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Cake day: December 20th, 2023

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  • Vladivostok is barely the closest populated Russian area. Even among major cities, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is significantly closer, not to mention Anadyr and other smaller ones. Besides, if Alaska would remain Russian, you bet there would be more connections. They just don’t make much sense in the current realities.

    Russia has the technologies and infrastructure for efficient resource extraction under extreme conditions, and some of those resources (for example, nickel) are primarily located inside the Arctic circle. Moreover, under American leadership Alaska has still been one of the resource extraction hubs, with up to 2 million barrels of oil produced per day at peak, and about 500 thousand currently, 17 metric tons of gold currently produced per year (and expected to grow), etc. etc.


  • Proprietary Nvidia drivers are seen as a necessity, not a “good thing”, which is why Nvidia was repeatedly pressured to give up the code. Open-source Nvidia drivers suck in all applications, and if you don’t need anything demanding, you probably wouldn’t have a solid Nvidia card in the first place.

    Gnu side of Linux tries to change the practices used by said businesses, and the more people embrace it, the more pressured companies become to be compliant.

    Any sane copyleft activist (of which there are many in the Linux world) sees this change as a betrayal; security experts and enthusiasts are also not happy about a program doing something unknown sitting on their system.


  • Questionable.

    There’s about 60km between modern day Russia and Alaska, and plenty of troops are already stationed (and were at the time) on its eastern border. Alaska would provide a lot of resources, and it could absolutely be guarded.

    But, at the time, Alaska was seen as nothing but barren piece of cold land, not really useful for anything.





  • Yes, because at the same time they offer a better business environment. US, for example, can do pretty much anything, being de facto commercial center of the world, with highest scale operations historically based there and interconnected to the point they can’t just “leave”.

    Should you run this “experiment” in aforementioned Venezuela instead, you’re unlikely to enjoy the result. Although it wouldn’t benefit the US in the long run either.


  • Allero@lemmy.todaytoScience Memes@mander.xyzSTEAL HIS LOOK
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    2 days ago

    As a microbiologist, I get to work with such freezers from time to time - they, too, get used for long-term storage. Technically, at around +4°C most organisms (but not all) put their activity to a halt, which is why your fridge is set at that, and at around -18°C just about everything stops any processes (thereby, freezer temperature), but the thing is, freezing at -18°C leads to the formation of relatively large ice crystals, which causes many cells to rip and die, which is perfectly fine if you want to preserve food (except cells in food also rip and unfrozen products are not quite like the original), but not optimal if you want to store cells themselves. If you freeze at -80°C and lower, smaller ice particles end up not damaging the organisms so much, and they can later be restored. However, such fridges are expensive and draw, like, A LOT of power, and storing much stuff under such conditions gets costly.

    Nowhere near as costly as the offerings are, though.








  • In theory - sure. In practice - all countries in the world have to agree to raise taxes, even though individually they are better off betraying this agreement and lowering them, thereby attracting the rich and ending up with more, not less, money.

    And if all countries agree to tax the rich the way they should, we might as well go and build socialism everywhere, because not having everyone onboard is a main issue there too.





  • Given that my country is Russia and you are probably trying to escape an authoritarian regime, you may consider another destination.

    But still, I think Americans are generally welcome. People can make lighthearted jokes about it and be surprised, but you’ll be a welcome guest after all. Bonus points if you say American government, and particularly Department of State, is shit :D

    Language barrier might be an issue - most Russians above ~35 have very poor English skills, and younger folks mostly have it on A2-B2 level.

    Oh, and the country is sanctioned to hell, so sending money in and out is an additional hurdle. But if you retain your American credit card, you’ll be alright and at least able to make payments outside the country.