I'd say it's very Murderbot where the corpos mine every scrap of personal info for something saleable, but as is typical of scifi it's commenting on current issues using brightly colored paint that shouts HERE I AM, THIS IS THE SHITTY THING HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES RIGHT NOW IRL

Backing up terabytes of data safely is a solved problem, from a technical standpoint: LTO exists.

They keep it expensive to prevent plebs from accessing it, to direct them to their pay-per-month cloud services.

This type shit is why I wish so hard there was a good prosumer-level LTO tape system with good industry support.

If you’re gonna put words in my mouth then you aren’t worth talking to.

I must have it.

I did. Those are the terms. I'm not afraid of being sued, I just don't want to deal with negotiations over and over, so those are the terms I choose to offer. I pay fair for it, more than I would for simple licensing, because I respect the people I hire.

The job is, I give you money, you create what I tell you to create, and because I give you money, I own the result outright. I won't deal on any other terms. If that doesn't work for you, no problemo friendo, there's always someone else.

When Democrats do something that I don't understand, because it's not what I would do, I switch up my thinking. I imagine myself a craven political coward and opportunistic parasite, and picture what I would do *then*.

I could have gone the whole 4MB, for $30 instead of ten dollars, but that would require more logic on the board to split the select line.

it came down to identifying parts in KiCad that I can actually get. This is the same switch I used in the current spin, and it works fine.

You have to respect the artists you hire, but part of that is making the terms of the business relationship clear at the outset so you can deal with each other as equals.