Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Ukraine’s World Record-Holding Cargo Plane

Ukraine’s World-Record holding cargo plane:

The Antonov An-225 Mriya (Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-225 Мрія (Dream), NATO reporting name: “Cossack”) is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was designed by the Soviet Union’s Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s. The An-225’s name, Mriya (Мрiя) means “Dream” (Inspiration) in Ukrainian. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service.

The airlifter holds the absolute world records for an airlifted single item payload of 189,980 kilograms (418,834 pounds), and an airlifted total payload of 253,820 kilograms (559,577 pounds). It has also transported a payload of 247,000 kilograms (545,000 pounds) on a commercial flight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

George F Kennan, Moscow, 1944: “Here men determine what is true and what is false.”

George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat, political scientist, and historian. He was known best as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War on which he later reversed himself. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as “The Wise Men”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

How Bryan Cranston’s ‘Trumbo’ Whitewashes Stalinism

But as documents from the Soviet archives have revealed, McCarthy was largely right, even if not every last accusation he made was credible. Proof that Trumbo was a communist shill can be seen in the fact that he promoted his anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun when the communists opposed American involvement in WW2, and then agreed to have it taken out of print when the communists began to favor American entry into the war.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/05/how-bryan-cranston-s-trumbo-whitewashes-stalinism.html

Ukrainian Police Raid Home of my Friend, Mike Chobayan, Ukraine’s biggest Bitcoin Entrepreneur

From his facebook:

Я, конечно, не Корбан, но пару часов назад у меня дома прошел обыск. Пришли представители отдела МВД по борьбе с киберпреступностью с решением Шевченковского суда. Спустя 1 год (дело открыто 30 ноября 2014!), 1 допрос, 5 пояснений и 3 пакета предоставленных документов, сотрудники отдела по борьбе с киберпреступностью внезапно заподозрили, что я имею отношение к биткоин. Судья Шевченковского суда согласился, что для расследования дела о криптовалюте крайне необходимо провести обыск у меня дома. Адвокатов, естественно, пытались не пускать.
Биткоин сообщество целый год плотно работало с НБУ, банковской отраслью, юристами, журналистами и общественностью для стандартизации биткоин в Украине. Мы провели ряд встреч с главами департаментов НБУ и подготовили проекты нормативных документов, в том числе законодательные инициативы. Мы наладили связь с мировым биткоин сообществом, проанализировали их опыт. Представляя свою позицию перед правительством, мы апеллировали к опыту Евросоюза и США. Технология биткоин – это наиболее быстро растущая и перспективная отрасль в мире. Украина, благодаря ее сообществу, сейчас входит в лидеры по развитию этой технологии. В то время как топ 20 экономик мира вкладывают сотни миллионов долларов в развитие этой отрасли, мы развиваем это бесплатно.
И все это для того, чтобы 03.11.2015 наши усилия поставили под вопрос несколько полуграмотных следователей с санкцией судьи, который искренне считает, что если слова «криптовалюта» нет в законодательстве, то она – вне закона.
Скажите, а слово «гаджет» в законах есть? А слово «планшет»? Совесть? Адекватность? Или все эти понятия не принимаются Шевченковским судом за существующие?
Я прошу расшарить этот пост, чтобы информация поскорее дошла до общественности, СМИ, руководства МВД, Администрации Президента. Сегодня они уничтожают ИТ и Финтех. Завтра мы будем без будущего. «Ваша хата» уже не с краю – это вопрос будущего страны!

EDIT:

The story (in Russian): http://ain.ua/2015/11/04/613390.

Banned European car commercial

Banned European car commercial. It’s powerful because it demonstrates what we all want — we want to find our tribe.

Universalism has failed. Multiculturalism without the enforcement of behavioral norms has left us lonely and disenfranchised.

Tell stories about finding your tribe.

One of the (many) reasons I love Ukraine is because it feels like a giant extended family.

Russia as the “the only white people who failed”

From Curt:

(apologies to my educated Russian friends, but I have to engage in reverse propaganda when I am attacked.)

—“I understand. it is hard to be Russian: the only white people who failed. The only people who make the wrong decision every time: tatar and mongol rule by decree over natural rights rule of law, orthodoxy over catholicism, communism over capitalism, creating a false history of the muscovites over accepting the failures of their factual history, a monolithic economy over an diverse economy, a military economy over a technical economy, superstition and pseudoscience over optimism and analytic science, respecting postwar borders, and violating postwar borders, using the internet to educate the 70% of ignorant Russians without access to information over intentional propagandizing of the media in order to maintain the ignorance of rural Russians of the corruption of their government. Why is it that Russians, whenever they have the choice, make the wrong choice? Imagine had the germans won, and saved Russians from themselves. What a better world we would live in without the social, economic, and political cancer that the Russians produced in the 20th century. Russians: the only white people who failed.”—

New statue in Kyiv — St. George (Kozak) fighting a dragon (Russia/DNR/LNR)

A new statue appeared in Kyiv: A Ukrainian Kozak spears a two-headed dragon standing on the eastern regions of Ukraine. We will leave you to decipher the symbolic meaning of that
smile emoticon

What’s interesting, though, is that this image is straight out of the iconography handbook – St.George battling the dragon is a traditional Christian symbol of battling evil, very widespread in Ukraine. He is on the coat of arms of the Kyiv Oblast, and cities of Liuboml, Nizhyn, Taikury, Volodymyr-Volynskyi.

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