Thanks for sharing your opinion. It is interesting, but I can't say I agree.
Can I ask which sources do you primarily use to draw information about history and (geo)politics?
The literal definition of Tankie is supporting USSR tanks being sent for regime change/suppression of eastern Europe post war. Russia happened to ~~peacefully~~ give liberation to all of these countries, and to all of USSR. ~~That US/NATO has continued its demonic diminishment of Russia after this point, including nazi coups under fake liberal colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine...~~
What follows is a brief detour into Eastern European history, with a focus on conflicts.
Tanks were sent in 1956 to crush the Hungarian Revolution and 1968 to crush the Prague Spring, and of course in 1979 to invade Afghanistan, triggering a 10-year war.
While Gorbachev (in office from 1985 to 1991) deserves a lot of praise for being fairly incorruptible (he didn't enrich himself), ending the war in Afghanistan, organizing nuclear disarmament initiatives, organizing the first semi-democratic elections in the USSR (which brought about the end of the power monopoly of the communist party) and some policies (one of which I've hijacked as my username) that favoured transparency and reconstruction... sadly, even he did likely authorise tanks: for seizing the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991 (some unfortunate folks got killed there). It must be noted that mass protest erupted in Russian cities when the event was reported (media was already partly independent as a result of his reforms) and protesters were definitely mostly Russian, not Baltic or Ukrainian. In the late stages of the USSR, there was a functioning sense of solidarity (a bit like solidarity of prisoners escaping together, but having different life goals) between different nations against the system.
Later, it went thus that some republics went down the tubes into calamity and corruption (and some like Armenia and Azerbaijan into war between each other) while others managed to swim out of the spiral. Economic and demographic damage was very serious all across the country, and this probably "wound up" people. Gorbachev became the most hated leader in Russia, blamed for everything and some more things, and people did start thinking that someone with an iron fist might suit them better. Yeltsin seized the opportunity during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 and ordered tanks to fire at the Supreme Soviet, overhthrowing the constitutional order and bestowing himself powers like a monarch, which he later gave to Putin, who entrenched himself twice as deep. [sidenote: US residents beware, I sense a risk that this could happen at your place within 2 years]
Later on, when the USSR was already multiple years gone and Putin acted as prime minister under Yeltsin, the Chechnian independence movement was drowned in blood in such manner, reminiscent of today's Gaza sector.
The war in Georgia was an extremely stupid thing. Both sides contributed to provocations and Georgia, having raised the stakes, decisively lost. The subsequent turning of Georgia into a Russian vassal state under the supervision of Putin's allies was a slow-motion coup in favour of the Kremlin (which is finished by now) and likely encouraged Putin.
Now, as for Ukraine, unlike the other countries, for whatever reason they maintained a culture of mass protest. They protested in great numbers during the Orange Revolution and during Euromaidan. The escalation of the Euromaidan protest into a revolution was likely triggered by the beatdown which president Yanukovich ordered. If he hadn't had the protesters beaten and dispersed, it would have fizzled out. He escalated however, and protesters also escalated. Other political parties sided with protest, leaving his Party of the Regions isolated. When police started using lethal violence (claiming about 100 lives) and protesters responded (claiming about 13 lives), the situation took an unexpected turn for Yanukovich. The army refused to intervene, his police force was overwhelmed and he took the decision to flee the country to Russia. The parliament organized new elections in his absence. Putin however used the opportunity to annex Crimea (surprisingly, this was not bloody) and tried to annex Donetsk and Lugansk (which turned bloody really fast). Subsequently, a contingent of about 30...40 000 Russian soldiers held parts of those oblasts against the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while superficially pretending to be rebel separatists.
As for Belarus, when Lukashenka falsified the elections for what was probably the seventh time, mass protest finally started. He relied on Putin's assistance to beat and imprison thousands of people.
I hope this helps. I have the feeling that you lack a historical understanding of our region. From the viewpoint an anarchist: in Ukraine and most of the rest of Eastern Europe, as an anarchist, you work above the ground but may get name-called often because everyone thinks you're their preferred sort of demonic creature. :) Meanwhile in Russia, the communist party is Putin's lap dog and the anarchist movement is underground, in emigration and in prison. In Belarus, only the potato dictator rules, and allows their territory to be used for war against Ukraine, but tries to stay out of it.
Myself, I've seen a bit of similar stuff.
Since arriving on Lemmy, I've sometimes stumbled on instances where ideological purity is enforced with an iron fist, and dozens of communities have the same overlapping moderators (no point in appealing any decision).
In such places, I've sometimes ended up arguing - usually describing history from the viewpoint that Wikipedia takes, from the viewpoint which has the benefit of supporting evidence. In those few places, this has been deemed "reactionary" and I've been banned a few times.
Upon examining the moderation logs of the threads where I got banned, I've found other peculiarities, like people getting banned for voting the wrong way.
I've never been too sure about what the appropriate response is, but my response has been reminding the admin of a local Lemmy instance (I have accounts on multiple instances) that federating with strange places has adverse consequences.
If one federates with an authoritarian place where censorship occurs strongly, everyone will see the counterfactual narratives pushed there, but nobody can argue, since they'll get banned in those communities super fast. That's not a balanced exchange of views and I've come to dislike that.
I recommend reading his text besides the news article.
He writes well and his description of what got him caught is very informative to anyone who might end up doing sabotage.
(Notes: he traveled to Latvia instead of doing everything locally, some of his drones failed to take off (possibly due to a curious fox pushing them over) and had no self-destruct timers, he only slightly changed the location of the railway bomb after encountering suspicious dacha owners, he was psychologically affected by the death of his grandmother and less cautious, and on his return trip from the railway, he stumbled before a camera.)
What he describes about FSB's methods of torture might convince some other partisan to carry a gun or grenade.
In the pessimistic scenario, nothing short of Putin's regime ending will get him out, I hope it ends sooner. In the matters where I can, I try to help other people end it sooner.
In the optimistic scenario, he will be exchanged with some Russian agent who got caught in Ukraine since he consulted with Ukranians to get some information and skills.
I cannot write him. They don't need my name on their records. Peaceful people from more distant countries are better suited to write him.
Interesting article, thank you.
A note about black carbon, however - it requires a carbon based fuel. This launch vehicle (and some others too) used H2 as its fuel. As a result, we can note emissions of zero for black carbon, alumina and chlorine.
The article has one more estimation error relative to this flight. They seem to have estimated 17.5% of the landing pod's mass to burn up on re-entry. This is a reasonable estimate when re-entering from orbital flight (initial speed at least 7.8 km/s), but the flight in the news article was suborbital: a steep ascent to the Karman line (initial speed of re-entry: very low), followed by a ballistic fall.
As evidenced by photos of the capsule (also available in the news article), nearly none of its mass burnt away. It features no thermal protection tiles on the sides (there could be some under the bottom) and exhibits no visible signs of overheating or mass loss (even the painted text has remained readable).
So, while the article could be accurate in its analysis of solid-fueled and carbon-based launches and orbital re-entries, this flight differs considerably from the analyzed pattern. The capsule didn't enter orbit, didn't carry retrograde engines to initiate re-entry, as a result was lighter, and launchable using a relatively small rocket (19 m is really small for a passenger carrying rocket).
As a result, I think they caused very little harmful atmospheric emissions (I would consider water vapour harmless, thermal NOx harmful). Based on this, I would even speculate (based on intuition, no calculations) that during the flight (notes: not during the building of the spacecraft, not during spacecraft fuel production) less pollution was caused than an airliner burning aviation fuel emits over 500 km... maybe 1000 km.
It was just their energy bill that was huge.
Myself, I'm not so skeptical.
Yes, it's a very expensive passtime. They burned H2 and O2, but used a lot of energy.
They had no practical purpose for going - only demonstrating that it's safe. No experiments besides the flight itself, and it's been demonstrated already that Blue Origin can fly and land. The added data point was just telemetry and small improvements, and the message that Blue Origin dares to fly VIPs.
I'm content to mostly ignore it, and note "there's one more private space launch company out there".
For greater traffic between Earth and space, things must change. The rocket stage that ascends out of the atmosphere would be better released from an extremely high-flying plane or airship. Chances of surviving accidents would increase. Required engine power levels would drop. This has been tried by Scaled Composites. Sadly their space programme was set back by deadly accidents unrelated to their architecture, losing 3 ground crew to an explosion and one pilot to a pilot error. :(
At a later time, instead of ascending out of atmosphere by burning carried fuel, one should seriously consider delivery of energy from Earth by laser (rocket as a solar concentrator, no looking out of windows) and maneuvering in orbit with the assistance of permanent space tugs utilizing highly efficient magnetic thrusters (orientation) and ion engines (propulsion). Probably ion engines that permanently sit in space and only get reaction mass and energy delivered to them regularly.
In the far end, if lots of cargo and lots of people must visit space, then a space elevator must be constructed. Materials that allow making one still don't exist.
The worst scenario is in El Salvador, where the study estimated that 44% of the country’s tuberculosis cases in 2019 occurred in its prisons.
History has shown that presence of widespread tuberculosis can make a prison camp a death camp. If half of a country's tuberculosis cases happen in prisons, there is reason to suspect this is happening.
The rest of society will pay too, when strains resistant to antibiotics will spread outside via prison personnel.
Note: at the stage of instruction, they may think they're only going to nurse the wounded.
Practise could differ - they could be be pressured to carry supplies, becoming a legitimate military target. Also, they might be pressured to provide sexual services.
Going by surveys, there does exist a considerable divergence in attained education levels.
Among supporters of a certain conservative political masterpiece (name starts with T), there is a strong trend towards lack of education. Which often enough, though not always, means "stupid".
Among conservative politicians themselves, there does not seem to be such a strong correlation. Implying that they aren't uneducated, and some might be intellectualy quite capable. They have just made a choice. Some of them might be fairly depressed right now, but keeping a stiff upper lip.
Whether the masterpiece himself has made a choice or is stupid, is a good question. Judging by what's available to me, he exibits signs of fairly limited knowledge, attention, self-criticism and self-control. Whether that's due to age or other reasons, another good question. But certainly not a master strategist.
Source: Newsweek Trump approval tracker
I ride a 300 € bike as a hobby in summer. It's from 2014. Given the highly advanced bike stealing culture present locally, any more expensive bike would need to be smeared with gull excretions for protection against theft. :P
Andry Romero, a gay makeup artist sent to El Salvador, sobbing and praying as guards shave his head.
Given that El Salvador has the highest imprisomnent rate per capita after North Korea (and since NK is super secretive, they might have passed it by without us knowing), and various other inhumane laws, I would definitely prefer if nobody paid that government even a penny.
I would pay (if I had enough pennies) for opposition to get Nayib Bukele out of power. He's their version of Trump, a democratically elected authoritarian.
Sadly, unlike with Duterte (from the Philippines), there is currently no international interest in getting him to a court - which he likely has already earned by now.
They say that people who don't build battery banks while wearing a sweater will cry about the lack of battery banks in double fur coats. :)
Since today was possibly the last "sweater" weekend here, morning frost is a reality and snow has fallen 500 km northwards...
...I decided that I would be among the first and not the second group. :)
Coincidence has given me an almost unused (43 000 km driven) battery bank of a Mitsubishi i-MIEV (a crap car, don't buy unless you are an EV mechanic).
But in my house, there is already a 24V battery bank made of Nissan Leaf cells and I'm worried about lack of space and fire hazard (if lithium batteries burn, you typically need tons of water to make them do anything else - I have only one ton and pumping it requires that same battery bank).
So I decided that I'd build a new 48V battery bank outside my house, start it up with the MIEV cells and maybe migrate the Leaf cells there later too, after checking and reassembly.
However, winters are cold here and MIEV cells (as I mentioned, the car is crap) lose 30% of their capacity when cold. It thus follows that I must keep my battery warm in winter - and later on, cool in summer. This requires energy. Spending less energy on battery care allows using more energy for useful things. :)
Thus it follows that I need a battery enclosure. :) It must have wheels so construction bureaucrats can be waved away with an explanation (a generator on wheels doesn't need a building permit either). And it must have thermal insulation.
The insulation is PIR foam, 10 cm thick. Maybe I'll make some parts even thicker. The wheeled platform was salvaged from a bankrupt boat factory, I don't know its original purpose. The bottom plywood is 20 mm waterproof ply, and the top layer (PIR is very delicate, don't put batteries directly on PIR) is 9 mm waterproof ply.
The design I stole from an anarchist squat which existed in 2009, where styrofoam was used for a similar purpose, with the difference that squatters used lead acid batteries and their battery room was indoors (now it's advisable to imagine the sound of clattering teeth, it was cold there in winter).
Inside the box, there will be:
- balancers / equalizers
- some DC heating ribbon
- a thermostat or a microcontroller-driven thermometer + relay
- a circulation fan (thermal stratification is bad)
- battery monitors with an alarm function
- a smoke alarm
Since PIR aborsbs sound, the piezo buzzers of the alarm devices will have to be unsoldered and brought to a plastic box on the surface of the enclosure. :)
The arrangement of cells has been chosen to provide access from outside, get a reasonable ratio between volume and surface (avoid flat shape) and to minimize the cutting of materials (several sides are made of PIR sheet cut to length only).
Some more pictures:
- Main tools for working with PIR
- Test fitting
- Closing up
- Securing with fiber tape (you can tow a car with a roll of it)
End result of today's work:
Living off grid often correlates with poorly accessible locations - because that's where the infrastructure is not.
On certain latitudes, especially near bodies of water, especially in remote locations - do not ask who the snow comes for - it always comes for you (and with a grudge). So, what ya gonna do?
Over here, a tractor being incomplete (it is great folly to go into winter with an incomplete tractor), snow is handled by an electric microcar. Since the microcar is made of thin sheet metal and plastic, it cannot carry a plow... but the rear axle being solid steel, it can pull one.
The plow is one year old, and was previously pulled by a gasoline car. It is made of construction steel: 8 mm L-profiles shaped like a letter A with double horizontal bars. The point of connection on top ensures it doesn't lift too much while plowing. It's currently fixed with an unprofessional and temporary C-clamp (there will be an U-bolt soon). It is pulled with a chain.
If snow is heavy, the L-profiles lift the plow on top of snow, and you have to plow the same road many times. Sometimes it veers off sideways. Generally, you have to catch the snow early with this system - if you're late, you're stuck. :)
Not many advantages, but dirt cheap. Don't go plowing public roads with such devices - it is nearly invisible to fellow drivers, and cops would get a seizure.
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Sounds like a nice material. :)