It really was. I’ve watched it several times.

I’m not really sure what’s well known unless it’s enormously popular.

I’ve looked up the director, writer and actors from Rubicon to find similarly great work but this seemed to be a special convergence.

Rubicon

If you like espionage but from the analytical side.

Counterpart

If you like espionage, JK Simmons, and parallel dimensions

Berlin Station S1

If you like espionage and postwar Germany

BRICS is taking great strides forward. The rapprochement between China and India is necessary for that.

They have a new designation, partner country, allowing countries to take part without full agreement on all BRICS policies. Turkiye is joining as a partner despite its membership in NATO.

A grain exchange is being created, with other commodities exchanges to follow. Discussions on resisting sanctions, guaranteeing food security and energy security.

We are seeing the emergence of the new global organization.

Agreed that it likely depends on the region it was bought in. For most businesses and government services I have found the quality of customer service has dropped through the floor in North America as compared to 20 years ago. I worked in customer service for years and it’s always been a horrible job. But it can be made better or worse by how the department is managed.

Lenovo Canada’s customer service, shipping, and possibly quality control teams appear to be overworked because the result is slipshod work, ignoring the customer, and general incompetence. Again, I worked in the field and don’t blame the individuals.

They are trading on their good name, and eroding it at the same time. Glad to hear it’s better in Europe.

The whole shipping, returns, and reliability experience for Lenovo was rather bad for me (Lenovo Canada). My Legion shipped with a faulty motherboard and faulty power supply. Bought in Canada, but I work in China. International warranty didn’t cover China so I paid for replacement power supply out of pocket. Then multiple usb keys were fried before I figured out it was my laptop. Back in Canada they fixed it, but jerked me around on the turnaround time. Overall bad customer service, shipped a lemon. It was cheap for the specs though.

Jelly beans. The fancy ones with many flavours like butter, apple, and cinnamon.

You’ll surely have those bean flavours to talk about, if nothing else.

Propaganda is usually truthful or exaggerated truth. It’s the framing that is important. Some facts are focused on. Some facts are omitted.

I acknowledge that Russia, China and the DPRK have made mistakes and even done things that are deeply questionable. But I’m interested in comparing their mistakes or misguided actions to those of the most powerful military empire on earth. The one involved in hundreds of military actions and dozens of coups since its inception. The one with the largest per capita prison population on earth. The one which controls many of the world’s financial levers.

There is a difference in the scale of their mistakes or bad actions. Propaganda distorts that difference of scale. It focuses on the crimes of the “enemies” / “axis of evil” / “rogue states” but doesn’t examine context or culpability of the empire. They’ll choose one conflict, downplay 9 others, and give a one-sided view of that one conflict.

That’s how propaganda works. Every state produces propaganda. One state produces billions of dollars of propaganda each year.

I use Keepass2Android. Is there some reason Keepassxc is better, or just an alternative?

Good film. One of the few good Lovecraft adaptations, IMHO.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is straight up State department propaganda.

Richard Stanley was hired to direct “The Island of Doctor Moreau” but was replaced by John Frankenheimer after a few days of shooting. However, Stanley considered the film to be his baby (he co-wrote the script) and didn’t want to leave. So he disguised himself as one of the mutants and secretly remained on the shoot.

You can watch the documentary about the shooting of this B-movie and it’s full of weird details like that. It’s called “Lost Soul: the doomed journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau”

Don’t eat between meals to re-establish your saliva microbiome and pH. This will do a lot for prevention of carie growth.

Is that David Frum, speechwriter to the Bush Jr administration? Writer of speeches about the axis of evil? Writer of speeches to whip up frenzy for an invasion of Iraq? An invasion based on lies? That David Frum?

They have noses worthy of being our successor species. Something you’d see on the cover of a sci-fi novel called “Children of Earth” or something…

This is an exercise in absurdism. People searching the picture and giving each other hints without any search target. Fun stuff.

And to celebrate that fact, Europe is joining the US in imposing massive tariffs on China’s electric vehicles and solar cells. Yay.

ISTG stands for It’s Studio Giblets

Ironically this is probably made by Biden’s team to scare people into voting Biden because those Russkis are tryin to steal our 'lection!

You aren’t. There’s more backstory.

Running out of names for apps? I’ll just borrow from Herpes Simplex… seems catchy.