mesofile

Not sure if this is a spoiler, it’s been a while since I read those books, but if memory serves the only reason Zaphod survived the TPV was because he was temporarily the inhabitant of a pocket universe specifically designed to trick him, and naturally for this universe’s version of the TPV he was the most important being in it, and in telling him so the pocket-universe TPV just confirmed ZB’s own view of himself, leaving him unharmed and a little extra smug. At some further point in the plot this fact is revealed, not sure if it’s the same book, but I remember it as a hilarious deflationary moment for the character.

This is how I feel about my Honda, and to some extent, Kubernetes. In the former case I kept a 2006 model in good order for so long I skipped at least two (automobile) generation's worth of car-to-phone teething problems, and after years of hearing people complain about their woes I've found the experience of connecting my iphone to my '23 car pretty hassle-free. In the latter, I am finally moving a bunch of workloads out of EC2 after years of nudging from my higher-ups and, while it's still far from a simple matter I feel like the managed solutions in EKS and GKE have matured and greatly lessen the pain of migrating to K8S. I can only imagine what I would have gotten bogged down with had I promptly acted on my bosses' suggestion to do this six or seven years ago. (I also feel very lucky that the people I work for let me move on these things in my own due time.)

I agree the Ukrainian defense industrial base is working miracles given the situation, but my comment was specifically about major assets that not only they but the EU as a whole are not prepared to replace at this time or in the near term. Big-ticket items, not drones, cannon shells or bullets. In some cases there is a similar capability in or perhaps available to Europe but not (yet) the capacity for mass manufacture. In other cases there is nothing else even close. It's just a very very bad situation. I am currently pinning my hopes on Trump getting a lot of pushback from the US defense industry, but this seems like a slim chance as they probably expect they'll be making a lot of money in the next several years regardless of where their products are shipped.

I like the sentiment, and I believe that the Ukrainians will fight on regardless, but I am extremely pessimistic about their prospects past the end of this year. US support has been critical from the very earliest stages of this war and indeed even before the invasion of Feb '22. The Rivet Joint flights, HIMARS, Patriot batteries, Starlink access, cyber defense and intel support... I am not a defense expert but to my understanding there is no way that the EU/NATO-minus-US can fill the gap for these programs. Without them the Ukrainian strategic and tactical options are much more limited and they are forced to confront vastly reduced expectations from what only a short time ago was an already not great situation but one that held a chance of rewarding their tenacity.

And all that is just assuming that the US merely withdraws support; I would not be at all surprised if this administration begins pointing US cyber ops and the intel pipeline in the opposite direction and gives Russia a much clearer picture into their targets in Ukraine. In any other era this would be an unthinkable betrayal but now it seems far more likely than not.