>Errors are just a case of return data!
Are they? Why mix valid data with errors?
137 karma · joined July 22, 2019
Are they? Why mix valid data with errors?
And when you do need it, isn't 'the error' just a case of valid data that shouldn't be thrown as exception at all?
>Exceptions make this (and similar) patterns suffer so badly.
Why one would want to pass an error as an input to a function that expects valid data?
No, these ambitions were revived as the result of the American-backed coup that preceded Russian actions. That coup deposed a democratically elected president who opposed Ukraine's NATO membership.
>At which point Russia's objections became instantly and irrevocably moot.
Yes, it was the turning moment when Russia from objections turned to actions.
Here are the facts:
While NATO consisted of twenty-seven allies, Bush knew that the Alliance was divided right down the middle on the issue. He understood MAP was controversial but he also had many leaders from NATO allies, largely but not only from Central and Eastern Europe, coming through the Oval Office that spring urging him to push for it. In Bush’s mind, the final decision would boil down to a handful of countries and personalities who held the key votes—himself, Merkel, and Sarkozy—and who would be decisive in shifting the debate one way or the other. Bush also sensed a fault line in the German position. While Merkel and Steinmeier both opposed MAP, they did so for very different reasons. In Bush’s mind, Merkel’s thinking was not driven by concern over Russia, which meant she could still be persuaded to move. She, too, believed in the advancement of democracy and freedom and was willing to stand up to Moscow. He hoped he could personally appeal to those instincts over the heads of those in her government who focused, too much, in his mind, on Moscow.
<...> Adamkus stepped in to echo B_sescu’s point: “Do we agree that these countries should become NATO members?” Merkel replied, “We agree on that. Where we don’t agree is on timing.” The response of the three presidents was immediate and spontaneous: “Then let’s write that down!”
<...> Listening to Merkel, the Central and Eastern European leaders sensed an opening. NATO had never before stated explicitly that a country would become a member. None of them had ever had such a pledge. Most of their Western European counterparts, in all likelihood, would never have suggested this approach. They doubted if Merkel’s foreign minister would have either, but he was not in the room. If Merkel agreed, it could be a major step forward. Merkel then took out her pen and wrote on a sheet of paper: “We agree today that Georgia and Ukraine shall one day become members of NATO.” After studying the wording, B_sescu said: “Madame Chancellor, in our part of the world saying ‘one day’ means nothing and does not commit you to anything—it means never.” Kaczy_ski chimed in: “Absolutely.” Merkel agreed to delete “one day” <...>
<...> British prime minister Gordon Brown leaned over to President Bush at the Council table and half-jokingly said, “I am not sure what we did here. I know we did not extend MAP. But I’m not sure we didn’t just make them members of NATO.”
The question now was how Russia would react—and whether Putin would keep his promise to Bush not to create a problem at the summit.
<...> Moscow’s very public goal had of course been to ensure that Georgia and Ukraine did not get MAP. Technically, of course, NATO had not given it to them. But these countries had received something that was arguably better and stronger—an explicit political promise from NATO heads of state that they would one day became members. That had never happened before.
<...> The Russian president was even tougher on Kiev—describing Ukraine as an artificial creation and a state whose final formation was not complete. He noted that large parts of Ukraine were dominated by ethnic Russians and had been given to Ukraine by Moscow in an arbitrary fashion under Stalin, and asked, “Who can say that we do not have interests there?” The issue of NATO membership, he claimed, could threaten the very existence of Ukraine. “We should act very, very carefully. We do not have a right to veto [such a decision] and we probably don’t even want one, but I want all of us to realize, when deciding such issues, that we have our interests there as well.” At the press conference afterwards, Putin was also polite, but he was clear in reaffirming his opposition to NATO enlargement. Russia viewed “the appearance of a powerful military bloc” on its borders “as a direct threat” to its security, he said. “The claim that this process is not directed against Russia will not suffice,” he continued. “National security is not based on promises.” [0]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Little-War-That-Shook-World/dp/023061...
This whole thread is about the perceived rise of 'populist politics' in 'many other countries', isn't it? Of course the US won't support pro-Russia populist in Romania. The US supports anti-Putin populists in Russia and anti-Russia and anti-China populists in other countries.
>"Russian troll farms are also well documented"
Their effect is blown way out of proportion by Western media.
[0] http://www.summitbucharest.gov.ro/en/doc_160.html
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Little-War-That-Shook-World/dp/023061...
You meant American, right?
"By 2010, the military began using social media tools, leveraging phony accounts to spread messages of sympathetic local voices – themselves often secretly paid by the United States government. As time passed, a growing web of military and intelligence contractors built online news websites to pump U.S.-approved narratives into foreign countries. Today, the military employs a sprawling ecosystem of social media influencers, front groups and covertly placed digital advertisements to influence overseas audiences, according to current and former military officials.
...
Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”
And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military."[0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi...
That's ironic that Merkel tried to whitewash Germany's image as a former Nazi country by accepting millions of immigrants from Middle East and Africa, but also caused the rise German nationalists which is looked at with unease.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/20/mps-summon-elo...
Well, it actually changed the policy a little bit a few hours ago -- it announced that it stopped buying foreign currency until the end of the year[0] to reduce the pressure on the ruble. I guess that means that it doesn't want the ruble to fall below 110 rubles per dollar.
When ruble fell in the beginning of war, Russian Central Bank swiftly reversed the trend by mandating that all foreign currency received by exporters must be almost immediately sold at the foreign currency exchange. Soon ruble rose by more than 50%.
In about a year these restrictions were gradually relaxed and ruble slowly fell again.
Right now Russian government can reinstate these restrictions but chooses not to.
Better fill the budget from export revenue than to print money. In the former case only the consumers of imported goods are suffering, in the latter -- everybody as the result of two digit inflation.
There is something deeply wrong with talking like that about 2 million deaths.
Anyway, if you lump up all the 'communist' regimes, you should do the same with capitalist regimes too. Bengali famine gives you up to 4 million deaths for a start.[0]
So the US decided to up their killings?
"The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World is a 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins. It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country.
The book goes on to describe subsequent replications of the strategy of mass murder, against government reform and economic reform movements in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. The killings in Indonesia by the American-backed Indonesian forces were so successful in culling the left and economic reform movements that the term "Jakarta" was later used to refer to the genocidal aspects of similar later plans implemented by other authoritarian capitalist regimes with the assistance of the United States."[0]
What's wrong with state machines? Beats the tangled mess of nested ifs and fors.
Embraer jets all use Pratt & Whitney engines which is the hardest part to replace.
> they can’t compete against the Chinese for the anti-Western market.
All Chinese jet airplanes use Western engines and other systems[0][1]. China can't sell them on the anti-Western market just like Russia wasn't allowed to sell Tu-204SM with PS-90A2 engines co-developed with Pratt & Whitney[2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C909
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviadvigatel_PS-90#PS-90A2
Yes, of course. The version of SSJ-100 with Russian-made engines and other systems is called SJ-100.
[0] https://www.uacrussia.ru/ru/aircraft/lineup/civil/superjet-1...
>> you
> me personally?