I feel it’s more for show. IIRC even the head of the Wagner Group admitted such conscripts won’t be useful. Especially since it’s more of fighting in a war for nothing versus someone defending their homes to the last. The morale problem is asymmetric that way. It seems the Ukrainians are mostly focused on wearing them out which eventually will force them to make hasty retreats and thus lose more than men and morale but also materiel. It seems that’s the course being taken in Kherson with the bridges either being damaged or destroyed which forces the Russian military to ferry equipment to the front line on the other side of the river. We’ll see what happens now. I don’t think the extra men will mean much other than more bodies to bury and more folks that won’t return home.
Says the only country still manufacturing vacuum tubes because their military needs them.
Apologists used to say Russian hardware used them because they are more radiation hard than semiconductors. That may have been true in 1975, but sure as hell isn’t anymore.
It’s a MISTAKE!!!
I found this video brings up some interesting points about Russia’s attempts to win a war they lost as soon as it began.
Or, to take the plot premise from the ill-fated Hitman movie*: Body doubles.
*- It’s one of those movies that you turn off your brain and enjoy the spectacle.
Yo Vladdy! 1978 called and they want their office phones back.
Have another watch.
Everyone suspects Putin is seriously ill, and for a dictator the perception of power is everything.
So what should you do in a video address? Walk around, gesture, be dynamic and energetic, basically prove you’re fit.
What’s Putin doing in this video? He’s sitting at a desk slouched forward with both arms resting on the desk, hardly a power stance. And in the ~12 minutes he’s talking in the full video he doesn’t change posture once, he moves his hands a bit but never gestures with his arms (as one would tend to do when making a speech), and if you compare the start and end (climax!) of the speech his facial movements are actually looking slower and more fatigued.
Conclusion? That 12 minute speech is about the limits of what Putin could accomplish physically without looking obviously ill.
That doesn’t mean he’s dying tomorrow, but I’d consider this video positive evidence that Putin is still seriously ill.
Will 2022 be the year this comes true?
Putin used to be ruthless and brutal, but fairly competent. He has always been fairly poor at long-term strategic thinking, but his moves tended to be good in the short term.
People have been saying that he’s changed, for the worse, over the years. Too long a time in power, plus the isolation during the Covid pandemic, plus possible health issues, plus the utter corruption of the Russian system leading to him only hearing things that fitted his preconceptions and expectations, all led to him losing touch with reality. Hence the invasion, which was a bad idea from the beginning, and has only proven to be worse and worse as it unfolds.
Maybe he hopes to silence 300,000 Russian critics, by drafting them.
Don’t forget:
Killing Joke is so appropriate because (per Coleman), “The killing joke is like when people watch something like Monty Python on the television and laugh, when really they’re laughing at themselves. It’s like a soldier in the first world war. He’s in the trench, he knows his life is gone and that within the next ten minutes he’s gonna be dead … and then suddenly he realises that some c**t back in Westminster’s got him sussed - ‘What am I doing this for? I don’t want to kill anyone, I’m just being controlled’.”
Like Russian mobilization.
Anyway, here’s another one (@Chaz):
Yep, I only think vacuum tubes are used in microwaves and transmitters due to power requirements but beyond those cases they’re just boutique technology. It’s mosfet or go home unless you need power electronics then you can pick IGBT or BJT depending on the situation.
It’s worth reading this thread, which @j9c posted elsewhere (2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Part 2) - #1554 by j9c)
Probably just a bluff but if he does use a single nuclear weapon won’t the rest of the world or at least part of it have to respond in kind?
Or if he is dying and wants to leave a mark on the world what better way?
Of course he could walk away from Ukraine, that would work but I’m pretty sure his mind don’t work that way.
I had no idea he recorded music, TIL.
