Accessed my first Atari 8-bit BBS as a kid in 1985 with my Atari 800 and 300 baud modem, lucky to upgrade to an Atari 130 XE soon after (also 8-bit). It was a whole different world.
Aside from the glacially slow connection speed, virtually every BBS back then was single line. This meant constant busy signals and endless redialing (pulse dialing, not touch tone!) in an attempt to get through and connect. Daily login time to each BBS was limited so that others could get on. Most BBSs used an upload to download ratio for files/warez in order to block leechers. Phone calls were very expensive back then too! Even calling numbers within your area code (which was subdivided into sections with different rates) carried a per minute charge. The more selective boards required referrals and/or references to have your account accepted.
It was the Wild West back then and truly a great time.
I can still remember learning my first "real" programming language (Turbo Pascal[1]) in 1990, entirely out of a book! It took much longer to figure things out entirely on my own when I was stuck on something, but once I figured it out and overcame it I'd spent enough time working through it to gain a thorough understanding of whatever the problem was. Going through this process eventually gave me a much greater understanding of programming as a whole and made it much easier to pick up new languages. I fear this will be lost on a generation growing up with LLMs.
Shooting at flying things in densely populated areas is generally a bad idea because when you miss, whatever ammunition you used falls on somebody on the ground. And if you hit, the debris falls on someone on the ground.
If you fly the drone 100m up in the air it will block commercial flying due to risk of collision but birdshot can’t reach it.
Even if you manage to hit it at that range there just isn’t enough kinetic power left to really do any damage.
For example here is a Finnish journalist being shot at 70m with birdshot. https://youtu.be/WJgzzrcSmNM?t=124 note that the shot did hit them but none managed to go trough the cardboard and normal civilian clothes were enough protection for other parts of the body.
Basically outside of drones that are trying to hit you (suicide fpv drones) birdshot is kinda useless as there isn't really any reason to fly them so close that they would be in effective range.
Lest anyone misinterpret your statement, shotguns are still dangerous at long range:
No. 7 1/2 shot carries, and is dangerous to humans, for 125
yards; No. 6 shot is dangerous for 250 yards; 3 and 4 shot are dangerous
for 300 yards and BB shot is dangerous for 450 yards.
The heavy shot used for geese is dangerous for 1,400 yards --
almost a mile.
The spread will mean you likely won't hit what you are aiming at, but it is still dangerous.
This poses a fun dilemma: the belief that Russia deliberately targets civilians (which is likely correct) almost requires us to also believe that the Russian army fields precision weaponry allowing deliberately targeting things (of which the evidence is scarce).
That's easy. Russia deliberately targets civilians, but being totally inept, misses and hits different civilians.
>of which the evidence is scarce
Is it?
Have a look at this one, where Russia hit Ukrainian MLRSes in a night strike.[0] Western media reported that as inhuman and savage Russians destroying a shopping mall.[1] The mall indeed suffered but only because the Ukrainians parked MLRSes next to it. Ironically the Ukraine itself provided the evidence of that by distributing video where they talk about the mall but incidentally show destroyed MLRS (the other one got evaporated).[2]
Re: Russia deliberately targets civilians, but being totally inept, misses and hits different civilians. -- Yep, absolutely, but this is unfalsifiable I guess. I mean, maybe they're targeting hostile aliens from space, but being inept, [...]
Re: Why do you think that? -- I extrapolate from Putin's allies really. Hamas specifically (and very vocally / proudly) targets civilians, Hezbollah targets civilians, Iran and Houthis routinely fire ballistic missiles at residential areas. (I'm only listing things I've actually witnessed, as a noncombatant.)
So intuitively they're all in the same bucket. I'll be happy to be completely wrong about Russia in this regard.
Here is one of the top Ukrainian propagandists posting in his personal channel a video from Belgorod (Russia) that shows wounded Russian women screaming and thrashing in agony (the text reads "Happy New Year, bitches") after Ukrainian MLRS strike at the city: https://t.me/dmytrogordon_official/39688
Here is the Ukraine targeting the same high-rise apartment building in Kazan with multiple drones: https://t.me/readovkanews/91042
I'd say it's a fine example of whataboutism in an argument. The fact that other people in history have committed atrocities does not mean it's hunky dory to Russia to murder people.
The discussion was on whether Russia targets civilians or not. That is not really a function of whether Ukraine does.
If you want to drag Russia vs Ukraine in, obviously Russia is hugely worse as the aggressor with their rapes and torture chambers and the like. I'm not Ukrainian or Russian and I don't think I've seen a clearer good vs evil war in my lifetime.
>That is not really a function of whether Ukraine does
It's a function of what you call what the Ukraine does. If you use a report of an isolated episode to justify the claim that "Russia deliberately targets civilians" accompanying all Western reporting on Russian strikes, than you surely must accept the statement that "Ukrainian soldiers have swastika tatoos"[0]. Do you?
>with their rapes and torture chambers and the like
You forgot the infants raped with teaspoons and Viagra kits distributed to Russian soldiers, all according to Ukrainian sources and Western politicians and media. Having said that, I'm sure war crimes happen just like in any war.
>I don't think I've seen a clearer good vs evil war in my lifetime
That's exactly what Western media wants you to think. Russian state media wants Russians think the same.
>I extrapolate from Putin's allies really. ... they're all in the same bucket
Hamas, Hezbolla or Houthis are hardly Russian allies. Iran isn't fighting on the Russian side like North Korea did, but I guess you can call them an ally of sorts.
Here is a bit about Israel, which supports the Ukraine:
Two of the sources told the outlets that in the first few weeks of the war, the IDF allowed up to 15 or 20 civilian deaths for every low-ranking Hamas militant assassinated.
That number could increase to up to more than 100 civilians if the IDF were targeting a single senior Hamas official, the sources said.
"There was a completely permissive policy regarding the casualties of operations," one source said, according to the report. "A policy so permissive that in my opinion it had an element of revenge." [0]
Assuming that's true, should we extrapolate that too?
Iran, well, we agree: they're very much aligned politically, seem to have shared weapon programs (rumor has it, Iran's Shahed drone == RF's Geran' drone).
Having said all that, I now realize that I must've misused the word ally to mean political sympathizer, my bad. I meant "closely aligned" more than anything, like when the Russian media says "Anglo-saxons" to describe the political bloc.
Re: Assuming that's true, should we extrapolate that too? -- Honestly, maybe? I don't have an opinion, much less an educated one.
The article says it didn't happen, just that maybe some people disembarked.
>The meeting where Putin says they have longstanding ties with Hamas
That's not exactly what he said: "Russia’s stable, long-term relationships with the Palestinian people, their representatives and various organizations". If you deal with Palestine you have to deal with Hamas. Russia has stable, long-term relationship with Israel too.
>I meant "closely aligned" more than anything
To some degree, what degree is that is debatable. It's more like the enemy of my enemy (the US) thing if you ask my opinion.
>rumor has it, Iran's Shahed drone == RF's Geran' drone
Russia used to import Shahed drones, than organized their production domestically with Iranian help, improved the design, greatly scaled the production, created a decoy version and a jet-powered version.
>Honestly, maybe? I don't have an opinion, much less an educated one.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics' population estimates, as of July 2025 - down 6% in one year since 2024, which is 10% below original forecasts for 2025:
You are confusing emigration with death. We are not concerned with who is physically in Gaza, we are concerned with births and deaths.
There are less people physically in Gaza now because a bunch of people emigrated. Not because of deaths.
The overall group of families who lived in Gaza on Oct 7 2023 is about the same number of humans now. A few hundred thousand have emigrated. About 40-60k were killed. About 50k were born.
Actually a few hundred thousand have been killed, the ~60k figure from the Gaza health ministry is just the deaths they've been able to actually confirm, which is just deaths at hospitals (which is why that number has grown so little this year, because the vast majority of hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed by the IDF).
Sure, they're estimates not proven statistics, but the situation on the ground means it's impossible for anyone to have an accurate count. What's important is that we don't look at the relatively small (yet still depressingly large) number of confirmed deaths of known named people, tracked by the Gaza health ministry, as if it's a count of the actual number of deaths. Hell, even the IDF recently claimed that there have been 90k deaths (when they were boasting that they had killed 30k Hamas fighters and that they had "only" killed 2 civilians to every 1 Hamas) - and, setting aside the IDF's track record of lying and their incentive to claim less civilian deaths than reality, even if they were telling the truth that would still be limited to deaths they were actually able to track and confirm, not the many other deaths that weren't officially recorded.
You're spreading misinformation (quite likely unintentionally). No data has been released supporting the claim that the population has stayed the same, what was wrongly spread was a US intelligence assessment of expected population which was made before the October 7th attack predicting future population growth, and used by many people as if it had remained accurate despite all the killing,
Policing speech for civility or spam is very different than policing speech for content that you disagree with. I was on the early internet, and on the vast majority of forums policing someone's speech for content rather than vulgarity or spam was almost universally opposed and frowned upon.
>"You and I, if we say a lie we are held responsible for it, so people can trust us."
I don't know how it works in The Philippines, but in the USA the suggestion that media outlets are held responsible for the lies that they tell is one of the most absurd statements one could possibly make.
I was referring more to established Media that people consider credible like the NBC, CBS, The Guardian, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, etc. The fact that the only person in "media" who has been severely punished for their lies is a roundly despised figure (without any credibility among established media or the ruling class) is not a ringing endorsement for the system. While the lies of Jones no doubt caused untold hardship for the families of the victims, they pale in comparison to the much more consequential lies told by major media outlets with far greater influence.
When corporate media figures tell lies that are useful to the establishment, they are promoted, not called to account.
In 2018 Luke Harding at the Guardian lied and published a story that "Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy" (headline later amended with "sources say" after the fake story was debunked) in order to bolster the Russiagate narrative. It was proven without a shadow of a doubt that Manafort never went to the Embassy or had any contact at all with Assange (who was under blanket surveillance), at any time. However, to this day this provably fake story remains on The Guardian website, without any sort of editor's note that is it false or that it was all a pack of lies!(1) No retraction was ever issued. Luke Harding remains an esteemed foreign correspondent for The Guardian.
In 2002, Jonah Golberg told numerous lies in a completely false article in The New Yorker that sought to establish a connection between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein called, "The Great Terror".(2) This article was cited repeatedly during the run up to the war as justification for the subsequent invasion and greatly helped contribute to an environment where a majority of Americans thought that Iraq was linked to Bin Laden and the 9/11 attackers. More than a million people were killed, in no small part because of his lies. And Goldberg? He was promoted to editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, perhaps the most prestigious and influential journal in the country. He remains in this position today.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar examples. The idea suggested in the original OP that corporate/established media is somehow more credible or held to a higher standard than independent media is simply not true. Unfortunately there are a ton of lies, falsehoods and propaganda out there, and it is up to all of us to be necessarily skeptical no matter where we get our information and do our due diligence.
I'm not an Alex Jones fan, but I don't understand how a conspiracy theory about the mass shooting could be construed as defamation against the parents of the victims. And the $1.3B judgement does seem excessive to me.
You should read up on some details. The defamation claim is because Alex Jones accused the parents of being actors who are part of staging the false flag. The huge judgement is partly because Alex Jones failed to comply[1][2] with basic court procedure like discovery in a timely way so a default judgement was entered.
Despite his resources, Alex Jones completely failed to get competent legal representation and screwed himself. He then portrayed himself as the victim of an unjust legal system.
> Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis cited the defendants' "willful noncompliance" with the discovery process as the reasoning behind the ruling. Bellis noted that defendants failed to turned over financial and analytics data that were requested multiple times by the Sandy Hook family plaintiffs.
> Bellis reportedly said Jones' attorneys "failure to produce critical material information that the plaintiffs needed to prove their claims" was a "callous disregard of their obligation," the Hartford Courant reported.
> The huge judgement is partly because Alex Jones failed to comply with basic court procedure like discovery in a timely way so a default judgement was entered.
Yeah. Reufsing to cooperate with the court has to always be at least as bad as losing your case would have been.
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