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Every steelworks I've been to has been metal as poo poo.  They're cooler at night, the towers of the blast furnaces usually have giant rear end flames coming out of the top.
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Nov 30, 2018 20:43
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Like, I always rolled my eyes at the phrase "dark satanic mills" until now.
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Nov 30, 2018 22:59
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BrandorKP posted:Every steelworks I've been to has been metal as poo poo. Several decades ago I was in a car driving on the along the highway through Gary Indiana a few hours after sunset. Off in the distance was the Gary Works, the largest steel mill in the the USA (and maybe still the largest in the world back then), and it was roaring full blast with giant flames all over the place. It did a better job of capturing the feeling of Tolkein's Mordor than Stephen Jackson ever did.
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Nov 30, 2018 23:14
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I used to go in there all the time.
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Dec 1, 2018 00:27
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BrandorKP posted:I used to go in there all the time. I'm so goddamn jealous
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Dec 1, 2018 01:28
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Yeah, Ukraine banning Russian men under 60 is probably going to be a real nightmare for a lot of families, and probably lead to even more misery for people caught in the crossfire of falling approval ratings.
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Dec 1, 2018 12:00
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...RSaokvm&cf=1 More Mariupol news in the BBC
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Dec 16, 2018 05:55
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BrandorKP posted:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...RSaokvm&cf=1 Theyre trying to strangulate the city. The cargo turnover of Mariupol seaport in 2016 amounted to 7,6 million tons, the capacity of Mariupol seaport reaches 18,8 million tons / year
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Dec 16, 2018 07:28
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, Ukraine banning Russian men under 60 is probably going to be a real nightmare for a lot of families, and probably lead to even more misery for people caught in the crossfire of falling approval ratings. Its such a weird policy to enforce too i mean I really dont understand the reasoning behind this. Russia has an open border into ukraine via donetsk. I mean seriously this is going to fuel the russian speakers in ukraine wanting to be part of russia to reunite their families. Remember russias goal is a color revolution thst has the outward appearance of the peoples will
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Dec 16, 2018 07:34
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LeoMarr posted:Theyre trying to strangulate the city. And what does 7.6 million tons mean LeoMarr? Is that container tonnage, bulk, steel products? Sorry my brain is flagging your post as odd. I mean you ran to a wiki or something similar for a figure you don't understand. And strangle, it's very weird to use "strangulate" And "7,6". I was under the impression you were a US conservative.
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Dec 16, 2018 07:51
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BrandorKP posted:And what does 7.6 million tons mean LeoMarr? Is that container tonnage, bulk, steel products? Mariupol has the largest industrial output in ukraine, removing the shipping capability of the city will have significant effects on its ability to export products. But I just realized I thought this was the eastern europe thread, i didng mean to post in tankie HQ
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Dec 16, 2018 08:01
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LeoMarr posted:Mariupol has the largest industrial output in ukraine, removing the shipping capability of the city will have significant effects on its ability to export products. I got to be honest, I don't really see what was "Tankie" about that post except I guess you didn't like it. As for Mariupol, the effective blockade is going to likely hurt the local economy, although there obviously remains land routes at higher shipping costs. That said, coal and steel prices are at rock bottom as it is.
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Dec 16, 2018 21:04
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Ardennes posted:As for Mariupol, the effective blockade is going to likely hurt the local economy, although there obviously remains land routes at higher shipping costs. Yeah they were almost certainly hurting already. It's rough to make pig iron without ships. One can transport the pellets, fines, sand, etc by rail but it's rough cause it's a lot. To me I'd guess the goal is probably to kill a supply chain that could also be military. It looks like a place with everything present to go from dirt to ship or tank.
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Dec 16, 2018 21:34
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BrandorKP posted:Yeah they were almost certainly hurting already. It's rough to make pig iron without ships. One can transport the pellets, fines, sand, etc by rail but it's rough cause it's a lot. To me I'd guess the goal is probably to kill a supply chain that could also be military. It looks like a place with everything present to go from dirt to ship or tank. Cutting off shipping is probably putting pressure on their bottom line, steel is cheap as it is and higher transportation costs aren't doing them favors. That said, I don't think it would really affect their military supply-lines considering how available steel is in general. Btw, it is has been a while since I looked at it, but I have been browing through the CIA FOIA files (yes this is what I do with my spare time) and they have a bunch of new files from the 1980s particularly on the Soviets. There isn't a smoking gun there obviously, but it is quite obviously that the CIA was hoping to pressure the Soviets in the energy sector and they had already identified it as an Achilles heel by 1981. Ironically enough between 1977-1981 they though the Soviets would be forced to import oil, and had backed off and by 1981 they realized they had gotten it wrong. Pretty much everything is in PDFs so I just started downloading anything that looked interesting: fun-rainy day reading.
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Dec 18, 2018 17:35
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I'm working on a Soviet Union version of my territorial evolution articles on Wikipedia (Canada, Australia, and my magnum opus, the US), so I was wondering if anyone knew of books or journals or even websites that might go into detail on Soviet internal borders and laws? Like, a nice thing about those three countries is, they are relatively young, English-speaking countries with a rich, and similar, record-keeping tradition that makes their laws all entirely available online. I thought I'd do the USSR next because, well, it's fascinating, but also because it didn't last long, and while it didn't have a lot of English records online, it was certainly well-scrutinized by countries who do. I've tried looking but can't find a full list of Soviet federal laws. Presumably, any change in borders would involve some law, or at least decree from Soviet officials, so having that would help. Because I want the full shebang, not just the broad strokes that everyone else only seems to care about. My work-in-progress (without images, I have those locally) is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Golbez/sandbox/USSR if you want to take a look.
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Dec 29, 2018 23:38
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Golbez posted:I'm working on a Soviet Union version of my territorial evolution articles on Wikipedia (Canada, Australia, and my magnum opus, the US), so I was wondering if anyone knew of books or journals or even websites that might go into detail on Soviet internal borders and laws? Try this site, http://www.libussr.ru . It seems to have a large list of Soviet laws and decrees available online. All in Russian, unfortunately, but perhaps Google Translate would help? For example, here is a decree formalizing the border between the Russian SFSR and the Estonian SSR in 1946 http://www.libussr.ru/doc_ussr/ussr_4613.htm Timespy fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 18:16
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Timespy posted:Try this site, http://www.libussr.ru . It seems to have a large list of Soviet laws and decrees available online. All in Russian, unfortunately, but perhaps Google Translate would help? Awesome, thanks! Yeah, a machine translation should be fine for most of these. Even just having a date to work from will give me a launching point. Just ran the Google translate on it and it's not only readable, but seems eerily accurate. Edit: Browsing these laws, it's really fascinating seeing the process by which they were attempting to create a modern patchwork of laws from whole cloth. Golbez fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 19:23
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I think Putin's goal is just to keep the Donbass war simmering, with a relatively low but persistent level of tension. This is just another "frozen conflict" like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria, utilized as a relatively "low cost" way of keeping these countries out of NATO. As long as these conflicts go unresolved none of these countries can join NATO, which would never accept a new member with an ongoing conflict anyway since it would mean going to war as soon as the ink was dry on the accession treaty. To keep tensions high there has to be a flare up every now and then, whether planned or not, it serves its purpose of reminding people that eastern Ukraine is still a disputed territory and dangerous place, not a stable and modern European nation that is strengthening ties to the west.
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Dec 30, 2018 21:12
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Has anyone watched Trotsky? Saw it while I was scrolling through stuff on Netflix, and I was wondering if it was any good.
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Dec 31, 2018 03:41
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To anyone that might know, were the Russian celebrities always political surrogates or is that a recent development? Just watching the New Years Eve celebrations, and the amount of heavy handed political refrences - an entire song ridiculing Russian interference in western elections, a comedy bit about the Sea of Azov incident, cute references to pension reform, etc. really stands out to me.
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Dec 31, 2018 22:30
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Are there any studies of the average level of corruption in the USSR in terms of real figures? Particularly in comparison the 90's / present day? I mean corruption both in terms of frequency / pervasiveness (how often wold the average functionary accept a bribe / how often would the average citizen offer one) and overall sums involved (just how much would the average functionary steal by comparison to their official salary / the median salary / the GDP).
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Jan 14, 2019 20:01
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Shaddak posted:Has anyone watched Trotsky? Saw it while I was scrolling through stuff on Netflix, and I was wondering if it was any good. Reviews seem pretty mixed. It sounds like it plays fast and loose with facts, most notably claiming that Trotsky personally ordered the execution of the Romanovs, which...yeah, probably not. But I haven't seen it, so who knows. It could be good outside of a few glaring goofy incidents. Or it could be unwatchable.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:04
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Majorian posted:Reviews seem pretty mixed. It sounds like it plays fast and loose with facts, most notably claiming that Trotsky personally ordered the execution of the Romanovs, which...yeah, probably not. But I haven't seen it, so who knows. It could be good outside of a few glaring goofy incidents. Or it could be unwatchable. it's pretty bad; someone shared this link to a scene where lenin is contemplating suicide(?) and then holds trotsky over a ledge while demanding absolute obedience: "i am the head! you are the weapon!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xahs6BiSkc8&t=1134s haven't watched it, but apparently the fact that trotsky is jewish is highlighted extensively, and he is blamed for all of the bad things that happened in the revolution. if you want a better (but not necessarily good) serial about the russian revolution on netflix, they recently remade "road to calvary". it has much higher production values, and the spin is somewhat less awful (it is rather anti-ukrainian).
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Jan 15, 2019 02:31
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The showrunner for "Trotsky" admitted that is essentially a fictional account designed for entertainment purposes and from what I heard about it, that seems about right. Btw, its intended audience seems to be the Russian right/hard-right.
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Jan 15, 2019 05:41
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So it's for the "Ivan The Terrible was framed by the Jews." types.
Big Hubris fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 05:43
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The show was described to me as "Sexual adventures of leather daddy Trotsky and the communist dick train that goes 'jooo-jooo' ", and from the random scenes I've watched, it's surprisingly accurate.
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Jan 15, 2019 13:31
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The Antifada podcast has a great review of the miniseries up. It sounds very Russian, for all the good and bad that entails when it comes to portrayals of Trotsky. Ultimately, it follows the Putinist line of not really discussing his ideology at all, and instead attempting to psychoanalyze how being a Jewish sexual deviant alpha male turned him into a revolutionary. While those were all definitely aspects of his personality, it's pretty reductive. That said, I understand that it portrays pogroms as a bad thing, so...a step forward for Russian pop culture, I guess?
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Jan 17, 2019 09:02
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I know very little about Russian history and, I'm only one episode in, but so far it seems like it's playing up Trotsky as some kind of rock star.
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Jan 17, 2019 19:37
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Xander77 posted:Are there any studies of the average level of corruption in the USSR in terms of real figures? Particularly in comparison the 90's / present day? this kind of study sounds impossible to exist and be reliable. Because for one, what constitutes "corruption" and "bribe" is really unclear at times. For another, people are probably unlikely to admit they took/gave a bribe if some guy comes around asking "how many times have you bribed somebody within the last 20 years" cuz they'd think the dude's a cop.
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Jan 17, 2019 20:02
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For the reasons Typo mentioned, getting that kind of information reliably is complicated, especially for a state that wasn't that big on having independent government watchdogs. Someone has likely gone trawling through the KGB archives to try and approximate it from anti-corruption investigations but I'm not familiar with any specific work offhand. https://www.amazon.com/Putins-Kleptocracy-Who-Owns-Russia-ebook/dp/B00L01GHGY/ is a well-researched investigation of how modern corruption works in practice, though it's extremely dry.
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Jan 17, 2019 22:58
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