As far as I read, he had a leg spinal injury and an operation scheduled (bad stuff for a ballet dancer - you can’t work with an injured leg spine) and was experiencing difficulties with alcohol and painkillers (the latter for the injury). He might have felt that his career was doomed.

As far as I read, he called his girlfriend (or maybe ex-wife, as the article suggests) and asked her to visit him. When she arrived, he had already fallen.

He was characterized as optimistic and nobody had noticed a death wish. Then again, during injury, pain, inability to work, (self-)medication and maybe withdrawal symptoms, other people’s predictions of character may not entirely apply to every person.

The balcony was described as not the safest place on Earth. It doesn’t require a detective to suspect that being under the influence of strong painkillers might increase the risk.

He can’t be characterized as an opposition figure, or a figure of power. There is no clear beneficiary or motive.

As for war and statements against it - he was an artist, a dancer in a publicly funded theatre, and limited by that in what he could say without losing his job. Since it seems that he had reasonable political opinions, inability to voice them without experiencing retribution probably didn’t make him cheerful.

Suure Emigratsiooni ajal oli siin iga nädal mingi uus teema. Viimati on veidi üksildaseks läinud jah.

Hea seegi.

Õige viis sellest lugeda oleks muidugi natuke teistmoodi, näiteks: “kolm allikat kinnitasid, et USA on kaks nädalat tagasi tühistanud piirangud”. (artiklit saaks siis tõenäolisemalt lugeda plahvatava moonalao valgel)

Bideni viimaste pliiatsitõmmete kõrval on üldiselt aga masendav olukord. USA valijad olid nördinud, et krõpsude ja šokolaadi hind on laes ning keskmise ameeriklase ostujõud on kaua langenud…

…ning et abi saada, andsid kõigi võimuharude võtmed kuritegudega vahele jäänud oligarhile, keda toetasid majanduslikult suuremad oligarhid, kelle elutöö seisneb kasumi teenimises, ning see kollaste sulgedega pealik parasjagu komplekteerib valitsust… klounidest.

Juba paistab sõjaväe politiseerimise idee, paistab rahvatervise laastamise ideekomplekt, paistab keskkonnakaitse laastamise tegevusplaan, rikaste maksulangetused on kindlad tulema, ainuke lootus on, et need klounid žongleerida ei oska ja osa kahest piiramatu võimu aastast (Kongressi valimisteni) maha kukkunud palle taga ajavad ning ei suuda kahe aastaga täieliku fašismi telki püsti panna. (On ka lootus, et Kongressi peale leidub 1-2 esindajat või senaatorit, kes päris hullu eelnõu peale koduparteile lehvitaks ja vastu hääletaks.)

Isiklikult kiirustan ukrainlastele mõeldud drooniprojektiga nagu vanakurat, kelle põrgus sajab paduvihma.

Huvitav, kas Lõuna-Korea suudab vastu võtta seaduse, et seoses põhja poolt igasugu nodi andmisega Venemaale - ilmselgelt mitte niisama, vaid hüvede ja teadmiste vastu - antakse 155 mm kraami Ukrainale? Nad on üks väheseid riike, mis on adekvaatselt valmistunud rämedaks sõjaks nõukogude stiilis vastasega. Neid ohustav osapool on parasjagu vahetamas raskesuurtükke ja liha tõenäoliselt kompaktsemate tuumarelvade ja kanderakettide vastu. Huvitav, kas nad vaatavad pealt või üritavad tehingu mõrumaks teha?

While the ability to counteract styrofoam pollution is of course good, sadly this doesn’t apply to other plastics in general. Some plastics are physically hard or chemically much harder to break than polystyrene (PP, PVC, ABS, anything that it fiber reinforced) .

So, while the worms are nice, one should not hope they can help with other plastics.

Quick analysis: the US flushed itself down the toilet.

• Likely fact: Republicans now control all 4 towers of the castle (president, senate, house of representatives and surpreme court).

• Conclusion: the situation allows Republicans to steamroll legislation into force.

• Further conclusion: US voters really don’t understand what they are doing.

Climate: it’s bad, but one president’s rule is short. Trump will withdraw from the Paris treaty and sabotage domestic attempts to curb emissions. Europe and China will continue their attempts because they haven’t changed, and they want energy independence. Climate is a system with great inertia. We are beaten by the mistakes of previous decades, new generations will be beaten by our mistakes. Increasingly hard.

Ukraine: the situation is very bad. The Biden administration won approval for 60 billion of support in spring, but according to Zelensky, only 10% has been delivered so far. Unless the DoD hurries the hell out of itself, Trump will close the tap on aid that Biden secured. Trump will try diplomacy, but Putin’s administration is made of a different sort of people. They are running for life while Trumpists are running for lunch. Putin will politely send him where sun doesn’t shine and continue grinding meat, now with an added flavour of North Korean. Ukraine faces a very difficult choice: fight a retreating war in conditions of decreasing aid, hoping that revolutionary conditions arise in Russia… or make peace with the attacker, giving them territory. Ukraine will need all the assistance it can get from anywhere. Knowing this, and knowing the risk of a Trump re-election, I started developing a drone system 6 months ago. It has gone through many iterations and might be capable of combat in the coming month. I didn’t sign up to live in a world like this, but hey, you take what you’re given. :(

If the war in Ukraine gives Putin territory and peace as a result, Putin and his heirs know that you can get territory and peace with war: any place in Eastern Europe could be next.

In summer, Congress locked away the keys for leaving NATO, but Republicans now control both houses and Trump has cleansed the party of dissenters. Trump can credibly threaten to withdraw from NATO or actually do it.

Taiwan needs to find more alliances, because the US might become unreliable, and China knows this. The rest of the world needs to think if they can do without electronics during a Chinese attempt to conquer Taiwan.

Democracy in the US: will be dismantled in favour of something like Hungary. We will see ministers who are oligarchs like Musk or irresponsible liars like Kennedy. Since the storm is near-perfect, I predict that democracy will give way to oligarchy. Risk of disturbances, repressions and internal conflict will grow.

Until now, only unstable people wanted to assassinate Trump. Given these conditions, I predict that stable but ruthless people who see a danger to their future will join the game. They will reason as follows: “risk has reached certainty and there is still time to prevent outcomes”. If I was working in the Secret Service, I would increase protection on Trump 10 times (unless I hated him).

I live in Eastern Europe, and seriously recommend your people start researching nuclear weapons. :(

A note about Taiwan. Allegedly, Putin asked Musk for a favour for Xi - to refuse Starlink for Taiwan.

Coincidentally, negotiations between Taiwan and Starlink broke down. The Guardian reported about it on October 15:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/15/taiwan-to-have-satellite-internet-service-as-protection-in-case-of-chinese-attack

“Starlink is not available in Taiwan after negotiations reportedly fell apart over Taiwan’s requirement that a local entity have a majority share of any joint venture established.”

A person experienced in investigating such matters would take a look at the ownership structure of other Starlink local representatives, and see if Taiwan had unusually harsh demands or Musk was unusually stiff while negotiating with them. If Taiwan had harsh demands, it is plausible that no favour was done. If Musk was unusually stiff, then it’s plausible that the favour was done as requested.

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.

the experiences around Helene and Milton are just an extreme continuation of a trend where the public is increasingly getting its information from extremist figures online rather than experts

Sadly, all true.

I’ve had to remind people several times that “if you go reading Twitter, please put on your intelligence analyst glasses”. To find a grain of truth in that truckload of dust.

If conservative means “cautious and wary of unexpected results”, “disillusioned with methods that we tried and failed with” or maybe even “equipped with experience of successful and failed cooperation with various sorts of people”, then yes. Already before age 50, I’m spoiled with various good and bad experiences. I cannot exclude that as my tendency to explore decreases (psychology tends to affirm this trend), I may get prejudiced too. I may have to figure out something to counter it.

But if conservative means that I suddenly don’t want a society with equality and without hierarchy, then - nope.

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

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).

Alternatively, and perhaps more plausibly - people who are new to politics fall for a populist.

I’m a bit scared of where the world is going, but it doesn’t make me vote a local populist. One of the things that helps me recognize a scammer from distance - 3 decades of experience with garden variety politics.

As a happy user of Signal (no bugs or incidents from my viewpoint), I regardless chime in to say a word for decentralization. :)

Signal is centralized:

• there is a single Signal implementation, with a single developing entity
• you have to install its mobile version before you may run the desktop version

There exist protocols like Tox which go a step beyond Signal and offer more freedom -> have multiple clients from diverse makers (some of them unstable), don’t have centralized registration, and don’t rely on servers to distribute messages - only to distribute contact information.

In the grand comparison table of protocols (not clients), Tox is among the few lines that’s all green (Signal has one red square).