My clusterfuck of ideas

and then, for reasons usually at least slightly less arbitrary, fucks off again.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.

I also made a PDF version!!

For comprehensive deets, tomshardware explains

"Magic is not allowed in The Mortal Realm"

It's more commonly talked about in bdsm spaces as subdrop, but you can drop as a dom or even just after vanilla sex or masturbation, especially if it was more intense than you normally experience.

A drop happens when you've been building up a lot of those feel-good chemicals in your brain during sex, then suddenly the sex is over and your brain overcompensates in trying to rebalance. You might feel depressed, anxious, regretful, ashamed. It can happen immediately after or even a few days after. This can happen even if you're normally a very sex-positive person.

It isn't post-nut clarity! You're either dealing with internalized shame towards sex in general or you're having a temporary chemical imbalance. Maybe even both! Pamper yourself after. Forgive yourself. The thoughts you're having in that moment aren't necessarily rational ones.

1) Russia: Ilya’s decision to sever ties with his family and potentially never to return to Russia wasn’t about Shane. In fact, when he made this decision, he wasn’t even willing to get into a relationship with Shane and had in fact considered ending their relationship.

2) Hockey: In TLG, Ilya is still the captain of a NHL team. He also didn’t make the decision to move to Ottawa knowing that it’s a team that’s so bad that he would never win a cup again. He made this decision thinking this was the “best of both worlds” - get Canadian citizenship, weaken the rivalry, continue his successful career without having to take a pay cut (he shot down the idea of playing for Montreal for this reason) while being able to see Shane more.

3) Friendships: there is no indication that Ilya was super close to his Boston teammates. Shane didn’t significantly interfere him bonding with his Centaurs teammates because he’s described as fairly close to them. One of them (Troy) is considered his best friend. And he’s close enough with them and knows them well enough to trust that they would be OK with potentially figuring out Shane and him were together. This is a level of trust and closeness he never achieved with Boston, a team he captained before he and Shane got together.