Both graphs are showing the same thing - Russian currency weakening. Your’s just shows how many rubles it takes to buy a dollar (not something you want going up if you’ve got rubles).

As someone who’s not used these things, what’s wrong with a basic handshake to establish the comms channel?

“Hey, are you listening?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

…

Isn’t that all this really is?

Seems a weird thing for people to be uptight about.

The signing ensures the integrity of the data, whether using a public block chain or not.

The signed document can be distributed as widely as you’d like - it doesn’t need to be attached to a block chain to do this.

Sure, but you’re not likely to be doing much of either without owning one 🙂 I’d be surprised if a gun owner allowing someone else to store or transport their guns isn’t in breach of their license as well.

The strictness really only applies to gun ownership though - if you just want to shoot there’s plenty of places you can do that.

You’ll come across good and bad wherever you travel. When we travelled in Japan a few years ago we found pretty much everyone we dealt with was friendly and helpful. We didn’t speak any Japanese.

I wouldn’t bother renting a car unless you’ve got a specific plan for it - their public transit is excellent and will still take you out into the countryside if you want.