[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ideally, people should try to get them Jas-39 Gripen with MBDA Meteor missiles to back up the F-16 fleet.

Currently, the situation seems to be: F-16 pilots are still inexperienced and their missiles are outranged by some missiles that a Su-35 could be carrying (e.g. R-77M with 190 km range). When a Su-34 (fighter-bomber) conducts glide bombing runs from a distance of 40 km, a Su-35 (air superiority fighter) typically provides it air cover. Under such conditions, it's a difficult task for an F-16 pilot to fire an AMRAAM at the bomber (at best 180 km range) and evade counter-fire from the fighter. Fortunately they've got shiny new ECM pods and hopefully Russian planes haven't got decent radars.

However, a plane with longer range weapons (Meteor can fly for 200 km) would deter even a fighter escort of the Su-34, and likely end glide bombing as a tactic.

Alternatively, one can hope that the actual range of AMRAAM exceeds the advertised range or the actual range of R-77M falls short of advertised range - or that they have better radars, or can somehow backport Meteor to F-16, or that their ECM can beat the electronics of R-77. However, as far as I'm aware, firing an AMRAAM from maximum range needs a really big target (actual bomber, not a fighter-bomber).

Either way, good to hear it happened. :) If it happens more, it might finally deter glide bombing. So far, air defense ambushes have also temporarily deterred it and drones have struck airfields where the Su-34 planes get equipped, but nothing has stopped it for long.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

it’s probably talking about YOU

Seems very unlikely. Suppose that global population is 7 billion. One percent is 70 million then. Neither "you and me" or "EU and me" are good analogies. The population of the EU is ~450 million, the population of the US is 330 million - with a bunch of additional "western" countries lumped in, let's say - one billion. That is 14% of the global population, far above 1%.

The examined 1% includes people who are better not characterized as "being able to afford browsing Lemmy", but rather being able to afford multiple households in a developed country (or more in an under-developed country). More or less: "people who can come up with one megabuck if they badly want".

Some informative graphics, which by the way contradict the title claim of the post. I don't know which one is right, the title says 1% = 95%, but Wikipedia says 1% = 46%. And it looks bad the other way too, since 55% = 1%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Speculation has it that either "Palyantsia" (small turbojet drone) or "Neptun" (sizable cruise missile, antiship with ground strike capability) were used. Since part of the Russian facility was hardened and underground, I would ordinarily favour the hypothesis of "Neptun", but it's supposed to be out of their range and the videos recorded over Russia featured a turbojet sound and the video you linked has a small explosion (this would fit "Palyantsia", since it's small).

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

/me listening to the sound of a WinXP virtual machine booting under Debian Linux

They can shoot their foot with a grenade launcher next. I'm already out of range.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

Alternatively or additionally, I think oxygen plasma glows blue or green, because northern lights (near the poles, at least) are greenish.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

YPG, the militia formed during the seperation of Rojava from the Syrian government, have been accused by Human Rights groups of using Child Soldiers.

Correct... and notably, unlike the other forces around them (Syrian dictatorship, Turkish-sponsored islamists, ISIS, etc) they responded to the accusation within a month:

In June 2020, United Nations reported the YPG/YPJ as the largest faction in the Syrian civil war by the number of recruited child soldiers with 283 child soldiers followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 245 child soldiers.[141]

On 15 July 2020, SDF issued a new military order prohibiting child recruitment. The NGO Fight For Humanity conducted multiple training sessions with hundreds of SDF commanders about the UN-SDF Action Plan To Prevent Child Recruitment, and distributed informational posters and flyers about it written in both Arabic and Kurdish, as part of an ongoing educational process. Syria-based researcher Thomas McClure observed that “SDF are less likely to engage in such practices than any of the other forces in Syria, but seek to hold themselves to a higher standard of accountability and human rights.”[142]

On 29 August 2020, SDF announced the creation of a new system that anyone can use to confidentially report to specialized Child Protection offices any suspected case of child recruitment, in accordance with the action plan that the SDF signed with the United Nations in the summer of 2019.[143][144]

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Sadly, until the IDF starts investigating and prosecuting their members for war crimes (and stops assigning people without the required education, skills and psychological traits to essentially do police duties) - some parts of the IDF will continue to perform the role of recruiting Palestinians into extremist and militant organizations. :(

I would not be surprised if one of the dead man's relatives decides at some point to take up weapons.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Smash anything but a windshield. I've needed to violently remove a windshield when replacing it (time was running out and tool shops were closed). Wearing protective glasses and pushing with both legs is what it took to somewhat loosen it, but not immediately remove it. Windshields are a multilayer structure of plastic and glass. Side windows are just glass.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Say you’re trying to defend against something like a Shahed-136. It can hit pretty much anywhere in Ukraine. You can’t stick an AA gun on everything that Russia might consider trading a Shahed-136 for.

As far as I know, the routine in the current war is - the AA gun is on a truck that moves 80 km/h, the drone comes in slower than 300 km/h, one or multiple truck crews position themselves on likely vantage points for intercepting, and the rest is luck.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No conclusive proof. It didn't have a passthrough for one electrode of the two. It did have remains of acid inside and corrosion on the electrodes. One can speculate whether it was an experimental device, a faulty device or something else entirely (one alchemist trying to replicate another's secrets and doing it wrong?).

To add insult to the injury, it was lost or stolen during the war in 2003, so more analysis can't be done until it gets re-discovered. :o

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’m convinced 99% people posting that same blog post that sells opinions as facts, haven’t actually lived through it.

I'm a person who lost contact with people on Facebook while using Pidgin. This unfortunate development in ancient history actually forced me to briefly register on Facebook to maintain contact - because they couldn't be convinced to adopt Pidgin and Pidgin users were a minority (as were users of other XMPP messenger apps, at least separately counted).

Prognosis: Facebook will play along to gain mass, then go incompatible. They will do this at a moment when they think users will gravitate towards their side of the fence.

Advise: never open that door, there be dragons on the other side.

We should remember what they have already done, and expect more of the same, because they haven't changed. Justified grudges are perfectly fine to hold. A corporation that has harmed society by supporting polarization in many countries (formation of echo chambers, targeted advertising) should be boycotted in retribution.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Remembering what Facebook did with XMPP (initially allowed their users to speak to other messengers' users, then got sloppy with compatibility, causing great workload to unrelated app developers, and finally, having accumulated enough mass for Messenger, stopped supporting XMPP) - Facebook should be avoided like fire.

Facebook is also bad for society, allowing manipulation (targeted advertizing), aggregating great amounts of user data (harming privacy) and prioritizing user engagement regardless of the social cost (a hateful conflict generates more clicks than cat photos).

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perestroika

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