I think that the data Ukraine has on Russian losses is better than in any previous conflict. The drones are constantly flying over the battlefield recording.

I also think that Ukraine has significant political reasons for attempting to be reasonably accurate. They rely on NATO for money, weapons, and supplies. They need to provide an reasonably accurate representation of what they are doing with the resources to keep their suppliers happy.

It doesn’t need to be exact, just a reasonable estimate made in good faith.

Record high estimated numbers of Russian casualties reported on the same day as well.

🤔

How to create a baby boom in Russia or any country.

Step 1: Stop the wars of aggression.

Step 2: Increase pay so that one person can provide for a family.

Step 3: Open borders for trade and travel.

Step 4: Create housing for families do that they can afford.

Step 5: Free quality healthcare and childcare.

Step 6: Invest heavily in schools and pay living wages.

Step 7: Promote massive immigration from countries with a higher birthrate. The citizens of your country know you are full of shit and ain’t falling for it

Long range attacks are about knocking out supplies, the ability to produce new supplies, and the ability to get supplies to the front line.

Say Russia is getting more newly made artillery shells to the front line. The best way to fix this is to blow up the factories.

If you can’t take out the factories directly, take out components that the factories need to operate: ore processing, fuel refineries, electricity grid, etc.

The problem is all the critical targets are a long ways from the front line and Ukraine currently has limited capacity to hit them.

Meanwhile Russia is targeting all of Ukraine’s internal infrastructure constantly.

Long wars are won by the production capabilities of the groups involved as much as the front line troops.

Medical privacy ends when the condition may cause detrimental effects to other people. It’s not that difficult of a concept to understand.

Somebody who has epilepsy is not allowed to drive vehicles or fly a plane. They might have an episode while operating the vehicle and kill/injure others.

Somebody with a confirmed deadly disease is not allowed to wander around spreading it to others. Their decisions to ignore quarantine restrictions will kill/injure others.

For many religious groups it’s common for teens and even young adults to not have a clue where babies come from. The biological urge to have sex is still there. So teens experiment around and figure it out but often don’t understand the consequences.

Teens are going to have sex whether you teach them anything about or not. Comprehensive sex ed reduces teen birthrates and STD transmission. It also delays the age when they initiate sex.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1525/srsp.2008.5.3.18

Well it does correlate with my estimated percentage of people who are assholes. So there is that…

Iceland produces most of their cucumbers in high tech greenhouses using geothermal energy for heat and light.

Greenhouse cucumbers grow best in temps around 25-35c. Since the ambient temp in Iceland is usually cooler than this, venting the greenhouse is uncommon.

As the plants use CO2 in photosynthesis the levels of CO2 in the air decline and the O2 levels increase. The lower levels of CO2 drastically slow down the cucumbers growth. The growers often supplement the plants with CO2 from tanks.

Well they rise up until they mysteriously fall out of a window.

You want to really get worried?

Everything we produce in agriculture is constantly fighting off plagues. From insects, bacterial, fungal and virus infections. It is constantly under attack.

In crops on average farmers have to change to new varieties every 10 years. In some species it’s every 3-4.

Global warming is also making it much harder for agriculture. Higher temps = diseases come earlier in the season and last longer. Pest populations are not reduced as much over the winter.

We have also reached the limits of traditional breeding in many species for disease/pest resistances.

There is ways we can prevent the pending collapse but not without some massive investments, a complete overhaul of the laws, and fundamental changes in how we do agriculture.

I haven’t spoken to my parents in over a decade. They are really shitty people.

I have entertained myself reviewed nursing homes looking for the one with the absolute worst reviews for them to finish their lives at.

Look up the published ranges of the shahed drones from Iran (2,500km or around 1,600 miles). Even if the Irainians are lying about it’s effective range it’s still possible for Ukraine to have copied and improved on the design.

Of course the drones are not that large and there’s a few fishing boats in the artic.

No the soils in the Midwest are not good.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7e1766e613384ea59aef9ff17ccbdc9c

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0341816224002716?via%3Dihub

Erosion and soil profile degradation from poor farming practices are a huge issue.

No it’s not what happened to North Korea at all. I have no clue where you got that from.

The collapse of the Soviet Union cutting off food, fuel, fertilizer, and technology support started it.

Then torrential rainfall and flooding destroyed that years crop and food storage in the main production regions. It also destroyed many of their hydroelectric dams and irrigation systems. Without support from the soviets they had no way to repair them.

However the main reason hundreds of thousands of not millions died was because of the governments unwillingness to open their borders for international aide/trade. The government deliberately starved their population.

This sounds like a government program with good intentions but no actual understanding of what needed to be done.

First off both organic and conventional farming methods do acidify the soil. Contrary to what these farmers think organic/traditional farming does it much more rapidly.

Higher rainfall zones also naturally have more acidic soils. Traditionally cultures have temporarily overcome this by burning the vegetation (slash and burn).

If 70% of the soil in the country is acidic the government program should have been to subsidize lime application and soil testing first. Lime is much cheaper than fertilizer anyways and balancing out the pH makes all nutrients more available.

They could have then subsidized the appropriate usage of fertilizer based upon the test results. Blindly applying any type of fertilizer is a recipe for disaster. Fertilizers must be applied in balance for the crop, soil type, pH, and the nutrients.

“boy do I have thrips” triggered a funny memory.

When I worked in Ag. Research we had a big international field day. People from 50+ countries visiting in. I got the wonderful job of doing presentations in the field all day long. This was in late summer on a bad thrip year.

Well, one of the office goons decided that they would order all the staff polo shirts for the three day event. We were all supposed to wear the same color on the specified day.

They ordered in a light blue, yellow, and green polos. The first day was to be light blue. I “accidentally” wore the green one instead and had a few very irate office goons on my back first off that morning. Strangely enough all of the experienced outdoor staff “accidently” wore the green shirt as well.

For those that don’t know, thrips are highly attracted to light blue and they bite. I laughed my ass off most of the day.

The following two days everyone wore green. Except for the one determined office goon who wore the yellow shirt. In a field full of honeybee hives…

Swirski mites are my favorite in the greenhouse or nethouse. They work better than any pesticide I have ever seen.

Yes but can they dislodge the glue from their mouth parts? Very unlikely if it’s strong enough to hold the smaller insects.

This is a really, really, bad idea.

The issue is that sticky traps are non-specific. Any insect the size of a trip can be trapped. Then when predators are attracted to all the free food, they are potentially stuck or damaged as well.

Thrips are also one of the easiest species to control using predatory species.

He should have had his “soft” targets better protected. Russia has a long tradition punishing the families of those that oppose them.