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Just that I agree that we should be very skeptical of reports of the "Russian position" on things especially when the reports are so contradictory but also that I found the post funny because my own Russian family members actually do hold a lot of very contradictory beliefs* on the war in Ukraine, such as it both being and not being a war. Also, that I'm trying not to apply my experience with them to anyone beyond them who has not explicitly stated their stance(s) *Who hasn't been guilty of this at some point though I do think it's especially sad because I have family on both sides of this conflict, though only the ones in Ukraine are in danger

Well, not as fancy, but here goes nothing: Corsair 4000D Airflow black Intel Core i5-12600K ASUS ROG STRIX B660-A 32 GB DDR5-5200 Corsair Vengeance ZOTAC GAMING Twin Edge RTX 3060 2 TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO be quiet! Dark Rock 4 4x be quiet Pure Wings 2 The 3060 is up for a replacement once the 40s come out and prices have died down a little, but it's more than good enough for all my needs right now, so not really much of a priority upgrade. Quite a deafening silence in the room now. Eery.

And now nobody can do Z for Zorro anymore. Thanks russia.

Out of Xzar's list, only "2) Russia also clears essentially all of its western front in order to attack Ukraine, because it knows perfectly well that NATO has no intention to attack it, ever." may be interpreted as a speculation. Everything else can be fact-checked. Unless, of course, we speculate that Russia is so mired in lies that absolutely nothing their officials and propaganda mouthpieces say can be taken at face value....what would still prove Xzar's point, but in a roundabout way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, given how Putin's army has behaved in the war so far, it is probably better to die in battle than be taken prisoner. In the first instance, death is more likely to be quick and perhaps even completely painless, whereas the latter may be extremely painful and humiliating and take a lot of time, after which you also die. Russia has ratified the Geneva Conventions but does not care for them. This is just one example of the international treaties it has broken in this war, which is, yet again, more proof of its lack of truthfulness. A country very much not to be trusted. By the way, parts of Russia's behaviour are simply astonishing. The country is behaving like a spoiled child, or something. To give a very recent example: Russia has pointed out that if Finland and Sweden join NATO, there will be consequences and they most definitely should not do it. Now, at this point, a reasonable outside observer might say: Finland and Sweden are sovereign countries, from which it logically follows that whatever Finland and Sweden do (that is in accordance with international law) is absolutely frigging none of Russia's business, so shut up. It appears impossible for Russia to understand or accept this.

Honestly, it's not a very large sample size (basically 2 households, one in eastern Russia and one in western Russia) and my wife has to translate most of it for me because my Russian is terrible and these topics always lead to fights so are largely avoided but I'll try. 1) The Moskva came up because my wife's uncle is a proud Captain 1st rank (retired). He holds a view like what you posted, the ship sank because of an accident and not because Ukraine attacked it but also that they must avenge it and make Ukraine pay. It might be important to note that he lost his eldest son on the Kursk and that also colors his views on top of being a proud Russian naval officer. 2) It's entirely glossed over, there is no contradiction. Putin is in Ukraine to save Russian lives and reports of dead Russians are propaganda and also acceptable for the greater good and it's also payback for the 2014 Odessa clashes and other incidents were Russians and pro-Russia supporters have been killed. Though their view of those incidents tends to vary pretty wildly from what I've read about them but I honestly can't say if their sources are better than mine or not. I hope that helps a little bit. I'm trying to be fair to them despite strongly disagreeing with them, they are family after all.

Correct. And this is something the West will soon need to get a grip on, because even relatively minor states like North Korea and Iran will soon begin to try and use the possession of nukes as leverage to demand and take what they want and "deterrence" against retaliation for their bad behavior. Like anyone else, I have no wish to see nukes getting used by any state, but at the same time it bothers me like crazy that our Western leaders and governments are so very sensitive to the prospect of Russia escalating to using nukes that they end up tip-toeing around Putin and his criminal behavior. Too damn sensitive, imo.

I've been using Windows 10 for a while now, and I still think the start menu on it is garbage compared to Windows 7. Feel free to take a bet on whether I'll "get used to it pretty quick" when/if I ever upgrade to Windows 11, .

Has to be 300. Thermopylae!

If I'm mistaken, Xzar can correct me, but I think that with "1) The ship Moskva sunk because there was a fire on board. 2) Retaliatory attacks on Ukraine are needed because the ship Moskva sunk." he wasn't referring to (possibly) retaliatory attacks, but Russia's news channels in unison stating how Moskva sunk because of fire on board (as if ship sinking out of incompetence is somehow a better spin than it being sank by the enemy...), and at the same time, on the same TV channels their propaganda dogs howling for Ukrainian blood because "revenge for Moskva!" Oh, and those of you who read about that guy from Novatek who "killed his wife and daughter before killing himself" in Moscow, may experience deja vu today as you read about the guy from Novatek who "killed his wife and daughter before killing himself", but those are different guys from Novatek. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-novatek-manager-protosenya-dead/31814581.html

Tell Putin that the expansion of NATO is about to Finnish...

Well in Russia it works the way, that the only allowed view on their TV, is the view of the Kremlin. There were definitely more than one occassion of Moskva sinking and need for revenge on Russian TV. I've seen myself two snippets of official state propaganda on the matter, and both in line with "Ukraine will pay for the Moskva, which sunk because of non-professional handling of ammunition on the deck". Tucker Carlson is a nuts, but it is still impossible to compare it to the propaganda spewed on the Russian state TV.

@ShadySands, thank you very much, that was very interesting. It is both fascinating and terrifying to note this ability to both hold a contradictory view on a subject and ignore the contradiction -- and in a matter such as this. There is some literature on the subject of people's interior lives within totalitarian regimes (The Whisperers by Orlando Figes being one example), and it is an engrossing subject. @kanisatha, and thanks to you, too. The use of nukes in the endgame does indeed seem like a logical conclusion of sorts. A terrifying prospect, of course.

Yeah, you know, just yesterday I saw a news story in which a senior security official in the Biden Administration was quoted as saying that US policy is now to ensure that Russia "does not win" in Ukraine, effectively a denial strategy against Russia. I hope this is true, because then I would finally have something to cheer about.

Heh. Things are looking pretty bright for them. New weapons in from the US as well, maybe I can stop hearing all this panic mongering in the media now.

Today has been very fruitful for the Ukrainian air defense: 3 aircraft (1 Su-25, 2 unspecified models of Su), 2 helicopters (1 KA-52, 1 Mi-8), 1 Orlan-10

This is correct. Putin in his today's speech after stopping the assault has said, he is doing it to save Russian soldiers lives, he does not give a single **** about the children there. He specifically said, that the Russian soldier should not allow a single fly out of Azovstal. The interesting thing is, that right after that statement, Polk Azov already released video of destroyed Russian Tank, and they released a statement, that after this announcement in matter of two hours they destroyed 3 tanks, 2 BMPs, and something, which my limited knowledge of Ukrainian spoken language was not able to decipher. And this is the response from Ukrainian partizans: the approx translation is: "For occupants and collaborators: We are close, we are already working in Kherson, death awaits for all of you. Kherson is Ukraine. (this has been posted very soon after someone killed pro-russian blogger in Kherson) I have seen few Russian ex-athletes, who run away from Russia, to support this banning of Russian athletes, with the reasoning behind being, that the Russian athletes were always tools of Russian propaganda. Just think about the crazy big scandal of web of state controlled doping few years ago. Up until now, Russian have been denying, that this is truth, as much as they are still denying they shot down the civil plane over Donbas.

I don't see much benefit in grabbing this region as a bulwark against NATO. Speculatively it does provide some agricultural land, natural resources, and direct access to the Crimea. Perhaps Putin also views this aggrandizement as a potential jumping off point for further incursions? A step by step takeover. Are Ukraine's vast natural resources a real reason behind Russia's invasion?

2200€, all in all, although that varies wildly since graphics cards change prices like some people change underwear. 400€ today, 600€ tomorrow. It's not pre-built but built to order. https://bestware.com/en/ Not sure if they ship to Serbia.

I think it is more because Russian's realized that it is death trap that Ukraine has build since 2014. They have dig there several kilometres worth of underground tunnels with defensive positions to make it very difficult to storm. So Russians leadership probably realized that by blockading and bombardment they can free their troops to other battlefronts and avoid losing troops unnecessary for little gain.

Precisely this is what I meant. Presenting these two simultaneously is illogical in the extreme. If the ship sunk because of a fire, clearly there is no need for revenge, but as revenge is called for, clearly the ship did not sink because of a fire.

The victory parade (mentioned in the video) and Russia's heroic victory over the Nazis also nicely ignores some extremely important parts of Russian history -- and, as such, yet again underlines how blatantly the country is ready to gloss over its own deeds. Russia started World War II as an ally of the Nazis. This is not something the country wants to remember. The big problem is not in the shifting alliances that may come along in times of extremity. The big problem is in the inherently untruthful approach that the country has taken in relation to itself, and, apparently, pretty much everything else as well.

Quote of the day: "The fox knows many tricks. The porcupine knows only one. But it's a really good one."

The juxtaposition of homosexuality & pedophilia is one of the worst things to have been done to the LBGT folks. Children CAN be "groomed" by pedophiles because they don't know it's happening and can't fight back against it. I don't think it possible to "groom" someone to be gay. The reason being is by the time a kid has reached their teenage years and is actually able to be sexual they have developed to a point of knowing what they like and don't like. Don't get me wrong, teenagers are in no way emotionally mature enough to cope with adult life decisions and consequences. But they do have enough agency to decide who they are attracted to and likely enough savvy to avoid perverts assuming they had not been victimized earlier. The damage pedophiles and other abusers do to children is horrifying and often life long. I'm against the death penalty but I'd almost make an exception in that case. I'd even make them dig their own hole and stand in front of it. But treating homosexuality and child sex abuse as the same thing is a gross injustice. Doing so for the purely cynical reason of scaring people to vote a certain way is equally so.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Right. So your musings about Russia's collective insanity is supposed to get a pass because, hey, it's "not confirmed" or what? How does that work? I'm sorry that you regard my calling you out as hostile. It's the nature of an open environment where you post stuff, and people respond. You are of course free to keep waxing psychological, and there is no need to respond to me. But expect that I, and possibly others, will continue to reply to things you post whenever. And by all means, go ahead and talk to my "boss". Here, I'll even tag him for you, so we can finally put the matter of moderators having opinions *gasp* to rest so that it's not something that merits a passive aggressive remark every time one of us posts something that a member doesn't like. @Fionavar It can be fact-checked? Can you verify that strikes on a variety of targets, including a missile workshop are in retaliation for the sinking of the Moskva, and only because of that? Can you show that there were no such strikes previous to the Moskva being sunk? I mean, a stated goal of the invasion is demilitarization of the country, so it stands to reason that they would attack such a target -- much like they've been doing from day one. Their rationale has been "it's in retaliation for attacks on Russian soil", of which we've seen one or two in the past few days. Don't get me wrong, this is Russia spinning facts to fit a narrative, but it is not internally inconsistent and suggesting that it's evidence of "madness" is a bit of a stretch.

Hardware just arrived. Funny, usually you get a "warranty void if opened" sticker on the case. Not so this time, there's a huge fat sticker on the case that reads: REMOVE TRANSPORT PROTECTION BEFORE TURNING ON. Yeah no wonder, the transport protection is a bag of instant foam. If you'd turn the computer on while the CPU and graphics card are wrapped in hardened material blocking all airflow, you'd get some very expensive and quite crispy trash. Well, time for the not so fun stuff, let's see if it works and set everything up. Now, where did I put my display port cable? Hmmm. Questions, questions.

I agree, if you want to spend maybe 10 minutes doing your own research or following any international media house most of the stories about Putins War are true @213374U I would recommend you stop streaming RT as your news source around Putins War, its well known to biased and pushes Putins propaganda. The worst lies I have heard from Russia is directly from the Russian ambassador in SA when he use to do interviews in the beginning ( they have stopped interestingly enough ) He stated on a talk show publicly that " civilians and civilian building are not being targeted and its the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and freed Ukrainian prisoners that are guilty of executing people and bombing hospitals "

I have not ignored anything, nor have I flat out rejected anything. I have also made it very clear that much of what I have posted cannot be regarded as confirmed -- just go back and check. At this point, I question your ability to read. I can't see any point in responding to you any further, as your tone continues to be both surprisingly hostile and very inappropriate. If this was a real-life situation (i.e. you being in an administrative position in a shop or something, like you are a moderator here), I'd have a chat with your boss. Here, there is no such option.

It really sounds like you defending the Russian media updates as possibly credible and or truthful? And it sounds like you suggesting their is a Russian perspective where Putin didnt lie to the world and didnt invade Ukraine? What exact " version of facts " should we be believing? I realize you never respond to my posts but this week after ignoring me for at least 18-24 months you responded to a post I made to tell me I was wrong about something so I hope you can muster that same herculean effort to answer the question " what truth should we be reading and believing " ?

puns, eh? well then, am gonna suggest nato may sweden the deal before they is finnished. and that effort at pun should last us another six months. HA! Good Fun!

Okay, maybe not random game news, but it's kinda funny, at least when viewed through the lense of too little sleep and a tiring couple of weeks at work: I suppose it is not entirely impossible to write for a game without using any pronouns at all, but it is most likely going to be a bit of an awkward read. There are languages where the use of pronouns is fairly limited or generally ungendered (as far as I know Hungarian doesn't distinguish between third person based on gender at all, neither does Mandarin), or they are a different class/type of word than what we would understand as such (Japanese pronouns are simply nouns and behave as such and also have different meanings), and there are a handful that have no pronouns as separate words (like the Iroquoian languages, they have pronominal verb endings), but as far as I know every language we have has a way to refer to people in some form or another. Think about it, it would be really strange to have no way to do that. Languages exist to talk to other people. Even if you can leave them out because the context makes it clear and your languages allows for that, they're still implied. They (oh, snap!) of course meant the game has customizable pronouns that replace them in the text when set accordingly, a feature that does not need to be used and defaults back to regular usage when unused. Seems like a trifle to get one's panties in a bunch, but what do I know, maybe it really is possible to catch the gay from a computer game that allows you to pick the pronouns used to address your character.

I generally agree with this but that totally represents my in-laws in Russia... though if it must be said, I cannot say whether those same sentiments are as widely held by the majority of Russians.

I'm actually surprised that the remnants in the steel factory still have (or had) food and water left after so much time. The way I understood it, there must be at least ~1k people. Try getting rations for so many people if you are surrounded.

I just realized that there is a nuance with regards to how Enfeebled lengthens debuffs. Enfeebled will attempt to "remember" how long a debuff has been running on an enemy and lengthen it for the corresponding duration. That is to say, Enfeeble will lengthen a 10 second debuff by the same amount regardless of whether 0.1 seconds or 9.9 seconds have lapsed. A perhaps unintended consequence of this behavior, however, is that you can get ridiculously lengthy debuffs by applying Enfeebled after repeatedly applying the same debuff, because Enfeeble does not understand that you have been reapplying the debuff when it attempts to "remember" its total duration. As you can see in this screenshot, my strategy for the Nemnok fight was to repeatedly stunlock him with Inspired Strike, and at this time he had been stunned for about a full minute. When he had about 5 seconds left of stun on him, I managed to Enfeeble him and was extremely surprised to see the stun duration jump up to 50 seconds.

another unfortunate and predictable side-effect o' the pandemic, other than inflation, has been the rise o' rat aggressiveness and even cannibalism. warning: the following clip may be too disturbing for sensitive viewers is exactly the kinda thing which shoulda' been anticipated, though perhaps some good may come from this if enough o' the filthy rodents destroy each other. HA! Good Fun!

also works

Ah, if only basic math was exciting enough to engage 8-year old kids by the numbers alone. I'm going to address the last statement "We are lagging behind much of the rest of the world" first. That is tied completely to economics and poverty. It isn't the textbooks. It isn't the teachers. It isn't the curriculum. Poor states have poor test scores. States that don't spend money on students don't see growth. It is a cycle of inequity. This is, of course, a simplification, because poverty can change drastically, county to county, district to district, and school to school. Now back to the SEL, or CRT, or whatever buzzword you want to give to teaching to the whole child and not just their number-sense. It's important. They are kids. A few will probably be really into the numbers and will thrive no matter what, but most are going to need incentive. They are going to need to be engaged. Representation is important. Girls Who Code is a great example of that. Ok, I'm on Spring Break, so I'm out of energy to talk about education.

https://casel.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/SEL-in-Elementary-Math-8-20-17.pdf SEL instructions for Elementary schools seem to focus on how students are able to focus better on studying and how to do group work and to link math to real world. All things in that instruction sound pedagogically sound for me.

That would make things soooo much easier!

Suicide bombers ?