SirEDCaLot
Good to see some slow progress being made. Absolutely pathetic and abhorrent that it has taken so long though. Hopefully DEA acts on this quickly. That said, schedule three also seems far too harsh. Anyone with any familiarity with cannabis, either as a user or knowing those who use it, can tell you that it does not meet the risk guidelines of schedule 3 (Abusing the drug can cause severe mental addiction, or moderate physical addiction). For the record, it’s companions on schedule 3 would include anabolic steroids and ketamine.
Interesting.
Ukraine is known for thorough corruption at many levels of government. Zelenskyy first got elected for that reason- he was originally an actor who starred in a movie about a politician who decided to end corruption. He then ran for office on that platform and won. But when the system is thoroughly corrupt through and through, fixing it is not an overnight process.
My initial thought is perhaps this anti-corruption unit is itself corrupt, so it’s making up an excuse to justify its own existence.
As for high profile corruption being swept under the rug- what I know of Zelenskyy suggests he would be less likely to turn a blind eye to that. I could of course be wrong though. And I suspect if he brings a high profile treason corruption case against a few well known people and has them jailed or shot for treason, that will send a very strong message to the rest that this isn’t tolerated anymore.
That will of course put a target on Zelenskyy’s back, but that’s always been the case (especially since Russia invaded).
Absolutely!
I find in life it’s generally useful to not take things at face value, rather, ask what set of situations and motivations would make people say and do the things they are saying and doing? Asking that question a lot about a person and looking at a lot of their words and actions tells you an awful lot about a person, taking people you know at least something about and asking that about how they are acting tells you a lot more about that situation than you’d get at first glance.
So here we have Zelenskyy, a person elected on a platform of fighting corruption, and an anti-corruption unit whose official assigned mission is to find corruption and root it out and punish the corrupt. That SHOULD make them allies if not friends. And yet, Zelenskyy has just transferred the bulk of their mission away from them, to the security service. He’s also elevated the level of crime that corruption is classified as, and thus also the level of investigation and punishment it would carry.
So I ask, why would he do such a thing? Why would an anti-corruption President transfer anti-corruption activities away from the anti-corruption unit and to the security service? What is the motivation for this action?
And why does the anti-corruption unit respond with such a serious accusation (that the motivation is to cover up corruption of the inner circle)?
So let’s start with the first question- why did this change happen?
The most obvious answer to me is that Zelenskyy feels the anti-corruption unit is not doing their job well enough. Specifically, if corruption has infiltrated many levels of UA government, that he may feel the anti-corruption unit is itself corrupt, or that they are otherwise ineffective and are not finding enough corruption fast enough. So he gives the job to an agency that 1. has no history of dealing with corruption and thus potentially is less likely to itself be corrupt, and 2. has very sharp teeth as it is used to dealing with much worse things than domestic corruption. And he gives them the order to bite hard- by framing corrupt government officials as traitors and ordering them charged accordingly, the security service has a real mission that they will take seriously and assign good agents to.
And then, why does the anti-corruption unit speak out in this way?
Well they obviously don’t like losing stature, and perhaps they are just pissed off at potentially losing their jobs. So it could be plain old revenge- throw some accusations at the President who spat in their faces. But this feels a bit sharper than that. They didn’t just say this was a bad idea (‘why are you benching the most talented anti-corruption agents in such a critical time?’), they are throwing a specific accusation (‘this is only happening so corruption of the inner circle can avoid being publicized’). That’s a pretty strong accusation.
So I look at these questions, and ask what situation would cause both Zelenskyy’s action and the anti-corruption unit’s accusation in response? I come up with two possible answers.
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The most likely one to me seems that the anti-corruption unit is either itself corrupt or is generally ineffective, and thus Zelenskyy is unhappy with them and that’s why they are losing the assignment. And so they fight back hard, probably because (if they are corrupt) they know the security service will find that out, so they want to at least muddy the water first and make the whole process seem politically-motivated and itself corrupt. That way when they are themselves accused of corruption, they can claim it’s for political reasons, not because they are actually corrupt.
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The other possibility is that their accusation is valid- that this change IS intended to cover up inner circle corruption or deal with it more quietly. And that possibility has three sub-possibilities.
2a. Choice A is that Zelenskyy is only acting on the advice of corrupt advisors, who are feeling heat from the anti-corruption unit and have persuaded Zelenskyy to transfer anti-corruption activities away from a unit that is hot on their tails. They feel they can better control the security service and direct them away from their own corruption, so they advise Zelenskyy to do this and he does it because he is focused on the war with Russia and mistakenly trusts those advisors who are themselves corrupt.
2b. Choice B is that Zelenskyy has identified corruption within his inner circle and needs it dealt with strongly, quickly, and quietly- without creating a public situation that can be exploited by Russia or his political opponents (who may themselves have Russian influence). So he DOES want the security service to deal with Cabinet-level corruption quietly as is being accused, but that won’t result in the guilty being punished any less harshly.
2c. Choice C is the least likely IMHO- that Zelenskyy himself is corrupt, or has decided to allow or tolerate a certain amount of corruption within his cabinet, perhaps from corrupt people who have proven themselves useful in some other way.
So of those 4 choice, choice 1 and choice 2b seem the most likely to me. And given that this anti-corruption unit has been working at their mission for years and there’s still tons of corruption in UA, that says to me they are probably not very good at their jobs. Thus, I advance Choice 1 as the most likely option.
They are right that Shorts are harming YouTube, in the same way that Windows 8 harmed Windows.
YouTube and TikTok are different things. People go to TikTok for a specific thing, people go to YouTube for something else. And YouTube sees a bunch of people on TikTok, and says ‘if that’s what people want we should be the ones to give it to them’. But in doing so, they are ignoring the people who WANT YouTube and NOT TikTok, by making YouTube more like TikTok.
This is just like Windows 8. Microsoft saw a bunch of people ditching desktop PCs in favor of iPads, so they said ‘let’s make Windows more like an iPad’. Thus, Windows 8- only one app open at once, touch-focused interface that was frustrating with a mouse. It ignored the people who WANT Windows and NOT iPad, by making Windows more like iPad.
The simple fact is, Shorts are frustrating. The lack of a scrub bar and volume control are a big part of why I DON’T like TikTok, especially on PC. And seeing that same crappy format on the desktop YouTube web interface is a big turn off.
If there was an option to just ‘never show me Shorts’ I’d click it in a heartbeat.
There are much bigger problems with YouTube than Shorts though. One of the biggest is their content moderation. I get it, there’s 50 hours of video uploaded every minute and you can’t watch it all so you let automated system handle it. Problem is, people RELY on YouTube to make a living in many cases. And when some asshole can destroy their livelihood by filing a couple hundred obviously false bot reports, that makes creators think twice. Same thing when the policies you DO have seesaw between allowing some really offensive stuff, and persecuting types of content that people in California dislike.
What YT needs to do is rethink the whole way demonetizing works. Rather than being a single flag that instantly makes a video ineligible for monetization, they should have categories of advertisements. So that way if someone wants to post a video that has controversial themes like (for example) firearms or marijuana use, rather than being entirely demonetized, the video can show ads from gun companies or smoking supply companies. Advertisers could specify what sort of controversial content they are willing to be promoted alongside, so everybody could win.
Another huge problem is their awful ‘engagement algorithm’. It seems expressly designed to make low quality content bubble to the top, while the really good stuff is harder and harder to find.
Yes exactly. And that’s why I don’t jump to the assumption that Zelenskyy himself is corrupt or he is covering for the corruption of others.
A dude that would tolerate corruption doesn’t say ‘I need ammunition not a ride’. He could have bailed at any point, still could. But he shows no signs of losing resolve.
If Zelenskyy is trying to keep inner circle corruption private to avoid public spectacle, I suspect that whoever is found guilty will probably end up wishing they were arrested publicly rather than dealing with the security service.
This is not good news for Russia.
The TB2 drone is slow and not stealthy. It’s relatively cheap compared to something like a Predator or Reaper, but still isn’t anywhere near disposable. It’s a sitting duck for any sort of serious air defense, and it’s most effective when air defenses are little or none.
If UA is succeeding in harming RU’s air defenses, that could signal a larger shift in the war. UA has had a very successful ‘dial for bullets’ campaign getting more and more modern munitions out of Western allies, and from what I’ve heard that is starting to include actual combat aircraft. If UA is dismantling RU’s air defenses, and if UA gets modern aircraft of their own, there’s a possibility that UA could end up claiming air superiority over much of their territory. And THAT is a game changer.
It seems unlikely on the face of it, as RU has a great many modern aircraft and pilots to match. But then again, since the start of the war, RU has gone from the 2nd best military in the world, to the 2nd best military in Ukraine, to (up until Prigozhin blinked) the 2nd best military in Russia. So maybe their reserves of functional combat aircraft are overstated.
Either way though, this is NOT good news for Russia.
Routers - Netgate / pfSense. Best router GUI I’ve found. If you understand what you want to make happen, chances are you can figure out how to make it happen without touching a CLI. And generally free of Cisco for license bullshit.
Routing and WiFi- Ubiquiti. Not as flexible as pfSense but even easier to use and if you do both routing and WiFi with them you get a bunch of cool analytics. Their surveillance package is great too as long as you use their cameras, pretty much the best mobile surveillance app I’ve found. Door access system also gets a mention.
Synology for almost everything they do, but particularly storage, backup, surveillance (they support almost every camera, albeit with a license requirement) and hosting of self hosted apps using a nice docker GUI. Not as much bang for buck vs. an old PC in terms of CPU power, but very easy to use.
For home automation- Home Assistant or HomeSeer. Both are open platforms that support almost everything. Home Assistant pulls lightly ahead for me because it’s free and has more 3rd party integrations, even if it has a steeper hearing curve in some areas and some rough edges that require tweaking for basic usability (specifically, Z-Wave requires the ‘z-wave js ui’ plugin to take real control over a Z-Wave mesh, and Z-Wave door locks need the Keymaster plugin to get any sort of user code management, neither are straightforward to install). That said- pair Home Assistant with a Z-Wave dongle and some Inovelli light switches and you have a really beautiful setup with insane flexibility.
Interesting. And also concerning for Russia. As @DarkThoughts pointed out below, if they are pulling air defense from anywhere it suggests they are running out of equipment. Which is surprising, because air superiority is critical for them to maintain what they’ve taken in Ukraine let alone prevent strikes on their own territory.
I would think that whoever’s in charge of RU’s military would understand this and prioritize it, and/or could explain to Great Leader how important it is that no matter what else happens that UA not own the skies. If that’s not happening then either that guy’s a moron, or Putin isn’t listening, or the RU air force / military procurement system is in much worse shape than we thought.
If UA gets air superiority over their own held territory, and especially over contested territory, then the ‘special military operation’ might as well be over.