It is true there was a lot of material aid provided to the USSR by the other Allies in WWII. This was particularly critical with regards to supplies and supply chains like you said. There's even an anecdote about how an US General asked Stalin which of the fine weapons produced by the US he wanted. I think Stalin said something like that he wanted all the trucks they could spare to his amazement.
Russia basically tried every single tank design done in the interbellum. When they designed the T-34 and KV-1 it had lessons learned from all of these designs plus the actual war experience from the Battle of Khalin Gol, the Spanish Civil War, and the War with Finland, like you guys said. So the emphasis on the diesel engines because of fires. Heavier armor and more firepower. More mobility. Yes I agree, like I said on my original post too, a lot of it was based on Western licensed production or Western derived designs. This is particularly obvious in engine design and the Christie suspension (which was actually not used by the US Army but got licensed to Great Britain and the USSR). Soviet aircraft production also had several issues in the initial years because aluminum supplies were rather scarce. A lot of the hydropower stations to generate electricity for aluminum production were bombed. So the Russians put an emphasis on lightweight fighters, twin engine bombers, and ground attack aircraft since they had limited resources to spare. At this they proved quite capable.
Still they did manage to make their own unique integrated high-quality designs which even proved capable of rapid evolution as the requirements increased as the war advanced. The T-34 and KV-1 actually had great specs when they came out and scared the hell out of the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. It was only organizational and production issues that decreased their impact. They eventually needed redesigns to compensate, Germans improved their tank armor and gun e.g. in the Tiger. Yet USSR engineers proved capable of rapid evolution into the T-34-85 and the IS-2 which were even usable in the Korean War years later.
There is no doubt Western allied support was critical in making sure the USSR had better chances of winning the war. But even Britain, which was "the" major power at the onset of WWII, needed supplies from the US and Canada while they had their own infrastructure bombed by the Luftwaffe. So it's not like this was a problem specific to the USSR alone among the allies.
They did more than that. During the NEP they electrified the whole Soviet Union. They also built houses for every family in Russia after WWII. Supposedly, according to people who lived through it, it wasn't that bad to live in the post WWII period in the Soviet Union. But then again that was after a civil war, the Stalinist purges, and WWII. So I guess there were low standards back then.
No centralized, planned economy has ever outperformed a free market, capitalist one. Ever.
You would be wrong. There are several examples of this happening. One case would be the War Communism period of the USSR. They had double digit growth rates that outperformed every other economy in the world. How else do you think a country which was known for most of its population being indentured serfs not so long ago came go to being the power that produced the most tanks in WWII even while it was being bombed in the process? Not to mention that arguably the T-34 and KV-1 were among the most advanced tank designs in WWII when they went into active service (gun, armor, engine, suspension, etc).
The problem is that the planned economy works well when its about playing catch up with other economies or doing specific near-term projects. But do anything long term or fuzzy and it fails. I pointed out cybernetics research. Stalin was actively against it (on principle and in practice) and it was one of the reasons why the computer industry in the Soviet Union fell behind the West both in terms of technology and productivity. The fact is you can't plan and add equations for unknown factors. It's one thing to optimize an already existing system. It is quite another to design the next generation system.
To a large degree the successes of the War Communism period were based on mass producing technology licensed from the West or directly derived from it. So unlike what Marxist said central planning actually works best to quickly grow backwards, agrarian even, economies rather than improving advanced economies.
Planning fails in the medium-long term even discounting the other issues inherent in a Communist system.
In this 5-year plan we will crush the imperialist pig-dogs with the highest steel and electricity production per capita in the world!
Comrade Lysenko is working on improving our agricultural yield and we successfully cut of all useless cybernetics research to focus on more useful research.
Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog. .
In the long run you either grow or get taken over. That's Nature. If we stop growing on the Earth side someone/something out there is bound to continue expanding further and eventually crush us.
And why don't you see doctors from the UK, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, etc etc moving here to make those sweet sweet private $$$? If universal public health care is so horrible for doctors, why didn't they flock here before the ACA?
Did it really cost twice as much if you got assigned to a classroom without enough seats for all the students and did not ask the teacher any questions?
Maybe they charged twice as much but it did not cost twice as much.
You don't think all those foreign political leaders and rich business guys fly themselves and their cancers to the USA because we do a worse job, do you?
Actually a large amount of the time they are flying to Switzerland. Putin's main squeeze. That Ukrainian President who got poisoned with dioxins.
Productivity has a lot of definitions, mostly economic, one is that it's based on worker capabilities x tools capabilities (I think that one is in Das Kapital, blech).
By that definition you can increase total production by increasing the amount of workers or improving the tools they use.
I do not trust that energy use growth rate chart very much. He states he got it from the EIA, which is usually a reliable source, but it kinda smells bad to me. How can you even measure the total energy use even right now let alone in 1650? With guesses. It is very human to identify patterns even when no pattern exists in the data. Even if we assume the chart is reliable, as well as his energy growth predictions, when was it that he stated there was a breaking point? 100-200 years? 100 years back we could not harness nuclear fission. That was even before Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect. Which is interesting since he's talking about using solar panels as an energy harvesting technology. 200 years ago? No electricity grid, no phones, no cars, no airplanes.
You can see the article is a bit old since it talks about 15% efficient PV when 18% efficient PV is market available right now. This is with single-junction solar cells. It is possible to double the efficiency with multi-junction cells (not a pipe dream, they exist right now, just expensive to manufacture). Sure the 100% might not be possible. However a lot of the energy we consume is wasted. Technology keeps improving all the time. As an example I have 7W LED lighting in this room. It used to be a 60W incandescent bulb at one point not even 20 years ago. The screen I am using is a low-resolution (on purpose) LCD. It used to be a CRT which used a lot more power like a decade ago. An OLED would use even less power. Refrigeration has also gotten a lot more efficient in the last two decades. Cars may be next. If electric cars get more traction on the market there will be huge energy savings on traffic jams. If self-driving cars become available it may make both existing concepts of how mass-transit and personal vehicles operate obsolete. Add a communication and scheduling platform and sharing a car with others becomes a lot more viable. If you add the energy savings from better technology to existing best of class PV efficiency (near 40%) you do not need 100% PV efficiency.
Then there is nuclear power. Right now fission is practical and fusion may be practical this century. Useless like the article claims? Not really. Right now it allows you to free up land area vs solar cells. It also works around the clock day or night.
So we do not need to start behaving like lemmings just yet.
The Sun has been around since before there were humans on the planet. But our capability to harness its resources has improved. For all I know it could be possible someday to create a pocket universe and extract power from it. Heck we could be in such a pocket universe.
They're basically playing a card from the Microsoft and Intel book and seeing if it sticks. I also hope it doesn't but you know what. The politicians have probably been or will be bribed soon as well so it won't matter.
Apple and Amazon are more egregious examples of this tax-evasion and so far they have done squat.
Rich people are not eating all your healthy food and living in all your housing
You should about what's happening in China. In Hong Kong they basically passed a law that you have to actually be in a house for a given time of the year for you to own it and you are limited in the amount of houses you can own. Why? Wealthy people from the mainland were buying property as an investment while the people who actually live and work at Hong Kong couldn't find a house at a decent price.
Slashdot Mirror
First mass market OLED screens, 3D V-NAND Flash, etc.
Apple is good at integrating components and software design, not actually manufacture components, since they don't manufacture anything.
Quite often CEOs in one company are board members in another company. That's the best explanation for stupid high CEO salaries.
What gets around goes around.
It is true there was a lot of material aid provided to the USSR by the other Allies in WWII. This was particularly critical with regards to supplies and supply chains like you said. There's even an anecdote about how an US General asked Stalin which of the fine weapons produced by the US he wanted. I think Stalin said something like that he wanted all the trucks they could spare to his amazement.
Russia basically tried every single tank design done in the interbellum. When they designed the T-34 and KV-1 it had lessons learned from all of these designs plus the actual war experience from the Battle of Khalin Gol, the Spanish Civil War, and the War with Finland, like you guys said. So the emphasis on the diesel engines because of fires. Heavier armor and more firepower. More mobility. Yes I agree, like I said on my original post too, a lot of it was based on Western licensed production or Western derived designs. This is particularly obvious in engine design and the Christie suspension (which was actually not used by the US Army but got licensed to Great Britain and the USSR). Soviet aircraft production also had several issues in the initial years because aluminum supplies were rather scarce. A lot of the hydropower stations to generate electricity for aluminum production were bombed. So the Russians put an emphasis on lightweight fighters, twin engine bombers, and ground attack aircraft since they had limited resources to spare. At this they proved quite capable.
Still they did manage to make their own unique integrated high-quality designs which even proved capable of rapid evolution as the requirements increased as the war advanced. The T-34 and KV-1 actually had great specs when they came out and scared the hell out of the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. It was only organizational and production issues that decreased their impact. They eventually needed redesigns to compensate, Germans improved their tank armor and gun e.g. in the Tiger. Yet USSR engineers proved capable of rapid evolution into the T-34-85 and the IS-2 which were even usable in the Korean War years later.
There is no doubt Western allied support was critical in making sure the USSR had better chances of winning the war. But even Britain, which was "the" major power at the onset of WWII, needed supplies from the US and Canada while they had their own infrastructure bombed by the Luftwaffe. So it's not like this was a problem specific to the USSR alone among the allies.
So basically it's like when we read that Bill Gates "invented" BASIC in the newspaper.
Actually that would be Carleton Fiorina.
https://xkcd.com/605/
So why did you give it the password to your e-mail account in the first place?
Microsoft used to be known for not paying dividends at all.
Facebook does the same thing.
They did more than that. During the NEP they electrified the whole Soviet Union. They also built houses for every family in Russia after WWII. Supposedly, according to people who lived through it, it wasn't that bad to live in the post WWII period in the Soviet Union. But then again that was after a civil war, the Stalinist purges, and WWII. So I guess there were low standards back then.
No centralized, planned economy has ever outperformed a free market, capitalist one. Ever.
You would be wrong. There are several examples of this happening. One case would be the War Communism period of the USSR. They had double digit growth rates that outperformed every other economy in the world. How else do you think a country which was known for most of its population being indentured serfs not so long ago came go to being the power that produced the most tanks in WWII even while it was being bombed in the process? Not to mention that arguably the T-34 and KV-1 were among the most advanced tank designs in WWII when they went into active service (gun, armor, engine, suspension, etc).
The problem is that the planned economy works well when its about playing catch up with other economies or doing specific near-term projects. But do anything long term or fuzzy and it fails. I pointed out cybernetics research. Stalin was actively against it (on principle and in practice) and it was one of the reasons why the computer industry in the Soviet Union fell behind the West both in terms of technology and productivity. The fact is you can't plan and add equations for unknown factors. It's one thing to optimize an already existing system. It is quite another to design the next generation system.
To a large degree the successes of the War Communism period were based on mass producing technology licensed from the West or directly derived from it. So unlike what Marxist said central planning actually works best to quickly grow backwards, agrarian even, economies rather than improving advanced economies.
Planning fails in the medium-long term even discounting the other issues inherent in a Communist system.
In this 5-year plan we will crush the imperialist pig-dogs with the highest steel and electricity production per capita in the world!
Comrade Lysenko is working on improving our agricultural yield and we successfully cut of all useless cybernetics research to focus on more useful research.
Well I wouldn't be that certain about that. But it's certainly stupid to knife the OS development arm, which was the only thing they had which was unique, for application development which is crowded with competition from everyone and their dog.
.
In the long run you either grow or get taken over. That's Nature. If we stop growing on the Earth side someone/something out there is bound to continue expanding further and eventually crush us.
And why don't you see doctors from the UK, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, etc etc moving here to make those sweet sweet private $$$? If universal public health care is so horrible for doctors, why didn't they flock here before the ACA?
Job security and a decent paycheck.
I guess you never heard of liabilities and losing your license and so on. A pharmacist isn't support to give medical advice.
I remember when they did though.
Did it really cost twice as much if you got assigned to a classroom without enough seats for all the students and did not ask the teacher any questions?
Maybe they charged twice as much but it did not cost twice as much.
You don't think all those foreign political leaders and rich business guys fly themselves and their cancers to the USA because we do a worse job, do you?
Actually a large amount of the time they are flying to Switzerland. Putin's main squeeze. That Ukrainian President who got poisoned with dioxins.
Energy is Work x Time.
Productivity has a lot of definitions, mostly economic, one is that it's based on worker capabilities x tools capabilities (I think that one is in Das Kapital, blech).
By that definition you can increase total production by increasing the amount of workers or improving the tools they use.
I do not trust that energy use growth rate chart very much. He states he got it from the EIA, which is usually a reliable source, but it kinda smells bad to me. How can you even measure the total energy use even right now let alone in 1650? With guesses. It is very human to identify patterns even when no pattern exists in the data. Even if we assume the chart is reliable, as well as his energy growth predictions, when was it that he stated there was a breaking point? 100-200 years? 100 years back we could not harness nuclear fission. That was even before Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect. Which is interesting since he's talking about using solar panels as an energy harvesting technology. 200 years ago? No electricity grid, no phones, no cars, no airplanes.
You can see the article is a bit old since it talks about 15% efficient PV when 18% efficient PV is market available right now. This is with single-junction solar cells. It is possible to double the efficiency with multi-junction cells (not a pipe dream, they exist right now, just expensive to manufacture). Sure the 100% might not be possible. However a lot of the energy we consume is wasted. Technology keeps improving all the time. As an example I have 7W LED lighting in this room. It used to be a 60W incandescent bulb at one point not even 20 years ago. The screen I am using is a low-resolution (on purpose) LCD. It used to be a CRT which used a lot more power like a decade ago. An OLED would use even less power. Refrigeration has also gotten a lot more efficient in the last two decades. Cars may be next. If electric cars get more traction on the market there will be huge energy savings on traffic jams. If self-driving cars become available it may make both existing concepts of how mass-transit and personal vehicles operate obsolete. Add a communication and scheduling platform and sharing a car with others becomes a lot more viable. If you add the energy savings from better technology to existing best of class PV efficiency (near 40%) you do not need 100% PV efficiency.
Then there is nuclear power. Right now fission is practical and fusion may be practical this century. Useless like the article claims? Not really. Right now it allows you to free up land area vs solar cells. It also works around the clock day or night.
So we do not need to start behaving like lemmings just yet.
The Sun has been around since before there were humans on the planet. But our capability to harness its resources has improved. For all I know it could be possible someday to create a pocket universe and extract power from it. Heck we could be in such a pocket universe.
It uses wavelet compression. It's a patent and litigation minefield.
Let me guess. Microsoft has done its usual trick of preloading it in the background and showing you the application window when you 'start' it up...
Patented up the wazoo. Might as well use JPEG 2000 then. Guess why JPEG 2000 was never popular?
They're basically playing a card from the Microsoft and Intel book and seeing if it sticks. I also hope it doesn't but you know what. The politicians have probably been or will be bribed soon as well so it won't matter.
Apple and Amazon are more egregious examples of this tax-evasion and so far they have done squat.
Rich people are not eating all your healthy food and living in all your housing
You should about what's happening in China. In Hong Kong they basically passed a law that you have to actually be in a house for a given time of the year for you to own it and you are limited in the amount of houses you can own. Why? Wealthy people from the mainland were buying property as an investment while the people who actually live and work at Hong Kong couldn't find a house at a decent price.