Haha I think they might be talking of how Mastodon doesn't insert ads or bought posts right next to your own posts, so a professional institution like a parliament no longer risks having erection pills or a crypto ad that fakes association with a celebrity next to a post by a political party leader.

The EU itself also has a Mastodon instance with the funny, overly clear name of https://social.network.europa.eu/

But only the institutions of EU, not for EU residents.

I like this idea because it becomes very easy to verify authenticity especially now that verification badges on X is just subscription badges without verification. You simply set up a subdomain of the form social.country.tld (much like the German parliament did) and you'll know forename.surname@social.country.tld is an authentic representative for a political party or whatever. No money involved other than running the instance, which will be a tiny cost for something as niche as one offering a voice for the parliament alone.

So I hope this takes off even more around the world. It is certainly a more democratic way to do social than paying some dude in America that runs his personal garden to have badges.

There are trade unions in the USA but the cultural difference compared to in a Scandinavian country is very striking, both in terms of American vs Scandinavians unions themselves but also their support. It would surprise many Scandinavians to learn that many Americans don't even want trade unions because it's for example commonly seen as that they interfere with career paths, promoting seniority at the cost of new blood or keep the wages low because individual wages can be affected.

I think the culture collision here is that the whole idea behind unions in Scandinavia is to offer a stronger collective voice and bargaining actor to increase wages and other subjects that improves the standards and quality of life / motivation of their employees so that the relationship between the work place and the individual is less asymmetrical.

But it's been a long journey and it still is even if unionizing in USA has seen an uptick in debates lately, because USA has a radical and capitalistic history where there are loud and influential voices that even asking for basic rights on a job can be seen as "greed" and the company looks for someone being less of a bother and not asking these questions instead. All due to weak unions, of course. Otherwise the company would of course lose too much in employee skills by excluding everyone having these demands (and already being union members) like the situation here in Scandinavia where this by consequence is simply not an option.

This is at least my two cents of this entire situation from the "outside" also in Europe, please correct me if I'm wrong...

At least they're trying to. Fortunately, the Russian psyops seem pretty poor in this war and they haven't even managed to pull off any false flag operation to the point of causing contoversy among Ukraine's western allies, and the support remains as strong as one could hope for this long into the war.

I know it's supposed to make them sound good and might indeed be meant for leaking, but all I can think of is the demands on quality assurance and risks of failures down the road if such precision is paramount for the operation of the vehicle and assumed by the teams building it.

So give me a less finicky vehicle, please, and leave that precision for devices not subject to highly varying road conditions at very high speeds and housing people.

This is what I’ve heard too. It’s really no big deal. Concerned local fishermen are probably just not introduced to the physics of this. In general, humans tend to worry a bit more about radioactivity than necessary. This in particular will be diluted into basically nothing. The only real problem is the PR work that lies ahead for them. In practice, their people should probably be more concerned about constantly dying early from pollution and protest more about that.

Looks like a fun thing to kick off the second half with! Good job.

I thought they were so hot at the time. Well, of course, that was like 95% of what the point was with the band so mission accomplished I guess. To celebrate the downfall of Reddit, here's Ne Ver Ne Boysia Ne Prosi of Eurovision 2003. A different age, when Russia was actually seen as pretty OK. It's too bad what has become of Russia because I think their language lends itself well to music. :) Imagine what could have been, a beautiful country stretching through Siberia.

No, if they actually manage to replace Putin, it's not. They are upset that they can't kill Ukrainians as efficiently as they want and that the Russian military is too shitty at it. They are enemies to the West and they are enemies to Ukraine. They are hired criminals that kill, torture, rape and destroy. In fact, they are notorious for carelessly performing war crimes.

My hope is that this conflict will have them decimate each other, neutralizing the Russian military for the foreseeable future and hasten at least a more or less formal ceasefire with Ukraine while that cesspool falls into disarray.

It's a quite scary situation in case Wagner actually gains control. They are no better than Putin and may in fact be worse. No one I want to be in control of nuclear stock piles.

I think the best situation would be if Putin manages remaining in control but with such a weakened state that the Ukraine war is unfeasible for national security reasons, and war fatigue completely takes them so that keeping up with this shit is political suicide.

I mean, Wagner is just angry that they can't kill Ukrainians as efficiently as they want and that the Russian military is shit, having them do all the dirty work. Remember this. That's why they want the command replaced.

Oh my god it’s actually happening.

It's just Erdogan things; he didn't like it being anglicized into the Thanksgiving animal.