With ferries and heavy rail over the Kerch Strait Bridge unlikely, it seems Russia is left with the new rail line being built through lower Ukraine (don’t know if its finished yet) and/or trucks across the bridge (not sure the volume it can accommodate). Seems like Crimean logistics are going to be constrained in the short term.
My recollection is that the ruble is restricted (partially/mostly?) from being traded by the Russian government. So, most of the ruble currency exchange is on the black market, which wouldn’t be what Google finance shows.
I semi recall reading something a year or so ago about the black market ruble value being half of the publicized value, so maybe what she is referencing is a recent significant drop in the black market ruble value.
I’m pretty sure the 3rd pre-war bridge was taken out (yesterday?). So, all Russia has left is the pontoon bridges (2?) and possibly one was taken out earlier today (1 left?).
To me, it seems Ukraine is trying to trap troops and equipment below the river and get a large personnel surrenders and equipment recovery.
I would add that you can swallow air to create the need to burp.
Relevant text:
Ukrainian crews say the fundamental problem is that the Abrams were built for advances aided by air power and artillery, which Ukraine lacks.
Russia, meanwhile, continues to make heavy use of drones in its attacks, which the Abrams struggle to defend against.
Just finished V Rising. I really liked it. For those who don’t know and are curious, it’s one of those games where, if you can’t beat a boss, you just have to get better. There’s some small things that make a fight easier, but it basically comes down to you understanding the enemy and learning to play better.
No particular order, but it seems I hit quite a few different genres.
Relevant Section on the genetics:
For the study, the researchers took blood from five of the cats, which had been adopted, and conducted a DNA test on four of the felines, which turned up no genetic mutations associated with white fur.
They then performed a whole genome sequencing for two of the cats, and this step turned up a deletion in what’s called the KIT gene, which can encode whether white will turn up in a feline’s coat (scientists have also connected variations in the KIT gene to piebald patterns in various animals like horses and mice.)
“In summary, comparative data from other species and genotype segregation analysis support the newly discovered KIT region deletion as potentially being a cause of salmiak coat color in cats,” the researchers conclude.
Same with golfing, bowling, darts, etc. I think part of the enjoyment of these types of sports/games/competitions is to see how close to perfection you can get.
My understanding is that some of the benefits China would get from invading Taiwan is the control of Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry. So making it public knowledge that any invading force (i.e. China) would not be able to take over their production capabilities is a small deterrent.
Interesting piece of the journal article:
On the contrary, many analysts reject historical precedents as guides to contemporary policy. Perhaps they should take warning from the aforementioned infamous 1972 Club of Rome/MIT study, Limits to Growth (LTG) [99], which showed that, on a business-as-usual track, global society would face collapse by mid-21st century. As might be expected, many economists and techno-optimists roundly rejected this assessment—economists ignore overshoot and even grossly underestimate the damage from climate change; their concepts and models are divorced from biophysical reality [100]. However, subsequent studies show that the real world is behaving with disturbing fidelity to LTG modelling, particularly the two (of four) scenarios that indicate a halt in growth over the next decade or so, followed by subsequent declines and collapse [101].
[Emphasis mine]
Complete Abstract:
Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources. For most of humanity’s evolutionary history, such expansionist tendencies have been countered by negative feedback. However, the scientific revolution and the use of fossil fuels reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth. This natural capacity is being reinforced by growth-oriented neoliberal economics—nurture complements nature. Problem: the human enterprise is a ‘dissipative structure’ and sub-system of the ecosphere—it can grow and maintain itself only by consuming and dissipating available energy and resources extracted from its host system, the ecosphere, and discharging waste back into its host. The population increase from one to eight billion, and >100-fold expansion of real GWP in just two centuries on a finite planet, has thus propelled modern techno-industrial society into a state of advanced overshoot. We are consuming and polluting the biophysical basis of our own existence. Climate change is the best-known symptom of overshoot, but mainstream ‘solutions’ will actually accelerate climate disruption and worsen overshoot. Humanity is exhibiting the characteristic dynamics of a one-off population boom–bust cycle. The global economy will inevitably contract and humanity will suffer a major population ‘correction’ in this century.
That’s a good point about disease and I think it could be a potential cause of the low genetic prevalence.
I don’t know about your roaming free option. I think if that were true, there would still be wild packs today or there would have been roving dog packs mentioned in historical text (possible but I don’t recall any mention of them). Alternatively, they would have inter-breed with European varieties and had a more significant impact on genetics, but that’s not seen.
While I agree that Europeans liked to remove/exterminate “uncivilized” things, that mostly applies to people. I suspect if the American dogs were significantly useful they would have made use of them.
This conversation allowed me to recall that the plains tribes utilized dogs as pack animals. Then once horses made their way onto the scene those tribes switched from dogs to horses for that role. I’m not sure what other “jobs” American dogs performed but I suspect if they were significantly utilized as pack animals they were probably breed for such and with that niche gone they may not have performed well in other “dog” tasks, compared to European varieties.
To conclude, for American dogs to be such a small percent of the current dog genome, I think, the European varieties had to significantly outlive their American counterparts. Whether because they were replaced by better performing European varieties/horses, because they died from European diseases, or a combination of those options.
After the arrival of Europeans, native American dogs almost completely disappeared, leaving a minimal genetic legacy in modern dog populations.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116273/
I did not do a very deep dive but it looks like there were “domesticated” dogs in the Americans prior to Europeans, but they were almost completely replaced by their European counterparts. This leads me to believe the European versions were far superior for the intended usage. If the American version was indeed significantly inferior for their intended purposes, they may have been at or below the effectiveness/usefulness levels of semi-domesticated animals, like foxes.
Edit: The_Sasswagon brings up a good point about the effects of potential European diseases on American dogs.
Mods, perhaps a weekly post like this would be beneficial? Lowering the bar to entry with some available support and helping to keep converts.
I think they probably ment to put special equipment’s “99” under vehicles and fuel tanks. Otherwise, they would have destroyed 3% of the total destroyed special equipment.