And might those ethnic Russians have been there due to a sustained campaign on the part of the Soviets to depopulate the region of ethnic Ukrainians and replace them with ethnic Russians as part of a plan to increase loyalty of the region to the central Soviet authority?

You can justify almost anything if you reach back in history far enough. It’s our responsibility to break the cycle and it’s pretty easy to stop believing the framing of a dictator who only wants to justify his territorial ambitions (and who has made noticeable overtures toward the recreation of the Russian Empire).

Hey, quick question, were those votes held before or after Russian troops were occupying those regions?

We have a mandatory approval system for our GitHub at work, but literally no one ever actually looks at PRs, they just blindly approve them. When I first joined the team I tried to actually read them, not knowing this was just formality and got shit on for pointing out errors and stuff like… why the hell are reviews mandatory if everyone just clicks approve without looking? As far as I can tell this system only exists so management can blame the entire team when something goes wrong instead of one person by saying “well someone else should’ve noticed”. And god forbid I am doing something I’m not super familiar with and would like someone else to take a look…

I am in sweat pants or pj pants every second I am not required to be in public. Also denim sucks but I find it more tolerable if I get the jeans that have a decent percentage of elastic, those are just way more comfortable but still look the part.

Also nothing can touch my forearms. I don’t like wearing short sleeve shirts because they are too breezy, but I absolutely must roll up the sleeves of any long sleeve shirts so they aren’t touching my forearms. I live in a place where 0°F (-18°C) isn’t uncommon during the winter, so I will tolerate a coat because it’s more painful to be cold but if I’m shoveling snow or whatever, you bet you’re gonna see some weirdo with his coat sleeves mashed up over his elbows but also wearing gloves… I’ve gotten more than a few comments about that look.

“Give us control of this country or we will kill everyone in it” is not a valid negotiation strategy.

Some tricks I’ve picked up over the years:

Frozen veggies tend to cook into a more consistent texture, which can help with dealing with them. Fresh vegetables seem to just vary weirdly in both taste and texture and that can be a lot to deal with, so going frozen means I have to deal with less variance.

Freeze dried stuff for seasoning, to me anyway, feels much easier to control the flavor levels. I hate onion when there’s too much, and hoo boy is it easy to overdo the onion. But freeze dried onion seems to be less dominant so I can still get some onion without overdoing it.

There’s no shame in having a handful of easy recipes you know are good, healthy, and easy to make (in case it’s a low energy kind of day) and for me the routine of knowing a meal I’ve prepared a thousand times in the same way every time makes it easier to tackle. Then I can feel alright about a healthy meal without it being overwhelming.

Hopefully some of this information is helpful, it’s what I’ve found that gets me through dinner time.

Socks are required at all times, especially indoors, unless showering or in bed. No socks in bed. Socks may be taken off if my feet get too hot but the socks must be left nearby to put back on, and also feet cannot touch floor. Socks nearby can only be then used to retrieve new socks as socks should never be put back on once removed unless in an emergency such as getting too hot.

Ideally said socks are then inside slippers to provide additional insulation from evil floor textures, but no slippers without socks. Also socks can never be pure white, that is disgusting, socks must be ideally black, but dark is fine as long as not majority white fabric. Socks must be tight enough to not move, but also not too tight as to cause discomfort. Also that inside seam near the toes must never be noticeable. If it is, those are coming off immediately and getting thrown away.

Boy this sounds insane when I type out all my rules…

Thank you for your service! Glad you decided to take a look at it to verify, this is all good info to have.

I thought I remembered Apple announcing an end to DRM on iTunes quite a while back and sure enough, it was called iTunes Plus and it launched back in 2009. Not literally everything was DRM free but allegedly the vast majority of stuff on iTunes is and has been DRM free for a while.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/itunes-plus-everything-you-need-to-know/

Caveat: the files still contain your account information, so consider that before sharing.

Everyone knows optimal strategic planning is to gather all your high ranking folks in one place but then also make sure you tell everyone ahead of time that all your leadership will be in that specific place and when they will be there.

Hyundai isn’t pulling billions though. In fact, they announced they are going to expand the plant that got raided and invest MORE in the US. Of course Trump isn’t going to change anything when the people he is harming constantly apologize for getting in his way and immediately cede everything to him.

Source:

https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2025/09/19/H5OCRIZEWJAIFCCVOHVK5TXELM/

Friendly local celiac here,

Cleaning products might be used on surfaces that can be used for food prep. Cleaning agents that contain gluten may leave behind enough to cause contamination issues on subsequent uses of the surface. To be safe, using cleaners that do not have such ingredients will prevent this kind of issue.

Two great assumptions here; that I don’t already read “non-western news sources” and that any different narrative is somehow more true?

Just because Putin says he’s “liberating” Ukraine doesn’t make it any more true than when the Nazis said they were “liberating” Poland. Non-western sources have exactly as much reason to lie to you as western sources do, and it’s kinda up to you to figure that out instead of slavishly consuming state media but it’s a different state so it must be more gooder!

Are you claiming the 81 Russian attacks on maternity centers didn’t happen, or that they did and it just isn’t a big deal?

How incompetent would Russia need to be to “accidentally” attack 81 maternity centers? Unless you think Ukraine is just covered in maternity centers for some reason?

Please clearly state which part of this is untrue. Just saying “western propaganda” is a thought terminating cliche and you know it.

I mean, Americans wanted their government to be “run like a business” and anyone has ever had a real jobs knows that priority one at work is sucking up to management and never even hinting that the boss might be wrong…

Because the cable itself is a factor. Just because the supplier says “I can give you 200 watts”, and the secondary device says “I can take 200 watts” doesn’t mean the cable between is able to carry that.

It’s not even just power but other things like DisplayPort over USB, Ethernet over USB, Thunderbolt, and whole slew of other things a theoretical USB-C cable can do, but not necessarily every USB-C cable.

Nah, sacrifice in regards to your children is absolutely a mindset thing. You can cognitively restructure your thinking in this case.

If you look at your children and think “wow, I’m not getting anything out of this” I can promise you that your children feel this and will become very distant to you when they grow older. They know when you just think they’re a burden.

I think you’re conflating the concept of an opportunity cost with a sacrifice. There is a lot of joy in parenting, and not getting to hang out with friends because you have to take care of your child isn’t a sacrifice, it’s the cost of having a child. Not every single thing you give up is a sacrifice.

I dunno, it literally just looks like a mod for BF3 or BF4. Which would have been fine for just a graphics update and some QoL improvements back in the day, but now all this will be is a Skinner box designed to force you to buy as many microtransactions as possible… Which begs the question of why bother playing this when you could just play BF4 which seems pretty similar but won’t be harassing you endlessly to give EA more money?

He’s been mad about windmills ever since Scotland built some within viewing distance of his golf course there. He tried to argue they’d lower his property values and whatnot but he has been ranting about windmills ever since.