It should remain a part of elementary math class. After all, analog clocks or odometers are the easiest way to broach various topics like modular math.

Ukraine just got a €90 billion loan from the EU. That's enough to cover their financial needs for another 12-18 months. They're starting to sell their designs to Western manufacturers, too, who are intensely interested in cooperation. Ukrainian companies are starting joint ventures outside the country, so that's another cash lifeline, albeit a smaller one.

It is up in the air whether Ukraine gets much territory back. Ukraine is not, however, on the verge of collapse. (Neither is Russia, for that matter, but more later.) Pokrovsk is likely to fall, true, and Ukraine holds only some outskirts, but when I look back to January 1, 2025, Russia was 5km from Pokrovsk, and a year before that, Russia was 35km from the city. Looking at the wider map, the battle lines have not changed that much in two years. Russia has made some advances south of Kupiansk and is contesting Kupiansk itself. If these small cities with pre-war populations of 60,000 and 30,000, respectively, give Russia so much trouble, what is going to happen when they try to take Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, with their pre-war populations of 150,000 and 110,000, if they can even get there?

Russia is not on the verge of collapse, either, but it is on the verge of desperate measures, and may already be in them. It's selling gold internally to take rubles off the market in a bid to both strengthen the currency and provide rubles to redistribute without printing more, with the National Wealth Fund selling off over half its 400 tons of gold to oligarchs. There's still almost 2000 tons of gold left inside Russia, but any significant dip into that is going to cause even more economic problems. A combination of Trump's bumbling and Sunni Arab OPEC states upping their output has resulted in a drop in the price of oil (WTI is trading around $57 today while Brent is around $60). Russia sells at a discount from the market price, and its budget is based on being able to sell oil at $70+ per barrel. It's getting $50ish now, and that may drop even further. Ships are becoming less likely to take on Russian contracts due to the increased activity by the US Navy and attacks by Ukraine. On top of that, while the Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian petrochemical plants isn't decimating the output quite like some think, it is heavily impacting refining capabilities such that Russia put a moratorium on refined products exports, further squeezing their foreign cash income, and they've put limits on internal distribution, which is raising prices, especially outside the major cities. Enlistment bonuses are dropping as local governments run out of money to pay them, with even the relatively wealthy St. Petersburg reducing or delaying bonuses. The federal government is lavishing at least some veterans with education and health benefits as well as some financial benefits, but that appears to not be universal. This is causing a complex situation resulting in high inflation (officially around 7%, probably much higher). The only reason that Russia isn't in hyperinflation right now is tight controls and high core interest rates (16% now, down from 25% because it was absolutely strangling growth). And Russian defense contractors are filing bankruptcy at alarming rates, putting key supply chains at risk.

Despite its population advantage, Russia does have a manpower issue. They're largely not sending conscripts into battle. By law, under the current circumstances, only contract soldiers can be sent to fight (there may be some exceptions, but this is the overwhelming majority of Russian forces fighting). They don't have the money to pay the big bonuses to keep the contract force up, and as veterans return missing limbs and living with severe PTSD, more people are becoming aware of what it's like at the front. Criminals whose sentences were commuted are also returning from the front lines (journalist Emily Hoge has been following this for some time, including the results when hardened criminals become hardened soldiers and return to the streets), pushing up crime rates. Escalating to legal war conditions to allow conscripts to be sent into battle would be an enormous political gamble for Putin.

Russia's problems aren't a lack of physical production capacity (they have that in spades) or people (they have many more they can conscript if necessary). Their problems are that they're running out of money to spend on the war and men they can legally send to fight. Changing the circumstances on the ground requires changing significant political positions inside Russia that have a very strong chance of provoking political backlash, regardless of what levels of control Putin has been able to exert so far.

Maybe Russia can force a ceasefire or even a peace, though it's hard to see what terms would work in such a way that both sides would accept, as both have become skilled at finding something the other side absolutely will not accept, so the war continues. Maybe Ukraine can eventually push the last Russians out of its territory, possibly even out of Crimea, though that, too, is a tall order. Then again, it seemed in the early 1980s that dislodging the USSR from Afghanistan was a tall order. Right now, there's not enough information on either to hazard an educated bet.

5 years is too little. 95 years is too much. There is a happier medium.

But I'm excited that *anything* is making its way. I honestly did not think anything was going to age into the public domain in my lifetime. I'm hopeful that the fact the world does not end when these things go public domain may mean we might even get a shorter term some day.

Iâ(TM)m writing this in Costa Rica, courtesy of my Airalo eSIM. I didnâ(TM)t need to register a local SIM with my passport and itâ(TM)s less than half the price of the daily roaming passes from my provider back home. I currently have six travel eSIMs in my phone, although some are expired and I should delete them. The OP isnâ(TM)t so niche. That said, I appreciate having a physical SIM in my phone because I do swap it out and put it in an old âoegigâ phone that I wonâ(TM)t cry over if it gets lost in a mosh pit.

I remember cars in Canada when I was first living there 25-30 years ago with plugs hanging out of their front grills because they had engine block heaters. Itâ(TM)s not like Canadians donâ(TM)t have experience keeping their vehicles warm enough to use if they really want to. My colleagues in Siberia tell me that these arenâ(TM)t required anymore, even when the temps are below -40, but this is another story.

Iâ(TM)ve been in Moscow in December when it was below -9. According to Wikipedia, the mean low in Moscow in January is colder than in Regina (-21 vs -20), and the daily mean is -9 vs -15). Swings and roundabouts.

Funny, it all depends on the question you ask ChatGPT: Have electric buses been successful in Canada?

Yes, electric buses have been making significant progress in Canada and are becoming more common in several cities. Many Canadian cities have been adopting electric buses as part of their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, and transitioning to more sustainable transportation options.

### Notable examples of electric buses in Canada:

1. **Vancouver, BC**:
      Vancouver has been a leader in adopting electric buses. TransLink, the region's public transit system, has been integrating electric buses into its fleet as part of its goal to be fully carbon neutral by 2050. Vancouver launched its first electric bus pilot project in 2018 and has since expanded the program. The city plans to have 100% of its bus fleet run on clean energy by 2040.

2. **Montreal, QC**:
      Montreal has also made significant strides in electrifying its public transit system. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) started introducing electric buses in 2020. STM aims to have a fully electric bus fleet by 2040. They have been testing different electric bus models and building the necessary infrastructure to support them.

3. **Toronto, ON**:
      Toronto has also been investing in electric buses, though at a somewhat slower pace compared to Vancouver and Montreal. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has been working on pilots and plans to gradually introduce electric buses. The city has also been focusing on improving infrastructure, such as charging stations, to ensure that electric buses can run efficiently.

### Successes:

* **Environmental Benefits**: Electric buses produce zero tailpipe emissions, which contributes to better air quality, especially in urban areas where traffic congestion and pollution are major issues.
* **Operational Savings**: Though electric buses are more expensive upfront, they have lower maintenance costs and energy expenses compared to diesel buses. This can lead to long-term savings.
* **Government Support**: The Canadian government, both at the federal and provincial levels, has provided financial incentives to support the transition to electric public transport. This includes funding for the purchase of electric buses, charging infrastructure, and research into new technologies.

### Challenges:

* **High Initial Costs**: Electric buses are generally more expensive to purchase than traditional diesel buses. This can be a barrier for some cities, although the long-term savings help offset the initial investment.
* **Infrastructure Needs**: Building out the necessary charging infrastructure for electric buses (like charging stations and maintenance facilities) can be expensive and time-consuming.
* **Battery Life and Range**: While electric bus technology has improved, range and battery life remain considerations, especially in cities with large, sprawling transit networks. However, advances in battery technology are gradually addressing these concerns.

### Future Outlook:

Canada is continuing to make strides in adopting electric buses. Many cities have set ambitious goals to transition their fleets to 100% electric within the next couple of decades, and the federal government has pledged funding to support the transition. The success of electric buses in Canada seems to be on a positive trajectory, with both environmental and economic benefits driving the shift toward greener public transportation.

Why are Canadian cities having such a hard time with EV buses? London has about 2,000 of them and is continuing to increase the number.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/me...

The name on the Kennedy Center is slightly longer than that:

"The Donald J. Trump and
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts"

Restoring the name just involves removing the first line.

How exactly is another system of insecure, network accessible cameras with security implications "off-topic?" Is it because its domestically designed-shit rather than a foreign company? Or are people too simple to see the parallels?

Our internal training has shifted entirely to passphrases, to the point that we had to write our own internal training video because every training video we looked at talked about traditional ways of creating a complex password. We found that when people were encouraged to come up with a sentence, they usually came up with something in the range of 25-35 characters, well past the minimums.

It's not beyond them to add the missing OO stuff to Rust, or at least their fork of it.

Microsoft seems to be doing these kinds of migrations lately.

I think their old ways of poorly documenting things even internally came back to bite them. I've seen some things written by people who were at one time Microsoft devs working on Windows 7, 8, and 10, who said that a lot of removed functionality came because trying to figure out what the old code was supposed to be doing was nigh impossible, and figuring it out sometimes just didn't fit the schedules or budgets. If a feature didn't seem to be widely used as a percentage of the userbase, then it often got dropped.

Maybe some rewrites are being taken too far, but anyone who has dealt with code that goes back potentially more than 30 years is almost certainly going to find some really bad and/or confusing implementations.

NIST SP 800-63 has formalized this. Specifically, look up Section 3.1.1.2 in SP 800-63B-4, released just this year. Minimum length 15, max length at least 64, but no other requirements, including complexity or regular rotation. Unicode is supposed to be accepted, normalized against a standard process (that one I don't remember, but it's documented), with one code point counting as one character. Filtering for known bad passwords or patterns is strongly encouraged.

I pushed through an implementation at our company last year, explaining why, showing the NIST draft. A bunch of people protested because it was different, but the CIO told them to live with it because their entire argument was "but we've done it this way for 30 years!" Some critical vendors complained when we started pushing them to comply (or at least implement SAML), but we only have a couple of vendors not complying now, and they should be compliant soon. Users are largely happy with the change, and they complain a lot less when we see suspicious activity and force a rotation.

Especially when that property is his Turnberry golf course. I love that this is in another country and he canâ(TM)t do anything about it.