cichlisuite

it's like you'd have a bomb in case a bomb goes off.

it is bizarre, but it also shows some similarities with ww1. the technological advances of military at the time reached a certain culmination point, where doctrines and firepower dictated a fixed-front stalemates to be a 'natural' course of events. things started moving again with the introduction of combined arms (tanks + aviation + infantry + artillery) -- ww2. Ukraine in 2023 is a sign of a similar culmination point in terms of technology and doctrines.

i think it's nice you cannes notice that

tried and finished spy/master because it promised a lot, and i kind of feel down about it, because i so wanted to enjoy this (i want cold war spy stuff!) the screenplay tried to do something, i can see it, but it feels amateurish/naive idk it's a weird pace, and the actors are not really invested in the characters that well it seems, rather shallow. but the story / timeline setup (idea) is very good, native romanian language, the scenes with nicolae and elena caucescu are great, and they are the best part of the series. unfortunately all this is spoiled by everything else; cliche (of course the young daughter will drink cocacola at the end!), predictable, unconvincing. the 'spies' show ZERO tradecraft, and that's just does it. it's like you'd want to film a tractor plowing a field, but you focus on the surrounding bushes instead, waving in the wind and all, with the tractor sound rattling in the background / 10.

you could make a war out of this!

@marf if you live in a city, get out, for a while. change the landscape. use your feet.

when you cross hanks and walken you get young buscemi

*discusses*

interesting explanation of the hyperbolic universe theory

godspeed, MIXL2!

listening to z*f mixed with muffled sounds of an open air schlager music concert is a great experience! distant echoing shouts and instruments really fits well with these two:

because it's the richest.

Three episodes into Spy/Master ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22325698/ ), a story set in cold war where the main intelligence officer of the Causescu's regime defects to the west. They really nailed the looks and characters of Elena and Nicolae Causescu which is enjoyable. The main antagonist is the Romanian counter-intelligence operative who can be a bit cartoonish at times, the dialogues could be better, and of course the americans are the best and most ethical as always (rolls eyes), the main actor does a great job, and the stasi agent is hot (actually they are both hot) but all in all quite good series I think..... so far....

This is so fascinating; a family living deep in Siberian taiga, far away from any nearest settlement, completely isolated. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/

where is schlitze when you need him

100 ethels equals 100000000 bitcoin no one has that kind of money

What's wrong with Ethel?

i have definitely found nudie magazines in abandoned shacks and even in hunters' lookouts (where you can also found a full beer or even a sixpack, especially in summer). i can also confirm that woods and meadows in full spring blossoms, with that cricket ambience really gets my blood flowing if you know what i mean, so sexy times in tall grass under the warm sun is def the most idm thing ever. might be related to woodsporn, idk, there might be some correlation, i will investigate

i'm finding out about this these days. so excuse me while i rant this out: our company was bought by american investors, and the ceo immediately started putting fellow americans in key executive positions (some positions were opened just for the sake of it). all dandy and whatever, but the problem arises with the recent reorganization that consolidated branches which have nothing to do with the professional profile of that certain executive. so now we have to explain to him why certain things are what they are, and it's silly. it become downright bizarre when he makes uninformed sweeping decisions that turn everything upside down. but we are unable to explain his wrongdoing because he refuses to listen for more than 15 seconds, because apparently they've all developed attention deficit disorder from the "sell me this pen in 15 seconds" shtick they think makes the world turn. to top that off, he immediately fired two of our competent operations managers, because they voiced their disagreements loudly. the latter bothers me, because it appears to be a symptom of some superiority complex, with an explicit desire to 'teach us' or make thins go their way. it reminds me too much of that movie trope, where the american protagonist in an international assembly of characters is always the one with the most knowledge and guts and is a de-facto leader. only in the case of movies (because they are movies) they tend to be right, but in this case (because it's real life) they aren't.

never worked with americans before. we touch base a lot, we do everything "moving forward". they complain we only work 8hrs a day, fake positivity, very friendly when they need help, half-assing shit when you ask them to help, lot's of bravado, but little to show for it.

edgy

agreed. one tries to be positive, and hope for the best, but the reality is that we are helpless until the concentrated power of super rich entities is equaled by a power of coherent mass initiative that will have to act as a counterweight, continually sustained in order to maintain the balance of powers (not just campaign-like, single purpose mass initiative, but a continuous one). not just for ai, but for many other pressing things. the next best option (and that's saying something), and far more probable (unfortunately), is to continue to be a reactionary force, always lagging behind with legislature initiatives, far later when the damage is long done, and our ways of life accepted it and adopted it with another source of anxiety, while the legislature only barely contains the fringes of capital rampage.

Thanks that was informative. Could you say it's a game of elimination of a sort, in a way that it first 'explodes' in contexts and possibilities, and then slowly starts picking up the strongest threads, and the array of contexts and possibilities shrinks, until only one possible solution remains...?