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Khrushchev's 1959 Visit To IBM
harrymcc (1641347) writes In September of 1959, Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of the Soviet Union, spent 12 days touring the U.S. One of his stops was IBM's facilities in San Jose, which helped to create the area later known as Silicon Valley. The premier got to see the first computer which came with a hard disk, which IBM programmed to answer history questions. But what he was most impressed by was IBM's modern cafeteria. Over at Fast Company, I've chronicled this fascinating and little-known moment in tech history, which will be covered in an upcoming PBS program on Khrushchev's U.S. trip.
wouldn't a "thawing" of the cold war be a *bad* thing
http://pinopsida.com
And they fed him corn, he brought it back home and suggested everyone plant it (which of course a suggestion from the secretary is followed). A year later after all Russians are sick of corn, he is deposed.
True story.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I know that the news here is often not the very latest, but 55 years too late is ridiculous.
Next: (in 10 years) we will hear about a landing on the moon.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Kind of off topic but we have a picture of my father, Jack Harker, walking on water in front of the sculpture. He was manager of "The Labs" and was working with manufacturing to introduce their first Winchester disk drive. The technology was not moving successfully from the lab to the shop. There were some tremendous technical problems in mass producing the drives. Manufacturing gave a very aggressive schedule for solving the problems. My father replied that if they could meet the schedule, he would walk on water.
Manufacturing meet the schedule and the disk drives were delivered. My father had a plywood platform built and painted dark placed just under the surface of the reflecting pool. True to his word, there he was walking on water with the sculpture in the background.
A picture I did not understand fully until after his death.
Jack Harker, one of the fathers of the disk drive industry, a manager's manager, a great dad.
http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2013/05/remembering-jack-harker.html
This visit to IBM-San Jose was about two months after the "Kitchen Debate" at the exhibition of US consumer products in Moscow.
A picture I did not understand fully until I have for solving the problems. My father had a plywood platformed an opinion I need frequent contribute to create to slashdot again. After with a hard disk drive industry, a manager, one of the reflecting pool. True to slashdot again. After all, he's a frequent contributor.
Came looking for Soviet Russia. It did not find me. Left disappointed.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Stale, yes.
Off-topic, yes.
Lame, yes.
Stupid, yes.
Funny, no.
History is on our side. We will bury you!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Fuck off
In sort of a mirror image of this story, some U.S. scientist was led on the usual dog & pony tour of Soviet space facilities (a publicly available one at any rate). Of course the tour included a display of huge rockets, advanced sattelites, etc. etc. to trump up the superiority of Soviet science.
Interestingly enough, after the tour the scientist came away convinced that the Soviet Union was hopelessly behind. It had nothing to do with the rockets though. Instead, he noted that when they ate lunch at the cafeteria, the cafeteria workers had to total up their lunches using an abacus. Big propaganda show-pieces are impressive, but it's the little things that show you what's really going on.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
In Russia my steaks are well done!
It's a long way to the cafeteria.
Khrushchev saw the writing on the bathroom wall...
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective :( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
Stalin did not save the Soviet Union. The Soviet privates, corporals, sergeants, farmers and workers saved the Soviet Union despite Stalin's stupidity.
Stalin was Hitler's secret ally at first. He actually helped start WW2. Stalin's non-aggression treaty with the Nazis had secret parts where Stalin and Hitler agreed to split Poland and other countries, it defined the respective Nazi and Soviet sphere's of influence of Eastern Europe. So Hitler's invasion of Poland, the event that triggered WW2 in Europe, was in fact done with Stalin's blessings. It was not until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union that Stalin fought against Nazism. If the Soviets had a leader that was a true ally of Britain and France and stood against the Nazi's and promised to defend Poland as Britain and France had done there may have been no WW2. Plus with a different leader the Soviets may have fought more effectively during the early parts of the war. Stalin and Hitler were very much alike in many ways. Besides brutal murderous dictators who killed millions of their own people, they erroneously thought themselves military geniuses and through their idiotic orders destroyed their own armies.
To be honest, Stalin expected that the Nazi's would invade, it just happened years before Stalin expected. He ignored one piece of evidence after another indicating an imminent invasion preferring to cling to his earlier personal expectations. His military incompetence was largely covered up, however since the Soviet collapse Red Army records have become available to western historians and his incompetence has been shown to be far greater than imagined. The west was aware of his various pre-war purges that decimated the leadership of the Red Army, officers being selected for loyalty to Stalin rather than military competence, and the previously mentioned self-denial regarding imminent invasion by the Nazis. Today the world knows, via official Red Army communications and unit records/diaries that some of Stalin's so called great military successes were pure propaganda fantasies. For example official Red Army documents show that Stalin did **not** order the Red Army to fall back to draw the Nazi's deeper into Soviet territory, with longer and more difficult to defend supply lines, and draw them into a trap. He actually ordered units to stand and fight at all costs, to not give any ground, much like Hitler did. Again, the two were so much alike. However the Red Army collapsed and retreated in a disorganized and somewhat panicked manner. The Nazi's going too deep and over extending their lines had more to do with Hitler's idiocy of pushing forward at all costs. Both Hitler and Stalin were incompetent military strategists whose idiotic orders destroyed their own armies. The Soviet Union was only saved because of huge reserves it could pull from Asia, including armies from Siberia that were well equipped for brutal winter warfare.
You know without someone like Stalin at the helm, the USSR might not have survived WWII. Cold, brutal, but effective :( Clearly the man was a monster -- but I think people forget that the bulk of the fighting in Europe during WWII was on the eastern front, not the western; by the time D day happened, the Germans had mostly been defanged, by the Russians.
While it is true that the bulk of the fighting was on the eastern front this did not occur in isolation. Allied fighting in Africa caused armored forces to be diverted from the invasion of the Soviet Union to Africa. In particular this included the one German commander who would and could get away with openly defying Hitler's orders. Field Marshal Rommel. A commander of such stature and trust in the German military that when Rommel asked an SS general what he would do if his (Rommel's) order contradicted Hitler's the officer replied that he would follow Rommel's order. There were numerous examples where SS officers of various ranks in fact did follow knowingly contradictory orders of Rommel. Imagine such a commander on the eastern front where idiotic orders of Hitler were followed and hundred of thousands of German troops were killed or captured.
Now consider the Italian campaign where Italy surrendered and Germany was forced to commit and tie down elite units with brilliant commanders in order to slow the allied advance up the Italian peninsula. These German forces fought brilliantly and extracted a high cost for their retreats.
Now consider the forces tied down in France. Add to this the enormous and unknown reserves that were created and used with surprise at the Battle of the Bulge.
In short the allied actions in Africa, Italy and France/Holland/Belgium/etc greatly aided the eastern front by removing massive forces and perhaps key commanders.
Now consider the US aid supplied to the Soviet Union. Without early US aid the Red Army may have starved. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the steel to build the magnificent T-34 tanks. Without US aid the Soviets would not have had the tank busting aircraft like the P-39 Air Cobra at key moments. The Soviets hid for many years just how critical this aircraft was. However since the Soviet collapse historian have learned from official Red Army documents just how effective, critical and beloved by its pilots (and the infantry below) these aircraft were.
So yes, the Soviets fought more Germans than the west. And the Soviets certainly suffered far greater casualties, although a bit of those military casualties of that had to do with Stalin's military incompetence. However this was not done in isolation. The west enabled the Soviet victories in many ways.
Didn't he also visit some kind of exhibition of housing and was assured that the average unskilled worker could afford to buy a home filled with the latest appliances. That Idea seems to have been left back in the 60s.
No, put that swastika flag away. He's the hammer and sickle guy.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!