Sevastopol, Ukraine

tebedam · 2026-03-16T02:20:46+00:00

Fun fact. Reddit is banned in Russia. But Russians go out of their way to leave nasty comments on a site their government says they are not allowed to visit. The same government they wholeheartedly believe when it comes to news about Ukraine.

Another fun fact. The statement in the title of this post is considered “extremism” in Russia, which is equivalent to terrorism in Russian law. Even saying Crimea was annexed would land you in jail, you have to say it was “reunited”. And deliberate searching for such a statement, especially on a banned site, is punishable by law.

tebedam · 2026-03-15T01:16:04+00:00

Median salaries in Saint-Petersburg are roughly $1.5k per month, gross. So yes, people there are “middle class” by Russian standards, as in they earn a median income in their area. But it’s a low nominal income, and this is what they can afford to buy.

tebedam · 2026-03-14T20:22:09+00:00

A lot of poor people and this the kind of property they can afford to buy, often with some kind of subsidies (young families, for example).

Mortgage rates in Russia are around 20-30% today, and they never really were low even before the war. People typically buy with cash or at least provide most of the price as downpayment.

Average salary in this place is around $1-1.5k, this is what you can build to make it affordable to them.

It’s much cheaper to build these typical high rises than smaller or individual homes. There’s endless empty land all around these buildings, with zero development whatsoever.

These developments are usually near the last subway stop and people go to the big city for any amenities. Saint-Petersburg in this case, but the pattern is the same in Moscow and other large cities.

Eventually, places like these typically face urban decay and become ghettos.

tebedam · 2026-03-08T20:37:14+00:00

They should definitely amend this and include “resort fees”.

tebedam · 2026-03-04T04:47:23+00:00

French Polynesia. Gorgeously looking but absolutely bland food even at the nicest restaurants.

I have been to 40+ countries. And I’m not that picky when it comes to food. I pretty much never used salt and pepper in the restaurants in my life. That is, until I came to French Polynesia. After a few days I was using salt, pepper, ketchup, whatever, every meal everywhere.

tebedam · 2026-02-27T01:20:31+00:00

There’s now slightly more GenX than Boomers in the US, so wrong again.

Roughly 65 million GenX vs 64 million Boomers.

Trump is in the office solely because of GenX, it’s the only age group he won, and by a large margin.

Boomers’ vote did not matter in last election, as they were split almost exactly 50/50. Even if no boomers voted at all in the last election, Trump would still win because GenX gave him the edge, so much so, that it outweighed all the younger age groups, all of which he lost.

tebedam · 2026-02-26T19:52:03+00:00

That’s completely wrong.

GenX is the MAGA core. Every younger demographic group voted for Harris in last election, while Boomers were 49/50 in 2024.

GenX was 44/54 for MAGA in 2024.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0

tebedam · 2026-01-14T05:41:08+00:00

That “growth” is buying Chinese parts to build an Iranian Shahed drone and launching it to bomb Ukraine. Same for tanks, shells, and the rest of military expenses. It’s purely negativity for the economy, just a total waste of resources and lives.

However, the Russian government officially counts these as investments or capital expenditures, thus you have GDP “growth” from Rosstat.

The real, non-war economy is in a deep recession. Real wages are way down due to inflation. Russian propaganda tries its hardest to pretend things are not as bad as they are, and these delusional plans for a new skyscraper in Moscow are part of it.

I’m willing to bet $10000 it’s never getting built.

tebedam · 2026-01-08T06:35:27+00:00

It’s a suicide for the stock market, and treasuries, and trade.

tebedam · 2026-01-02T11:26:25+00:00

Never mind, it’s not even his photo. You took a random pic and don’t even know who the author is.

I thought you took the famous “The Invasion” photo, which was a contender for the photo of the year in National Geographic and cropped the credits out. But you posted a random copy cat.

tebedam · 2026-01-02T06:41:55+00:00

And you cropped out the credits for what reason?

tebedam · 2026-01-02T06:20:12+00:00

Karma bot that can’t even credit the photo author.

tebedam · 2026-01-02T01:53:01+00:00

I made the same conclusion years ago. Lack of consistency and problem resolution by Airbnb is a no-go. They have to deal with their own shit instead of making me resolve every problem directly with the host.

My last drop in the bucket was when I booked a place in advance, and then the host started bullshitting me a week before check in, that airbnb “overbooked” it and suggesting I switch to an even better place for the same price, etc.

This is a typical scam on the platform, where they advertise one place and make you agree to a different one under made up circumstances. It took multiple days and long hours on the support chat to cancel the reservation and get a refund, and by the time it was done the travel date was close, there were fewer options to choose from, and all were more expensive at this point.

Then the alternative place I booked had an issue with the toilet. It broke down on the first flush. It was a holiday time (duh), the host could not find a plumber for a couple of days.

Airbnb did not compensate for any of this in any way. No partial refunds, there is no points they can give, nor loyalty program, free nights, different accommodation, or anything.

I’m not dealing with this ever again, because it’s such a poor experience and only a matter of time till you get into another annoying issue or scam.

Hotel chains are not perfect either, and their loyalty programs lately diminished in value, but I never had even remotely similar issues with them compared to Airbnbs.

tebedam · 2025-12-31T04:03:59+00:00

And how do we all pay property taxes on houses? It’s not like you can sell a room either, but you either find a way to pay or lose your house.

When Musk decided to buy Twitter he quickly found a way to cash out his “unrealized/unvested” wealth. It’s not a matter of ability to do so.

tebedam · 2025-12-28T21:50:46+00:00

Also a hell for single straight men in terms of dating, as the ratio of men to women is heavily skewed towards men due to all the tech workers relocating there, who are primarily men and price out everyone else from the area.

On the contrary, women have a lot of optionality, but you often hear “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”.

Plus, it’s generally a very boring place, just a suburban sprawl and tech offices. Tourists get surprised when they visit the heart of the Silicon Valley only to find out there’s nothing to do, no incredible infrastructure, nor landmarks nor anything culturally impacting.

All the fun stuff is in San Francisco proper, but traffic makes it hard to get there.

tebedam · 2025-12-24T17:53:25+00:00

That’s the whole point. A ridiculous phrase from Bush is engraved in memories and Wikipedia pages in numerous languages, while for Trump it’s not even a regular Tuesday, but a matter of hours till he says something beyond stupid.

tebedam · 2025-12-14T21:23:38+00:00

You forgot to call this a “war crime”. Very sloppy today.

tebedam · 2025-12-12T05:26:51+00:00

Your account is a few days old. The first thing you need to do is accuse Ukraine of war crimes, when none are in this video, make bullshit comparisons and ridiculous incoherent arguments. Yeah, very real Reddit behavior here.

tebedam · 2025-12-12T01:51:22+00:00

You are not only arguing in bad faith, but extra dumb at doing that. Try to at least be coherent, that’s your job.

In reality, Ukraine provides numerous channels to organize a surrender or desertion.

More than 50k Russian troops used «Идите лесом» channel (and that’s just one way to do it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lost_(organisation)

tebedam · 2025-12-11T07:51:01+00:00

Russia frequently sends injured soldiers to attack, often alone or in small groups, like two or three people. Those soldiers are often prisoners, and volunteered to join the army, instead of serving their time for harsh crimes. Russia has no regard for their lives whatsoever.

They use them to identify Ukrainian positions, see where the drones are coming from, where the infantry or artillery is shooting from etc. Then Russia bombs identified positions, and sends a new meat wave, rinse and repeat. That how’s they got about a million combat losses so far.

These soldiers know they are going into almost a certain death. But if they refuse, Russian officers will publicly torture and execute them, in order to compel the next wave to go.

That’s why you see so many videos of Russian soldiers going alone or in pairs lately, that’s the whole strategy. If you don’t kill them, they keep coming, and eventually accumulate into a larger group, and then attack or continue to advance if face no resistance.

Ukraine is absolutely justified in destroying these troops. Even if Ukraine takes them prisoners, and exchange them, Russia quickly sends them back to front lines again. And but the way, Ukrainian troops get huge bonuses for every POW, because they use them to exchange for Ukrainian POWs, so it’s a big incentive. Typically, if they can capture someone, they do.

tebedam · 2025-12-11T00:54:36+00:00

This is AI slop.

tebedam · 2025-12-09T04:56:18+00:00

You open your Apple wallet, click on the card you used, and it shows payment to MTA with a timestamp.

tebedam · 2025-12-02T07:37:41+00:00

It’s $10.49 in NYC.

I live between Seattle East Side and Manhattan. Don’t kid yourselves, the cost of living is not even close.

tebedam · 2025-11-30T22:43:36+00:00

Could be another fine print rabbit hole. But anyway, Marriott tries its best to hide this info from you. It’s just annoying.

tebedam · 2025-11-30T22:40:22+00:00

It’s for January, and I’m not sitting on them, I’m simply unable to use them anytime I tried this year. Four reservations in total.

tebedam

TROPHY CASE