alxlaz

12 ms·

31.
by alxlaz 2y ago
More abstract arguments about taxpayer money aside, English expertise on a citizenship level is actually quite the counter-argument for this move. A significant number, or possibly a majority of, adult native English speakers in the US actu
32.
by alxlaz 2y ago
This isn't about expecting "people" to communicate to you in a language they don't speak, it's about expecting state institutions to communicate in their citizens' language. French public institutions definitel
33.
by alxlaz 2y ago
First off, if you take your extreme example and go to France, you'll be surprised ;-). In fact, taking your extreme surprise even further, you'll find things in Southern France translated into languages you've never heard of,
34.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> So you genuinely think that if you go to the US you have a high risk of being imprisoned without due process even if you you don't break any US law? I think that the risk of being imprisoned without due process is very low, but st
35.
by alxlaz 2y ago
^ this. Once (oh, actually twice!) while travelling, I have had entirely benign trouble with paperwork (things like not filling a form correctly on the first attempt). Explaining the circumstances to someone who has to figure out if you&#x2
36.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> Note that lots of people won't (or mostly can't) pay, so how does a social network work in this case? If there's not enough consumer demand for a service, and it's not a public utility that's worth funding thro
37.
by alxlaz 2y ago
If we're talking about the Budapest Memorandum, cirumstances possibly changing are actually part of the treaty. The memorandum conditions the use of force against Ukraine, and makes provisions for what would happen if a party to the tr
38.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> Ghost payrolls. Oh, wow, talk about not understanding ghost payrolling. Providing bullshit filler tasks for ghost employees is ghost payrolling 101. Anyone who actually has ghost payroll "employees" working under them can ans
39.
by alxlaz 2y ago
From their design files, it looks like the only things manufactured in the US are the case and the PCB for some of the I/O modules. That's absolutely commendable, it's no small feat and certainly better than nothing, but it&#
40.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> With zero knowledge of how well-equipped the Russian military is, could they really be so far behind that they're unable to determine the difference between an commercial airlines and a high-speed missile? It depends a lot on the
41.
by alxlaz 2y ago
That's a cool conceptual framework but like all conceptual frameworks it's meant as a simple, immediate rule of thumb, not a theory of how engineering management works. In practice, the last three Ds depend heavily on familiarity
42.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Yeah, I'm going to second that. I've lived in (technically I am from what used to be a "developing nation" at the time), worked in, and worked with people from, "developing nations", both in education and ind
43.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> Downvoting needs to be reserved for comments that detract from the conversation. I understand where you're coming from but truth is a post like that one does detract from the usual excusemaking conversation that some companies enj
44.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> The word recall sort of implies that the vehicle is recalled to the manufacturer. It does not, no more than gaslighting implies lighting a gas lamp or the phrase crossing the Rubicon implies actually crossing a river in Italy, in any c
45.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> Shift in screen size: It used to be that everyone runs Windows on a 800x600 screen. That changed, and then changed quickly. Many different resolutions and screen sizes. The drag and drop thing just doesn't work well for that. The
46.
by alxlaz 2y ago
This is especially untrue today , when reaching a wide, relevant audience requires significant resources, including financial -- either outright paying for sponsored places at the top of people's timelines, or paying for the expertise
47.
by alxlaz 2y ago
This is where you see the NeXTSTEP under the hood :-). A very long time ago, this made perfect sense, as applications from that era were multi-window. You can sort of see how it worked here: https://www.paullynch.org/NeXTSTE
48.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Several Linux WMs and DEs had this feature a long time ago, when screen space was kind of at a premium. Fluxbox had it for as long as I can remember it. KDE used to have it at some point in its 3.x or 4.x-series releases, I don't recal
49.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> You keep misrepresenting repressions against anti-communists as colonization. No, you, as the Soviet authorities did, keep misrepresenting colonial policies of forced labour, mass deportation, forced internment, forced language policie
50.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Yes, the population of Moldova was enslaved, put into reservations or exploited. About 90,000 people were arrested, executed, deported, or placed under forced labour conscription during the first year of Soviet occupation alone. About 30,
51.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> It is. It clearly isn't, because so far you've moved the goalposts of colonization several times, including claiming that it couldn't have happened because Soviet authorities said it didn't. But, sure, what's a
52.
by alxlaz 2y ago
> The USSR proclaimed friendship of peoples My apologies, I thought this was a serious discussion. By that standard, European colonization never happened, either. All European colonial powers proclaimed things like a civilizing mission.
53.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Mate, you realise you're talking to someone who's lost family members to, and has grown among victims of, trail of tears, state-organised atrocities (from forced labour to hostage-taking) that totally didn't happen, and res
54.
by alxlaz 2y ago
This is wishful thinking at its finest. First off, lots of people in the former Soviet Republics (and beyond the Iron Curtain in general) speak Russian because that's what they had to learn in school and what they were forced to use in
55.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Yes. Many of the Russian Empire's, and later USSR's former territories have their own versions of the trail of tears, reservations, and atrocities in Congo, except with Russian/Soviets at the privileged end. It's not a f
56.
by alxlaz 2y ago
The ex part there is a rather important distinction :-) and there is no "general area" called Russia.
57.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Oh, yeah, hence the "maybe". I've never heard "vodka" used as a generic term for alcoholic liquids anywhere except in Poland, and even there rather rarely.
58.
by alxlaz 2y ago
Certainly, but that doesn't make Moldova either Russian or part of Russia, as the parent poster asked, just like the south of Italy is neither Arabic nor part of whatever Arab country you want to take as the successor state of the last
59.
by alxlaz 2y ago
This is only true in those parts of Eastern Europe were "vodka" retained its (old) colloquial use from Polish. So... Poland and maybe some parts of Ukraine, Slovakia etc.. If there are parts of Moldova where these drinks would be
60.
by alxlaz 2y ago
"History" might be a thing but Moldova has not been part of the USSR for more than 30 years now, and has been part of the Russian Empire for only about a hundred years (after the peace of 1812 and until shortly after the first Wor

More ›