We knew about this stuff, but I guess it’s really only official once the NYT writes it down.

Apparently the way to write about one nuclear power being heavily involved in strikes on another nuclear power, except for actually pushing the button, which they strongly advise their proxy to do, is to make it kinda cool and daring and not terrifying. This reads like some character drama. Note how the Ukrainian characters seem a lot more flawed.

That they used euphemisms, like “point of interest” instead of “target”, to obfuscate what they’re doing isn’t that surprising, but seriously fuck these guys. Learn this one weird trick on how to avoid WW3: just call it something else. I wonder how insane someone has to be to be a general.

Also makes me wonder what they’re leaving out of that story. The Ukrainians did that one on their own, trust us. Sink Russian flagship? No US involved. Invade Kursk? US didn’t know about it. Attack Russian oil infra? Yeah not cool Ukraine, not cool. Also no word about who blew up that dam or Nordstream.

Everywhere else though? Yeah basically the US did all that. Total involvement.

We’re told it only went south when the Ukrainians stopped following orders. Not doing exactly what the US says is bad apparently. It’s either reckless or stupid, and it actually for real doomed their 2023 offensive. For sure that one would have succeeded if the stupid Ukrainians listened.

Great partnership guys, why oh why would anyone be wary if the US actually has their best interests in mind, let alone the best interest of the their soldiers or population? No, you see, you need to charge up that hill now! Don’t look at it first! Don’t shell it first! We swear it’s just a small number of Russians. And no, we don’t trust you enough to tell you how we know that. So risk averse these Ukrainians! And btw, I see a lot 18-25 year olds running around in Kiev, what’s up with that? Looks like you are not taking this very seriously Mr. Zelensky! Looks like you don’t want to win!

About what?

Anyone who has never even used a computer before can go to one of these websites, follow the instructions on the screen in front of them, and get it done. Zero experience or skills required.

No they don’t. People who have never used a computer before have trouble even using the mouse. They don’t know what a file is, they don’t know what a filetype is, they don’t know that you can convert one type of file to another, they don’t know even to look for a file conversion website, they don’t know how to upload a file to a website, they don’t know how to find a file in the file dialogue, and on and on. Seriously what are you on about?

Overall fair enough I guess. I didn’t say it was simple though, i said it was not more complicated. Your experience using GUIs and web interfaces probably spans years. It’s not like you’re born with GUI skills.

Making a GUI is more work than making a CLI tool. GUIs are not cross-platform, a pure CLI is more portable. You can code a CLI with any programming language you like, while there are many restrictions on what kind of GUI is available on what programming languages and platforms.

The GUI code is tedious and boring to write. That code can become outdated and broken and might need fixing to run on newer platforms. The CLI has essentially no extra dependencies and the interface hasn’t changed much since like the 70s.

The sort of person who develops free software usually knows and likely prefers to use the CLI. They’re not doing it for users like you, first and foremost. They’re doing it themselves, or because they need it for their job. The CLI tool might be exactly what they want, because the file conversion is part of some backend stuff, something that’s run from a script, so you can automatically run it on all the files.

Anybody with basic web dev skills can then take these tools, slap together web fronted and try and make some quick bucks. They’re basically incentivized to not care about security, privacy or anything like that. Of course that space attracts scammers.

The incentives just aren’t there for it to be any other way. You can either learn the CLI commands, written by people who care about their reputations and professional pride and want to share their tools. Or you can trust anonymous internet randos wanting to make a quick buck. And while I sympathize not wanting to have to learn new shit, I swear using a shell isn’t actually more complicated than using a web browser, you’re just not used to it.

Obviously? They’re not able to, and even if they were, the EU economy and population is so much bigger, Russia would become the backwater of its own empire. Why would they want that? The end result would look a lot like the EU admitting Russia.