Huh, good job they developed that Rusty Dagger for Ukraine then. They could make a few for themselves on the quick.

No need to be Putin’s lackey. They are a consolidated industrial concern with famously greedy executives. They could put in effort to develop lower cost munitions, increase manufacturing capacity or let other people join in production. But why? The incentives aren’t there. They make money hand over fist as is. What are people going to do? Buy some competitor’s system? That’s not like going to the big box shop and getting some new kit. And it’s not like their competitors could pump out gear, largely operating on the same model.

I wasn’t trying to call you out for it, just throw it out there. It’s the same for all of us. I’m especially dismayed by European state agencies and governments using AWS.

Well, you probably do use Amazon services without realising. The only really valuable part of the company is AWS and it far from obvious which services run on that. So in our case it would be less about the warehouses and more about the data centers. But the principle should hopefully make the right people nervous and get them to do something about it.

I’m confused this was an issue. I thought history was pretty clear on Europeans introducing smallpox to the Americas. And thus caused an incredible death toll among the indigenous population.

I mean it’s a neat biochemical feat to have stumbled over proof. But I was under the impression it was never in doubt.

China still calls itself “communist with Chinese characteristics”. They quite openly gave their companies strategic goals to fulfill.

It’s all the dorks thinking they could get hold of that sweet big market if only they gave China enough concessions. And there it was always only for the bosses and owners to participate in the windfall, employees be damned. They were played big time and payed themselves huge bonuses in the mean time for selling us out.

As much as that’s good news for anyone opposing Russia’s invasion, it really should give our planers pause. Have we become just as reliant on single points of failure as well? Is there something we could do to prevent the same happening to our Amazon fulfillment centers? Would it have the same or at least similar impact on us? And sadly “us” doesn’t even have to be particularly specified, as I believe it includes just about everybody except China these days. And in China’s case you probably just sub in a different companies name.

Edit for spelling

Next Monday.

If he’s found dead or unable to conduct his duties before then, there’s a special election. If that happens after Monday, the seat simply remains vacant until it’s filled January with whomever wins the regular election.

Most of this entire discussion is missing the point. On the one hand a variety of views and/or options for political representation are needed. This is where first past the post utterly fails. It devolves mostly to a two choice system, as is becoming painfully obvious in the US. Or it might become unstable/unpredictable as seen in the UK where alternative parties are emerging, but probably to the detriment of the old parties. In the end it might well devolve back to a two party system, just two other parties. This is where some form of proportional representation system comes in. More than two parties are viable. But at the cost of stability. Back in schooly politics teacher liked to present Italy as the poster child for why (simple) PR doesn’t work well. Though in recent years the Italian government has proven quite stable. Also, in Italys Case I’d love to run the experiment how they did with nothing changed except for organized crime being eradicated. Alas, in humanities controlled experiments like that aren’t possible. But I’d not be surprised if spectacular corruption wasn’t the bigger problem.

So what could the solution be? First I’d like to see corruption stomped out completely. I know, that’s almost like wishing for world peace, and come to think about it, it’s mostly the same characters that are in the way. Second, the solution is likely to be neither a simple majority system nor a simple proportional system. Ranked choice? My teacher was taken by the German system (a mixture of both), but that has it’s own problems. Or something entirely different, like completely independent publicly funded media. Print, audio and audiovisual. And that media could run regular polls to publicly show which topics are important to people.

I think our problems stem more from the influence on populations rather than the actual modality in which our representation is formed. In Israel you have the corruptive influence of ultra-orthodox and nationalist hardliners mixed with some run if the mill corruption, in Italy you have a gigantic organized crime problem, with some rich people problem, in Germany the Springer group is trying to set up a Fox news situation and in the US you have the Fox/Heritage Foundation/billionaires and general corruption through money problem.

It’s in a lot of ways a modern equivalence to a Peeping Tom. People vehemently don’t want to be recorded without their consent. Doubly so if it’s done underhandedly.

Gute Nachrichten. Die Schokoladenration wird von 40g auf 20g erhöht.

Oh, the possibility that Trump has to hand the trophy to Spain becomes more and more possible. That would be so horrible for him… Go Spain!

They have for decades been at the forefront of cheating. Which party broke into their competitors offices to so on them? Who used the supreme court to stop the count in Florida, where after the fact it was found out they would have (narrowly) lost?

They know they cheat at every opportunity, so they need to accuse their opponents of the same.

More combined starches: Verheiratete (German, something like “married couple”) are a kind of dumplings with potatoes together with diced fried bacon. One of my favourite local foods.

Only if there are ways out for the elite. Otherwise it’s essentially a defense co-op. If you believe your country is using the military in ethically wrong ways, that’s the actual problem, not the draft.

It’s not really even about being a democracy. Kommunist East Germany with one of the most formidable surveillance systems to date could only look on when a sufficient percentage of the population rose peacefully.

I believe the plumbing for democratic change is still present in the US. What is preventing change is people doom scrolling on the couch.

Ich erkläre es mir viel damit, dass die Entscheidungsträger natürlich Auto fahren. Bestenfalls mit Chauffeur/Personenschützer. Was mit der Bahn passiert tangiert die eben nicht direkt. Ich würde wirklich gerne wissen, wie viele Bahn-Manager jemals oder gar gewohnheitsmäßig mit ihrer eigenen Bahn fahren…

Japan wäre aufgrund der hohen Bevölkerungsdichte ohne funktionierendes Bahnnetz nicht lebensfähig. Selbst mit funktionierendem Bahnnetz ist der urbane Verkehr sehr dicht. Keine Ahnung weshalb sich die Schweiz so ein gutes Bahnnetz hält. Aber für Deutschland ist das Netz offensichtlich keine hohe Priorität, zumindest nicht für die Personenbeförderung. Und für den Gütertransport kann man auch einfach die Personenzüge warten lassen. Zumindest müssen die Züge mit denen ich fahre Güterzügen vorfahrt gewähren.

Will there be a special song? “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” is Thatcher.

It’s not about whether a perpetrator deserves to live or not. It’s about the reliabilty of the judicial system. Even this day and age with our amazing forensic techniques, plenty of innocent people get indicted instead of the actual perpetrators. It’s also about what executing people does to the society doing the executions. Honestly, I have tons of sympathy for the character Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame. However in this sort of fiction the people getting killed absolutely certainly are guilty. Reality is much more messy than that.

Also low key warfare with Luhansk and Donetzk “separatists”.