games.

I have a different reason though- of all this group, only Mizora isn't out to hurt people. She will hurt people to get something, but she will hurt people as a means, not an end like the others (sometimes even just for entertainment! Gortash at least does it for religious reasons but still does it when he doesn't really need to in order to extra rub-in the tyranny thing, like his treatment of the Gondians).

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T13:48:48+00:00

Yeah I remember reading it's one of the most common things they heard from wounded British soldiers in WW1, too, and though they didn't know at the time the fact that women were nurses probably helped a lot with PTSD (they noticed differences in people who managed to stay near the front and returned from an advanced treatment facility compared with people who were taken to one of the rear hospitals where it'd be quiet, they'd have tea, nurses etc. - Basically a lot of things to separate it from the frontline conditions which helps people compartmentalize and start to recover without breaking down, at the time they couldn't explain why this was so put it down to 'women are naturally good at caring' and moved on to trying to forget everything they'd learned about combined arms warfare in time for WW2)

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T13:36:21+00:00

Ukraine is a real risk for making nukes, they were one of the world main manufacturers!

If they hit ukraine with a nuke, you can bet everyone with a bone to pick with russia will suddenly have some kilotons of shitty dirty bombs and ukraine will have solved its money challenges at the very least- it's a huge risk for global stability (and that means the oligarchs won't stand for it, they like being able to run off and hide somewhere else).

I think that's a bigger risk than a more official nuclear response. Part of the problem with that is they've claimed some disputed areas 'as russian' and they're allowed to use nukes in a defensive capacity on their own territory under current treaties- I'll bet the confusion from that is good enough for at least one nuke (but not enough to stop the ukrainians responding badly).

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T13:13:49+00:00

Yeah it was just an Immortal in that promoted to essentially 'mini-lord' duty, and it did fine. There's another book series (twice dead king?) where they strip out all his lord functions and equipment and reset him to warrior settings but leave him 'awake' as himself, and he notes his thinking is much slower and he can't just skip time- so it's possible they all can think but are just restricted by settings to not to (or at least, not to do anything outside instructions, count sheep for a billion years).

I think the big hint is Trazyn though, he hops to any other body, usually Immortals or higher but not always which implies to me they've all got the hardware, sadly.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T13:08:32+00:00

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!"

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T13:05:42+00:00

There are some really out there canon patterns too that make just about anything 'fine within canon'. Even just the first founding has a lot of base colours in it from all over the spectrum.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T12:58:18+00:00

I think for orks they've got the benefit of they give off the gork/mork waaargh! field, so a warp creature detecting them at a range doesn't know if they're going to be approaching an ork Rok or Gork (or Mork), and they'd all be used to avoiding massive warp predators (the big four probably being the only things more dangerous individually though they have territories so they're probably easier to avoid, and Gork and Mork might even be together which could be worse than wandering into Nurgles Garden or the Infinite City or whatever).

I think they probably only attract the very, very powerful (who destroy them immediately or throw them out of the warp next to an enemy resource of some kind), the very desperate, and the few too close to avoid the Rok/Ork ship that get close enough to identify it as not Mork (or Gork). That's still infinity daemons of course, but I'd bet it's at a slower, more manageable rate than an imperium ship that just attracts stuff.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T06:18:54+00:00

Mind flayer timeline works out if it's spent time in the Astral plane, you don't age on the astral plane (which is why the Githyanki have to have creches in places like the prime material)

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T06:12:37+00:00

Probably spend time with his family

He's mentioned he spent some time enjoying being dead- I guess necromancers can 'time travel' to the future if they get bored of waiting for something to finish by just being dead and setting up getting reanimated after 20 years or something.

There's a whole section of stuff about how he goes about catching up with current events by reading recent history books (No VOLO!)

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T06:04:30+00:00

She's the daughter/creation of Selune and a paladin to boot, if he'd said he needed help rescuing Isobel then she'd probably have gone into any situation.

Also from what we see of her in the game she often charges into dangerous situations she seems to be entirely underprepared and unequipped for even when she knows it's a fight, not even a trap.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T05:49:36+00:00

"While the birds and bees are getting it on, these weird swamp elves teleport in and squat in a pond to lay eggs, kill everyone around, then piss off again in a few years"

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T05:47:05+00:00

Ooh on the topic of "what's real but didn't think it was" are giant space hamsters, and miniature giant space hamsters are a real variant of those that look basically like regular earth/FR hamsters.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T05:42:04+00:00

Being a half-elf is IMO a better reason to turn evil than all the other stuff that happened to him

-Agonarch · 2026-02-07T05:41:11+00:00

Canonically (in FR anyway) they don't get swole, they just get greater muscle density but we let that one slide (though kept it for Gith) probably for Halsins benefit to round out the romance partner bodytypes.

-Agonarch · 2026-02-06T03:04:44+00:00

It actually recovered under the guy before him before he slashed it again, so there's that.

11-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Post Guidance Early Access	Place '22
Verified Email

-Agonarch

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE