encelado748

My answer was about the colloquial use of the term. When you discuss “Europe” you do it usually trough a political lens, not a geographical one.

I personally think that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are culturally European countries. The common path in history is hard to ignore. The alignment in music, literature and philosophy is undeniable.

But there is a political rift, and that is greater for Belarus and Russia as they are dictatorships in a continent full of democratic entities and institutions. Belarus is for all intents and purposes a puppet state to Russia.

I am just stating the fact that most of the time someone talk about European challenges, opportunities, positions, they are not including Russia and Belarus.

Ukraine recent alignment with European geopolitical interests is born out of necessity and opposition to Russia, not because of a cultural shift. That is the reason I say it is a gray area.

The problem with EU is the fragile veto system while the nation inside the EU are still very different from each other’s. Ukraine has demonstrated resilience, capacity to adapt, ingenuity and commitment to improve. For me that alone puts them well above other current members of the EU. Ukraine is a big country, with enormous potential. I think lot of politicians in the EU are just worried about the consequences of joining the EU as it will have a huge impact on the continent.

Russia, at least the European core, is culturally European. Politically it is not European. And I guess that distinction is very relevant.

The Cold War removed Russia from Europe.

When people talk about Europe they often mean EU + UK + Switzerland + Norway.

When politicians says: “Europe must invest more on defence” or “Europe is stagnating” they are referring to the Western part of Europe, that is (was) aligned with NATO and the United States.

When someone says their are visiting Europe, they mean London, Paris, Rome, Prague, or other major cities in the countries above. Never Minsk or Moscow.

Russia, Belarus, Ukraine are not usually included in the colloquial use of “Europe”.

If someone ask me: “Is Russia in Europe?” I would say yes, no doubt about it. But if someone says “Europe needs to take seriously illegal immigration” then I am not including Russia for sure.

Ukraine sit in the middle, given the greater political alignment of recent years. More or less we see the same shift that happened with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

But Russia and Belarus are rarely considered European in normal conversation because the are perceived as politically isolated enemies of Europe.

At the same time, Turkey, while being partially in Europe, is not counted as European most of the time.

I hope it is ironic. Russia attached civilian infrastructure continuously since the start of the war: power plants, heating plants, gas networks, dams and water infrastructure, hospitals, ports, food silos, civilian apartments, shopping mall.

They attach nearly anything civilian they could find, even the churches!

Looks like it is the norm in modern warfare to inflict maximum economic damage by targeting civilian facilities. It is hard to ask Ukraine not to do it when Russia has done it Ukraine (the victim of Russia invasion) since 2022.

But is not just Russia and Ukraine that attack civilian infrastructures. The US is doing it, Israel is doing it, Iran is doing it, Saudi have done it, Syria has done it.

zero chance

Swatch Scuba 200, user replaceable battery, up to 200m.

Before the “yes but apple is smarter/bigger battery” whatever excuses you find, this is a solved design problem. You use gaskets instead of glue. Glue is just cheaper.

I think that a user serviceable smart watch is a good idea. I want the freedom to service my devices. If a user does not feel comfortable in changing the battery they can go to the Apple Store. A user that chooses third party replacement parts has the same risk of a user buying a “third party” smartwatch. I have just replaced the battery of my Sony headphone. It was trivially easy and saved a good headphone from the junkyard. I see no reason why reducing the freedom of the consumer should be a good thing. Serviceable devices should be always the default position. It was the default in the past.

And now is going back up. The lowest price was around 2014-2018. Now, 12 years later, HHD with the same size cost double the price of 2014.

No you don’t. This is how dictators are made. You fix it one piece at a time. Starting from erasing Super PACs from existence

Ignoring how disgusting it is to minimize the deaths of the victims in a war of imperial aggression, the Russia war against Ukraine caused up to 8 times the number of dead of the genocide in Gaza after October 7th.

I use Aliexpress because half the products on amazon are just dropshipper that buy from Aliexpress anyway. Why should I pay more for the same product? But there are genuinely good e-commerce in Europe that sells local products (Zalando for example)

All companies selling in the EU market have to adhere to the General Product Safety Regulation even if the product and vendor is Chinese. The problem here is not the law, but enforcing the law.