kryptonianCodeMonkey

I think he's more or less neurotypical. His quirks seem largely to be an intentional act to throw off his suspects and make them underestimate him.

Are we counting early Columbo's cigarettes as his addiction? Cuz otherwise I think he fits the bill

That confused me as well. The stuff I read didn't elaborate on how that would help.

Another fun-ish, kinda fucked up, weird story... There's a woman, Henrietta Lacks, who had a biopsy for her cervical cancer in January of 1951 before passing in October of that year. These cells were found to be incredibly resilient and quick to replicate. Most cells only lasted a few days before dying, but hers seemed to be functionally immortal under controlled lab conditions.

So, unbeknownst to her as consent wasnt required for such things at the time, her cancer cells were cultured and grown into large samples to be used in research. Those samples were split off and passed off to other labs. They've since spread around the entire world for a ton of research and commercial purposes.

They were used in the development of the polio vaccine, for example, as well as having been used in research on cancer (obviously), AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic materials, gene mapping, etc. They are used to test safety of cosmetics as well. Approximately 11,000 patents involve these specific cancer cells.

In the 1970s, there was an incident where these cells contaminated other cell cultures, so the researchers needed DNA samples from the Henrietta's family to differentiate her cells from the others. This is the first time anyone in her family learned that her cells had been used in research at all, let alone that her cells were being cloned and used in research and commercial product development across the entire world. It became a legal issue after this, and after a couple decades of litigation, it made it to the Supreme Court of California where they ruled that "discarded biological materials" is no longer ones property and could be commercialized freely. They continue to occasionally fight against aspects of her cells' usage, and they're are health privacy concerns for her family as well, but results have been mixed for them.

Henrietta the person died in 1951 at age 31, but her immortal cancer cells which still contain her full DNA sequence continue to live to this day, 75 years later. One source claims that as much as 50 million metric tons of tissue has been generated from these cells.

Got 'em!

Has been uh... generating samples?

What?

Those are definitely not two left feet. That is a left and a right foot.

Oh it would be career ruining. But I'm still surprised at the restraint of all of them. That someone hasn't boiled over (yet) is impressive.

At that point I'd rather GabeN have control over the PC Games market than say, Microsoft, because we can see the result of their work.

Centralized money and power in one person is ALWAYS a bad thing, even if they are smart, benevolent, and generous. Even if the results in this one instance are ok, they are part of the same system that allows for all of the other oligarchs and capitalists to have obscene unitary power over people. We shouldn't ever allow the values and whims of one person have sway over millions. Period.

And Gabe is a human being. He will age and retire. Or he will die. His views may change. Then what happens? Being ok now is not a guarantee of the future. Better to get rid of the system than to prop up the occasional good guy of the system as an example of it working.

I started relistening to the entire series of audiobooks for that reason. I'm a little bit into book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, right now. The one with the pokemon/yugioh-like, T'ghee cards system. Book 7 is on deck and Book 8 is already waiting in my library.

So much happens in this story, so many parts moving both on and off the page, particularly in the later books. I really needed the refresher for a lot of stuff I only vaguely remembered or just straight up forgot about (or maybe slept through the first time?).

It's also definitely easier to parse some of the hints/foreshadowing and string together some pieces of lore the second time around. For example, it only registered on this second pass that every third floor takes place on or inside the same volcano. I knew the 3rd, 6th and 9th were related, though I didn't realize they were geographically related. And I didn't realize that relation included the home of the gods (the Halls of Ascendency) on the 12th floor, the home of demons (Sheol) on the 15th floor, or the final 18th floor. The 18th floor will be the lair of Scolopendra, the giant celestial monster centipede, at the heart of this volcano. The same monster whose poison breath killed or transformed 90% of the populations on the other connected floors like Grimaldi and his circus in the Signet side plot in the Over City, and Tina, Kiwi and the other dinos in the Hunting Grounds. And Scolopendra is the final boss of the entire dungeon, which they must defeat to take back Earth. Apparently I just glazed over most of that lore the first time thinking it was set dressing, not plot relevant... cuz it kind of is set dressing but also is relevant.