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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Did you know there's an opera called La Wally? You're way ahead of me then.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| He wrote: | | None of us have access to actual plans. All this is open source intelligence. |
Loking at the open source info, I think it is fair to conclude that Russia has been doing a lot of digging trenches' and construction of other fortifications, preparing for an attack. I see this as a broad indication of planned possible defences, retreats along highways etc.
How it will work in practice is of course unknown as the Ukrainians will have, thanks to satellite tech, drones' real time info on top of this to see best area of breakthrough, and the Russians will have real time info to stop them. In my mind it's only when they reach and try to breach these extensive fortifications that any Ukrainian counter attack starts.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ&ll=48.90677081913808%2C35.16128999999998&z=6
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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One mistake we're all making is to assume this is a classical war with mass armies and continuous lines. Both sides are titchy, they'd be given ten miles of a quiet sector in either world war on either front. Except Ukraine is huge and there are several fronts. So if the Russians are shovelling shit on the grand scale, it's either utterly essential or totally pointless.
If the stories about Russian soldiers hightailing it out at the first opportunity and Ukraine being up to their ears in NATO hi-tec are true, it will be... wait for it... all over by Christmas! Mom and Pop Ivan will be pleased. Whichever country they're in.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Don't know, I presume rationality on the Russia side, but they are (it appears) not just struggling logistically but are developing command and training issues around the forward line.
Not suitable for under 18s . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIpT7EfeW_4
If they are relying on a well trained, speedy mobile reserve to assist those defending the trenches, they are going to still need to work out what are safe and not safe routes, and use deception as they move up the reserve. Maybe it's just one poor example?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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well trained, speedy mobile reserve
work out what are safe and not safe routes
use deception
move up the reserve |
Remind me. Which army are we talking about?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Just had a visitation from two crazed Virgin boffins because of my attempts to get £100 for an unreliable internet connection. They whirred about for half an hour, changing this, fiddling with that, asking me where the outside was and how they could access it. They've finished now. "Give us a ten on the 'How do you rate the recent visit by our technicians' questionnaire, or we'll be back." Anyway, what I have been suffering from for months/years -- and what Virgin have always told me was due to 'there are technicians in your area' -- turned out to be me being connected to Virgin via the wrong dubry.
But this is not the time to relax. On Thursday the Virgin telephone system is going over to 'remote fibre networking' and unless I plug the didger they've sent me into something called a Virgin Media Hub (which they say I've already got) I shall be without a phone. "The whole process takes less than five minutes," the accompanying literature warbles. Don't anyone phone before Christmas.
So no change there.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Let's have a shout-out for the Finnish version of the limited company acronym (Ltd)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Dame Andrea Leadsom?
"Andrea?"
"Yes."
"Prime Minister here."
"Oh, am I getting a job?"
"No, but would you like to be a dame?"
"Andrea?"
"Yes."
"Cameron Mackintosh here."
"Oh, am I getting a job?"
"Yes, we're casting Mother Goose."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Drivers low on power park inside a small, roofed roadside stations. Then, sensors inside detect the vehicle’s presence and mechanical arms automatically reach under the vehicle, remove the battery, and replace it with a fresh one in just a few minutes. “Battery swap stations which enable the vehicle to automatically park into the station and switch for a fresh, fully charged unit in under five minutes,†NIO says. Its vehicles can only be found in China and Europe, with plans to enter the US market in 2025, South China Morning Post reports. |
Sounds intolerably creepy to me. I'm glad we haven't been included on the list. Prolly just be us and Russia holding out.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Cory Doctorow on medium in part wrote: | | Jeff Bezos — whose profits soared during the lockdowns, even as his workers sickened and died in droves — went on a Twitter tear last March to tell us that free gubmint money (for workers, that is) was causing inflation. https://doctorow.medium.com/look-at-all-the-great-stuff-we-lost-because-of-inflation-scare-talk-98b98b1ed2fe |
This received two thousand six hundred claps.
| Mick Harper on medium wrote: | | When you say Jeff Bezos's staff are dying in droves consequent on Covid keeping people indoors and thereby increasing Amazon's volumes and profits, could you give us a number? Ballpark will do. This will be sufficient to deny Mr Bezos entry into this country as it breaks a number of laws going back to the Factory Act of 1833. This was passed consequent on the cotton mills of Manchester increasing volumes and profits, and I see you are to visit there shortly, so you will be able to do more research first hand. Well done! |
This received one clap.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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What is a Zen puzzle like one hand clapping?
A koan is a question or problem given by a Zen master to a student. Examples include: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?†“Who is the Buddha?†“What was your original face before your parents were born?†Such questions confound the mind and its habits of thinking only in terms of logic, dualisms, and words. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I have long given up the practice of checking how many of my books have been sold. Too, too depressing. I have switched instead to checking how many people have looked at one of my medium stories. There being currently thirty of them and the medium readership being numbered in the millions, this has to be done daily to keep up. I don't mean 'clapped them', I don't mean 'read them' (both statistics are collected by the indefatigable medium people), I mean 'clicked on'.
As the total number tends to vary between nought and one I may give up this practice as well. I will not be giving up the writing of them since this is very enjoyable and, in its way, useful. As you know, we have an old AE saying: 'never judge by results'.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It comes to something when even Google Alert stops clicking on your stories. I may give up Google Alert.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I like to keep abreast of cultural movements so I can alert you for what to look out for, and here's one
| Momo's Korean & Japanese Street Food |
which has popped up in a quarter I know well, between here and Tesco. However, I find the boot is on the other foot because I need someone who's been out east to advise me. I don't like to just go marching in willy-nilly because of the danger of faux pas's. For a start 'Korean & Japanese' has got me beat. They hate each other so we're not exactly looking at fusion cooking here. You wouldn't expect 'Mama's English and French Haute Cuisine', would you?
And street food. What's that all about? You start eating in the street round here and you'll get an Asbo quicker than a right wing Tory rebel grouplet emerges at a fading seaside resort. (You liked that, I can tell.) Will they even speak English? For all I know they are for the Japanese/Chinese émigré community. Though I suppose they will need a common third language to, as it were, serve one another, and I would think English is in pole position in that regard.
But I've had an idea! They both use the same ideogrammatic script so if they wrote down their orders rather than speaking them over the counter as we would do, it will be the same for both races even though the words are completely different. ç±³ is rice in both languages. Yes, telling them that will give me the ideal pretext to go in for a quick shufti. Stand down, it's service as usual.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Why don't they make square sausages, then you could just turn them over through ninety degrees rather than chasing them all round the pan trying to get them to sit correctly and ending up with half cooked and half not sausages. Do I have to do everything in this country?
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