Launch sites away from the equator are good for some different orbits. The Molniya orbit, for example, is very useful if you’re trying to observe areas at high latitudes

My only suggestion is to try to get their front paws above your elbow so that you can you use that arm to (gently, of course) hold them to your chest. Overall though, if the cat’s weight is being supported by their feet and they’re not falling off, you’re all good!

I suppose it could have been that he got himself covered in something not easily washed out, like paint or glue

It is dumb, yes, but humans aren’t always rational about such emotionally intense things as that scale of national guilt

If you’re only trying to get a measure of how much sound the thing is putting out, sure, but presumably the concern here is actually how much sound they’re putting out that gets to where people live. If the racetrack had a magic completely sound-proof bubble around it, any noise complaints from nearby residents would be very silly no matter how loud it was inside the bubble

He’s like someone got into the universe’s character creation menu and turned the Cat slider up to 200%

55 dB and 109 dB seem ridiculously low and high respectively. If 55 dB is the legal limit, running an aircon unit is right at the line of legality and normal car and bus traffic is well beyond it. Similarly, if the F3 event is generating 109 dB then that surely has to have been measured right at the trackside, because that’s about the level of operating the kind of big power tools that require hearing protection. I’ve been at an F3 event, they’re definitely loud but they’re not that loud

The Australian Senate and Irish Parliament are the two national-level examples of STV that I know of

Oh, and a quick overview of the parties. All left-right descriptions are within the UK’s mainstream Overton window:

• LAB (red): Labour. Currently in power, centre-left to centre. Rooted in trade unions, though that relationship has grown increasingly strained.

• LD (orange): Liberal Democrats, colloquially Lib Dems. Usually found somewhere between the two major parties, like economic liberalism a lot.

• GRN (green): Greens. Specifically, Green Party of England and Wales, as the Scottish and Northern Irish Green parties are separate things. Progressive, pro-environmentalism, and anti-nuclear (power and weapons)

• SNP (yellow): Scottish National Party. A little left of Labour on most issues, but not hugely. The big distinction is that they are pro-Scottish-independence or, failing that, in favour of increased autonomy for Scotland within the UK. Not ethnonationalist, thankfully. Currently in power in the Scottish parliament and the most successful party in Scotland in UK general elections.

• PC (dark green): Plaid Cymru. Take the SNP description and replace “Scotland” with “Wales” and the policies are pretty much there. Less electorally successful than the SNP, but doing well recently.

• REF (light blue): Reform UK. Populist right / far right. Basically just the latest vehicle for the biggest anti-EU voice in British politics, Nigel Farage (the guy who recently got challenged by Count Binface). Currently positioned to, potentially, remove the Conservatives from their extremely long run as one of the UK’s two big parties.

• CON (dark blue): Conservatives, colloquially Tories. Traditionally on the rightward end of mainstream British politics, started drifting ever further right as their prior run in government stretched on. Sort of struggling to figure out exactly what their deal is and rebuild in the wake of that mess, particularly as heaps of their members and voters went to Reform.

FPTP: you get one vote, and each constituency elects one representative. Whoever has the most votes in each constituency wins, every other candidate in the constituency gets nothing.

AMS: Like FPTP, but with an extra layer of regional elections. The results of the regional are weighted towards parties that got a lower number of seats in the FPTP section than their share of the votes (so a party that comes second or third a lot but rarely wins in FPTP will do well). This isn’t completely proportional, but it does shift the results a bit towards proportionality and makes it so that votes for non-winning candidates still have some effect.

STV: Instead of voting for one person, you rank the available choices. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, and that candidates votes are given to their second preference. This repeats until someone gets a majority. This reduces the pressure of tactical voting compared to FPTP, because you can pick a first preference even if you don’t expect them to win and a lower preference as your “well at least it’s not the other big party that I dislike more” as a backup

Party list PR: Each party is given a number of seats equal to their share of the national vote. The party’s most popular candidates in each constituency get seats first (so results will tend towards candidates that are popular in each area, though not strictly. This sacrifices local representation for maximum proportionality

The UK’s general elections are currently FPTP. The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd use AMS, the Northern Irish Assembly uses STV, and the UK used Party List PR for EU elections prior to Brexit

They used YouGov polling to fill out the missing data (though they do acknowledge the limitations, including tactical voting) https://electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/a-system-out-of-step-the-2024-general-election

@TheBlackLounge@lemmy.world since you asked about this in your comment

I think it’s an attempt to say “I’m annoyed/upset, but also I don’t want to fight, please leave me alone”

Catholicism (the majority denomination of Christianity in Poland by far) is actually pretty easy-going about what counts as idolatry. You can have a lot of depictions of important figures, which is apparent in basically every Catholic church having such statues

Cats are nature’s true masters of being comfy

The most prominent accusation, the one about his PhD thesis levelled at him by a “race realist”, has been investigated by the uni that granted his doctorate and it says he’s in the clear. There are a bunch of other things going on as well, though, like claiming to have a masters degree from a uni that says it has no record of him

Add Uruguay to that list and you’ve got every world cup finalist ever with no exceptions

There are 40 other members of CONCACAF, and there currently aren’t any Americans on the council

Spears plus medium/heavy armour suggests to me someone who would have been used to fighting in formation. Maybe you play it as an Imperial legionary who was kicked out in disgrace for something and is hoping to build a new life in Morrowind as somewhere with a weak Imperial presence? Once you’re back on your feet somewhat you can decide to either attempt to rejoin the Legion or you can commit to Morrowind by joining House Redoran

It’s really good about not pressuring players too. You get slightly bigger rewards for pmaying on higher difficulties / completing missions faster / doing extra objectives and so on but the rewards are only small power boosts and lots of fun cosmetics. You can do what you want at your own pace and not feel like you’re missing out

I presume CNN updated the headline after OP posted. It’s now

Poland blames Russia for firing missile into its territory as Moscow unleashes deadly attack on Ukraine