The Chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov provided substantiated evidence that russian special services have access to personal correspondence of Telegram users, even deleted messages, as well as their personal data.

In fact, Ukraine has decided to severely restrict Telegram use, especially because of Russian intelligence having access to data: https://www.rnbo.gov.ua/en/Diialnist/6994.html?hl=en-US

I mean, he was also arrested by French authorities. The guy seems to be quite fishy to say the least.

You’re allowed to say “Russian” here. You are also correct. Perhaps not in the strict sense of it being a honeypot, but it is under Russian control.

Proxy wars are in fact good. Please allow me to explain what I mean.

Of course, the ideal state is full peace, no wars be they proxy or otherwise. For various reasons, that seems to be impossible for the super powers to achieve. Be it greed or the (perceived or real) need to shape the strategical interests of said super powers, it appears sometime wars are the only solution leaders have at their disposal (again, there is an argument against this, but leaders often seem to choose war).

Why are proxy wars “better”, then? Because they allow the pretending of not being involved. Because they allow the defeated super power to lose without actually losing a war. Proxy wars allow an easy out. It is far easier to explain to proud super power’s citizens that some nation somewhere lost the war, but not us.

Also full war, engages all of said countries assets, including the nuclear weapons. One of the very real issues with the war in Ukraine is that Russia very often threatens with nuclear strikes and, even if they aren’t serious about it this still leads to escalation and for the other countries to consider the real possibility of nuclear war. If the war in Ukraine would be waged by a proxy of Russia, let’s say Belarus, it would be much more difficult to even have those nuclear threats. Russia would not be able to keep saying they are not involved while threatening with nukes.

In conclusion, proxy wars are the ‘sane’ (if you can call it that) solution to wars between super powers.

How is GTA5 disappointing? I remember playing it a couple of years after release and it still is one of the best open world games I ever played. Even now, more than 10 years since I played it, I remember the main characters and even some secondary ones and part of the story (even though I only played it once). If anything, I think the GTA5 model is what all “service” games should be – excellent story and single player campaign and…whatever that online thing is. Frankly, I’ve never touched the online part in GTA5 but I hear it’s quite successful.

Regarding the price, I would personally probably pay a bit more for a really really good game. I don’t think the very good games selling for a premium are the problem, but the unfinished, reskinned and shitty games selling for 60-70. Like, how is Elden Ring released at the same price as Skull and Bones or FIFA <current-year>? Those should be 10-20 bucks, not the good games (assuming GTA6 will keep the quality bar up).

Just wanted to share that I’ve found out about the B42 release from this post :)

The question has been eating at you for some time, not since some time.

Thank you, fixed!

That’s still 10k bodies to throw in the fight, we shouldn’t underestimate or downplay their potential impact. After all, quantity has a quality of it’s own. I really really hope Kamala wins the election and the US (and the rest of the world, frankly) go all in helping Ukrainians.

Haha, had no idea, I don’t watch the stock market

Unfortunately a lot of people do. So many people care they made him the richest person in the world. I always hated obscenely rich people, but there’s something special with Musk, he manages to add insult to injury.

A high level explanation

Be that as it may, it’s still an incredibly short sighted decision to use a centralized service that is under 3rd party control for real security sensitive applications.

Can someone please provide context for us noobs?

Both of them?

They don’t care at all. What they do care is sowing polarization and distrust between western citizens. Russia benefits most when we (the West) are divided on various social issues, which leads to distrust of authorities, election of extremists in office and eventually weak and corrupt states and governments that are easily controlled or countered by Russia.

It’s people who know they will be irrelevant because they spent decades producing shit software

So the Linux kernel is shit software now? Just because it’s not written in the newest programming language? Kind of a hot take.

Please please please don’t take my question the wrong way: how does this relate to Star Trek except by having Picard and Riker doing funny faces in the background?

This article reads like a press release from SUSE.

Banning phones is an extreme measure. No restrictions whatsoever is an extreme measure. Articles like these simply start the conversation for the society at large to find a solution and, as I was saying in my initial comment some parents are simply unaware of how addictive video games can be. For many older generation (and even some of the younger parents out there that had no contact with video games) video games are often attributed to children’s toys. The truth however is not that simple - some games are for children and some are engineered from the ground up to be as addictive as possible. Even if the final responsibility lies with the parents, we need to have those parents informed and articles like this do that.

Often times, things are not black or white but multiple shades of grey. Should we demonize video games? Absolutely not, they’re not only fun but they can be a great tool to develop social skills, critical thinking and other adult skill. Should we inherently trust all video games and all parents to “do what’s right”? No again. There is a balance in everything and dismissing unbiased articles like this one isn’t helping anyone.