tal

I don't think I've ever looked up a book up there to evaluate it. I might glance at an Amazon rating if I'm buying it on Amazon and it's already in front of my eyes. But, let me see what I think.

looks a few books up

I don't think that I'd want to use a 4.0 bar on that website. For example, I enjoyed Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber fantasy series

particularly the early ones

and the first book is 3.97. Frank Herbert's Dune series does, I think, go downhill over the course of the series, but books #2, #3, and #4 all are below 4. Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I was kinda disappointed with, is 4.1.

Four stars on what rating system?

I'd just SMS them and see if they respond. I mean, you're setting up a viewing. That shouldn't take that many messages.

I haven't paid much attention to where fixed automatic weapons were mounted in the past, but looking at the M2 Browning, it looks like it's mounted with the gun directly in line with the pivot point.

Here's a British 20 mm Oerlikon from WW2. Same thing: the gun is mounted directly over the axis on which the gun pivots.

It kinda seems to me like even if you could manage to handle the weapon's recoil, you probably wouldn't want to have it mounted off-center like that Russian weapon is, since it'd pull to the side when you fire it, mess with your accuracy. I can't really think of any advantage to mounting it the way they have it.

Does kinda make me wonder how common that is.

EDIT: It sounds like this is nonstandard:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DatS7TAK-GO/

Trending: Russian mobile air defense team training with a YakB-12.7 machine gun ended in chaos when the gunner almost k!lled his own instructor.

The reason is surprisingly simple. Someone thought it was a good idea to mount the YakB-12.7 - a machine gun producing roughly 1,400 kgf (about 1.4 tonnes) of recoil force - on a rotating turret where the barrel’s axis is offset from the turret’s axis of rotation.

The YakB-12.7 is the primary weapon of the USPU-24 used on the Mi-24 attack helicopter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YakB-12.7_machine_gun

EDIT2: Or, rather, maybe it is standard in 2026 Russian air defense, but it's not how the weapon was originally intended to be used, is being repurposed.

EDIT3: This seems to show the same weapon mounted on a similar platform, but the position of the ammo box is reversed (on the right side rather than the left, as the operator is facing) and (as you can see at about 23 seconds) the gun is centered on the axis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyjNMKyPO2c

Idaho only has two House seats, so it's not too hard to cover the whole thing.

I do note with some interest that while Wyoming and North Dakota aren't on there, Idaho and West Virginia are. Those four states were the four states with the highest percentage share for Trump in 2024, and both Idaho and West Virginia have independents running in all House districts.

A comparison of messaging systems that doesn't list XMPP?

Hmm. It looks like those tanks are maybe 2 km to the southwest of whatever was burning at the Gazprom location. You can see them in my image.

Right there with you. The world I grew up in from BBS’s to dial up internet to gaming with friends ( that took serious work to run and connect over phone lines) to innovation after innovation that was for pure excitement and exploration and solving problems and making things easier and simpler is gone.

https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/

The Telnet BBS Guide focuses Bulletin Board Systems – the original Social Network, serving the BBS community for over 28 years! We list both Dial-Up and Telnet accessible Bulletin Board Systems all over the world. We currently list 1010 BBS and related systems with brief and detailed descriptions and a downloadable text-version listing suitable for listing on your BBS or for as a download for others to view and use.

The details could not be immediately verified by the Kyiv Independent.

NASA FIRMS is showing two fires at something labeled as a Gazprom location in Mikhailovsk in Google Maps.

Realistically, I don't think that the Admiral Kuznetsov is going to sail again. Like, that was basically at what is probably more-or-less the end of its life. I doubt that Russia's going to have the funds or that it's going to be high enough on the priority list to get working before it's just completely uneconomical and obsolete. Even if Russia weren't burning tons of resources fighting Ukraine, I don't know if it'd be coming back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_aircraft_carrier_Admiral_Kuznetsov

On 30 October 2018, the ship was damaged when Russia's biggest floating drydock, PD-50, sank, causing one of its 70-ton cranes to crash onto the ship's flight deck, leaving behind a 19-square-metre (200 sq ft) hole. One person was reported missing and four were injured as the drydock sank in Kola Bay. The ship was in the process of being removed from the dock when the incident occurred and was towed to a nearby yard after the incident.[12] The cost of repairing the damage was estimated to be RUB 70 million (about US$1 million).[83] The fallen crane was removed by the end of 2018.[84]

In late May 2019, repair work of the aircraft carrier was underway.[85] That same month, it was also announced that two graving docks in Murmansk would be merged and enlarged to accommodate the ship, the work taking a year and a half.[86] In December 2019, a major fire broke out on board the ship as work continued on the ship's refit.[13] Two people died and more than a dozen were injured in the fire, and damage to the ship was estimated at US$8 million.[87]

In June 2021, Vladimir Korolev, Vice President of the United Shipbuilding Corporation announced that the overhaul and upgrade of Admiral Kuznetsov was expected to be completed by the first half of 2023.[88] The avionics, flight deck with the ski jump, electric equipment, and the power plant were expected to be replaced as part of this process. The carrier would also receive a new fully domestic takeoff and landing control system, with the onboard airpower remaining the same. Due to the lack of a large enough drydock, a new drydock was being constructed in Murmansk.[89] In November 2021 it was reported that "bad weather" had caused significant delays to repair work which might push back the completion of the refit by more than one year.[90]

The ship was finally dry-docked on 20 May 2022.[91] By 27 July 2022, the drydock had been drained, allowing repairs on the aircraft carrier to commence.[92] On 15 August 2022, the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation confirmed that Admiral Kuznetsov would be handed over to the Russian Navy in the first quarter of 2024, and that the ship is expected to remain in service for at least another 25 years.[93] On 22 December 2022, as the ship was being prepared to leave drydock, another fire occurred. The fire was extinguished, and no casualties were reported.[87] On 25 January 2023, it was reported that Admiral Kuznetsov would leave the drydock in February 2023.[94] The aircraft carrier was removed from the drydock on 21 February 2023, although it was initially reported that the operation had been suspended due to heavy fog.[95]

Prior to the December 2022 fire the overhaul of the carrier was projected to last into 2024.[14][87][96]

In September 2024, an OSINT analysis revealed that Admiral Kuznetsov's crew of approximately 1,500 sailors were reassigned to the Russian Army for combat duty in Ukraine. This fueled speculation that there is no plan to make Admiral Kuznetsov seaworthy again.[17][97] As of July 2025, it was reported that repair and modernization work on the carrier had been suspended and that Russian Defence Ministry is considering scrapping the vessel due to the ship's age and condition and the mounting cost of its overhaul.[98] The same month, UK Defence Journal reported public comments by Admiral Sergei Avakyants, former head of Russia's Pacific Fleet, suggesting institutional support for the decision to retire the carrier. He described classic aircraft carriers as expensive and inefficient in modern conflict scenarios, arguing that unmanned systems and robotic platforms are the future.[99] Russian media outlet www1.ru reported in January 2026 that Admiral Kuznetsov may be repaired once the PD-50 floating dock is repaired.[100][101]

In February 2026, Ecuadorian news sources reported that the Admiral Kuznetsov would be decommissioned due to the high cost of repairs.[102]

If the Russian Navy's funding situation improves in the near future, which I would not bet on, I think that there are probably other things that are more cost-effective that they're going to want to use their budget for.

I mean, just look at this post alone. Ukraine's busy clobbering Russian merchant shipping, and what's left of the Black Sea Fleet isn't able to stop it. It's a pretty safe bet that any other countries that Russia might hypothetically get into a scrap with have been also taking notes. Russia's going to need air defense and USV defense more than the ability to fly some very elderly naval aviation aircraft, not to mention the many, many other things that are going to be competing for Russian budget other than naval spending after this war.

Mmm...an important caveat there is that that effect would happen if one considers the impact on the UK as it exists in the absence of such hypothetical rules. I think that you'd find that if you put a cap in place, you would shortly thereafter discover a bunch of lawyers have produced financial structures designed to effectively work around said rules.

For example, there's a limit on how much one can contribute to a political party in the US, but one might contribute to various political action committees or to various non-specific-candidate-centered NGOs or so forth. I don't think that there's any limit on how much one can personally spend promoting a candidate.

I personally prefer Markdown to BBCode and not having to have a ton of different different accounts, but if you want phpBB forums, they are out there. Search a Web search engine for a string that exists on the website that the forum software displays by default. "Powered by vBulletin", "Powered by phpBB", etc.

searches

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