rjshae

I see exactly the opposite; it has encouraged material support for Ukraine and has had a significant impact on the ground. Being wishy-washy instead would substantially weaken the West's position against Putin and further encourage his aggression.

The US' so-called "puerile" message encourages Western unity and strengthens the negotiating position vs. Putin. Remember it was Putin that burned that bridge with the territorial grab of the Crimea, an unwarranted invasion, and attacks on Ukranian civilians. There's nothing good about his behavior, and if he burns for it I'll shed no tears.

Bummer. So... back to the way it's always been then.

Looks like a manatee to me. Not sure what brained that makes me.

Yes, the Russian power image is being badly damaged by this conflict. They are starting to look like a paper tiger, and Putin is likely to act increasingly rash.

An intentionally ambiguous message from Russia so they don't get tossed out the airlock? 😬

Next up will be a time travel show in which the troupe goes back to fix social injustice throughout history. That'll keep the writers busy for years.

Finding the most boring person in the world This masterwork deserves an Ig Noble award.

Chris Pine describes 'Dungeons & Dragons' movie as 'Game of Thrones' meets 'The Princess Bride'. Err...

Here in Washington state we have a reservoir called Diablo Lake that is the most striking aqua-green hue: Supposedly it's glacial runoff that produces the hue.

I think it may be possible to simultaneously possess free will and yet not. Consider a universe in which time is two dimensional, but we only see one of the dimensions. The Big Bang is at the center of this two dimensional time plane, and our forward time is actually the slope of maximum gradient of the entropy. I.e. we're inexorably falling down a time cone of increasing entropy. Time is expanding outward in a ring of possibilities along this cone, but we only perceive our point on the ring and the time dimension away from the center. We can't see laterally along the ring, perhaps because there is no net difference in entropy to allow energy exchange. Now we may use our will to choose a particular path and in so doing change our lateral location on the expanding ring slightly. We feel like we have made a choice, but it is only choosing a path in a limited range of outcomes. Your form is also represented on this ring by making the other choice, but neither of you can now perceive the other. Your free will in this scenario is represented by the range of paths you can take on this expanding ring. You chose the path you follow, yet the universe remains predetermined by the (vast) set of possible outcomes. I hope that makes some sense.

There's a few issues with this paragraph: * There's no evidence (yet) that natural immunity is significantly longer lasting than innoculation. * The mortality rate is a step function of hospitalization rate; past a certain point your mortality rate starts to climb. * It has already been demonstrated that the antibody count decline within a few months; what you want instead is a faster physiological response to a new infection.

The issue I have with that idea is the members of the community most likely to transmit the virus are also the ones least likely to die from it. There's little evolutionary pressure for the virus to become less deadly. We're the ones who need to adapt to it.

In what context does an absence of free will matter, as long as we have an entirely believable sense of free will? I'd argue that a free will is consistent with thermodynamic entropy, because we can choose to waste more energy on various pursuits whereas predeterminism only allows a fixed energy budget.

Yes I'm not sure how well they thought through that DLC. There's already plenty of content to play through the first campaign without the DLC, so the motivation to buy it was a bit lacking. Still, with the new campaign, it may become worthwhile. At this point I'm hoping Solasta will become what Realms Beyond should have been; the new GoldBox series.

To be honest it took me a second. Getting old.

Can they though? I wonder. Joining the EU strongly links their economies together and creates a de facto motivation for mutual defense. The Ukraine will be required to uphold certain government principles, which are likely abhorrent to Putin. He wants to control his neighbors, and that will be lacking with the Ukraine in the EU.

China's soaring COVID infections fuel concern about cost of containment I wonder if the CCP is still welding sick people into their living quarters? Hopefully not.

I worked in IT, retiring as a systems analyst.