From my memory of the time, I think it was a few things.

The ability to do 3d in games was new, and without a lot of experience in what made for “good gameplay” devs were trying new things and seeing what works. Similarly, if you go back even further into console and PC gaming history you can find some game that use what, looking back, would be considered terrible control layout and/or gameplay mechanics. Sometimes because the company just wanted to ship something, sometimes because best practices hadn’t been established.

The ability to do 3d was new and the free roaming camera was an easy way to show off the systems capabilities. Especially for early first party games, there was a huge effort to show off how much more advanced the new console was compared to the competition. I can remember marketing that focused on showing that you could look all around these virtual worlds (Mario 64) or how awesome the graphics processor was by highlighting the parralax effect of the background images (Castlvania 4).

Controllers were also evolving at this time. The SNES and original PlayStation controllers just had a D-pad and like a half dozen buttons to control all your movement and actions. The addition of analog control sticks, and the N64’s bizarre controller were really the first shot at having the variety and quantity of controls to make rapid changes of player perspective and actions feasible at the same time.

Combine all of that with some publishers just putting out blatant cash grabs, and you have a whole lot of new territory to map and a target audience that doesn’t really even know what it wants yet.

Yes and no.

In the US the Judicial branch is responsible for the the courts and interpretation of the law / constitution, but the Executive branch is responsible for the execution / enforcement of the law. I think that in other parts of the world it is common for the AG to be part of the Judicial branch, but here they are part of the Executive branch.

As I understand it, there are parts of these investigations/prosecutions that the AG can release under their own authority (or by direction of the President) but other parts that are under seal and require authorization from the courts.

I think the primary defense is the decentralized nature of the application…

Moderators/admins can block and remove content on the instace(s) they control, but this does not impact the content of any other instance.

Effective censorship of the entire ecosystem would require control of many instances and defederation from those that are not deemed appropriate.

There is not really a way for the operator of one instance to control the moderation decisions of the operator(s) of any other instance.

I believe it’s tied to the ides of the restless dead.

The spirit should move on after death, but some spirits get stuck between worlds. Often it’s related to the circumstances of their death. Maybe they had unfinished business, they died a particularly grousom death, or they were denied a proper burrial.

I think that the answer to this depends on the audience and the topic or nature of the discussion.

I prefer precise, technical language if the audience has experience in the topic. You can save a lot of time by not explaining things that the readers should, reasonably know.

I think simpler language is appropriate for a more general audience or higher level discussion.

It can be challenging to find the right balance on a forum, like this, where you don’t necessarily know who the audience is.

I’m not sure that there needs to be a any grand cosmic reason for life to exist. Life could just be an accident of random events in our little corner of the universe.

Natural selection offers an explanation for how life changes across generations in response to challenges in the environment. It does not require a plan, just that the outcome of a chaotic process (reproduction) creates mutations that produce a slight edge, or at least no reduction in reproductive efficiency.