Images far and wide

Sunday morning started with another Microsoft incursion, with Microsoft becoming by default steadily more intrusive on my Zbook laptop. Where by default I mean what you get from the otherwise useful Microsoft 365 if you do not attempt to fiddle with any of the default settings. I dare say there is lots of useful functionality there if you take the time to learn how to use it and you are doing the sort of stuff for which it helps, but for the moment I just find it irritating, particularly the chatbot (or whatever it is) that types away in a panel on the right hand side part of the screen, top right in the snap above. As irritating as the advertising panels you sometimes get with the likes of the Financial Times which include moving, talking images. This last despite being a subscriber paying good money: maybe I am going to have to opt for pink paper which neither moves nor talks. Nor costs a fortune in Internet flavoured electricity as I turn the pages - about which it would be interesting to see an eco-balance sheet.

[The Daraudi river in Gorkha, Nepal. Hundreds of young men have left Nepal to join the Ukrainian or Russian Armies. Credit...Uma Bista for The New York Times]

While the NYT appears to spend a lot more on photography than the Financial Times, regularly producing lots of striking images, images which can be downloaded. So yesterday it had the piece on Nepal at reference 1, all about how this very poor country has made its living for centuries by selling mercenaries. For a long time to us British, now to the Russians and the Ukrainians. From where I associated to the Swiss, famous for their mercenaries in early modern Europe. For which see reference 2. And, as it happens, another rather hilly country.

Early on, we had the shot above. No idea how hot and sweaty it might be on the ground, but on the screen it looks very attractive. One can see why people go there for the views.

Not quite the same in gmaps, assuming that I have got the right Daraudi River. But one wonders what one might be able to buy at the Ritika Ladies Shopping Centre, middle bottom. A bit more plausibly green and hilly a little to the north, but there I can't find the river.

[An aerial view from May of the devastated and largely abandoned city of Bakhmut. Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times]

But further down we get to the Ukraine, with this grim shot of Bakhmut. From which my takeaway is that it is going to take a long time to put the Ukraine back together again when the fighting stops. To that extent they are going to be the losers, whatever the terms of stopping might turn out to be.

References

Reference 1: A Small Country Far From Ukraine Is Sending Hundreds to War, on Both Sides: Scores of young Nepali men have gone to fight, some lured by Russia’s promise of work, others to fight for Ukraine, raising the prospect of Nepalis fighting one another in a distant war - Bhadra Sharma, Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times - 2023.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries.