vaguerant

Just read it in a Keanu Reeves voice. "Please click this, like, to verify your email address, dude."

Technically not a good choice for this community specifically. 2FAS Auth operates out of the USA. Being FOSS does change the implications of that, though.

Looks like development on AndOTP stopped ~4 years ago (July 2021). There's definitely an "if it ain't broke" factor, but the way Android keeps dropping support for older SDK apps, you will probably need to switch to something else eventually. I hadn't heard of Aegis before this thread, but apparently one of its big features is support for importing from other authenticator apps (including AndOTP and Google Authenticator).

I had an idea of them finding a way to invert their chips, so the outies are stuck on the severed floor and vice versa. This would force the outies to reckon with the reality of innie life and place the innies and outies in a more directly adversarial position. If oMark and Helena try to leave the severed floor, they'd only be setting iMark and Helly free. Then you could potentially have Gemma on the outside trying to get iMark to let her husband out or other new dynamics they could set up with the innies pretending to be outies full-time.

This one's not strictly enshittification-related, but I find YouTube Comment Search (Firefox, Chrome) extremely useful. YouTube videos frequently have way more comments than any sensible person is going to read through. By searching for keywords, you can check whether somebody else already said what you were thinking and 👍 that instead of posting another duplicate comment that will get buried forever.

For any Arthur-heads excited that the new lore just dropped, this is a copy of a previously documented rare manuscript rather than new material:

There are less than 40 surviving copies of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin text known to scholars, and since medieval scribes copied them by hand, each is a unique version. The one found at Cambridge University Library, for example, has decorative red and blue initials. Based on this as well as other features, the researchers suggest the text was written between 1275 and 1315.

That does not detract from the incredible work done here in any way, just wanted to make sure it's clear these are not previously unknown writings.

The one time you may want to exit via the window in Russia.

Yeah, I meant un-severed, anybody on roughly Milchick's level who he would realistically be able to talk to about shared experiences within Lumon.

Why we throwing shade on fat legs?

I definitely feel like Milchick is on the path to turning on Lumon. Who knows how long he's been "in" Lumon, but I don't think this is the first time he's ever encountered corporate Lumon racism. That interaction with Natalie up on the second floor, where he tries to connect with her doesn't feel like it's out of nowhere:

I was just wondering if you could share with me a little how you felt when you received the paintings, because I'm thinking our experiences here have been similar in some ways, [we] may face similar challenges ...

Milchick sounds like he has been dealing with this for as long as he's been in Lumon, and he suspects Natalie has as well. I think she's the only other black Lumon employee we've seen (unless he wants to go talk to Reghabi about it) and he's losing his patience, or to coin a phrase, losing his religion. Natalie is not offering him an outlet for those feelings, though.

However, I think he is a true believer. Lumon isn't just a job or a company to him, so it's going to take a bit more to break their spell on him.

The remembered man does not decay.

- Kier Eagan

The most obvious part, both halves of the routine seems like they were most likely scripted by Mr. Drummond. The barb about Milchick's use of language is something very specific to Drummond's relationship with Milchick, and Milchick's half of the dialog is deliberately written to set up that joke. The appendix line is clearly a previously-written corny punchline and not improvised.

The Kier animatronic appears to be performed live by somebody. It responds emotionally to Milchick rather than being a series of obviously recorded lines for Milchick to work around. This opens up the possibility that Drummond is also playing the vocal role of Kier, presumably via voice changing tech, but at that point it could be anybody--whether that means a character we know or not, although they do seem to know Milchick personally.

In the real world, Marc Geller (IMDb) is the actor who plays Kier physically and in voice lines, but the actual character is almost certainly long dead by the time of the show, barring any Walt Disney shenanigans. No doubt, Lumon finds it useful to be able to simulate the authoritative voice of their founder for propaganda purposes.

I lean toward Milchick not being made aware of what Kier would say ahead of time. He has his own lines, but I don't think he knows the founder is about to roast his use of language. That seems to have been a surprise thrown in to upset and humiliate Milchick in front of his staff. If he already knew this line was coming and/or had rehearsed it previously, I don't think he would have reacted so strongly.

I do think Milchick's height gag is scripted. There's too much setup with the "larger than life" line preceding it for it to have happened organically. However, I think Milchick spits the line with 1000% more venom than he was supposed to, in retribution for the previous gag at his expense. If you read Milchick's line in a good-natured way, it sounds like perfectly reasonable, toothless corporate comedy. Milchick just imbues it with a power that Drummond(?) never intended it to have.

Kier's final line, "Thank you for that feedback, Seth," is the only one that I think is wholly off-book. Whoever is on the other end of that animatronic is clearly displeased with Milchick's delivery.