The max volume doesn't help with songs that are far, far louder than others. I have this issue in our coffee shop, where a song that was playing at a normal volume on my AirPods, is extremely loud on Sonos. We flag it and take it off the playlist.
Side note: Sonos is atrocious when it comes to functionality and reliability, and it has only gotten worse recently. I can't discourage people enough from purchasing their product.
The angle of descent is of about 3 degrees, that's far less than the angle at which the aircraft is taking off. Thus the rear facing passengers would be facing down quite steeply on takeoff, and thus likely to vomit the airport lounge food they just had :)
The morality of any military action, can and has been endlessly debated (as it should) because it's non-binary, it's a spectrum. That does not change the fact that these two superpowers could not be further apart in how they go about spreading their influence around the world.
Through oversimplification you can argue that anything is the same as its opposite.
We know it's unsafe, we see the videos of peaceful protestors getting arrested. We knew all of this before the current conflict. And I completely agree with you that we are privileged to have these freedoms.
The ugly reality is that regime change will not happen in Russia without bloodshed, and currently the bloodshed is happening in a country that was unfortunate enough to border Russia.
The war in Ukraine is egregious and refusing to assume the risk as a Russian person is almost akin to saying "better them than us".
When the day comes when US tanks cross over into Canada to annex it under a false pretext, running over passenger vehicles; when the US tells its soldiers they are going on a military exercise only to have them shoot at their neighbor; when the US tells the world "if you get involved we'll nuke you"; when the US jails its anti-war protestors for as much as carrying a sign... then perhaps your comparison will be valid. Until then you're just deflecting.
There's certainly a possibility that change will not happen, but this is the best chance we have without escalating it to a world war.
Sanctions on elites have not caused regime change in other authoritarian regimes, we have even less reason to believe that it would happen with this one.
Russian people need to see that they are at a crossroads, and if they don't act in this narrow time window by organizing and protesting by the millions, they may indeed end up like North Korea.
You highlight the difference well between a democracy and an authoritarian regime.
However the suggestion you make at the end, that we should only sanction Putin & co., is exactly the type of measure that would work in a democratic regime but not in an authoritarian one.
I can't think of a single case where a large authoritarian regime was handed off gently to a democratic one as a result of sanctions on the dictator.
Perhaps the issue with your line of thinking is here:
> This action hurts your own team and not the opposing one.
The majority of us in the west don't regard this as team west vs. team Russia. We regard it as democracy vs. Putin. Seeing it as anything else is playing into his rhetoric.
> it is another thing entirely to celebrate businesses acting in ways to inflict the most suffering possible on the people least able to handle such abuse
No one is celebrating, I assure you. The crumbling economy, all of the restrictions, their children captured abroad, all these facts amount to a serious conversation amongst Russian people that can lead to a critical mass of people going into the streets and protesting. Look at December 1989 Romania, for a textbook example of people pushed too far with nothing to lose, taking matters in their own hands. It can happen again, but not so long as the Russian people don't feel the sting. It needs to be delivered fast and hard for people to trust that the great majority is with them.
Yes, they do have to pay a higher price, because the problem stems from there and they now have a small window opportunity for a regime change.
They are at a point where they can reach critical mass. If we don't push enough this can be dragged out to a North Korea like status, and that is going to be a lot worse for everyone.
You're missing the point. It's supposed to inconvenience the Russian people.
You can't have it both -- benefit from western companies and technology, but keep a leader in power that is completely indifferent to any human life and suffering other than (arguably) the one of the Russian people.
We like to think that we're all just citizens under the rule of the few, but we're all complicit in who governs us, whether we like to admit to it or not.
In the west we're all very aware that any kind of regime change in Russia will involve bloodshed amongst innocent Russian people, but that is already happening right now -- except you've exported the genocide to your neighbors, Belarus and Ukraine, and that is unacceptable.
I am completely in support of this. Hopefully the Russian people understand that these types of measures are not taken because we are trying to exact revenge on them as a people.
This is our way to motivate you, to encourage you to go out in major cities and protest by the millions. More so than any other profession, we in tech are often shielded from major events happening in the outside world (see pandemic). We need to get off our asses and fight for what's right because we're not living in the metaverse yet.
Yes, it's all very unfortunate that you have some additional work to do.
In all seriousness, you need to take a step back and realize that this is a minimal price that we all have to pay, that includes those of us in the western world, to enjoy the freedoms that we have every day.
The current events have a negative impact on the entire world, and it's already bad enough that we have let it get this far and a country found itself defending democracy for the entire world.