The blue arrows show what is called the thermal relief spokes, the black area is the thermal relief gap. Both of them consitute the thermal relief.
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Btw, with the “spoke angle” setting you can do things like so (set to 45°):
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Is there a benefit to the 45 degree angle, @straubm?
The image you show looks hard to solder because paste applied to the 2-GND pad is going to spill out those big thermal relief spokes during reflow, no?
It’s normal that solder paste distributes a bit around a pad and the connection of a footprint. It’s also a combination with the solder mask layer that prevents the solder from spreading too far, and the solder stencil aperture (and thickness) that defines how much paste is deposited in the first place. Those things have to be balanced.
45 degree angle usually does not matter much. Sometimes there is an unfortunate interference with other things around the pad, and rotating the spokes can then be used to improve the connection.
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It doesn’t take much to promote yourself, see here.
Left click your ID then left click the new larger version and go to summary to see what you still need to do.
The image was certainly ‘just to show possible effect’.
Changing the relief spokes angle will change noting to it what you are speaking about.
Past will not spill out as thermal relief spokes are covered by solder mask.
I’m sure that was a slip of the tongue.
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When clicking at my ID at top of the message second left click does nothing for me 
When clicking at my ID at top of the screen second left click hides what was opened by first one.
Yessir
(and 20 chars)
Sorry @Piotr, I should have written:
Left click your ID then left click the new larger ID that shows.
I landed in information about me with Activity tab opened.
I don’t see there any information about what to do to promote myself.
Do the new users have there some description of what they have to do to promote themselves?
The link I placed in my reply shows what is required by Rust to be come “Basic” . Clicking on his ID shows his activity, so he can see what he needs to do to promote himself to Basic.
Rust needs to read 19 more posts and open 4 more topics to become Basic.
Piotr cannot be promoted, he has reached the top of the heap already! 
The link I placed in my reply to Rust is here. It is a link to the FAQ for new members. It is often easier for new members to promote themselves than wait for Admin to arrive.
According to what I have tested till now.
When I open with that method my information I land with Activity tab active and don’t see the needed information.
When I open someone else information I land with Summary tab open and see what is needed to compare with data from FAQ.
It was clear (from the beginning) that FAQ tells what are the tasks to be done (I know that FAQ exists), but as I have previously tested what you said only at my ID (so not seeing a Summary) it was not clear for me that you only write about two left clicks and nothing about that then you should select Summary.
May be you just didn’t noticed that if the user clicks his own ID he don’t see Summary at once or may be it works differently for you and me. May be something else (Cookies) decide with what tab the personal information page is opened.
You are correct. I have altered my comment to Rust.
I will remember that in the future when replying. Thankyou.
For me the copper heat sinks belongs to the footprint and should be included there.
In your footprint, you can place 2 Pads on top of each other, both with the same pin number, one for the heatsink which is larger than the other, on this one you should disable F.Mask and F.Paste. Then you also don’t have this problem.
Not the best idea as that way you fix the heat sink shape, while at each PCB you can have different shaped area to use. Copper pour are more flexible.
@johannespfister I agree with you that I could have put it in the footprint. I saw tradeoffs to both approaches and decided for now just to do the manual copper pour.
Your second paragraph really confuses me. If I were to make 2 pads, one electrical and one heat spreading, and then disable the solder mask on the heat spreading pad, there will obviously be no opening in the stencil for solder paste on the heat spreading pad. This will lead to no solder on the heat spreading pad.
Without solder, there is no bonded metal-to-metal connection between the hot region on the IC and the heat spreading pad. What will conduct the heat from the IC to the heat spreading pad? Thermal grease is not an option here because it will not survive reflow.
I’m either not understanding your method here, or I am understanding it but am confused about how it will promote heat spreading given the lack of metal-to-metal contact.
The 2 Pads overlap. One of them has the F.Mask and F.Paste active, in this region the IC is connected to the copper. The other pad which overlaps is bigger. It doesn’t change the F.Mask nor F.Paste, so there is still a connection from the IC to the Pads.
Thanks @johannespfister . I thought you were describing two pads that were not connected to each other. Makes sense now.
@paulvdh I am still slightly confused about thermal reliefs and whether I want them or not. Maybe you or someone else can help me understand.
I do want to use the pad as a heat sink to spread the IC’s heat to the other copper layers of the board. So, based on your message, it sounds like I want to disable thermal reliefs on this pad.
However, won’t this make it more difficult to reflow solder the pad? The solder’s only boundary will be the solder mask surrounding the pad, so it will be a solder-mask defined pad. When the solder melts, will it flow out of the pad and onto the surrounding mask? Or will the mask prevent it from flowing outside of the pad?
In short, I need both heat sinking from the pad to other layers, and easily solderability. What should I do?