There are definitely 3 squares in the last column that can only be 1, 6, or 8, with no other possibilities: R1C9, R5C9, R6C9. That means that R2C9 and R3C9 can't include a 1, 6, or an 8.
Additionally, your 3s are confined to columns 7 and 8 in boxes 6 and 9, which means that you can't possibly have a 3 in R2C8. This makes R2C9 a 3, and therefore R3C9 a 5.
Making these moves opens a few other moves up in the board.
Nope - Trump demanded that they take him out there so that he could see the progress in person, but he didn't want to walk, 'cause that'd be too much effort and poor Natalie Harp's arms would get tired from carrying all his backup diapers. So they got a motorcade together and drove to the reflecting pool, but he couldn't get a good enough vantage point from the side, so he had them drive onto the freshly sealed surface.
Yeah - the big problem with Putin being so paranoid and capable is that anybody who could have posed a serious threat to his leadership has already been cut from the herd and rendered harmless. He had a great teacher in Stalin as far as that's concerned. There are a couple of exceptions I could see taking the reins, however (sorry for the novel).
Andrey Belousov seems like an unlikely candidate, seeing as how he's an economist and an academic, but it might be precisely because he seems so unthreatening that he's been given extraordinary power within the federation. He became Putin's presidential aide for economic affairs in 2013, and was a key figure behind Russia's decision to annex Crimea in 2014. He was then appointed to be the first deputy prime minister in 2020 (and became acting prime minister while Mikhail Mishustin came down with COVID). Then in 2024, after Shoigu fell out of Putin's grace following the Prigozhin rebellion, he was appointed to be the minister of defense. He made several hard-line statements since then, including that Russia should prepare for war with NATO, that Russia should resume nuclear testing, and that Russia should conquer Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia as well; so that should endear him to the hawks in the country. Crucially, though, he's also on record as saying that he's always been guided by the principle that "you can make mistakes, but you cannot lie". I think he's smart enough to read the writing on the wall, and shrewd enough to take power and then pin the entire mess on Putin.
Another option I could see is Alexander Bortnikov. He's the director of the FSB, and has been since 2008. Before that, he was KGB for 28 years. He, reportedly, was a key figure in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - apparently, he was the one who convinced Putin that Ukrainians would celebrate the Russians as liberators, and would open the path to Kyiv for them. Like Belousov, he's made several very hawkish public comments about Russia's war, but has also somehow generated a reputation for honesty. I have no idea how a man who's spent half of his adult life in either the KGB or FSB can come across as honest, but that's how Russians see him. According to Lukashenko, Bortnikov was one of the negotiators who got Prigozhin to stand down after his rebellion. I think that Bortnikov is... not very good at his job, but is shrewd enough to make people think he is. I think he's also got the chops to appeal to the hawks in the country, and the duplicity to blame it all on Putin when things go sideways. Main issue is that he's 74. That might actually work in his favor, though, as the other back stabbers around him would see propping up a man who's probably going to die in a few years as a key career move.
There are a few other people who come to mind as well, like Shoigu and Volodin, but if there's a coup, I'm betting money on the two people above.
I think that if it was simply a question of military resources being applied to the problem, you'd be right. But this entire war is essentially the pet project of one man: Vladimir Putin. If he's ever ousted from power, or dies (of natural causes or falling out of a window), the war will simply end, with Russia returning Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk back to Ukraine. Whoever takes on a leadership role afterwards will have one hell of a mess on their hands, and wrapping it all up neatly by placing the blame on Putin will be the best way forward. "You lost your brothers, sons, fathers, husbands? It was all Putin's fault. We tanked our entire economy and global standing and gained absolutely nothing for it? Putin did it."
This is why Ukraine's so insistent on sending drones into Moscow, the most heavily guarded place in all of Russia. They want to spur the people into action. Degrade the standard of living for the elite enough, and they'll take action against the guy who got them into that mess.
To be fair to him, though, I am confident that my dumb ass would do the same exact thing. After very narrowly escaping being cut in half by that machine gun carousel, I think any actual thinking is going straight out the window.
I can't believe how prolific that guy is. He puts out like 3 novels per year, and the vast majority of them are absolute bangers. Just finished book 4 in the Children series the other day, and it blew me away.
I'm a big fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, but one concept of his that I am fascinated by comes from his book "Alien Clay":
::: spoiler Spoilers below
On the planet the protagonist finds himself on, life has evolved to be fundamentally symbiotic to an absurd degree. Essentially, individual organisms specialize in something... say... jumping. And then they offer their services to whatever macro community comes along. So "creatures" are just communities of individual, highly specialized members who are essentially all free agents. Just wild.
:::
Well... in a nutshell... after Trump committed treason, our government decided in its infinite wisdom that its hands were tied as regards consequences for him because he announced his candidacy in the 2024 election. A couple of states tried to bar him from running on account of his treason, but in his previous term, Trump appointed a few traitors to be supreme court judges, and they said: "no, section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't apply (disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion), because it doesn't specifically list the office of president".
So, we all collectively decided: "Well, the traitors have decided to let the traitor run for president. Let's see how this pans out." And then 77 million traitors voted for him, and he became the president. So now he's trying everything he can to make himself dictator for life so that he doesn't die in a prison cell.
Also, he's potentially the dumbest human to have ever lived, on top of the fact that he's suffering from late-stage dementia. So all of the weird, asinine, nonsensical decisions he's made... well... that's just par for the course for him.
That's Russian-occupied Crimea you're looking at. Ukraine's been engaging in a campaign targeting electrical systems in Crimea for the past few weeks, and yes - this is the result of that. Additionally, there are severe fuel shortages in the territory due to Ukraine striking Russian fuel refinement and storage facilities as well as Russia's fleet of oil tankers.
Edit: for context, you're looking at the area I've indicated in the red box in this image:
Yeah - just used the google translate app on my phone, used the camera option, and then took a screenshot on the phone. In retrospect, it would have come out cleaner if I'd have just uploaded the screenshot to my phone and then used the translate app on that.
sigh, same. :(
God I miss having a president that wasn't a traitorous, Nazi scumbag piece of shit. :'(
Good. Like Lt. Aldo Raine said: "You see, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way we can spot 'em just like that."
Anybody who supports the shit these fucking people support is my real enemy.
There are definitely 3 squares in the last column that can only be 1, 6, or 8, with no other possibilities: R1C9, R5C9, R6C9. That means that R2C9 and R3C9 can't include a 1, 6, or an 8.
Additionally, your 3s are confined to columns 7 and 8 in boxes 6 and 9, which means that you can't possibly have a 3 in R2C8. This makes R2C9 a 3, and therefore R3C9 a 5.
Making these moves opens a few other moves up in the board.
Nope - Trump demanded that they take him out there so that he could see the progress in person, but he didn't want to walk, 'cause that'd be too much effort and poor Natalie Harp's arms would get tired from carrying all his backup diapers. So they got a motorcade together and drove to the reflecting pool, but he couldn't get a good enough vantage point from the side, so he had them drive onto the freshly sealed surface.
But... but... I thought Trump said there was video of vandals carving a
250300350footyard gash in the lining that would appear in court!Chesty Puller would be proud.
"We're surrounded. That simplifies things"
Honestly, that sounds like a utopia, not a dystopia.
Yeah - the big problem with Putin being so paranoid and capable is that anybody who could have posed a serious threat to his leadership has already been cut from the herd and rendered harmless. He had a great teacher in Stalin as far as that's concerned. There are a couple of exceptions I could see taking the reins, however (sorry for the novel).
Andrey Belousov seems like an unlikely candidate, seeing as how he's an economist and an academic, but it might be precisely because he seems so unthreatening that he's been given extraordinary power within the federation. He became Putin's presidential aide for economic affairs in 2013, and was a key figure behind Russia's decision to annex Crimea in 2014. He was then appointed to be the first deputy prime minister in 2020 (and became acting prime minister while Mikhail Mishustin came down with COVID). Then in 2024, after Shoigu fell out of Putin's grace following the Prigozhin rebellion, he was appointed to be the minister of defense. He made several hard-line statements since then, including that Russia should prepare for war with NATO, that Russia should resume nuclear testing, and that Russia should conquer Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia as well; so that should endear him to the hawks in the country. Crucially, though, he's also on record as saying that he's always been guided by the principle that "you can make mistakes, but you cannot lie". I think he's smart enough to read the writing on the wall, and shrewd enough to take power and then pin the entire mess on Putin.
Another option I could see is Alexander Bortnikov. He's the director of the FSB, and has been since 2008. Before that, he was KGB for 28 years. He, reportedly, was a key figure in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - apparently, he was the one who convinced Putin that Ukrainians would celebrate the Russians as liberators, and would open the path to Kyiv for them. Like Belousov, he's made several very hawkish public comments about Russia's war, but has also somehow generated a reputation for honesty. I have no idea how a man who's spent half of his adult life in either the KGB or FSB can come across as honest, but that's how Russians see him. According to Lukashenko, Bortnikov was one of the negotiators who got Prigozhin to stand down after his rebellion. I think that Bortnikov is... not very good at his job, but is shrewd enough to make people think he is. I think he's also got the chops to appeal to the hawks in the country, and the duplicity to blame it all on Putin when things go sideways. Main issue is that he's 74. That might actually work in his favor, though, as the other back stabbers around him would see propping up a man who's probably going to die in a few years as a key career move.
There are a few other people who come to mind as well, like Shoigu and Volodin, but if there's a coup, I'm betting money on the two people above.
I think that if it was simply a question of military resources being applied to the problem, you'd be right. But this entire war is essentially the pet project of one man: Vladimir Putin. If he's ever ousted from power, or dies (of natural causes or falling out of a window), the war will simply end, with Russia returning Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk back to Ukraine. Whoever takes on a leadership role afterwards will have one hell of a mess on their hands, and wrapping it all up neatly by placing the blame on Putin will be the best way forward. "You lost your brothers, sons, fathers, husbands? It was all Putin's fault. We tanked our entire economy and global standing and gained absolutely nothing for it? Putin did it."
This is why Ukraine's so insistent on sending drones into Moscow, the most heavily guarded place in all of Russia. They want to spur the people into action. Degrade the standard of living for the elite enough, and they'll take action against the guy who got them into that mess.
To be fair to him, though, I am confident that my dumb ass would do the same exact thing. After very narrowly escaping being cut in half by that machine gun carousel, I think any actual thinking is going straight out the window.
Yup! Just a couple months ago.
I can't believe how prolific that guy is. He puts out like 3 novels per year, and the vast majority of them are absolute bangers. Just finished book 4 in the Children series the other day, and it blew me away.
I'm a big fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, but one concept of his that I am fascinated by comes from his book "Alien Clay":
::: spoiler Spoilers below On the planet the protagonist finds himself on, life has evolved to be fundamentally symbiotic to an absurd degree. Essentially, individual organisms specialize in something... say... jumping. And then they offer their services to whatever macro community comes along. So "creatures" are just communities of individual, highly specialized members who are essentially all free agents. Just wild. :::
It's so rare these days to see positive stories in the news.
The best way to deal with Nazi shitheads like him is discourse (holds up right fist) and datcourse (holds up left fist). I approve.
Well... in a nutshell... after Trump committed treason, our government decided in its infinite wisdom that its hands were tied as regards consequences for him because he announced his candidacy in the 2024 election. A couple of states tried to bar him from running on account of his treason, but in his previous term, Trump appointed a few traitors to be supreme court judges, and they said: "no, section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't apply (disqualification from office for insurrection or rebellion), because it doesn't specifically list the office of president".
So, we all collectively decided: "Well, the traitors have decided to let the traitor run for president. Let's see how this pans out." And then 77 million traitors voted for him, and he became the president. So now he's trying everything he can to make himself dictator for life so that he doesn't die in a prison cell.
Also, he's potentially the dumbest human to have ever lived, on top of the fact that he's suffering from late-stage dementia. So all of the weird, asinine, nonsensical decisions he's made... well... that's just par for the course for him.
Doesn't help matters that Crimea looks like a mini version of Ukraine.
That's Russian-occupied Crimea you're looking at. Ukraine's been engaging in a campaign targeting electrical systems in Crimea for the past few weeks, and yes - this is the result of that. Additionally, there are severe fuel shortages in the territory due to Ukraine striking Russian fuel refinement and storage facilities as well as Russia's fleet of oil tankers.
Edit: for context, you're looking at the area I've indicated in the red box in this image:
Yeah - just used the google translate app on my phone, used the camera option, and then took a screenshot on the phone. In retrospect, it would have come out cleaner if I'd have just uploaded the screenshot to my phone and then used the translate app on that.