I've had a key break in a deadbolt lock before. I can go running without carrying keys. I can assign a temp code to my pet sitter/handyman/whoever without having to police up keys or worry about keys being copied. I know when and which code is used, in case of an incident (none so far). My partner has lost 3 mailbox keys and zero house keys (since there is no house key). My door auto locks, and forgetting to lock your door is one of the biggest security risks, since crimes of opportunity are so much more common than targeted crimes. I've given my neighbor access during an emergency while we were out of the country. I can pre unlock my door from my smart watch if my hands are going to be full. I absolutely think the cost and effort were worth it for me.
If memory serves, something like 2% of break ins use "lock picking" which includes shimming a sliding door, a very low skill attack. Criminals just don't use high skill attacks to burgle homes. Probably a combination of most crimes being opportunistic, most criminals doing them being low skilled themselves, and people like us not being rich enough to move into the level of being targeted by the minuscule percent of high skill burglars.
Exactly. Most of those IoT products will connect directly with Apple Homekit, Google Home, Smartthings, etc. without some other hub, app, cloud. Which makes it likely it can be kept working regardless of what that company does. You don't have to go full local setup to avoid the most proprietary IoT devices.
How did that Arab Spring work out for Syrians? Right, they were barrel bombed by the regime, then slaughtered by ISIS, then just generally killed in random crossfire. 14 million of them were driven from their homes, either to other places in Syria or outside the country to live in overcrowded refugee camps. Now the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rules over the ashes, since all the original people fighting for change are long dead. Why can't everyone just do this?!??! Stop being lazy people, rise up.
Russia has had to sell oil at a steep discount, which has cut into their revenue significantly. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been frozen/seized that can't be used to fund the war effort. Modern war is not just "beans and bullets”, and Russia pays upwards of 10 times the price for key components it needs for missiles, aviation, UAVs, tanks, artillery, air defense, etc. as well as quality manufacturing equipment needed.
Russian industry is operating at only 81% capacity, largely due to labor shortages, which make sense considering that about 1% of its labor force join the military every other month. Russia is losing tank barrels, artillery barrels, and infantry fighting vehicles more than 10 times faster than it can manufacture new ones. It will likely never be able to obtain a third rotary forge, required for barrel manufacture, to expand its capacity. It has almost entirely cannibalized its old, defunct Soviet era stock. They are being kept afloat by China, NK, and Iran, but with a much-reduced capacity, and often much lower quality. For example, Russia relies on China for 70-80% of its microchips, but China is dumping defective microchips on them with a 40% failure rate.
Sanctions have absolutely had significant, direct, measurable impacts on Russia’s ability to wage war and sustain war. As for regular people, it is hard to think it hasn't affected then, given that last year inflation was 9%, interest rates are 21%, and disposable income is down 20-30%. That feels like a lot of belt tightening.
Russia has had to sell oil at a steep discount, which has cut into their revenue significantly. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been frozen/seized that can't be used to fund the war effort. Modern war is not just "beans and bullets”, and Russia pays upwards of 10 times the price for key components it needs for missiles, aviation, UAVs, tanks, artillery, air defense, etc. as well as quality manufacturing equipment needed.
Russian industry is operating at only 81% capacity, largely due to labor shortages, which make sense considering that about 1% of its labor force join the military every other month. Russia is losing tank barrels, artillery barrels, and infantry fighting vehicles more than 10 times faster than it can manufacture new ones. It will likely never be able to obtain a third rotary forge, required for barrel manufacture, to expand its capacity. It has almost entirely cannibalized its old, defunct Soviet era stock. They are being kept afloat by China, NK, and Iran, but with a much-reduced capacity, and often much lower quality. For example, Russia relies on China for 70-80% of its microchips, but China is dumping defective microchips on them with a 40% failure rate.
Sanctions have absolutely had significant, direct, measurable impacts on Russia’s ability to wage war and sustain war.
I’m not saying the sanctions haven’t hurt, rather that when the war was at its decisive point (the first few days) they did not exist/were immaterial. Now they’re just doing more damage in an already damaging (and unwinnable) situation.
The biggest sanctions were adopted after the war started (and then the West kept piling up new sanctions every few months).
Are you suggesting the West should have put these harsh sanctions before the war? My recollection of Dec 2021 and Jan/Feb 2022 were that the West was trying to avoid inciting the crazy Russian dictator: Biden had two tele conferences with Putin in December, there were three meetings in Jan (OSCE - Russia, NATO - Russia, Lavrov - Blinken)
And I do not think the situation is unwinnable for the West (it is probably unwinnable for Ukraine as it will not be able to get its territory back). Russia is getting weaker with every man it loses, every tank is destroyed, every young man/woman who decides to leave. I would be surprised if Western Europe will want to do business with Russia for a generation - which basically makes Russia China's vassal for the same period of time.
Russia will be in bad shape for decades. The West will be just fine.
The West should have put boots on the ground in Ukraine before Russia invaded. That was the one thing that would have prevented the war. Hell, they should have had EU peacekeepers along the line of contact back in 2015.
The kind of sanctions that we've seen since then seem to be mostly about appearances, with EU trying to pretend that it "really cares" despite this epic failure of foreign policy.
I have seen no serious analysis saying that Russia losing the war has been basically inevitable since the first few weeks of the war. Russia is fighting a war of attrition now and has been for most of the war. Most analysis still assess Russia can attrite it's way to victory. Sanctions are important because even if Putin is willing to throw wave after wave of his own men to the slaughter (a million Russian casualties and counting), if they run out of vehicles or artillery barrels, they are kind of screwed.
Russia is hollowing out its male population which was already under severe strain.
Even if Russia ‘wins’ the Ukraine war (takes all Ukrainian territory), it’s even more fucked than when it started demographically.
It’s also spent pretty much all of it’s currency reserves and destroyed it’s normal economy destroying all that ‘new’ land in a way it will be incredibly hostile to productive use for a generation+. Not counting insurgencies and rebellions.
The well is solidly poisoned, regardless of who ends up owning it.
Both are true. Less access to materials, components, IP, and skilled labor all diminish a country's war fighting ability. There aren't unlimited funds you can take from citizens, and money you do take has effects on your labor force and talent pool.
>Sanctions have a theoretical basis behind them. In the Western Political Philosophical Canon, leaders and elites are expected to strive for the Common Good.
I would say it is a bit more realpolitik than that. An "Evil" leader doesn't care about the common good, but all leaders need subordinates to carry out their orders, security forces to carry out their rules, etc. Sanctions are meant to put pressure on all those people. So either A; the leader changes their actions so as not to risk losing the people that turn their will into action, or B; those subordinates put someone else in charge that will play ball.
I am also not a car engineer, but from my reading of "Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Door Locks and Door Retention Components" [1] it is the latching that is meant to prevent the door opening, not the locks. However, even many modern cars have a mechanical linkage from the handle to the door. In a crash the mechanical linkage, particularly older style tension-type linkages, could unlatch the door when your body hit the door from the inside and physically moved the linkage [2]. A lot of doors use electric actuators now [3], and linkages are much better designed, but it seems like it could still be an issue, in theory.
