The same music industry that made it impossible to have open mics in my city because their reps lurk around like little beady eyed trolls threatening to sue coffee shops and taverns over amateur musicians playing covers?
They suck the joy out of music and the day they finally wither and die will be a great day for intellectual freedom.
Unlike typical ballistic warheads, which fly on predictable trajectories as they fall from space to their targets, hypersonic projectiles can change course, making them more difficult to target.
The author doesn't understand what they are writing about. Hypersonic has nothing to do with manuevering, it's a speed definition. Anything traveling at Mach 5+ is considered hypersonic. Western countries already have access to systems that defend against hypersonic missiles. The ability to change direction has nothing to do with being hypersonic.
That’s not a good sign for Ukraine in what is an attrition war. Even their own military is making plans to smuggle their men out if the country because they don’t want to send them to the death trap that is the heavily reinforced WW1 like frontlines. And Zelensky’s response is just to fire and try replace the people doing that, instead of looking as to why that is happening. If the counter offensive tactics are so dire that your own military is doing corruption to avoid sending men to the front, maybe that needs reassessment.
Zelenskiy said a state investigation into centres across Ukraine had exposed abuses by officials ranging from illegal enrichment to transporting draft-eligible men across the border despite a wartime ban on them leaving the country.
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, and I’m certainly no expert. However, I do know that Ukraine has long struggled with corruption, and has been making slow progress over the past couple of decades. And they will always have (there are always, in any conflict) a certain level of partisanship in their own ranks.
I’ve been mildly concerned about what could happen after the invasion; assuming Ukraine is successful, Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship. However, so far I’ve seen little to indicate that he’s anything other than a sincere, effective, and passionate leader – I like the guy, and I’m inclined to trust his judgement. He’s done unexpectedly well so far, and Ukraine under his leadership has been acting up to the highest ethical ideals of the EU.
Maybe Ukraine leadership is making a mistake, but maybe they know something us armchair Generals don’t.
You don’t see his pandering to the EU as stumbling backwards into this whole situation in the first place?
I understand that it comes across as provocative, but from what I understand about his (attempted) maneuvering over the past couple years, he’s kind of a spineless and weak leader who trusted the wrong side and got his country embroiled in a massive conflict.
NATO and the US are not trustworthy allies, and they let him talk up "Ukraine joining NATO ", a very dangerous thing to do, but I don’t believe they had any intention of letting them in at any point. Zelensky should have understood this.
if you ukraine were to win the war (and they won’t) whatever remains of their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts. a lot of the ‘aid’ they’ve received—from the ‘highly ethical’ EU among others—consists of loans that are to be paid back in full and with interest.
and we already know what the cost of these foreign ‘‘aid’’ packages are; privatization (already well under way—ukraine even has their own website); austerity; lower wages; poorer working condition; a crackdown on labor rights and organizing (like banning left-wing parties in your country, which zelensky has already done), etc.
their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts.
But Zelenskyy told me that Ukraine was going to reach a 1 trillion GDP in 10 years by deregulating, selling off public assets, and reforming social programmes. Are you really suggesting he would lie like that?
GDP is just a measurement of money exchanging hands, so I don’t doubt that Zelensky, a man in the Pandora papers for money laundering could figure out a way to get their GDP to a trillion.
I agree, I don’t think it’s particularly noteworthy except for the fact it was all regional recruitment chiefs at once.
This suggests either a high level of corruption (I don’t think it would be more than other places in the conditions) or a power play between elites in the military.
Alternatively their allies have told them to do so.
Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship
Yes and no. His poll numbers surged from about 30% to 88% after the invasion but Ukrainians want a EU path and Dictator Zelenzkyy would be in the way of that. He could certainly win another term in a landslide and do a de Gaulle but I kinda doubt he’s even interested in that, he certainly wasn’t terribly ecstatic about it before the war and with how things are looking martial law is going to continue past the election date, that is, there’s going to be no elections. Meaning that at the end of it all there’s going to be a Zelenskyy who’s first going to take a vacation, and then do another season of servant of the people. Opening scene: Goloborodko wins the elections against the incumbent, a comedian who saved the nation from calamity due to sheer stupid luck (something about an asteroid if I remember my season 1 right). Finally, someone with proper qualifications in office again, a history teacher!
A question, do you truly think the Netherlands or Denmark would honestly let Ukraine join the EU? When they are already moaning about Romania and Bulgaria? Its a pipedream to sell Ukrainians on copium.
The people moaning about people from Romania and Bulgaria are neither the ones profiting from their cheap labour here nor are they who calls the shots on the matter
I don’t know. The EU has been having a bit of a crisis, with candidates from several member states floating the idea of their own Brexits, financial struggles, and bad faith actors. I would hope that if Ukraine met the conditions for membership, then yes. It had been doing pretty well, financially and rule-of-law -wise; maybe not perfect, but steadily improving.
I was surprised by Trump, by Brexit, by the political successes of far-right politicians (Rachele Mussolonis) across Europe. I have no idea which way any of these countries will break.
China’s only politician to be named in a sprawling investigation of millions of confidential financial documents known as the Pandora Papers is a female entrepreneur who the report says set up an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks.
For a parallel the libs can understand: all other allegations aside, it’s extremely clear that Hunter Biden wouldn’t have been on the board of a Ukrainian gas company in the first place if his last name wasn’t Biden.
Are you comparing a fictional character in a fictional story to a person performing IRL? You’re judging his performance in this crisis by hia previous career? Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
No. I am comparing an actor playing a part to an actor playing a part.
Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
Career doesn’t matter. Its who holds their purse strings that matters. Same man who paid Zelensky the actor, paid for Zelensky the president’s campaign. (and also funded neo-nazi paramilitary groups) Same boss. Just a bigger billing. Same job different character.
Ukraine is fucked. As others have pointed out, western vultures are already carving it up via mass privatization (though they may be disappointed with what’s left when the war is over). The “counteroffensive” went nowhere and whether Russia marches all the way to Odessa is really just a question of if they want to at this point. The war was lost before it started and Ukraine will be lucky if it doesn’t get annexed to pieces by Poland et al in the coming months. Best case it keeps some manner of territorial integrity and limps along as a failed state. Not sure Zelensky deserves all the blame for this disaster, as the wheels were in motion at least as early as 2014, but they definitely bet on the wrong horse here.
Yeah, you know, that [checks notes] one copy of a book that the lending library was able to lend* was really eating into their profit margin. Honest to God, they probably spent more money on lawyers over this shit than they’ll ever recoup, and it just makes them look stupid, greedy, and stupidly greedy.
*I think it’s one copy per actually book that’s owned. Just like you can’t lend you friends more copies of a given book than you own.
The publishers have called the Archive’s program a front for mass copyright infringement.
Digital libraries are a front for mass copyright infringement, according to the publishers :)
But for real, what’s the difference between a digital library that artificially limits the amount of books they lend out to the amount of books they scan and a traditional library? I can go to my local library right now, take a book home, photocopy the book at home, and return the book to the library. Not as high quality as a digital copy, but still.
With Irans ability to cut off the Persian Gulf I wonder when people would recognize what a national security nightmare our oil dependency is and start pushing for home grown energy. We should have started 30 years ago but nooo lets ship our wealth overseas
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summaryMOSCOW, Aug 13 (Reuters) - A Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month. “After the inspection group completed its work on board, the Sukru Okan continued on its way to the port of Izmail,” the defence ministry said. A Turkish defence ministry official said he had heard an incident had taken place involving a ship heading for Romania, and that Ankara was looking into it. Firing on a merchant vessel will ratchet up already acute concerns among shipowners, insurers and commodity traders about the potential dangers of getting ensnared in the Black Sea - the main route that both Ukraine and Russia use to get their agricultural produce to market. Since Russia left the Black Sea grain deal, both Moscow and Kyiv have issued warnings and carried out attacks that have sent jitters through global commodity, oil and shipping markets. Russia dismisses that interpretation and says the West failed to implement a parallel agreement easing rules for its own food and fertiliser exports.
Aug 11 (Reuters) - The Internet Archive and a group of leading book publishers told a Manhattan federal court on Friday that they have resolved aspects of their legal battle over the Archive’s digital lending of their scanned books.
If accepted, the consent judgment would settle questions over potential money damages in the case and the scope of a ban on the Archive’s lending and would clear the way for the Archive to appeal U.S. District Judge John Koeltl’s decision that it infringed the publishers’ copyrights.
The proposed order would require the Archive to pay Lagardere SCA’s (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group, News Corp’s (NWSA.O) HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons (WLY.N) and Bertelsmann SE & Co’s (BTGGg.F) Penguin Random House an undisclosed amount of money if it loses its appeal.
The order would also permanently block the Archive from lending out copies of the publishers’ books without permission, pending the result of the appeal.
The Internet Archive said in a blog post that the fight was “far from over,” and founder Brewster Kahle said in a statement that “we must have strong libraries, which is why we are appealing this decision.”
The publishers sued in 2020 over the Archive’s free lending of scanned copies of their print books, which began after libraries closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I thought it was individual authors suing and I could see why they wouldn’t want their works being on Internet Archive. Seeing how it’s actually the most popular book publishers…
A real library is expensive to maintain and adding new additions means even more money with fees and buying more copies if a title is very popular. The public libraries I’ve been to have been empty even right before COVID. I can’t see physical libraries lasting much longer, especially with book bans and defunding.
Most libraries are now hooked up to Libby and rely on ebook licenses for their own library. Ebook licenses are the worst because most popular books are leased on a time limit or cycles (amount of people that read the copy). So if they have something really popular like Harry Potter, that could add up really quick depending.
It’s just like how music streaming services are paying musicians and singers peanuts for their streamed songs while the companies get everything else. Authors already don’t make enough money on royalties as it is, so this is all to line the publisher’s pockets more than anything.
Hope that somebody else will preserve what the Internet Archive can’t in spite of these greedy companies. This along with old recorded music is getting ridiculous.
I hope to God they get sent to the very fucking front. Every last one of them. It made me sick watching videos of these cowards kidnapping men on the streets, beating the shit out of them, then forcing them into the army while taking bribes from rich people to leave them alone. Then to watch videos of those brand new recruits getting obliterated in bradleys and MRAPS by artillery.
I seriously hope each of these fucking murderers steps on a land mine or gets their air and life ripped out of their lungs by a thermobaric rocket.
Yeah, there aren’t many Pumpkins fans left these days, but the Internet Archive still manages to have a collection that beats the Smashing Pumpkins Audio Archive from the early 2000s.
Yeah, there aren’t many Pumpkins fans left these days
Woah woah woah. There are plenty of Pumpkins fans left these days. Damn did that make me feel old. Give us another twenty years before you issue such statements please, Sir or Madam.
Yes, and please back up as much as possible while you’re there. If they take it from us, we build our own Internet Archive, with blackjack and hookers.
Thanks for sharing!
This source compiles with few modifications in Visual Studio .NET 2003 (MSVC 7.1)
see screens: i.imgur.com/PjEAFn5.png i.imgur.com/3obty91.jpeg
Game assets needed from version 1.33 (build 1.1.3.1395)
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