TheMechanic

@TheMechanic@lemmy.ca
1 Post – 28 Comments
Joined 12 months ago

Nearly 320K in the normalest units.

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Super glue.

Cyanocrylate adhesives were accidently discovered in WW2 while trying to develop a clear plastic. Later Eastman-Kodak held the patent and then sold it to Loctite on the 1960s.

Loctite 404 is so much better than anything else available on the market. It bonds better, it's stronger, it lasts longer and the bottle applicator is more controlled and easier to use. If you want it to last years, you can actually store in in the refrigerator when not being used.

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The title states 'book says' making it sound like it's hearsay, but he admitted today that it was true:

https://sh.itjust.works/post/4649482

What an absolute piece of shit, he's not even ashamed of being a Russian agent.

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I grew up in a family who were professional criminals. Nearly all of the first and second generation eventually got into real estate development and the several of the second generation went into tax law. A bunch of other families I knew of got into local politics.

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There has been some good answers, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the details, so I will add my own response.

Culturally Russia sees itself as outside the rest of the world. At the very minimum, an equal to historical empires of Europe or Asia, but part of neither. It sees the USA as an ethnic mongrel with no culture or history, and hates the US power it projects globally.

Russia sees the former Soviet Union countries as property of the Rus people, and NATO involvement as outsider influence in affairs that do not concern them.

Globally, the world values stability more than they value justice or peace. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it came after several other invasions of other former Soviet countries. There was little global response on any occasion.

Putin did expect the invasion to be fast and achieve their goals quickly. It was a mistake on his behalf.

This invasion was taken differently than any previous invasion because it upset global stability. Gas, oil and grain were traded openly with Russia and Ukraine and a war upset the market right when the world was trying to stabilise markets rocked by inflation, pandemic recovery and suppy chain problems.

The result was many countries around the world pledging military support. This was always older generation materiel which essentially costs those countries to maintain. It was the global equivalent of giving a homeless man the doggy bag you didn't want anyway.

Why did they do this? They wanted Russia to pull back, return to its 2014 lines and go back to stability so that global markets could resume. So they gave Ukraine just enough to defend itself, but not enough to win.

Why did they do this? Because the world wants stability more than peace. Of the pledges of materiel, almost none has actually come to fruition. About 1/4 of the armor promised has arrived that was promised. Ukraine continues to beg for alms (or in this case arms), and they do amazing things with the little they are given.

Western powers could arm Ukraine and it would win. They have had no problem spending trillions of dollars over decades to protect their influence. It does not in this case as the World is only just coming to terms that Russia will not stop just for stability.

Putin will cease to be leader if he pulls back. The Russian leader would be seen as weak, and the Russian culture loves a Tsar. Putin believes in luck and will continue the sunk cost in the hope that some outside factor or random event will go in his favor.

The West is already getting bored and tired of a war they aren't even fighting. There is a possibility that pro-Russian Republicans could regain office or power in the US. All Putin has to do is hold and eventually the West will even start telling Ukraine to capitulate to them.

Putin does not care how many troops he loses. Russia doesn't really care how many people it loses unless those people are from the cities. Russian culture dehumanises the poor and mixed ethnicities.

This current grinding stalemate is a direct result of world policy. The world supplies Ukraine with just enough so they don't lose, but not enough that they can win. In the meantime, the arms dealers are circling like sharks. India and China are cashing in on filling global supply gaps and taking advantage of Russias need for materiel frozen by sanctions. The hope would be that world leaders realise before it's too late that the only way Ukraine can win, is that if Russia loses.

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Ban cars in the main street. I'm sure you can learn to walk one block. You might even find you enjoy it when you are not having constant near death experiences with cars.

All those parking spaces are now spaces for pop-up businesses. Food vans, shipping containers that are now selling vegetables, outdoor dining, art fairs, etc.

You can now legally live in those apartments that people used to live in built above the existing shops, before that was made illegal for reasons unknown.

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It's always a baguette and some celery

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The Russian mobilised from prisons are trucked to special units made up of criminals who are sent straight to the front line to die in human wave attacks.

These are small unarmored units with light weapons only. They are sent in waves consisting of many small groups of around six across a long area of frontline. They die in huge numbers and if they turn around and retreat they are killed by other Russians themselves, in what is known as 'blocking units'.

The entire point of their deaths is to spread Ukrainian soldiers and widely as possible and to constantly test the Ukrianian fortification for weakness.

If they find any, bigger infantry units are sent with support from a light armored vehicle with heavier weapons.

This tactic also applies to other people Russia considers disposable. Ethnic minorities such as Buryats, or poor people from rural villages.

In my work I've had a lot to do with successful inventors. Many of them have spotty academic background but have experience in technical trades like machining, fabricating or mechanics.

There are extremely smart and capable people who fall into cracks in the school system all the time. For example due to neurodivergence, family issues or poverty.

I would highly recommend books written by Temple Grandin to learn about neurodivergent education.

You have to know how to operate the oven to reheat store bought pie. Generative LLMs are machines like ovens, and turning the knobs is not creativity. Not operating the oven correctly gets you Sharon Weiss results.

I'm just some guy who can maybe read minds?

I don't know about the microwave. Heat actually breaks the bond for these kinds of adhesives, so if it isn't poisonous, it probably wouldn't work well for that anyway.

I agree. Ukraine did a great job in preparing for an inevitable invasion. Zelensky is the reason the preparations succeeded.

The operator accounted for both the movement of the target and the fall time. These guys have been doing this every day for nearly two years now.

I did spend some of my childhood stealing traffic lights and street signs. It wasn't Satan that made me do it, it was the boy scouts.

Smart enough to nearly figure out a way to avoid a drone, not smart enough to stay home in his own country.

This war was lost over a year ago. None of their aims were achievable after that point.

To understand why it continues you have to understand two things:

Putin will cease to be leader if he ends this.

Putin believes in luck. The longer this continues the more likely of some random event going in his favour or of the West getting bored and withdrawing their support.

He's intentionally dragging out the conflict. The tactics they use are designed to do nothing more than slow down how much territory is lost over time.

Every so often they attack to achieve a little 'victory'. This is then twisted into a massive victory on every tv across Russia. This plus huge pay offerings, gives them endless volunteers. Particularly from rural regions where education is lacking.

Putin does not care how many of his own people he kills. They are nothing to him. The tactic putin is using is based on throwing 10, 20, 100 or whatever number to kill one Ukrainian. That is one less Ukrainian. That is what matters to him.

He wasn't a prisoner until he was disarmed and captured. Until then, he was an active combatant.

The fact he just used perfidy and then failed means the Ukrainians had valid excuse to make him and anyone else in that contact into cat meat. The fact they didn't, speaks volumes to their high character and professionalism.

Don't worry, they have options. They can also take out shitty loans laden with fine print from China

FreeCAD

Country defense is oriented around the most likely attack in the near future. Once Russia is defeated and this war is over, the most likely invader is still Russia. So they are planning on what will defend against what Russia has now.

Moldova has had a Russian backed separatist region called Transnistria since 1990. Moldova has had a hard time, they do not have huge resources they can use, and their military is not well- equipped or funded.

During the Soviet era the country was producing huge amounts of agricultural products. After dissolution, Moldova still relied heavily on export to Russia. It was mostly in their best interest to keep their heads down and carry on, as they do not have the means to fight a serious conflict.

They've also had massive brain drain. Large volumes of young people have been leaving the country for decades. Many young people with Romanian heritage applied to become Romanian-EU citizens when Romania joined the EU.

They have slowly been pivoting towards a pro-EU policy. Whenever they make an obvious plan to head more towards becoming European, Russia will often apply some kind of sanctions. It's been a common tactic over the last few decades for shipments of wine, cognac or other Moldovan products to be seized and 'destroyed' by Russian customs officials in retaliation for Pro-EU policy shifts by Moldova.

When the Preisdent of Belarus, Lukashenko, leaked Russia's Ukrainian invasion plans, Moldova was shown as being a point of troop movement. So Russias invasion plan definitely originally included Moldovan territory as well.

Many Russian conscript POWs have said they never handled a weapon. They were told they were going to be drivers, then trucked somewhere to then be given a shovel and told to dug trenches. Then a few weeks later trucked to the front-line and told to sit in a hole and observe.

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It's the traditional Soviet arty command for fire. A song featuring it has become a hit and the term has begun to be used by pro-invasion Russians to comment on propaganda videos.

The Ukrainians are probably using it as a form of ironic comedy. Because Russians are the ones being fired upon.

Rage comics were better and were actually a modern form of Commedia dell'arte or Masked Theatre, in such that it used stock characters and so plot could be both meaningful but simple. Wojacks lack implied character and context, so story or character depth requires explanation which doesn't usually work as well with that form

That's exactly the point of this. To hold the position Russia has to have safe logistics and fortified positions. Ukraine only needs to increase the grey zone to disrupt Russia's logistics into Tokmak to collapse the front on the South.

Certain weapons have stopped being produced. As you can see from the missile types that are fired by Russia now compared to early in the invasion, the varieties have gone down to only a few types.

This is because stored supplies are being depleted, components are hard to come by, and Russia is focusing on only producing missile types with the greatest success rate of reaching their targets.

When I wrote the above I thought, hah someone's going to be like 'bUt HoW WilL tHe vAnS gEt tHeRe jEeNiuS?'. But then I thought, nah noones that iamverysmart. Yet, here we are.

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