captain_price7

An average person doesn't need to directly access the data. As long as journalists or researchers can, an avg person could rely on their analysis/opinion instead.

For comparison, I used to be a very average, but pretty regular user about 5 years ago. I could reliably solve easiest 2 out of 5 problems, 3 in my lucky days.

My rating is 1562.

Sorry, but this seems too strange to be true. Are you sure you didn't miss anything?

Particularly strange since moving train (i.e. vehicle) is about the most common way doppler effect is explained in textbooks- it's not like you need any big "eureka" moment to get to this solution either.

If a movie has won an oscar, I used to count that as negative. Generally avoided nobel winners' books. Interesting how things have changed in just 7-8 years (I'm 25).

Why would someone want to game a negative result? Nobody ever becomes famous for saying my approach doesn't work. (As long as science is open, to make sure there is actually good work done by researchers before reaching this neg result.)

Am from Indian subcontinent. Butter isn't exactly that popular where I'm from (Bangladesh). Milk is usually collected at dawn and consumed in liquid form before the day is over, no need to store anything.

I think the entire point of the article was that Taliban doesn't really care about rigid ideology, it's their flexibility that has won them the war.

> If they did, they could end the Taliban in the span of a few weeks, just like they did ISIS. It wouldn't be a war, it would be a rampage...

This whole paragraph seems utterly bizarre.

US did NOT "end" ISIS, certainly not alone. Most of the fighting and dying was done by Shia and Kurdi forces inside Iraq whose lives literally depended on stopping ISIS. US failed in Afghanistan precisely because no such ally existed.

And, what exactly do you mean by "rampage"? There seems to be an awful implication- "if US forces didn't bother about civilian casualties, Taliban could be surely defeated". Which I suppose is true, there can't be any Taliban if there isn't any more afghan.

Taliban is certainly more popular than they were 25 years ago.

Last time there was a pretty strong grassroot movement against Taliban, particularly in the northern parts of the nation. Taliban didn't have to fire a shot in many of these places this time.

And then there were "phantom soldiers"- it's the practice where officers would just create non-existent soldiers to pocket their salary.

I think you're overestimating Pakistan's capability. It gave Taliban leaders shelter at their worst moment, and that is about the only leverage ISI had.

The moment Taliban started to carve out territory inside Afghanistan, that leverage was gone. There's some gratitude, but also lots of resentment among Taliban leadership about the way they were treated by the Pakistani authority.

No, born and raised in BD, never left.