• 0 Posts
  • 502 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle

  • This to me feels like a rift between the generations. I’m too old to likely ever trust these things to function without concern of what they will do. Folk older than me tend to excessively trust this type of tech and the folk younger than me seem the same. In my mind it creates a break between those in the ecosystem and those that are not. Like how a bunch of places in my town don’t have websites but do have Facebook pages for their business. I don’t have a FB account so it’s a pain for me but no one else seems to mind. It’s kinda weird being the generation that helped usher in the internet and modern connectivity yet being kinda left out of tech ecosystems (by choice or by exclusion).


  • I’ll admit that from the very start of the war, I have underestimated Ukraine. When the invasion via Belarus began, my hope was they could hold out for a couple of weeks to allow for a global response. Here we are now and it is absolutely amazing what they have been able to accomplish. I’ve heard they are having recruitment shortages in the military but I’ve also heard about the Russian wonder weapons that are ready but never seem to make it to the battlefield or function. So it’s tough to tell what is misinformation and what is not. If Ukraine is able to continue holding, their position only gets stronger. Taking out Russian oil infrastructure is doing long term damage to the Russian economy but it’s anyone’s guess how long Russia can hold out. I had such high hopes of hearing Swan Lake during the brief Wagner uprising. I wonder when someone in russia will actually organize regime change. The Wagner leader wasn’t getting much pushback in the towns he went through. Most people seemed to support him…and he was a terrible human being. It seems like the Russian people are just in the spot where they want another strongman to take over.



  • The Russian leadership has the benefit of not having to care what the Russian people think. I read that Putins approval rating is still above 70% so there is a long way to fall before there is any hope of regime change in Russia. Without regime change, there is near zero hope that they will halt the invasion. The question then becomes, how long can Ukraine continue the current pace of fighting and resistance. I wish i knew the answer and that they could hold out indefinitely but at some point, they are a smaller country with less resources. The regime change is Hungary has given me hope. Ukraine needs the support of EU countries since the US has thrown in the towel. If the EU can truly galvanize support for Ukraine, I believe this changes the calculus in Ukraines favor. In the near and mid term, the Russian economy can be irrational longer than the people can be solvent. Russia can drag out its decline for a VERY long time. I believe the tipping point hinges on the pace of EU support.



  • I thought about getting a color printer but I realized that I hadn’t used the color features in years anyways. I print documents maybe once a week and with my inkjet I waited for it to do a dance, warm up, and then print. This thing has like a 3 second delay and then immediately prints. It’s pretty amazing. Double sided printing saves paper so I’m happy with it.




  • I’ve been reading these articles for about an hour now trying to figure out the plan. So, Iran blockades the straight and disrupts trade but starts letting some ships through and may be requiring toll payments. Not good but slightly better than nothing. The goal is to open the straight so the global economy doesn’t completely melt and the solution is to blockade all traffic in the straight? The means all traffic from US allies and adversaries. Now, the straight is being blockaded by essentially the US and Iran so no ships go through at all. What’s the plan? Keep it closed for what purpose? Does Trump think the US can ramp up oil, natural gas, and refining to plug the hole in the energy market? Is that the plan? I can’t see anything else making sense.