Too bad America has invested nothing into viable alternatives to driving.

Read the Smiley stories first.

1 Call for the Dead (1961)

2 A Murder of Quality (1962)

3 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

4 The Looking Glass War (1965)

5 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)

6 The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)

7 Smiley's People (1979)

8 The Secret Pilgrim (1990)

9 A Legacy of Spies (2017)

1 and 2 are more detective stories with the detective being a retired spy. But 3 is where it gets really juicy. 5 is the most well known. 8 and 9 I would say are optional.

And then read "Karla's Choice" by Nick Harkaway. It's actually a midquel in the Smiley saga, written by John le Carré's son, who is also an author. I think he did a very serviceable job and I hope he writes more.

Brutalism, Mid-century modern, German Gothic, Cottagecore, Dutch

The Ozarks, or the Ozark Plateau, or sometimes (errantly) the Ozark Mountains. Compared to a proper mountain range, they're more like big foothills with the odd cliff face. Pleasant for hiking and mountain biking. Lots of nice rivers in the region.

Just finished the audio drama "The Red Letter Day" starring Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes. It's OK, not bad, but definitely only for people with nostalgia for the 80s series with Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes.

I'm reading Real Tigers by Mick Herron. I'm a huuuuge John le Carré fan, and this series sort of scratches that itch, but it's not as "literary" or complex. It feels like a grittier, less action oriented version of the TV series "Spooks"

Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner

Elephant Talk by King Crimson

Hocus Pocus by Focus

I expect the comments here to shit on liberal arts degrees, but both myself and my colleague have masters in liberal arts fields, undergrads in philosophy, and we work in Big Tech making what likely places us in the top 10% of incomes in our chosen locales.

Of course, it also means that we feel like we've completely betrayed any principles we have as we are soldiers in the march to make the world a shittier place, but that's the price we pay to keep our families fed.

I was recently ordering food delivery, and a local restaurant replaced most of their image-free menu items with AI generated photos. (Some of their items always had real photos, but most didn't until the AI photos were added)

I ordered from somewhere else and sent the first restaurant an email that I didn't order from them due to the AI images of the food.

Also, fuck Thuisbezorgd for adding AI photo generation. I would have not ordered anything but it was already late and the family was hungry.

Birds of a feather

The only thing prompting phone replacement for me was battery life. And nearly all phones have shit ability to replace batteries (for now - EU rules incoming).

I bought a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS. I've left Big Tech behind. And I have a phone where I can easily replace the components. I don't want to swap devices for 4-5 years, which makes ownership far more cost effective than leasing.

Also -- with leasing, what happens when the renter is done with it? E waste, just like we have today.

Yeah, about a decade+ ago I paid for mIRC and WinRAR as a way to pay them back.

Alex Lifeson!