It's so frustrating to talk to Kubernetes enthusiasts.
enthusiast: if you'll migrate service X from a small sets of VMs to K8s cluster (which will take N man-moths because of reasons) it will auto-scale
Old grumpy man: but the the load is low and predictable we don't need autoscale and if load will grow we will just create two more VMs
enthusiast: auto-scaling will save time in the distant and unlikely future and CTO agrees that K8s is the best way to run software so you have to migrate anyway
Men may be have a crisis of identity but women still expect their husbands to be the main breadwinners and suffer from the mismatch of expectation and reality too. Women avoid marrying men who earn less and have no potential to earn more.
As a result I'd expect a lot of single men with below average income and a lot of single women with above average income who struggle to find worthy men. Statistically it is impossible meet two condition at once: 1. women on average earn at leas as much as men 2. In a family a husband has income higher than a wife.
I've seen an insightful explanation (from an immigrant from Ukraine) why it doesn't matter is there is a problem with the Russian culture or not but it should be cancelled in any case: to win this war Ukrainian people need to mobilize and hatred to anything Russian will help to mobilize them. It is not enough for them to hate Putin, to fight they need to hate all Russians. For this reason it is important to convince all that all Russians are imperialists and Russian culture is all poisoned by imperialism. And it doesn't matter if it would backfire - in an authoritarian Russia it doesn't matter what ordinary people think. Ukraine on other hand is more or less democratic state - it is for the people to decide if they would accept defeat or will continue to fight.
As someone from a middle class soviet family born in early 1980s in a middle-size town the first time I've seen a western computer at home was only after USSR collapse (likely around 1995). It probably was a PC with i486 (or Cyrix clone of i486). During my school years (90s) only two or three my classmates had a computer at home and it were some Z80 clones produced either in the USSR/exUSSR or in the Eastern Block (in 90s PC were already available, but not affordable).
I know some soviet companies were able to procure western computers even in 1980s but for ordinary people it was out of reach until early 1990s or late 1980s at best (at least outside Moscow).
Different people have different motivation: among people who criticize Israel there are people driven by antisemitism. Of course not all critics are antisemitic. The same with China - some can be right (in critics of CCP) for wrong reasons (xenophobia/nationalism). Or one can criticize specific policies for good reasons and be labeled as a racist.
Elect? Support? Elections in Russia is a show. I'm afraid you don't see a difference between a democratic state and an authoritarian one (which Russia was even before turning into dictatorship).
I was born in the Soviet Union, read book about Soviet economy and political system (albeit not scientific ones) and have a different take. Corruption is a broad term and one can probably say it was a contribution factor, but may take is that inefficiency of economy and misguided foreign policy (including Afghanistan invasion) were the fatal flaws.
When selecting who to delegate power to, all soviet leaders selected people who are loyal to them and suitable for the job. Loyalty was more important than competence so government was full of incompetent people, but competence was not a disqualifying factor so some of them was able to do the job.
In Putin's power structure people who not steal and cannot be easily blackmailed are not promoted high enough. Being not corrupt _is_ a disqualifying factor. Putin at least in the beginning of his career maintained visibility of a country with the rule of law, so instead jailing opponents on a whim he jailed them for breaking the law, but the law was enforced selectively only for ones who are not fully loyal.
As a result in modern Russia personal enrichment is a much bigger problem that it was in Soviet Union. Soviet nomenklatura [1] was rich compare to poor population but their quality of life was not much better than for upper-middle class in the US. The same nor the case for modern Russia.
Failure of soviet economy as I know was not result of corruption - much more resources were wasted than stolen. Unfortunately I cannot provide any sources here - all I read was in Russian and I cannot find translations to English.
I've seen this inefficiency myself in form of many thousands tons of trees which were cut so harvesting organization would meet KPI for amount of harvested wood but left to rot in the forest because an organization which should transport the wood had not enough capacity to do this (but likely transported all volume on paper, which you may say is corruption, but resources were wasted, not stolen).
Not stealing directly but US military industrial complex is a huge money sink which delivers much much less than civilian counterparts for the same money. F-35 story is a shame IMHO.
1. Russian military performs worse than was expected by western experts but still has enough explosives to flatten out large swaths of land - as we see they don't care at all about collateral damage or outright target civilians as an easy prey.
2. NATO military was not really tested in full scale combat and can perform worse than expected too.
There was some corruption in Soviet Union (like in most countries around the world with the exception of economically developed or/and democratic countries) but it was not fatal.
Corruption in modern Russia is unique to Putin's regime - he used it (and still uses) as a tool to concentrate power - he puts in position of power only corrupt officials as a mean to get full loyalty - officials not loyal enough can be easily blackmailed, secret services have enough "kompromat" to put any government official into jail but are waiting for a signal from above. Corruption is the foundation for what in Russia called the "vertical of power", which essentially means that a person in a power structure have almost unlimited (limited only by Putin, but not by the law) power over people below.
> every dollar which goes into russia will fund the war
Intel employees working for Intel in Russia are paying some taxes in Russia but generally benefit an US company. After loosing job in Intel they will have a hard time finding a job in rapidly failing economy and one of options they would have is to work in military-industrial complex. I'm sure Intel will be "happy".
Doors to leave Russia are rapidly closing and not from the Russian side. Western policies aimed to stop brain drain from Russia are completely misguided. I'm sure Putin is laughing in his nuclear shelter when he reads that EU countries are stopping granting visas to Russian citizens.
Information about high approval rates comes only from sources fully controlled by Russian president. I see no reasons to trust them in anything, especially this.
It's not a real exchange rate because there is no free exchange. Russian exporters forced to exchange 80% of hard currency to rubles. An individual can get maximum $10k in cash until at least 9th September: https://www.cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=12744 (and there are similar limits on international payments/transfers).
When there is no free exchange rate is not very meaningful.
1. You may find a (very) small fraction of Putin supporters among Russian immigrants in general but among the latest wave it is as low as ever. Many my friends and acquaintances left Russia in the wake of the war and none supports it (or Putin).
2. I expect fraction of Putin supporters among Russian immigrants to be highest among people immigrated in 1990s - many (but definitely not all) from this generation continued to watch Russian TV while living abroad. In 1990x Russia had relatively free press but Putin slowly turned it into a propaganda tool and this slow transition allowed Russian TV to keep old audience.
3. Support of Democrat/Republican IMO has little to do with the support of Putin or Russian government. I don't even think Republicans hate Russia less than Democrats. Trump showed a fondness for Putin but didn't do anything that would benefit Russia, quite the opposite. If you are not in a partisan bubble choice between Democrats and Republicans is not the choice between good and evil, it is an attempt to choose a less evil one. Russian immigrants know too well that socialism failed in the Soviet Union and Democrats talking about socialism can be enough to tilt the scales.
Russian government has no money to implement something like Chinese Great Firewall but feels an urgent need to censor online space so more likely scenario is a complete cut-off from an external world (like in North Korea). Russian ISPs has been tasked to prepare to operate all networks inside the country in isolated mode - like a huge LAN. Will it happen - no one knows for sure but there is a real possibility.
It may be the case but no one knows for sure. There is no independent sociology in Russia and the state controlled one is a gear in propaganda machine. Also many Russians are afraid to speak what they think and when asked just repeat what they heard on TV even if they don't agree.
There a way, unfortunately. Putin: 1. has no regard for human lives (including lives of Russian citizens) 2. is great admirer of Joseph Stalin.
His current plan likely: 1. destroy Ukrainian military and establish control over all major cities, roads and borders (russian losses to achieve this goal is no-brainier for him) 2. starve population (repeat Holodomor [1]) 3. sent millions to prison camps.
enthusiast: if you'll migrate service X from a small sets of VMs to K8s cluster (which will take N man-moths because of reasons) it will auto-scale
Old grumpy man: but the the load is low and predictable we don't need autoscale and if load will grow we will just create two more VMs
enthusiast: auto-scaling will save time in the distant and unlikely future and CTO agrees that K8s is the best way to run software so you have to migrate anyway