Yes, after the reign of Stalin, where Khrushchev took over, the USSR deescalated the Cold War, yet it was the actions taken by Stalin’s regime that let the conflict start to begin with, with the USSR not retreating from Iran as the other Allied Forces did, the threat of force in the Turkish Straits crisis, comparing Churchill to Adolf Hitler and breaking the Yalta Agreement by meddling with the 1947 Polish elections.

Also, the article seems to be paywalled, so I have to see when I get around to reading it.

It might be that my comparison wasn’t the most accurate, since my main insight in the USSR is through the DDR, which was mainly a pawn in the face off between the superpowers at that time, and thus was a hotspot for tensions around that time. And I do believe that the wealth disparity wasn’t as extreme as in capitalist countries, yet it says little about what the actual average living conditions were compared to other countries. Also, corruption doesn’t always have a wealth disparity as a result. After all, people can also get corrupt due to self-preservation, which I think is most evident under Stalin’s later rule, after his wife committed suicide.

Yet I can’t really agree that it was “killed off” during its downfall, as I have my doubts that it would have survived much longer than it did without its subnations separating from it. The only way I could imagine it surviving would have been if they “licked their own wounds” after the war, so to speak, recuperate from their losses instead of its rapid militarisation that it gone through to keep up with the USA in order to win a dick measuring contest.

I am not so sure if the dissolution was really avoidable. I like to use the DDR as a comparison, as it does resemble the USSR post-war pretty well, due to the USSR pretty much dismantling factories in their occupation zone to compensate their own losses only to stop that as they realized the other occupation forces were strengthening their own zones and so reverting their course, leaving the then formed DDR in a similar state as the government that spawned in.

During the time of its existence, the DDR suffered from supply shortages to the point where the Trabant, the most driven car in the DDR had a chassis made out cotton-based thermoset. Yet at the same time government paranoia was at it’s peak, where the MfS (the East German equivalent of the KGB) coerced and blackmailed citizen to aid in the espionage and recruit them as informants against their neighbours, just to collect as much information on their citizen as possible in case they are suspected to be traitors as more and more people tried to flee the extreme poverty they had to live with. Yet the party was riddled with corruption, as the last generation of DDR politicians realized as the old ones resigned and allowed a new wave to take the lead, seeing the actual numbers of the debt of the government and the state of the country had to face with, even though the older generation of politicians were initially against Gorbachev’s Perestroika plan.

I think this level of hidden debt, corruption and paranoia/secrecy was the reason why Gorbachev claimed that the Chernobyl disaster caused the downfall of USSR, as it was the epitome of what plagued the whole nation ever since the war. Nobody wanted to speak out the truth for their fear of their status or even their lives, as they either get painted as a saboteur or gets silenced by those who would be targeted as well if the truth came out. Getting rid of that issue would be nothing less of a government dissolution, because no one could be really trusted.

I think it can be both. However they are no justification as to why one should buy and like a game they clearly won’t like for various reasons. Even more, trying to “fix” a game can alter the game’s impact on the player. There’s a reason why roguelikes/roguelites are so hard, and taking away the difficulty will lessen the experience. That’s why most people also, for example, won’t use cheating tools for their single player games apart from screwing around.

While it is correct, it doesn’t justify any and all the shady stuff Brave Software Inc. has done.

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Scanners like to do funny things

I know it’s not very relevant, but that reminds me of a talk held during a CCC (Chaos Computer Club) convention.

It’s in German, but I’ll try to summarize it: Someone noticed the numbers on a scanned page didn’t match the original, so they hired an expert to find out what happened. Turns out that the printer they were using had a feature that would detect symbols that looked the same and basically copypasted ome cutout of the symbol onto the other to save space on the final PDF. Due to the print/copy quality, this substitution sometimes malfunctioned, substituting similar looking symbols, such as 8 and 0.

Fun fact: those gas station pills also contain Viagra, to make sure they work.

So, just buy Viagra instead. You’ll be safer.

I disagree. The Imperium of Man is basically slowly inching towards its downfall with corpse starch (i.e. ground up corpses) being a common food for hive cities and the Inquisition being an ever looming threat for the populace. Not to mention that if you ever have have the misfortune of being near anything Chaos-y, you are often greeted by the Ordo Hereticus before your life is snuffed out. And considering that Belisarius Cawl frantically fell into prayer when confronted by a powerful AI core of old does show that the Adeptus Mechanicus are far from their power way back when, let alone any promise of immortality for the masses.

Psychic blanks have it even worse, as they might not even be connected to the warp, meaning they might just fade into nonexistence after their death. And overall, being a Chaos Worshipper isn’t that great as well, as most citicem are not treated well, not to mention that the ruinous powers will slowly drive you insane as well.

Last but not least is that the end of the whole 40K in-universe might be overall crawling to an end, as the Tyranids might be unstoppable by organic beings (apart from possibly the Orks), so it might be that the universe-wide apocalypse is slowly inching closer, leaving only the Necrons behind after the Tyranids seek out the next galaxy to devour.

I’d rather choose the old boring life here in this universe any day over the one from 40K.

Alternatively you can also use aluminium. Snails have a natural allergy to aluminium due to a reaction happening between the metal and their slime. Therefore they will avoid aluminium at all cost.

As well as the proportions being flipped, resulting in the now iconic look. IIRC it was supposed to be a pig initially.