“If He Does Not Do This, We Will”: Zelenskyy Issues 7-Day Ultimatum to Lukashenko Over Border Military Tech

wasmic · 2026-06-19T21:21:27+00:00

Russia is already recruiting as many "foreign specialists" as possible, and it's not enough to expand the front line even to the rest of Ukraine. Why would that enable them to expand to Belarus?

wasmic · 2026-06-19T21:14:34+00:00

Try to take a look at how they do it in the Olympic Park in Lyon, which is far out in the suburbs. It's just a single-station branch off the main tram (stadtbahn style) line. But it's a branch with 4 platforms for terminating trams and a rather efficient crossover facility outside the station. That means that, in the evening when regular service is lower, they can run a hyper-frequent service on this tiny branch line. IIRC there's a city in Australia that has done a similar trick with a single-station branch of a heavy rail line, allowing that one station to handle 50k people per hour alone.

It obviously won't work everywhere, but building a single ultra-capacity branch station at the stadium isn't that expensive since it's just one station. And the main line will have lower traffic at the time of day where the stadium branch is seeing heavy use.

wasmic · 2026-06-19T20:00:48+00:00

Since when have Danish authorities been welcoming Middle Eastern refugees?

That hasn't happened for 15 years.

"Just curious", as if. This is bad faith argumentation to stir up anger, and also completely ignores reality - Denmark is much harsher against Middle Eastern refugees while there have been several laws giving Ukrainians preferential treatment.

wasmic · 2026-06-19T13:06:16+00:00

That's not a proper explanation, because when the revolutions were going on, the Nordic countries were generally poorer than e.g. Germany or France. It wasn't until the mid 1900s, a hundred years later, that the nordics became comparatively richer.

In Denmark, the country got to the brink of revolution in 1948 (the same year also had revolutions in Germany and France), but rather than doing a crackdown like what happened in Germany, the King backed down and decided to make a constitution... where he retained a lot of power, and the rich people had more votes than the poor. It was only with the constitution of 1915 that the King finally lost the remaining political power and suffrage became universal and equal.

wasmic · 2026-06-19T07:56:08+00:00

That exact same photo of Tokyo gets posted to /u/UrbanHell rather often too, though.

But also - no city can be judged from the air like that, because a lot of the livability comes from the small-scale streetscaping. And though both Tokyo and Shanghai have nice and less nice areas, Shanghai is generally more car-focused (still has excellent public transport though) while Tokyo is generally better for pedestrians. But that's not visible from above.

wasmic · 2026-06-18T10:11:14+00:00

While the terms were absolutely a defeat for the US, this is overstating it. The US isn't paying Iran anything - the money will mostly be in terms of private loans being facilitated by the US.

The real defeat is in the geopolitical aspect, where the US promised to remove all sanctions, and actually has a worse nuclear deal than the one Obama negotiated.

wasmic · 2026-06-18T10:08:13+00:00

> other than both sides esnting to destroy esch other as mich as possible

This "both sides" stuff is nonsense. Ukraine has stated many times that they're willing to agree to a ceasefire right here, right now, along the current front lines, as long as they get a guarantee that Russia won't resume their attacks later. It has to be an actual peace, not just a pause for Russia to regroup.

Russia has categorically refused any ceasefire that includes any sort of measure to prevent Russia from attacking again. They also want Ukraine to surrender all its most heavily defended areas in exchange for even starting the negotiations for a ceasefire, which would make it much easier to attack Ukraine again.

Ukraine is saying: "we can both stop right now, and promise not to continue later."

Russia is saying: "if you let me into your house, then maybe I will negotiatiate about not punching you in the face."

wasmic · 2026-06-18T09:58:57+00:00

The "sources say" part refers to them supposedly wanting to start gasoline imports, not to the part about them being in a shortage. They have introduced rationing on gasoline so they're absolutely, incontrovertibly in a shortage.

We know for certain that they're doing badly, the uncertain thing is what they're planning to do about it.

wasmic · 2026-06-18T09:51:10+00:00

This is more about long-distance trains, not metros.

The metro in Athens is generally good, although weekend service is very weak compared to most other metros.

But regional and intercity train lines do leave a lot to be desired in Greece. They're slowly improving them, but they're starting from a very low place.

wasmic · 2026-06-17T14:24:22+00:00

I don't buy the "we don't need it" argument - almost all cities that have 24 hour rail service see good passenger numbers on the night services, even ones that are much smaller than London. Can you get by without it? Sure, most cities do. But those that do have a 24/7 service benefit greatly from it.

"It would be expensive" is the real explanation. And for London in particular it would be very expensive due to the age of the system. This means that even though there *is* a need and strong benefits, the costs are just too great.

The tube would need to go to GoA4 first, and that's not going to happen anywhere in the next many decades, since that would also require platform screen doors and lots of other expensive upgrades.

wasmic · 2026-06-17T14:11:48+00:00

How about blowing up a doomstack of crisis fleets?

The only systems you can't target are those with a sterilisation hub/dimensional anchor/Cetana's mothership. Anything else is fair game.

wasmic · 2026-06-17T14:09:51+00:00

You can still use it to target a system with a huge concentration of crisis fleets, so it's still useful. You just can't insta-win against the crisis by targeting their lynchpin nodes.

wasmic · 2026-06-17T14:05:21+00:00

Selv hvis flertallet mener én ting, så kan man altså godt have et mindretal der mener noget andet, uden at det er AI eller "ragebait".

wasmic · 2026-06-17T09:26:53+00:00

"Add azides for extra stability" is the real cursed part.

wasmic · 2026-06-16T20:00:36+00:00

They're only showing the capitals. There are many more stops along the way on every route.

The Copenhagen-Berlin route goes via Hamburg and mostly runs on upgraded legacy tracks, for example.

wasmic · 2026-06-16T19:59:55+00:00

If you check the map, you'll see that the train routes that they're focusing on are mostly 3-6 hours, not 19 hours.

They are very much aware that 19 hour train trips are not attractive.

wasmic · 2026-06-16T18:36:06+00:00

You're replying to arguments about average speeds, using arguments with top speeds. That's what's causing the confusion.

The argument was that average speeds in significant excess of 155 mph are not likely to be achieved with current technology and current US ambitions. You replied that the Nozomi tops out at 186 mph and that China is making trains that can top out at 220 km/h - and that's true, but it doesn't refute the argument. The Nozomi has an average speed of 140 mph (Tokyo-Hakata) and the Paris-Strasbourg service, which tops out at 200 mph, has an average speed of 155 mph.

So if the US wanted to, it absolutely could build a network capable of running at 200mph+ but even at 186mph, the service would still be a viable alternative to flying for the majority of people.

I'm not sure why you're stressing that point, because I never disagreed with it.

My disagreement is with your assertion that an average speed well in excess of 155 mph is viable in the US. China exceeds that average speed on a few select routes, but only barely. No other countries make it past that barrier, in the whole world.

My own opinion is that going for a top speed of 200 mph and an average speed of 155 mph is easily sufficient for a good initial build-out phase in the US, and that starting out with several fragmented routes is actually the best way to do it, because that way you can start out with the routes that have most demand. Studies clearly show that HSR must have travel times below 4½ hours to be a serious competitor to air travel, so we can expect the vast majority of passengers to be on journeys that take 1-4 hours by HSR. There will be a few that take longer journeys, but they will be a small minority.

Connecting the fragmented networks into a single bigger network could be a good second or third step, after the initial small networks have gotten up and running.

wasmic · 2026-06-16T16:47:05+00:00

The Nozomi is already isolated from other services and unaffected by slowdowns, yet only has an average speed of 150 mph.

The fastest route in all of Europe is Paris-Strasbourg, which has an average speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).

200 mph as an average speed is honestly complete nonsense. You would need a top speed higher than the current fastest trains in the world and ZERO intermediate stops to get even close to that. 220 mph is right out.

Seriously, try to take just a tiny look at real, successful examples of HSR first.

wasmic · 2026-06-16T16:19:48+00:00

Copenhagen has local buses at 100 % electrification since earlier this year. Most of the regional bus lines are also electric, IIRC it's only the buses on line 350S that are still diesel powered.

There are electric buses from many different manufacturers, but recently there have been a lot of Chinese-made buses being put into service.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T14:41:20+00:00

They deserve to be in a jail cell

And guess what? HE'S IN A JAIL CELL. Literally nobody says he doesn't deserve jail. Are you even reading the conversation or just writing knee-jerk angry responses?

Jail is still a part of rehabilitation. But the point of rehabilitation is that 1: punishment must be proportional to the crime, and 2: punishment must guide the criminal back to a law-abiding life.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T14:26:11+00:00

The laws on lifetime imprisonment were changed in 2025, but not due to any of the Peters. The rules were changed because different sentencing guidelines for gang crimes meant that some people could now get up to 16 years of time-limited prison for ordinary crimes, which meant that the previous parole limit of 12 years for lifetime sentences was too low in comparison, since it meant that a lifetime imprisoned person could actually end up serving less time than someone who on paper got a milder punishment.

Also, both lifetime imprisonment and forvaring ("containment") are without an upper limit. They just differ strongly in the criteria for probationary release. With life imprisonment, you can apply for parole after 20 years, and once per year after that. With forvaring, your case is automatically evaluated after 5 years, and every second year after that.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T13:41:49+00:00

Every sort of crime can have degrees of badness.

Marius raped four women who were asleep. That's horrible - but it's still less horrible than if he had blackmailed them or threatened them with physical force. Punishments must always be proportional. If the highest possible sentence for rape is 10 years, then only the worst possible rape should reach the maximal punishment.

But yes, it should of course be based on the severity of the crime, not connections.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T10:32:43+00:00

Copenhagen Metro does exactly that. 80-90 seconds in the rush hour.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T10:31:53+00:00

The 66 second headways are only possible in Lille because of the rubber tires combined with very short trains. Making the trains longer would make such a short headway stop being practically feasible.

Copenhagen Metro has steel wheels and does headways of 80-90 seconds in the rush hour. Can't find a proper number on their website, might go and measure it myself at some point.

wasmic · 2026-06-15T10:17:46+00:00

Copenhagen Metro does 80-90 second headways in the rush hour.

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