Not only architecture. I recently saw a dirty Cybertruck and it looked like a cheap prop from a 1980s sci-fi movie. Made me think about how well the average Toyota is designed that it manages to look good even on a cloudy day while covered in a layer of dirt.
I wouldn't hold up Toyota as anything special. My old Toyota pickup looked like swiss cheese from all the rust. Have never seen a car rust so much as that one.
There is a reason why a Toyota Hilux or Land Cruiser is the vehicle of choice for the most demanding use: the "Technical", on and offroad ad-hoc military insurgency, across Africa. (1)
The Hilux has a deserved reputation as "indestructible". (2) Not literally, but the best reliability for the money. Even after the bodywork rusts.
That shows the importance of listening to users. I too tried to learn Blender before the UI overhaul, but with prior 3ds max experience, Blender was infuriatingly counterintuitive; for example, it used the right mouse button instead of the left to select objects. Felt like those deliberately annoying demo pages that make you select phone numbers from drop-downs and click on moving buttons to submit forms.
The context was also weirdly random, probably with some logic for longtime Blender users but just weirdly random.
The usual context for modelling, [[[ Mode(model/uv/anim) -> Object/Mesh selection -> Face/Line/Vertex selection ]]] that is found [[[ (top-to-bottom)-(left-to-right) ]]] since Blender 2.8 and most other programs used to be placed [[[ middle of screen-top of screen-middle of screen ]]], just an insane order and that stuff was actually defended by Blender-die-hards (that probably used keybindings for these context switches anyhow).
There is still things placed "weirdly", but once we got past that it became immensly better (and not rage-quit worthy).
Early this month, I was browsing the same sites I always do when Safari on my iPhone suddenly became very sluggish. I closed Safari and reopened it, and poof! Everything was gone: favorites, history, open tabs, everything.
This kind of BS has become very common with Apple. There's a very pretty happy path, and a very ugly muddy trail if you fall off the scenic route.
2008: "Crimea is not disputed territory of Ukraine, and the issues of Russian speakers are internal issues of Ukraine."
2013: "Russia certainly doesn't plan to send troops into Ukraine."
2014: "After the annexation of Crimea, Russia doesn't plan to further divide Ukraine."
2019: "It's nonsense that Russia plans to attack anyone in future."
2022: "Russia's Special Military Operation does not involve the occupation of Ukrainian territories."
2023: "The conflict in Ukraine is not a territorial conflict — we have plenty of own territories."
2024: "Anyone who wants Russia to give up CONQUERED TERRITORIES in Ukraine must understand that this is impossible."
> Of course the rhetoric changed as the situation changed.
Blaming NATO is just another such rhetoric, put forward because it is the most advantageous in the current situation. It activates fools who begin self-flagellation, and in the process, disrupt military aid to Ukraine, which helps the Russian war effort.
Even among Russians who can be considered serious experts, no one takes the "blame NATO" narrative seriously. It's an excuse. A pretext. Look up Hitler's speeches from early September 1939 and you will see similar rhetoric about Germany being surrounded by the Franco-British alliance, with Poland as its spearhead. The similarity is uncanny, because it follows a standard pattern of excuses used by aggressors: portraying themselves as threatened, framing their actions as defensive, and blaming external forces for the conflicts they themselves initiate.
Again, your comment is full of emotionally fuelled words, and no substance or refutation of my points.
I am honestly sorry your country has been invaded (you seem to be Ukrainian). But I would much rather have peace at the cost of Ukrainian territory, than continuous escalation and geopolitical rifts, at the cost of Ukrainian lives and risking an even larger conflict in Europe.
It was a mistake to let Ukraine be courted by the west.
These were empty words of consolation after the allies decided not to invite Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
Eventually, you will receive a million bucks from me. I am not giving you any timeline or conditions, but trust me, you are on an irreversible path toward that, I promise.
"Tariff" is indeed a beautiful word; one that led the most virulent anti-taxation crowd to passionately support new taxes. It's a fantastic example of how much the choice of words matters.
That's the beauty of it: the base refuses to even acknowledge that it is a tax, and that it is paid by Americans. The word "tariff" bypasses decades of anti-taxation programming with astonishing ease.
He was mentally disturbed, which kinda proves the point. After returning to Germany, he stabbed a woman for rejecting his advances. Later, he was convicted of shoplifting, and a few years after that he was convicted again of selling stolen goods.
Definitely a "character", even if medically sound enough to stand trial.
> That is where we Indians got lucky. Our founding leaders were smart enough to realise that India joining NATO would lead to China and / or Russia becoming our enemy or India forming a military alliance with Russia would make the west our enemy. And thus, we told them both bluntly that we wouldn't join any alliance against both, because we understood that you all are superpowers. So leave us alone.
This is exactly the pursuit of neutrality that Ukraine chose, except that Russia degenerated into a totalitarian dictatorship that became expansionist as it radcalized and began violating Ukraine's sovereign territory. The first notable incident occurred in 2003 over Tuzla island. The "leave us alone" part didn't work out.
The unprovoked nature of Russia's invasion of Ukraine discredited neutrality to such an extent that even Sweden, which had been neutral for over 200 years, abandoned it and made a sharp pivot toward regional cooperation. With an increasingly hostile Russia, neutrality serves only to divide European countries and undermine their cooperation in collective security.
> My advise to the Ukrainians would be stop fighting a war they cannot win, surrender and get the best deal you can from Russia to have peace. And then rebuild your country.
Russia is not offering any deals other than the wholesale destruction of the Ukrainian state and ethnicity. The choice is between taking a chance on the battlefield or voluntarily exposing oneself to genocide. Thus, support for continuing the war remains high.
> This is exactly the pursuit of neutrality that Ukraine chose
... in the beginning. Ukraine's earlier leaders were indeed pragmatic. They even kept the country united. It is only when Ukrainian leaders started inviting foreign interference in their political affairs, and even taking sides with them, that Ukraine's polity became divided. And all the superpowers took advantage of that, to protect their own interest. Including Russia.
This is what Ukraine still fails to understand even now - when you have a dispute with another superpower, you settle the matter with them directly, even if the terms are unfavourable to you (this is also what the then Ukranian government did with Tuzla Island incident). You absolutely don't invite their enemies and threaten them (unless your country is facing an existential threat from them, like India was, when the US threatened to launch a nuclear attack on us during the Bangladesh Liberation wars).
Anyone who says Ukraine should not be a neutral country does not have their welfare in mind. Ukraine, in the near future, has no other choice but to be neutral. Its existence depends on it.
We have seen time and time again how this approach does not work and only invites further aggression. Zelenskyy himself campaigned on, got elected and began pursuing the same things that you suggest: economic development, anti-corruption, and conciliatory approach to the war in Eastern Ukraine. All he got in response was a renewed invasion.
Neutrality is not a serious option anymore. Not for Ukraine, not for anyone else. Sweden and Finland's pivot away from their long-standing neutrality highlights this reality and marks the end of neutrality as a credible security posture in Europe. They were the last holdouts among Russia's European neighbors.
> Zelenskyy himself campaigned on, got elected and began pursuing the same things that you suggest ... All he got in response was a renewed invasion.
He got invaded because of his own political naivety.
Zelensky's first official trip abroad as president was to Brussels in June 2019, where he met with EU and NATO officials. After that, despite his campaign promises to fix relationship with Russia, he never personally met Putin officially. (The only time he met Putin, in an official capacity, was in 2019, with French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel). As Ukraine's President Poroshenko confirmed publicly, on the advise of the western leaders, he had decided to not implement the Minsk treaties they signed with Russia. Instead, they began to train their military with NATO forces ( https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/77161 ). It is clear that Zelensky too was convinced by NATO and EU officials to do the same as he began to look for a military solution to repressing and dominating the East Ukrainians. In the end, EU and NATO got what they wanted - a proxy war with Russia, using Ukraine.*
> After that, despite his campaign promises to fix relationship with Russia, he never personally met Putin officially. (The only time he met Putin, in an official capacity, was in 2019, with French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel).
Misleading. The so-called Normandy format (involving Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France) was the agreed-upon diplomatic framework for addressing the war and improving relations.
> As Ukraine's President Poroshenko confirmed publicly, on the advise of the western leaders, he had decided to not implement the Minsk treaties they signed with Russia.
Not true. He never said this. It is a well-known distortion circulated by Russian propagandists.
> It is clear that Zelensky too was convinced by NATO and EU officials to do the same as he began to look for a military solution to repressing and dominating the East Ukrainians.
Not true. Zelenskyy prioritized diplomacy, like the aforementioned Normandy format. After Russia renewed the invasion, he was widely criticized for not adequately preparing Ukraine for war and for postponing important purchases of weaponry.
> In the end, EU and NATO got what they wanted - a proxy war with Russia, using Ukraine.
I don't think anyone can argue in good faith that the EU and NATO wanted a war with Russia. You really have to be on the other side of the planet, completely detached from the ground truth, to genuinely believe something like that. The war is a major strain on European economies, both due to the massive support that Ukraine requires and the massive costs of European rearmament to deter further Russian attacks on Europe. European politicians would very much prefer to sprinkle that money around in the form of social programs instead of spending that on bunkers and machine gun nests.
Every time I see this site posted, I can't help but think this is what Wikipedia and other online sources could be. I loved Encarta for all the interactive things I could play with. Instead, for most things, we are stuck with Markdown and minimal formatting that is frustratingly neutered, even clickable image maps have become a rarity; can't remember when I last saw one in the wild. Really sad.
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