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Before any tankies claim the word is a blanket slur against communists: “tankie” was coined by British communists that were disgusted by the attitudes of some of their so-called “fellows”.
Before any tankies claim the word is a blanket slur against communists: “tankie” was coined by British communists that were disgusted by the attitudes of some of their so-called “fellows”.
Because they’re arguing in bad faith.
Oh, is it because decades of incompetence and corruption weakened their already crumbling military? Their lack of a strong economy to support the war effort? Is it because they’re relying on Soviet leftovers instead of modern equipment? The fact their enemy is a motivated, supplied with actually decent munitions by modern/rich countries, and has a competent chain of command?
What do I win?
They’re not insane: everything they’ve done are things they sincerely thought they could get away with, and up until Ukraine Putin has been correct in that regard.
Pretending to be crazy is an effective strategy: ironically Nixon popularized it during the cold war.
Attacking targets in NATO countries (even if “justified”) is going to drastically increase the odds NATO gets directly involved in Ukraine – something Putin absolutely doesn’t want.
Oh, they’re talking about bear bears – the animal.
… I feel like the original scenario didn’t make that clear.
I don’t get it: a bear just makes more sense. Despite their intimidating appearance most are gentle creatures. Their fur and mass can provide warmth, and if you’re injured they can easily carry you out of the woods.
If you pick “random man” you might get a twink and I feel like they’re more of a liability in a survival situation.
I’m with you on that. What makes the Steam Deck so appealing is it’s a handheld PC.
As someone 10 minutes outside of a major city, my (slow, unreliable, expensive) options are:
Americans are entirely at the whim of ISPs and what areas they determine are worth investing infrastructure in.
I’d suggest a cheap used or spare laptop/desktop with a beginner friendly distro like Linux Mint Cinnamon to learn on. Just use it for casual stuff – you’ll pick up what you need to learn as you go.
That way if something breaks or you don’t know how to do something while you’re learning you’re not “stuck”.
I agree that there’s a lot of direct trolling online, but I wouldn’t discount the number of “useful idiots”.
Remember Q-anon? The core of that entire “movement” was a handful of people on an obscure website steering discourse and pumping out conspiracy theories to a few hundred dedicated direct followers. That audience served as both a testbed for ideas and a free “localization service” – they’d take an unpolished core idea and through discourse transform it into something marketable for wider consumption. Said followers obscure the source of the messaging, amplify it, spread it to traditional social media / the real world, “fight” dissidents, etc.
Those “useful idiots” are a fundamental part of an efficient, cost effective, and successful disinformation campaign.
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Yeah, the majority of them aren’t “bots”. It’s mostly people acting as useful idiots, parroting talking points put forth by Kremlin backed trolls. The shit reeks of 2018’s totally organic “Walk Away” movement – the arguments and slogans practically rhyme.
I don’t like the “bots” thing either since it’s inaccurate to what’s actually going on, but at the same time I don’t know a concise way to call out pretty obvious Russian state backed AstroTurfing.
$50 says Putin demanded an audit of their military from top to bottom several weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, and he was very upset to learn the true state of their nuclear capabilities.
“Appear strong where you are weak” is 90% of Putin’s MO.
You made me realize I haven’t fired up my Windows 11 machine in a while, so I went to check it – even re-enabling the copilot toggle … which weirdly did nothing. Then I remembered I had lobotomized all the AI and assistant “features” a while ago.
I’m a little disappointed: I wanted to ask Copilot “How do I purge you from my machine?”
Blocking it would require a screwdriver, and a razor blade to cut some traces on the cellular modem.
the only good reason to own a printer is photo/art prints
… how do you read your emails without a printer?
They are used for planes. The problem is the usable ones are stupidly expensive and/or classified millitary hardware.
Which is dumb, because there’s nothing stopping anyone from replacing the seals/glue when they put it back together. And at least in the USA manufactures have been covered for damages/harm resulting from a flawed consumer-based repair since since 1975.
The great irony is it’s frequently the “ductwork” that’s the problem: plugged or badly installed exhaust pipes, which the manufacture has no control over. The rest are the appliance itself wearing out or failing with no warning.
I’ve repaired furnaces myself several times including replacing burners and exhaust fans – it isn’t rocket science. It’s no different than working on any other “dangerous” thing like a car. If someone somehow manages to fuck up so badly it hurts or kills someone that’s on them.
I’m a 7 minute drive from downtown and my options are satellite, cellular, or fixed wireless. Everyone around me has gigabit ethernet, but due to costs involved in running fiber and the fact my little community is mostly old folks (and thus likely not going to buy in) ISPs don’t want to “invest” in us.