> but veterans just don't bump their camera everywhere nor drop them, they have the bags that fit what they do
Most veterans I know would not be seen dead with one of those bags that shout LOOK AT ME I AM A CAMERA BAG ....
The theft risk is just too great these days.
Most of the time they will take a standard bag, with their other stuff in it (e.g. change of clothes etc.) and just dump their camera and a couple of lenses in there. Either padded by their spare clothes or with a velcro-neoprene camera wrap cloth.
That solution also enables them to move fast instead of having to make sure everything goes into the right stupid slot in a camera bag.
So for example if it starts raining heavily (or if they have to get through airport security) it can be done quickly and efficiently.
That’s not the reality. Pro regime “white simcard” people have been spreading their propaganda since start of the war on twitter, instagram and elsewhere.
Which is a big reason why Iran has been able to do so well in the information war. Lies in public to appear in control and totalitarianism for their own citizens to keep them in the dark.
I'd hazard a guess that the big reason Iran is doing well in the information war is because the US/Israel combo launched an apparently unprovoked sneak attack in the middle of negotiations without thinking about the catastrophic global economic consequences it could unleash or how the attack, if executed, would help in any way. Trump still hasn't even found a crazy lie that sounds like a sane reason.
It is hard to spin that in a positive light. It looks a little unreasonable. Even without a propaganda effort by the Iranians there is a great scratching of heads in the west trying to figure out why we're embarking on this crazy crusade.
Although I hear the IRGC's lego game is on point so that is interesting.
Respectfully, I don't agree with you. There's no question that the IRGC and Iranian regime wanted to build nuclear weapons. They were planning to do this by constructing so many missile sites and launchers that no one would bother trying to stop them. Yes, the world could have done nothing and just watched, but that would have only delayed the problem and made it worse later.
Just imagine what a nuclear-armed Iranian regime would do, not just to their own people but to their neighbors and the rest of the world.
Good? The US and Israel both have nukes. Iran probably should have them too, it needs the tools to defend itself and maintain its sovereignty despite the actions of these lunatics. It is clear that rains of conventional ballistic missiles and the threat of taking out the global economy isn't enough to make Israel consider negotiations.
If we wanted to worry about nuclear proliferation, negotiation was the path to take. There was a JCPOA and it seems like Khamenei Sr turned out to be serious about Iran not developing nukes in his lifetime. They've been a year or two away for more than a decade as I recall. Senseless violence isn't going to do anything to encourage disarmament - that is another part of why the Iranians have such an easy battle ahead of them in terms of propaganda.
If we're going to worry about Iran getting nukes, assassinating the anti-nuke guy and pummelling them as Trump is will not help the situation in the slightest. The only path where they survive as a state is the one where they build nuclear missiles.
I don't blame you, and you're entitled to your view. However, it's easy to sit in a comfort zone and support a totalitarian regime you never experienced living under.
That sounds brutal, and I’m sure there were tons of abuses by security forces during the protests, but I am a bit skeptical of Iran International as a source:
> We're receiving war footage from iran. They aren't completely disconnected.
As I said, satellite is a thing.
I also don't doubt there may be some traditional land-based BGP access going on too, maybe using "borrowed" prefixes. But I do not think it is as much as people think it might be.
I also doubt there are 50,000 "white SIM" active today... I suspect that Wikipedia "unofficial figure" reflects pre-war. Most have very likely been disconnected or blocked.
Looking at it from an alternative angle, the Iranians are not stupid.
They know leaving the internet online would be beneficial for their adversaries, perhaps especially as Israel is one of them, and Israel's use of cyber is no secret.
So by killing the internet, they have an instant air-gap firewall.
Making the most of the levers they have fighting asymmetric warfare.
It is possible to reduce harm by introducing white listed services. Kazakhstan did it in 2022, where only local bank apps worked during few days of blackout. I think Russia is doing it now with mobile network. If you can have a kill switch that activates intranet and cuts off internet in case of emergencies, then it can really help. The biggest threat are messaging apps and social media that can quickly spread information.
This isn't just a wealthy country like the US doing war rations. Iran's economy was already in crisis before the war, where businesses stopped selling products because their currency was fluctuating so much they couldn't set prices without losing money. It means tons of small businesses shutting down and people going hungry. Which puts even more pressure on Iran's social services which are were already in a terrible state. Now the US blockade means significantly less tax money coming into the government.
Their country is very much on the edge of chaos which is why they are brutally controlling their citizens.
> But the framing here is not “clever, innovative IRGC”
I am not seeking to frame anything here. Nor am I interested in getting involved in the broader areas on discussion on the subject.
The first few words of my original post made it clear "Looking at it from an alternative angle". An alternative way of wording that would be "devil's advocate".
I am just supplying a perfectly reasonable alternative perspective, I am not asking anyone to agree or disagree with it, I am just making a "food for thought" statement.
I see it, and hadn't fully considered it. Turning off the Internet has more utility than just suppressing the populaces ability to communicate, it also blackholes that compromised mail server used to track the movement of political leaders, any online drop-boxes/Telegram/Whatsapp channels used by cultivated informants/spies are now out of order.
From my point of view, they can't even "just turn on the Internet", even if they wanted.
We know from the Ukraine side that "keeping the internet on" requires a whole bunch of personal sacrifice, and a lot of "reasonably recent" electronic equipment and infrastructure that Iran can't simply buy or repair right now.
I'll bet you - dollars to donuts - that Iran has many countrywide IP-based networks running at this second, for things such as broadcast and telecoms.
Perhaps you are underestimating the resources available to a country of 90 million. You could play a game where you estimate the number of routers and switches outside of Tehran under a hypothetical where the the capital was leveled. I don't know how many universities Iran has, but my working assumption is that any one Computer Science department from a D-Tier university is equal to the task, if the physical carrier medium for the Internet is still present and they are bringing their ancient half-rack of equipment.
Ehhh I suppose but I think that’s a weak point. The purpose of shutting down the internet is undeniably to prevent the people from coordinating rebellion and the help control the narrative of the war.
It’s proven time and time again that Mossad always find a way to infiltrate into even most secure Iranian network. This is mostly done to control the narrative and keep the pro regime supporters morale up.
> It’s proven time and time again that Mossad always find a way to infiltrate into even most secure Iranian network.
Sure, but why make their life easier ?
Taking your line of argument, you would also need to say "well, the US are going to bomb us anyway. We might as well just post all the GPS coordinates of sensitive sites up on Twitter".
> Pedantry attracts dislike. One may be right to state something, yet wrong to call it out in public.
Ironically most French people I know would be perfectly receptive and happy to receive corrections in grammar, English or otherwise.
The French tend to be particularly pedantic about the teaching of their own grammar. Most native French speakers are quite used to being swiftly and firmly corrected on grammar from an early age.
there is a time and place for everything. "Les règles de bienséance" matter more to me than the safekeeping of the exactness of English grammar, which as others have been keen to point out is hardly as strict as you seem to imply.
And no, no French person likes to receive corrections in grammar. Giving lectures on proper english grammar/pronounciation is generally a mark of (classist) pedantry since speaking proper english is generally the preserve of those lucky few that have had the opportunity of spending time in the Anglosphere, a tiny minority of the french population in fact, who are always eager to put their one upmanship on display, in a very crude, almost vulgar fashion.
I have been travelling through Japan for the past week, the grammatical and orthographical error would likely give you a nosebleed. Meanwhile, I just smile and move on, I got the meaning, it is what matters. Same for the OP.
I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been in France and had people correct my pronunciation (which btw, it’s really not so bad — the best complement I got was that they could tell I was foreign, but not sure where from).
I'm not sure how happy they actually are about it though.
I think most people have a bit of Stockholm-syndrome relationship with it, the highest tier of argument refutation in France might honestly be grammar-based :P
> but wouldn't say 'a Thai', 'a Swedish', 'a Sudanese'
You also don't say 'a Japanese' but that is an extremely common error with Japanese English speakers when they are first learning.
I am looking for a citation, but I seem to recall the casual rule of thumb is something to do with the ending of the nationality (so '-ish', '-ese','-ch' etc. you can't put 'a' in front). I think the more formal explanation likely centers around rules relating to indefinite articles.
Demonyms don’t use the same rules as countable nouns. Both “French” and “British” are acceptable demonyms, they’re just not particularly idiomatic in American English (which likes to overcorrect with “person” like you’ve noted).
(There’s no particularly consistency with this, it’s just what sounds “good” to American ears. We’re perfectly fine with “as a German” or “as a Lithuanian.”)
Precisely so: the OED's role is descriptive, in that it is to describe English as it is used, not how it ought to be used. It provides evidence of a grammatical rule - it is not the rule itself.
You can speak however you like, there is no language police, but the fact is the average English speaker will perceive certain constructs to be grammatically incorrect. "He eat", "I driving", "a French" etc.
If you're going to make statements like that to go against what I've written then at least come up with some viable citations to grammar literature.
Honestly, in all my years on this earth I have never, ever heard anybody in any English speaking country I've spent time in say "a French" "a American" "a British".
And that amounts to a lot of time surrounded by people speaking VERY "casual" English.
P.S. I said "an American" was ok if you re-read.. an NOT a
The reason you can say "an American" has nothing to do with a vowel or not, there are just some demonyms that for some reason can be used like this, and some that can't.
But your explanation about why it is correct is bullshit, has nothing to do with "an" vs "a", the English language is just inconsistent as fuck and some demonyms can be used like this and some can't.
Most veterans I know would not be seen dead with one of those bags that shout LOOK AT ME I AM A CAMERA BAG ....
The theft risk is just too great these days.
Most of the time they will take a standard bag, with their other stuff in it (e.g. change of clothes etc.) and just dump their camera and a couple of lenses in there. Either padded by their spare clothes or with a velcro-neoprene camera wrap cloth.
That solution also enables them to move fast instead of having to make sure everything goes into the right stupid slot in a camera bag.
So for example if it starts raining heavily (or if they have to get through airport security) it can be done quickly and efficiently.
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