🔗 Elon Musk nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Billionaire Elon Musk — whose businesses range from satellites to social media — was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian lawmaker who praised the X owner as a “stout proponent for free speech.”

You must be kidding me! While at it, why not nominate Putin for his fight against nazis in Ukraine. Beyond ridiculous.

🥺 Oh crap!
#Raindrop

I don't support Raindrop.io, because of [this](https://numericcitizen.me/when-war-in-ukraine-influences-my-application-choices/).

If Ukraine loses the war against Putin’s regime in Moscow, it’s not Ukraine who loses, but the West. Fighting back after an eventual lost war will cost everyone’s ten if not hundred times more. When are we going to get this? Pressure your governments to do more, not less.

It’s now official: Trump and his clown followers are complicit of Putin. Disgusting. Disclaimer: this blog hosts my thoughts and mild-venting about the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦.

Reuters report:

U.S. tech giant Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab has paid a Russian fine of 1.2 billion roubles ($13.65 million), imposed over the company’s alleged abuse of its dominant market position concerning in-app payments, Russia’s FAS antitrust agency said on Monday. Source: Apple pays $13.7 mln Russian fine, antitrust agency says | Reuters

It’s like paying a fine to an organized crime group. Utterly shocking that the West still helps this criminal government in its war efforts in Ukraine. I can’t wait to see Trump licking their butt when he’s back.

I’m thinking of leaving Write.as. Last year, I purchased a 5-year subscription during a promotion, intending to use it extensively. However, I haven’t used it as much as I anticipated. My main focus was writing about the Ukraine war. I could migrate this to Micro.blog. Yet, I’m concerned that my views on the conflict might offend some people here, as not everyone is interested in politics. 🤔🧐

9to5Mac reporting about WhatsApp usage in the US:

The fact that more people in the US have been using WhatsApp recently is definitely intriguing. Source: WhatsApp has been getting more attention in the US

iMessage usage in Canada is probably similar to that in the US. I started using WhatsApp when I went to Morocco last summer. I also have a friend who moved from Canada to Mexico, and he switched to WhatsApp, so now I have to use WhatsApp to reach him. I must say that I like it. I also follow some news channels, just for fun. I like the messaging app format to get news; that’s why I also use Telegram for the same purpose: to follow news from Ukraine.

With recent events in Israel, we no longer hear about the conflict in Ukraine. I understand this could pose a problem for this conflict because people’s attention is severely diverted. Support for Ukraine was already waning before the attacks in Israel. Military aid packages are harder to get. Any interruption in weapons could destroy any small advances by the Ukrainian army. There is no magic here, to fully reverse the dynamic in Ukraine, look no further than into Israel’s army reaction to the Hammas. Continue reading →

From a lunar rover to a plane (probably, to be confirmed) carrying the head of the infamous Wagner group (plus a few of his “friends”), they all crash and burn in hell. I don’t care about the root causes, I have no sympathy at all for Russian failures. The more, the better. Eventually, some will wake up and make a revolution. Continue reading →

Musk reminds me of Trump when he says he wants to have a conversation with Tim Cook about the App Store’s 30% cut on whatever shit they allow to sell through X.com. Just like Trump walking to the room in Ukraine or Russia and solving the Ukraine war in a day. What a pair of clowns these guys can be.

George Monastiriakos: The only way to save Russia is to dismantle it:

“To be clear: The Russian Federation is the third iteration of the Russian Empire. Spanning 11 time zones and comprising hundreds of ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and culturally distinct societies ruled by, from, and for the benefit of a small circle of kleptocrats primarily based in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, the Russian state has been unviable for centuries. Like empires of old, the only way to save Russia from itself is to dismantle it,“ writes George Monastiriakos, a fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security, in his recent op-ed.

Photo: Getty Images

Apparently, Russian officials are now banning iPhone because they believe there is an espionage ops using American tech. 🕺🏼

The world is watching. Don’t waste your second chance. Continue reading →

A day at the office. Today, I had a meeting with my client’s external IT resources. One of them had a strange name, hard to pronounce. While waiting for everyone to join the meeting, wanting to fill in the silence, I asked where he was from. He responded, “Russia.” I said, “Oh.” 😱 This was followed by a big silence while I could see in mack back my Tidbyt display showing a prominent Ukrainian flag. 🇺🇦👊🏻We moved on to the meeting’s first subject. 😏😂

A colleague of mine told me after the meeting that not all Russians are ok with this war in Ukraine. Yeah, right. I guess. This is not a valuable excuse in my book. Where are the diaspora demonstrations, in Canada? In the US?

Women in Iran have more courage to defend democratic values than those men in Russia to defend what is blatantly right from what is wrong. This is utterly frustrating.

Glory to Ukraine. 🇺🇦🇺🇦

Found on Reddit: NATO has always pandered to Putin, says former officer Samantha de Bendern. “If we’re gonna help Ukraine, we have to go in and help them with as much as we can as fast as we can. Drip feeding weapons is what’s prolonging the war” Indeed. I cannot see how, today, NATO could be more involved in the Ukrainian conflict. Politically it’s a big challenge to put boots on the ground. Continue reading →

I updated my main website to add a banner at the top, using Ghost’s new “Special Announcement” feature. 🇺🇦👀

How Amazon put Ukraine’s ‘government in a box’ — and saved its economy from Russia

Since the day Russia launched its invasion Feb. 24, Amazon has been working closely with the Ukrainian government to download essential data and ferry it out of the country in suitcase-sized solid-state computer storage units called Snowball Edge, then funnelling the data into Amazon’s cloud computing system.

As a guy working in IT for nearly 30 years, I can imagine how complex and critical this project was for Ukraine. Transferring a vast amount of data doesn’t happen overnight. Preparing a landing zone in a cloud provider is a complex project. AWS’s (Amazon) contribution is essential, and I wonder if their contribution covers the subscription fees too. I wish I could work on this kind of project myself.

I’ve been following the war in Ukraine on a daily basis since the very beginning. It’s an enduring journey, to say the least. Imanyo has many sad and ugly stories and so many images from this conflict. Some of them are powerful symbols of any war’s ugly side. What I should have done was to collect images so I can remember what Ukrainians went (and are still) going through. Historic moments are being played right before our eyes; we should pay attention as they will define the next decades of international relations. Continue reading →

As reported by The Kyiv Independent, Brazil’s proposal to get a peaceful resolution between Russia and Ukraine: “Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva suggested that Ukraine should be open to the idea of giving up Crimea in exchange for peace with Russia.” — Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Wow. That’s quite a suggestion. How can a sound man be so sure and trust Russia to bring peace by giving up a piece of land? Continue reading →

These are the trees of death. This is what I call them. This scene was taken from a video in a combat zone near Bakmut. They all look the same; only the base trunk is standing, and the rest is pulverized with repetitive bombing and shelling. These skeletons of what used to be trees with thinner branches, leaves, and life are now dead in a vegetative expression. It’s all gone now. Continue reading →