The USSR especially in its later years was not North Korea. The Soviet command economy had many faults but it was better than the absence of a system.
When the Soviet political system collapsed, millions of people were thrown into poverty and depression far exceeding the Great Depression known in the US. "Free market" without proper oversight or planning does not work at all.
The soviet command economy collapsed rather spectacularly, and wasn't that wonderful for the comrades (slave laborers) who had to live and die with it.
The Soviet command economy had certain problems but it wasn't the cause of the collapse of the USSR. It was the other way around. When the USSR collapsed due to its political weakness, then any meaningful economic structures were destroyed in the name of "free market" and the economy took real nosedive. Chaos, unemployment and hyperinflation ensued.
For the majority of former USSR citizens the quality of life today is worse than in the Soviet Union. Even for the Baltic States that are EU members now the GDP hasn't reached the pre-independence level yet.
"What if" situations about past are irrelevant. But there are still many nuclear power stations of the old design that have risks. They should be decommissioned too but it will not be done before new reactors are built. In other words, to avoid risks of nuclear disaster, we should build more nuclear plants right now.
I see that Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is safe. Basically all what happened is that they have to decommission two old reactors due to earthquake. Now they can build better and safer reactors that will withstand even greater earthquakes and tsunami.
The most important thing what should be (but we are not) learning from Chernobyl disaster is that many more people died due to irrational fear from radiation than from the actual damage from it.
The Chernobyl group report states:
It also concluded that a greater risk than the long-term effects of radiation exposure is the risk to mental health of exaggerated fears about the effects of radiation:[76]
The designation of the affected population as “victims” rather than “survivors” has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future. This, in turn, has led either to over cautious behavior and exaggerated health concerns, or to reckless conduct, such as consumption of mushrooms, berries and game from areas still designated as highly contaminated, overuse of alcohol and tobacco, and unprotected promiscuous sexual activity.[80]
After the collapse of the USSR, people who supposedly had been exposed to radiation in the Chernobyl zone, were considered victims of the Soviet system and automatically got the status of disability and were entitled to many benefits. As the country was hit by deep economic crisis and high unemployment, what happens to depressed unemployed people with guaranteed disability pension and widespread belief that they are doomed? They become alcoholics or drug users and slowly kill themselves. Their mortality rate from cancer was practically indistinguishable from the baseline population whereas death from alcoholism, suicide etc. was many times greater.
People who scare others with the worst case scenarios about total nuclear destruction are creating self-fulfilled prophecies. I think it is highly irresponsible thing to do. While we should realistically assess the risks, at the same time there is no need to be overly pessimistic. There will be already enough tragedies and PTSD to deal in this crisis that it is better to encourage people to positive perspectives. It is a very difficult but necessary thing to do whereas spreading gloom and doom is easy.
>> And passwordless SSH logins are more secure and more convinient.
Yes and No. Imagine Greg has lost his laptop set up to log in? Or rather fake message from the boss that he has lost his laptop and needs to change SSH credentials quickly because someone could use the lost key to gain illegal entry?
The proper procedure would be to call the boss to his cell phone, recognize him by voice and verify that it is really him writing these messages.
Everyone is taking this all too seriously. It is sad when people become mired in their own self-importance. Then we need someone who plays the music. If you want to argue that the firm lost millions due to the hack, then it is a sign that you are taking this too seriously. Because money is not the end of itself but the means to make life more interesting. Consider this the sacrifice for the world which was greatly entertained by this.:D
Lol, to make business online, you have to be online. It was just an ultimate slashdot effect. It is the online equivalent of demos similar to what just happened in Egypt. If banks are not learning then they will suffer even more when more people wakes up.
I am not a technical guy either. And I am not even American:) And I am not talking about technical details but the general concept. It is as simple as knowing how the phone network works or something like that.
But maybe you are right that corporate presidents are not supposed to know anything about the business they manage. As we already know, she completely failed at the negotiations and all Greg's e-mails got released just an hour ago. They are all here: http://hbgary.operationfreedom.ru/greg_hbgary_com/
You are taking this all too seriously. I think all this fiasco with HBGary is absolutely hilarious. The only good guy in this story was the programmer who actually knew the math and challenged Aaron Barr calling him bluff. But it is a great story anyway that will be remembered for many decades.
I agree that news about stuxnet are irrelevant. There are too much information from this leak that it is a little bit too hard to process. I am reading the log where Penny tried to negotiate with Anonymous (whatever they are) about not releasing e-mails and I found strange that she said that she didn't understand how torrents work.
But I liked this line:)
IE) "OHH LAWD YOU HURT MY STOCK PRICE!" is an okay weapon against "OHH LAWD YOU ILLEGALLY DETAINED ME FEDS!"
No need for conspiracy theories. HBGary emails are now freely available to everyone to read. They were mostly trolling and FUD because they wanted to get a nice million dollar contracts with the FBI. Also Aaron Barr appears to have delusions of grandeur. Here is an example of his e-mail:
From: Aaron Barr Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:06:00 -0400 Subject: Re: Accepted: Invitation: CyberSecurity Discussions @ Wed Oct 27 2pm - 3pm (camille@executivebiz.com) To: Camille Tuutti-Winkler
Camille,
Something to think about. Something I think needs a lot of attention.
I am becoming more and more knowledgable how easy it is to target, collect, and exploit people and organizations using social media. When looking at stuxnet and the certain future of weaponized malware and use of cyber for military and political purposes. The potential use of social media data is ever more frightening. I am collecting methodologies that can be used for exploitation and it's startling.
HBGary was trying to do exactly what you suggested and they failed miserably. If anything, the outcome is only going to increase the numbers of Anonymous followers.
Ddosing MasterCard wasn't entirely meaningless. It took down 3D secure for a while and many online businesses could not process credit cards. It certainly was painful to them and made them aware that restricting free speech has consequences.
In fact, I also loaded my canon against Mastercard because people have to stand up when their rights are being taken away.
It would be interesting to analyze the peaks and valleys of pbooks market.
As I understand, Amazon is trying to become a mega-publisher via e-books and Kindle devices but not only that. It appears that they are creating a platform for content providers, including blogs, newspapers, articles etc. They are also planning selling Amazon singles – short essays for 50 cents. Not sure if they will succeed but it solves the micropayment problem. Once you have a single platform it is trivial. I predict that it will not go as smoothly as intended due to format and device incompatibilities – epub vs. Mobi, plus DRM restrictions.
So, will Konrath keep a greater percentage of the profit per book? Absolutely. Will he make more money than he would publishing a print volume? Highly unlikely.
According to his blog he is already making more money from e-books than from print books.
He may be just in specific position due to his fan base but he is betting that e-readers base will grow and paper books will diminish sooner than later. The authors who now sign seemingly lucrative but restricting contracts with publishers may regret it later. He says that such contracts made sense previously but not in e-book age.
The current situation is different from 2000. For casual reading I mostly buy ebooks. It wasn't the case even half a year ago.
JA Konrath himself writes that he submitted his works to agents for 6 years until someone picked it up.
He admits that it was a great learning period to learn his trade of entertaining writing.
On his blog he also explains why he thinks that agency model is flawed. Generally only 1 out of 5 books earns out advance payment to authors and start earning royalties, so publishers are mostly shooting in dark. Most pbooks sold are trash. Even great talents e.g., JK Rowling had many rejections.
The sci-fi books I liked most are not even published either as pbooks or e-books. They are just put on website by authors themselves. The trash among e-books is enormous. At the same time it also gives more opportunity for talents to express themselves. And before we counter that publishers provided better support for authors then there is a fact that only 1 out 100 published authors earn living exclusively with writing.
"Excuse me, sir," the man said, "I see you've been to the food store. Could you spare a miserable felon a bite to eat? I've exhausted my food credits for the period and I haven't eaten in two days."
Nyk reached into the shopping sack and retrieved the package of snack wafers. He handed it to the man, who ripped it open and began devouring them.
"You're looking at what becomes of a criminal," he said between bites. "Economic incarceration, it's called." He held up his right wrist. "My ID's been marked. I cannot purchase anything, save subsistence food. I must travel on foot. Even use of the vidphones is denied me. I must sleep in a shelter. I'm a prisoner on the streets of this city." He muttered as he ate.
"I committed no crime. I was convicted of homicide, of murdering my amfin in a crime of passion. I did not do that, I could never do that. I loved her. I was convicted on circumstantial evidence... They called me a societopath... I volunteered for truth drug interrogation, but Internal Affairs convinced the magistrates even that testimony couldn't be trusted." He looked into Nyk's eyes. "I ask you, does this look like the face of a societopath?"
Nyk thought it might.
"In fact, they've no proof she's dead. They never found the body! I've lost everything, my home, my livelihood and my family." Nyk's gaze strayed to the man's right arm. It bore a solid black circle where the wedding crest would be. "I've served half a fifteen-year sentence. In two years, my sentence is up for review. I might be granted parole. I'll go down to Tinam and do some crop tending. Or maybe to one of the colonies. I'll enter a mining camp on T-Delta and start over, there..."
There is a Utopian sci-fi story in the Earthbound series where death penalty and imprisonment was largely abolished. Instead persons convicted of serious crimes were sentenced to so called economic incarceration providing they were not psychically dangerous to others. They were free to move around and do whatever they wanted but could not engage in any economic transactions besides basic sustenance (basic food, shelter, medical care etc.). In practice they were roaming around as beggars during the term of their conviction.
In many cases economic incarceration makes more sense than putting a criminal in prison. But lifetime of minimum income seems too harsh. Even murderers can hope to get paroled in 20 or 30 years.
The suggestion to use paper dictionary instead of electronic one is equal to using the slide rule when you have a legitimate need to perform complicated calculations. Why not use a calculator instead?
I understand that preventing cheating is a valid concern but let's get real. The test that so out of touch of real life helps little.
Language skills are not binary. It is not that you either speak the language or not. It is rare that a person can speak a foreign language at a native speaker's level even after many years of learning and practice. While one's level of English can suffice in many everyday's situations one may still occasionally come across unknown words. Many words have different meanings depending on context and during the exam when a student may be more tense and nervous he or she might forget the exact meaning of some words. There is nothing wrong to use dictionaries in such cases to be 100% sure that the problem is not misunderstood.
I also disagree that paper dictionaries are better than electronic ones. Yes, there are bad online dictionaries too but nowadays you can buy almost every paper dictionary in electronic edition. Check the mobipocket editions for various formats and platforms including Palm, iPhone, iPad, Kindle etc. Looking up the word in the paper dictionary is a waste of time when technology provides a perfect solution.
If I had a missing daughter I would surely listen to advice of police and other professionals about the best course of action how to locate her.
Again, what probably is lost to the majority non-professionals that the first proposed poster is ideal for Shannon's needs. She does not value it because she got it for free and also because she is ignorant. The hypothetical designer is trying to tell her that if the cat is really so dear to her, she better listens to the professional opinion but she does not. So, he starts to doubt that the cat is really so important to her.
Some clients are like this lady by demanding an awful design just because they think that big blinking letters on a yellow background is cute. It is the same with flash intros etc. which are all demanded by clueless clients etc. No one listens to usability experts because they have better ideas what works. Or not.
It is on the contrary. This joke was meant that you should almost never fail to listen to professional advice. The first poster and some others would have had much much better effect than the crude posters people use all the time. But even the Slashdot crowd like Shannon automatically assumed that it is wrong because it was unconventional. But why really?
That was exactly my first thought. The very first poster although unconventional was actually perfect for Shannon's case and would have helped to locate her cat much better than a simple primitive poster. She declined it because she had no understanding in poster art or its possible effect on readers. It is what happens when you try to give undeserving people a well-wishing free service. You can offer them something that others pay hundreds of dollars to have but unless one is aware of its value he will throw it away. The joke was probably about not giving pearls to swine.
Slashdot Mirror
The USSR especially in its later years was not North Korea. The Soviet command economy had many faults but it was better than the absence of a system.
When the Soviet political system collapsed, millions of people were thrown into poverty and depression far exceeding the Great Depression known in the US. "Free market" without proper oversight or planning does not work at all.
The soviet command economy collapsed rather spectacularly, and wasn't that wonderful for the comrades (slave laborers) who had to live and die with it.
The Soviet command economy had certain problems but it wasn't the cause of the collapse of the USSR. It was the other way around. When the USSR collapsed due to its political weakness, then any meaningful economic structures were destroyed in the name of "free market" and the economy took real nosedive. Chaos, unemployment and hyperinflation ensued.
For the majority of former USSR citizens the quality of life today is worse than in the Soviet Union. Even for the Baltic States that are EU members now the GDP hasn't reached the pre-independence level yet.
"What if" situations about past are irrelevant. But there are still many nuclear power stations of the old design that have risks. They should be decommissioned too but it will not be done before new reactors are built. In other words, to avoid risks of nuclear disaster, we should build more nuclear plants right now.
I see that Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is safe. Basically all what happened is that they have to decommission two old reactors due to earthquake. Now they can build better and safer reactors that will withstand even greater earthquakes and tsunami.
The most important thing what should be (but we are not) learning from Chernobyl disaster is that many more people died due to irrational fear from radiation than from the actual damage from it.
The Chernobyl group report states:
It also concluded that a greater risk than the long-term effects of radiation exposure is the risk to mental health of exaggerated fears about the effects of radiation:[76]
The designation of the affected population as “victims” rather than “survivors” has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future. This, in turn, has led either to over cautious behavior and exaggerated health concerns, or to reckless conduct, such as consumption of mushrooms, berries and game from areas still designated as highly contaminated, overuse of alcohol and tobacco, and unprotected promiscuous sexual activity.[80]
After the collapse of the USSR, people who supposedly had been exposed to radiation in the Chernobyl zone, were considered victims of the Soviet system and automatically got the status of disability and were entitled to many benefits. As the country was hit by deep economic crisis and high unemployment, what happens to depressed unemployed people with guaranteed disability pension and widespread belief that they are doomed? They become alcoholics or drug users and slowly kill themselves. Their mortality rate from cancer was practically indistinguishable from the baseline population whereas death from alcoholism, suicide etc. was many times greater.
People who scare others with the worst case scenarios about total nuclear destruction are creating self-fulfilled prophecies. I think it is highly irresponsible thing to do. While we should realistically assess the risks, at the same time there is no need to be overly pessimistic. There will be already enough tragedies and PTSD to deal in this crisis that it is better to encourage people to positive perspectives. It is a very difficult but necessary thing to do whereas spreading gloom and doom is easy.
The comma was used as a decimal separator in this case. So 377,873/Km^2 is 377.873/Km^2. Problem solved.
>> And passwordless SSH logins are more secure and more convinient.
Yes and No. Imagine Greg has lost his laptop set up to log in? Or rather fake message from the boss that he has lost his laptop and needs to change SSH credentials quickly because someone could use the lost key to gain illegal entry?
The proper procedure would be to call the boss to his cell phone, recognize him by voice and verify that it is really him writing these messages.
There is no fairness. There are only lulz. :D
Everyone is taking this all too seriously. It is sad when people become mired in their own self-importance. Then we need someone who plays the music. If you want to argue that the firm lost millions due to the hack, then it is a sign that you are taking this too seriously. Because money is not the end of itself but the means to make life more interesting. Consider this the sacrifice for the world which was greatly entertained by this. :D
Lol, to make business online, you have to be online. It was just an ultimate slashdot effect. It is the online equivalent of demos similar to what just happened in Egypt. If banks are not learning then they will suffer even more when more people wakes up.
I am not a technical guy either. And I am not even American :) And I am not talking about technical details but the general concept. It is as simple as knowing how the phone network works or something like that.
But maybe you are right that corporate presidents are not supposed to know anything about the business they manage. As we already know, she completely failed at the negotiations and all Greg's e-mails got released just an hour ago. They are all here: http://hbgary.operationfreedom.ru/greg_hbgary_com/
You are taking this all too seriously. I think all this fiasco with HBGary is absolutely hilarious. The only good guy in this story was the programmer who actually knew the math and challenged Aaron Barr calling him bluff. But it is a great story anyway that will be remembered for many decades.
I agree that news about stuxnet are irrelevant. There are too much information from this leak that it is a little bit too hard to process. I am reading the log where Penny tried to negotiate with Anonymous (whatever they are) about not releasing e-mails and I found strange that she said that she didn't understand how torrents work.
But I liked this line :)
IE) "OHH LAWD YOU HURT MY STOCK PRICE!" is an okay weapon against "OHH LAWD YOU ILLEGALLY DETAINED ME FEDS!"
No need for conspiracy theories. HBGary emails are now freely available to everyone to read. They were mostly trolling and FUD because they wanted to get a nice million dollar contracts with the FBI. Also Aaron Barr appears to have delusions of grandeur. Here is an example of his e-mail:
From: Aaron Barr
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:06:00 -0400
Subject: Re: Accepted: Invitation: CyberSecurity Discussions @ Wed Oct 27 2pm - 3pm (camille@executivebiz.com)
To: Camille Tuutti-Winkler
Camille,
Something to think about. Something I think needs a lot of attention.
I am becoming more and more knowledgable how easy it is to target,
collect, and exploit people and organizations using social media.
When looking at stuxnet and the certain future of weaponized malware
and use of cyber for military and political purposes. The potential
use of social media data is ever more frightening. I am collecting
methodologies that can be used for exploitation and it's startling.
Talk to you Wednesday.
Aaron
From my iPhone
HBGary was trying to do exactly what you suggested and they failed miserably. If anything, the outcome is only going to increase the numbers of Anonymous followers.
Ddosing MasterCard wasn't entirely meaningless. It took down 3D secure for a while and many online businesses could not process credit cards. It certainly was painful to them and made them aware that restricting free speech has consequences.
In fact, I also loaded my canon against Mastercard because people have to stand up when their rights are being taken away.
It would be interesting to analyze the peaks and valleys of pbooks market.
As I understand, Amazon is trying to become a mega-publisher via e-books and Kindle devices but not only that. It appears that they are creating a platform for content providers, including blogs, newspapers, articles etc. They are also planning selling Amazon singles – short essays for 50 cents. Not sure if they will succeed but it solves the micropayment problem. Once you have a single platform it is trivial. I predict that it will not go as smoothly as intended due to format and device incompatibilities – epub vs. Mobi, plus DRM restrictions.
Here: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
So, will Konrath keep a greater percentage of the profit per book? Absolutely. Will he make more money than he would publishing a print volume? Highly unlikely.
According to his blog he is already making more money from e-books than from print books.
He may be just in specific position due to his fan base but he is betting that e-readers base will grow and paper books will diminish sooner than later. The authors who now sign seemingly lucrative but restricting contracts with publishers may regret it later. He says that such contracts made sense previously but not in e-book age.
The current situation is different from 2000. For casual reading I mostly buy ebooks. It wasn't the case even half a year ago.
JA Konrath himself writes that he submitted his works to agents for 6 years until someone picked it up.
He admits that it was a great learning period to learn his trade of entertaining writing.
On his blog he also explains why he thinks that agency model is flawed. Generally only 1 out of 5 books earns out advance payment to authors and start earning royalties, so publishers are mostly shooting in dark. Most pbooks sold are trash. Even great talents e.g., JK Rowling had many rejections.
The sci-fi books I liked most are not even published either as pbooks or e-books. They are just put on website by authors themselves. The trash among e-books is enormous. At the same time it also gives more opportunity for talents to express themselves. And before we counter that publishers provided better support for authors then there is a fact that only 1 out 100 published authors earn living exclusively with writing.
I will provide the excerpt:
"Excuse me, sir," the man said, "I see you've been to the food store. Could you spare a miserable felon a bite to eat? I've exhausted my food credits for the period and I haven't eaten in two days."
Nyk reached into the shopping sack and retrieved the package of snack wafers. He handed it to the man, who ripped it open and began devouring them.
"You're looking at what becomes of a criminal," he said between bites. "Economic incarceration, it's called." He held up his right wrist. "My ID's been marked. I cannot purchase anything, save subsistence food. I must travel on foot. Even use of the vidphones is denied me. I must sleep in a shelter. I'm a prisoner on the streets of this city." He muttered as he ate.
"I committed no crime. I was convicted of homicide, of murdering my amfin in a crime of passion. I did not do that, I could never do that. I loved her. I was convicted on circumstantial evidence ... They called me a societopath ... I volunteered for truth drug interrogation, but Internal Affairs convinced the magistrates even that testimony couldn't be trusted." He looked into Nyk's eyes. "I ask you, does this look like the face of a societopath?"
Nyk thought it might.
"In fact, they've no proof she's dead. They never found the body! I've lost everything, my home, my livelihood and my family." Nyk's gaze strayed to the man's right arm. It bore a solid black circle where the wedding crest would be. "I've served half a fifteen-year sentence. In two years, my sentence is up for review. I might be granted parole. I'll go down to Tinam and do some crop tending. Or maybe to one of the colonies. I'll enter a mining camp on T-Delta and start over, there..."
There is a Utopian sci-fi story in the Earthbound series where death penalty and imprisonment was largely abolished. Instead persons convicted of serious crimes were sentenced to so called economic incarceration providing they were not psychically dangerous to others. They were free to move around and do whatever they wanted but could not engage in any economic transactions besides basic sustenance (basic food, shelter, medical care etc.). In practice they were roaming around as beggars during the term of their conviction.
In many cases economic incarceration makes more sense than putting a criminal in prison. But lifetime of minimum income seems too harsh. Even murderers can hope to get paroled in 20 or 30 years.
The suggestion to use paper dictionary instead of electronic one is equal to using the slide rule when you have a legitimate need to perform complicated calculations. Why not use a calculator instead?
I understand that preventing cheating is a valid concern but let's get real. The test that so out of touch of real life helps little.
Language skills are not binary. It is not that you either speak the language or not. It is rare that a person can speak a foreign language at a native speaker's level even after many years of learning and practice. While one's level of English can suffice in many everyday's situations one may still occasionally come across unknown words. Many words have different meanings depending on context and during the exam when a student may be more tense and nervous he or she might forget the exact meaning of some words. There is nothing wrong to use dictionaries in such cases to be 100% sure that the problem is not misunderstood.
I also disagree that paper dictionaries are better than electronic ones. Yes, there are bad online dictionaries too but nowadays you can buy almost every paper dictionary in electronic edition. Check the mobipocket editions for various formats and platforms including Palm, iPhone, iPad, Kindle etc. Looking up the word in the paper dictionary is a waste of time when technology provides a perfect solution.
If I had a missing daughter I would surely listen to advice of police and other professionals about the best course of action how to locate her.
Again, what probably is lost to the majority non-professionals that the first proposed poster is ideal for Shannon's needs. She does not value it because she got it for free and also because she is ignorant. The hypothetical designer is trying to tell her that if the cat is really so dear to her, she better listens to the professional opinion but she does not. So, he starts to doubt that the cat is really so important to her.
Some clients are like this lady by demanding an awful design just because they think that big blinking letters on a yellow background is cute. It is the same with flash intros etc. which are all demanded by clueless clients etc. No one listens to usability experts because they have better ideas what works. Or not.
It is on the contrary. This joke was meant that you should almost never fail to listen to professional advice. The first poster and some others would have had much much better effect than the crude posters people use all the time. But even the Slashdot crowd like Shannon automatically assumed that it is wrong because it was unconventional. But why really?
That was exactly my first thought. The very first poster although unconventional was actually perfect for Shannon's case and would have helped to locate her cat much better than a simple primitive poster. She declined it because she had no understanding in poster art or its possible effect on readers. It is what happens when you try to give undeserving people a well-wishing free service. You can offer them something that others pay hundreds of dollars to have but unless one is aware of its value he will throw it away. The joke was probably about not giving pearls to swine.