You will be permitted to record everything that you want. The competitive pressure from alternative distributors (pirates) will ensure that. No matter how much the content industries try to pull shit like broadcasting flags, DRM, etc., most media works (movies, TV shows, music, books) will be available for free on P2P. Relatively safe and anonymous P2P. So don't worry, no one will be able to stop you from viewing shows that you've paid for and even those that you haven't.
If having a nice climate is all it takes, then Africa should be a effing paradise, wich it is certianly not. The rumour has it that it used to be before colonialism. May be if +100 million of Africans weren't tossed into the Atlantic ocean by certain people, Africa would actually be a little bit better off today.
Actually a theory is that a colder less hospitible climate helps spur innovation and creativity. In the past - possibly. But not today. Russian people are indeed considered very creative, but obviously it can only offset the negative effect of the climate, not completely overcome it.
Famine in Cuba? That's news to me. In fact, North Korea is the only socialist country affected by famines now - about 98% of people suffering from hunger live in non-socialist countries.
Cuba isn't rich, but its people are well-fed, healthy, live long and have quality free education (not to mention other perks coming from living in a socialist state). And North Korea would fare much better if the US was not constantly threatening it (it isn't easy to protect itself from a global superpower all by itself).
And the single most important characteristic of China's experiment is the huge influx of investment from abroad, attracted by cheap labour. If a comparative amount of investment (per capita) was made into the North Korean economy, it would grow just as well.
There is no evidence that central planning is a bad system. In the Soviet Union it worked spectacularly well, turning a backwards agricultural country with poor climate, no industry and illiterate population into the world's superpower with top-notch science, every conceivable industry, including high-tech ones, educated well-fed healthy people living in equality without poverty and in comfort, being able to work in good conditions, develop themselves intellectually and culturally and otherwise enjoying themselves. All that without having media-forced stupidity, consumerism and other ills of the Western society. All of that using internal resources without resorting to exploitation of other countries, like capitalist countries must do.
If you consider real natural indicators in many industries, they are very telling. The efficiency of Soviet transportation systems, energy system was higher than that in the US. The efficiency of the R&D was higher than elsewhere in the world. Overall the planned system was astonishingly efficient. In 1930s even the Western media (such as Financial Times, Nation, etc., etc.) had to admit that (even though communists are evil) central planning works miraculously.
Who do you think runs giant corporations? Markets? Inside each corporation is a planning system (i.e. a small group of humans running a command economy). It's only logical to make the next step and make the whole country run according to the plan. And it worked well.
First, don't forget that Norway and Sweden have Gulfstream. This map doesn't reveal it as well (BTW, it was indeed taken in January, see the filename), a map with isothermes might show it better that those countries still have a better climate. Second, the situation is obviously complex and there is more than one factor (the climate) influencing the economic condition of the country, but it is clear that having long cold winters is a strong negative factor.
And while you are right that high-tech is less influenced by cliamte than agriculture, you must realise that it was agriculture that allowed the build-up of wealth over many centuries. And that even cell-phones need to be built somewhere, so you need to consider construction costs. And that people need heating in winter (an average Moscow apartment needs $2000-worth of fuel each year for heating).
Also, you example is invalid. Innovation today is not stimulated by tough climate. Regardless, Soviet Union was very innovative (what other country built both a space shuttle and a supersonic passenger jet?), it just had very bad starting conditions.
I think the author of the article and 95% of the posters here miss one simple fact. Games are not art, they are games. Entertainment that allows you to play.
Some games can be both entertainment AND art. That's nice. Everything can be art - a computer mouse can be art, a sound of a door opening can be art, anything at all. But it doesn't need to be.
Games exist to allow us to play. One of the most common modes of play is killing things and blowing stuff up, exemplified in the FPS genre. This genre doesn't benefit from a comic style, from a black and white style, from artsy style, etc. Yes, occasionally a game such as Alice can be both artsy and fun, but overall the most reasonable style choice is photorealism.
Same for the RPGs. When the game simulates an environment for us to live in, it better do it realistically or else. The best aesthetics for these games are the realistic ones - sci-fi space, military base, jungle, WW2 battlefield, medieval dungeon, etc. Yes, there are lots of design options, but they all begin with photorealism.
Interestingly, this Earth image is a great illustration to why Soviet Union was having great difficulties competing with other countries.
The common answer is "communism is evil" or "planned economy is inefficient", but I suggest you look at the above image and find the Soviet Union there. Can you guess what substance the whole territory of the USSR is covered with? Hint: it's white, cold and tasteless.
Yep, you probably guessed right, even if you rarely see it in your country. Because you are so forunate to have warmer climate, the agricultural productivity in your country is probably several times higher, the investments required are several times lower.
Interesting what an innocuous satellite image can reveal...
Hell, we've even hired the former head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov, to consult for homeland security. Not head of the KGB, head of the external intelligence service.
The Soviet police may have not locked you up as a four year old, but they sure would have if you were a threat to the party. I know that many people beleive that, but it wasn't true. Read about Sakharov, read his memoirs and the memoirs of his investigator (it's the best example of how far from reality this vision of "threaten the party, go to Siberia" is). When you were a threat to the country (not the party), you were asked to stop. Then asked again. Then some pressure was put on you at your workplace. If you ignored all that and insisted on doing something that threatened (or outright harmed) the country, you may have been tried in a court and punished according to the law.
There is nothing wrong with being locked up if you are a threat to the social order, as long as the criteria are just and well known to everyone. For example, I would have not be allowed to distribute American anti-Soviet propaganda in the Soviet Union. If I did, I risked going to jail (although the initial punishment would likely have been lighter).
The most importnt thing is that in Soviet Union I would have been (and was) free to do pretty much everything that I wanted. The limitations were there (total freedom is anarchy), but they weren't encountered by normal people (normal people didn't actively work to destroy the socialist order). I wouldn't be randomly shot in a subway, fined 1000$ because I sit on a bench in the playground without a kid, or fined 10000$ for downloading an MP3.
In real, everyday terms Soviet Union was the freest place there ever was. Much freer than any country today. I would love to find a place where I would be free, but I don't really see many choices. Holland or Switzerland might be ok. Or, alternatively, Cuba, Vietnam or Belarus... But all these options have their shortcomings.
Say that to trying to subjugate Berlin after going in a raping nearly the whole female population of that city.
Facts counter you easily. Complete inane bullshit on your part.
The Cold War was already on during the time the Soviets were supposedly our allies. When they had spies in our nuclear weapons development. When there was a direct outplay from the Soviet's declaring war on Japan in the late stages of the war as a political power and land grab, despite not being involved in the eastern front nearly at all to that point. Oh, you forgot the Soviets declaration of war on Japan when they were, oh, gee, nowhere to be seen prior?
What? What? What? Do you enjoy making stuff up that much? Please try to build a coherent argument and not just ramble on, ok?
Further, for your disingenous argument lies soley re propaganda, that's why there's a word of it. The Soviet threat was real, namely because of the Soviet propaganda to their own people about US military might. Overblown US claims? Most certainly. Played up by the US? Definitely. But it existed due to their own actions, and our actions did not rise to anything reckless or greater than the political and economic norms of the time. This was the age where in Europe, it was considered a coming of age for young men to go to war.
Are you on crack?
We didn't give a shit about Bosnia before or since. We did give a shit about people getting murdered because of their look or religion. Do the words "Tutsi" and "Hutu" ring a bell? I thought not.
What you say doesn't make any sense. I can't really respond to that rationally, because how does one respond to such gibberish? You just make stuff up, pile one outlandish claim upon another. You don't seem to care about facts or reality.
Really, you seem to be crazy. Can't help you much, though, sorry, pal.
A simple lesson from economics. Game development always costs as much as the market can bear. It's not related to photorealism at all. Developers will spend as much as they can to beat the competition and still ensure a profit.
Any game released today could have been made with 50% of the money spent and the result would probably have been only 10-20% worse (and mostly in quantity, not in quality). But if your competitor is willing to spend enough to get that 10% improvement, you have to do it too.
As the market expands, the game development costs will continue increase. However, the quality will increase even faster, because technology allows faster development. Digital technology is wonderful, because you can write and reuse. Once something becomes complicated enough, it will be developed separately and reused by everyone. Consider physics in games, for example. Do you hear developers complaining about programming costs skyrocketing because of the need for realistic physics? No, because it's licensed. So are the graphics engines. Eventually content will be generated programatically and developed separately from the games. There are tons of middleware and as soon as something becomes labour-intensive enough you can bet on a small company developing middleware solution for it.
You mean there was no such thing as the Concorde? Heh. Dude, I'll tell you what I tell the Americans too: please don't get your "facts" about other countries purely from propaganda. I mean the Concorde was not created by a single country.:D Tu-144 was.
There's a fine line between parity and having 2-3 times the army of the whole NATO combined. We're talking countries combined which had more than twice your population, and an order of magnitude more powerful economies.
The number of soldiers is just one indicator. Why aren't you surprised that the United States spends nearly three times that of all its potential adversaries combined (and almost as much as during the Cold War)? The Army the Soviet Union had was adequate for its defence. Nobody would support a huge army just in spite.
Not enough of either of them per capita, that's what you didn't have. Your industry divided by the population lagged behind more and more. And it was more and more lagging behind technologically, as in: more and more of what you produced was lower tech. Which is really why it lagged. All while military spending per capita was growing higher and higher.
Aha! Now I get it. In 1917 we had higher tech industry, with tons of different products per capita. But then with each passing year we had less and less and it was lower and lower tech. Now I get it. You really make no sense at all.
Yeah, technically you had a bit of every industry, but in some cases after you subtract the part that was producing or researching exclusively to support the army, you're left with... well, let's put it like this: _technically_ you had some, in the same way as I _technically_ have an agriculture, because I have a couple of potted plants on the balcony. This simply isn't true. Military expenditures were high, that's true. According to Ponomarenko A., they were 1416% of GDP in 1960s, 1013% in 1970s and 89% in 1980s. For comparision, the United States spent about 67% of GDP in 19651988. Considering that a) the US economy was larger than the Soviet economy and that b) other NATO countries spent money too, it was not surprising that the Soviet Union had to spend a bit more. But that hardly matters that much.
At some point, Gorbachev found the country in a position where it just didn't have enough industrial capacity (after subtracting all the expenses) to keep up with the NATO any more. That's why he, and most of the supreme soviet for that matter, rushed to suddenly play nice and democratic. Because there just wasn't enough industrial capacity left to keep up the old "we can bury you all" game and facade. That is a lie. Gorbachev is a traitor and a liar. For example (speaking about the same figures), in 1991 he claimed that the Soviet Union spent +20% of its GDP on defence. Careful scientific analysis carried out by specialists (historians, economists, military strategists, etc.) shows that this is demonstrably false. In the late 1980s defence spendings amounted to about 6-7%.
So if you don't believe me about the state of the industry, hell, I guess you can argue that with them too, then. Because it didn't look more viable to your own supreme soviet either. Gorbachev is a liar. That was demonstrated time and again. He was motivated to destroy the Soviet Union (paid by Pizza Hut, may be) and he did it.
So I guess you didn't plunder the resources of the whole Eastern Europe after WW2, right? I happen to know first hand that whole countries were not just drained of some mineral resources to support the URSS economy, but in a couple of cases were left literally depleted of some resources. So, please. Spare me the propaganda.
Any examples? Spare me baseless accusations. Please tell me which exactly whole countries were literally depleted of some resources that were sent to the Soviet Union either for free o
Actually, you know what? I'm not a "Yank", and I've been even known to piss off the "Yanks" occasionally, but it's sorta heart-warming to see that they don't have a monopoly on ignorance.
Look, this is not directed at you or at anyone personally. I expect fellow slashdot users to actually "get" what I am saying, because I can't afford to spell everything out.
Get this: it wasn't the Americans that destroyed your country. The Americans didn't do anything to you, and even sold you pretty much anything you wanted to buy. I am not dumb. I know that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a result of many different factors. However, sometimes I simplify things.
E.g., grain. Yes, most of the bread you ate in the Soviet days was made from American grain. Nope. Imported grain amounted only to few percent of total grain consumption. And most of the imported grain was used to feed cattle, because it was perceived that the share of animal proteins in the diet of Soviet citizens should be increased. However, manipulators can twist any fact to fit their agenda.
Your country was destroyed by your own Communist Party officials. To some extent this is true.
While other countries invested most of their funds in industrial research and modernizing the industry, the CCCP invested almost everything in the army. That's why you fell behind. Soviet Union had the world highest R&D spending as a percentage of GDP - slightly more than 4%. Soviet Union invested heavily in industrial research and modernizing the industry. It is a popular claim that Soviet Union wasted everything on military research, but there is no evidence to back it. Soviet Union had strong capability in most industrial fields. How many other countries you know, for example, that developed a supersonic passenger jet (the correct answer is that there was no other such country). Soviet research was exceptional - the list of startling achievements would take volumes. You just look around here and see things that would be impossible to build without strong industrial research.
See, you had more army than the whole NATO put together. Very modern army too. You had so much army that western Europe shit its pants when Reagan announced the SDI (a.k.a. "Star Wars") programme: with the USA no longer needing Europe to keep the URSS in check, there was a distinct possibility that the USA would just let Europe deal with the URSS on its own. And the estimation was that the military disparity was so insane, that western europe as a whole would lose within a couple of weeks. The army was large, indeed, but military spendings as a percentage of GDP were not extremely high. Furthermore, there were no other options for the Soviet Union, given that the United States was busy waging the Cold War against it. Parity with the NATO was the only option.
But that army came at the expense of your industry. The USA evolved by investing in more/better industry, and having the military expenses as a very small percentage of their GDP. The USSR invested everything they could in more army, and your industry stagnated. By the 1980's your industry wasn't in that much better shape than in the 50's.
This is simply nonsense. I don't mean to offend it, because I know how people get manipulated to believe even more outlandish ideas, but this is simply retarded. Take any economic indicator and compare the figures in 1950s and 1980s. What you said is not just not true, it's completely, totally and utterly bogus. The Soviet economy experienced constant growth up until the very year 1990. Soviet economy in the 1980s was extremely capable and strong. I wouldn't be able to create stuff such as reusable space place otherwise, would it? And it was hardly the only achievement.
You could have been an industrial power equal to the USA. But your supreme soviet decided you'd rather be a military behemoth, even at the expense of stagnating as an economic power. Well, we were an industrial power. W
Ah, those Americans and their strange ideas about freedom. I grew up in Soviet Union and I knew that I can go wherether the fuck I want to. When I was 4 years old, I took my girlfriend (yes, I had one when I was 4 years old, although we didn't kiss or anything, only held hands) and decided to go across the city to my grandparents (about 10-15 kilometers, no big deal). Sadly, we were stopped by policemen (militiamen) on the second or third street crossing, who politely enquired, where two 4 year old kids are going all alone.:-)
We were taken to the militia station, where I got to play with guns and some other stuff (I still remember a book with a cut-out for a gun inside). It was so fun I am afraid I even forgot about the girlfriend.:) Anyway, the militia found our parents and drove us back home with the police lights on.:) True story.
My point with all that is that the sense of freedom you get living in the USA is wonderful. You can't do that in a mall, you can't do that in subway, you can't do that in a park, you can't go here, you can't sit there, you can't do this, you can't do that. And since pretty much everything is private property nowdays, the owners have every right to stop you from doing anything (and call the police). And of course, the local governments do not lag behind. Only in the US can they prohibit you from making a photos of a public monument (Yes, Chicago, I am talking to you).
Really, living in the Soviet Union was heaven compared with the modern police states of the US and the UK. Too bad you Yanks had to destroy my country.:( That it wasn't the only country you destroyed is not a consolation.
First, it didn't happen overnight. The seeds of destruction were planted as early as in 1960s. The destruction of the country was started by Gorbachev in 1985 and a small minority of people saw where it's leading the Soviet Union.
The main reason for the collapse is the wealth- and power-hungry elite. The leaders in Soviet republics wanted power for themselves, so they played the nationalism card. Dissidents in the center wanted to use every opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union, so they supported the nationalists (this lead to bloody wars in Armenia, Moldova, Chechnya, etc.).
The elite in Moscow wanted to have money, to live like Western capitalists do. Just look at the Gorbachev and his wife. They embraced the lifestyle of American presidents, changing suits and dresses every day, which was never accepted before. All Soviet leaders before Gorbachev led a relatively modest life. This was, of course, not the direct cause for the collapse, but an indicator. Parts of the Soviet nomenclature wanted to control the wealth, so they allied with the organised crime and started to channel the national wealth into their own pockets.
Economic growth in Soviet Union continued until the very 1990. Soon after that the planned economy was destroyed and a huge race to steal the most assets started. It started with rare-earth metals, tractors, trucks, wood, fertilizers, etc. In 1993-1995 it continued with wholesale theft of huge Soviet enterprises during the privatisation.
So in a sense the government toppled itself because a number of factors combined to make it possible, primarily the election of Gorbachev the Secretary General. It would have never happened if, for example, Andropov lived long enough.
And there is no joy today in the former republics. For example, in Georgia (the proud independent marionette of the US) more than 80% of people would like to leave their country. The poverty in the former republics is simply abhorrent. Yes, they believed the lies of their nationalist leaders, just like all Soviet people beleived the lies of their Soviet leaders - "let us pass a few laws, destroy the horrible Soviet system and you will all live as well as Swedes or Americans".
Obviously, this is a simplistic account. It doesn't say anything about the role of the United States that led a 40-year long Cold War against the Soviet Union, it doesn't say about many factors. But the simple truth is that Soviet Union didn't collapse because it was too bad. It was destroyed because it was too successful.
This is a problem with guardian.co.uk. They have doubleclick elements on the page and if you block the host, the page doesn't load at all past the first banner (at least it doesn't on my computer)...
Advertising is evil. It is an attempt to manipulate me so that some corporation can profit while making stuff that noone needs. I turn TV sound off every time there is a commercial break (I don't watch TV myself, but I am sometimes present in a room when others do), I don't listen to radio ads. I throw away any paper spam, filter my e-mail and block online ad. As soon as I can use my augmented reality display to block real life ads, I will.
I once saw a reference to an old study that found that about 30% Americans would be willing to accept a lower standard of living as a price for eliminating all advertising. I am not surprised.
As usual in a discussion, you have a choice - either to repeat baseless accusations that have no ground in reality, but which make you feel very confident and smart, or to actually try to understand the facts available, the reasoning of the opponent and reconsider your position. So far you seem to be choosing the first option...:(
The Soviet Union's economy was never good. It was always terribly inefficient. I have gave you several real economic indicators (that can be looked up with some effort). You chose to dumbly repeat the "it was inefficient" lie. Do you have any data at all? What exactly economic efficiency indicator was much lower in the USSR than in the US? I dare you to find such indicators.
As to starvation of the Soviet Union, it is true that the Soviet Union had all but eliminated starvation by the 80's. Of course, this had more to do with the fact that it was because they had all but abandoned collective farming and received large amounts of food aid from the West then the efficiency of planned economies. The paragraph quoted above consists of a bunch of lies. 1) The Soviet Union has eliminated starvation by the 1950s. It last happened naturally in 1930s and in 1940s the Nazi Germany burned and pillaged half of the country. But after the 1950s there wasn't and couldn't have been starvation. Again, if you stop repeating empty false claims and instead look at the figures, you would realise that Soviet Union was in world's top ten in food consumption (for most food groups, with the exception of milk and meat it actually beat the US at the time). 2) There is absolutely no evidence that Soviet Union "abandoned collective farming". This is patent nonsense! Of course, it haven't done that, collective farms were more strong than ever, the production was growing each year, significant investments were made and the Soviet agriculture was actually in a great shape, especially considering the climate, lack of government subsidies (a la Western Europe) and relatively low mechanisation. 3) Soviet Union haven't been and couldn't be receiving food aid in the 1980s. Are you smoking crack? Soviet Union did import small amount of food, but the amounts were insignificant compared to total production and the idea that it was receiving aid is ridiculous. Of course, you won't be able to provide any references, so we must assume that you just invented this lie.
Whatever the case, comparing the Soviet Union to the Russia of today and using that as proof that democracy and capitalism are failed systems is at best dishonest. Russia is not a democracy and it isn't a free market. Russia is closer to the Chinese system then it is to the American or European system. And you are an expert on Russia? Or an economist? Right? Or not?
If you don't like the comparision, what do you suggest instead? What should we compare the Soviet Union with? The Czarist Russia? Soviet Union wins? The modern Russia? Soviet Union wins again. The third world countries? Another win for the Soviet Union. The United States, an imperialist country exploiting half of the world and consuming a disproportionate amount of world resources, thanks to its global military domination? Well, if you look deep into this last comparision, you would actually see that Soviet Union may still win. Yes, the per capita consumption is lower, but mostly because there were no millionaires in Soviet Union. However, there was almost no poverty either.
But you don't care about facts and real figures, so I won't tell you how many people had access to free education and free health care in Soviet Union. I won't tell you the amounts of money spent on free public housing, I won't tell you per capita nutrition indicators, I won't cite growth in life expectancy, I won't talk about sport and scientific achievements, no...
Let's just close our eyes and repeat the thinktank-invented government-sanctioned media-spread capitalist mantra: "The Soviet Union's economy was never good. It was always terribly inefficient." And I hope you don't forget that "The United States was always at war with Iraq". Don't miss your Two Minutes Hate, your Prosium injection and don't forget to attend the daily brainwashing session.
As hard as it is, I am going to try this without foaming around the mouth. It is true that the defense of Europe was in no small way an endeavor of self preservation on the part of the United States. Nonetheless, the Marshall Plan and the defense of Western Europe benefitted hundreds of millions outside the U.S. Well, the defence of Western Europe from whom? Soviet Union was not a threat to Western Europe. This "threat" was manufactured by US propaganda to justify the Cold War agains the Soviet Union. Most original US documents have been declassified (50 years passed), so read them. So all that "defence" was bogus. Soviet Union liberated the Europe from the Nazis, not threatened it. Marshall Plan was a successful attempt to tie Europe closer to the US, while making sure that US industry benefits from the reconstruction (just like in Iraq and elsewhere today).
For pure altruism, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti all were peacekeeping missions performed by the evil U.S. Army and its madmen. Somalia was altruistic? Perhaps the US-led attacks on women there were also altruistic? Like blow up a pieceful meeting of Somalian delegates and then pretend it was a terrorist cell. Read up the prehistory of the Mogadishu disaster someday. To call Bosnia altruism is just as ridiculous. The US manufactured lies about ethnic cleansings, armed the Albanian Islamic extremists, ignored massacres of Serbs, destroyed the infrastructure and overall caused innumerable harm. Haiti wasn't any better - a total mess, with supporting some pro-American dictators, assassinating heads of state, then invading and killing tens of thousands of civilians. Is supporting FRAPH death squads an act of altruism? If yes, then the US indeed acted altruistically in Haiti. Or how about the fact that Aristide had to agree to all requirements of the IMF and allow the continued operation of sweatshops in Haiti in order to get the US backing? Altruistic too? You are hopelessly naive, or indeed brainwashed by the government-sanctioned propaganda that you are subjected to by the corporate-owned US media.
Wrong. You see, I actually lived in the Soviet Union and live in Russia now. And it doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics (which incidentally I do have) to note that economic situation today (and for the past 15 years) is drastically worse than it was before 1990. As a matter of fact, you can just listen to the President to hear him admit just that.
About one-third of Russian people are starving today (i.e. they are not getting enough nutrition according to WHO health norms). The average caloric intake has been decreasing since 1990. Almost every economic indicator you can think of is worse today than it was in 1990 (with the exceptions of number of cars, mobile phones and Internet use). The freedom is only nominal, people travel abroad as much as they did in the Soviet Union (not more), the circulation of newspapers is much less than it was, the self-censorship is prevalent and so on and so forth.
Soviet Union economy was pure pwn4g3. It started that way in 1930s (and it was admitted by Financial Times, Nation and Western media in general), it continued that way through the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s. If you consider the fact that the climate in most of the Soviet Union is much worse than in Western Europe and the US, when you consider that Soviet Union never exploited third world countries chanelling wealth from them, then you must realise that the planned economy was extremely efficient. Also, if you consider real-world quantitative indicators, such as fuel used per 1 ton*km of cargo transported, number of loading/unloading operations per 1000 km of transit, energy used per unit of output, you will realise that the planned economy was in fact more efficient than the capitalist market economy of the United States.
Such comparisions, however, are totally Unamerican and are doubleplusungood to make in the US. So you must immediately forget that I said it and never question the authority.
Please continue believing in myths about the Soviet Union, such as the myth that millions of people were dying because of lack of food. You must believe that it weren't isolated cases of famine caused by the Civil War devasation and exceptionally bad harvests in 1920s and 1930s. No, you must believe that in 1970s and 1980s people were starving. Who cares that this is total bullshit? Who cares that people are starving today in Russia, with free market and capitalism? Nobody cares about that.
What a crock of shit. American army hasn't defended the country for half a century now. The only thing it defends is American economic interests in other countries. In other words, the US Army exists to support American imperialism, help the US exploit other countries and rob them of everything they have (oil, metal ores, channels, opium poppy, coca, etc.).
Private enterprise is not better than state-funded organisations. The inefficiency of the government is a libertarian myth. The very Internet that Google is based on was created by the government.
P.S. Mod me down, but public ownership of the means of production always was better, is better and will always be better. Workers of the world, unite!
I don't know about audio sync in games and audio sync in audio (what are we syncing it with?), but I often notice 100 ms A/V delays when watching movies on my computer. A 200 ms delay is often obvious, a 100 ms delay is sometimes noticeable, a 50 ms delay (1 frame) is almost imperceptible.
This depends on source material a lot, but in some cases bad sync can reduce the quality of the final experience 25-50% (subjectively).
Are there any legitimate governments (not owned by the MNCs) left at all? Yep. Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, Belarus and a couple of others. By the people for the people. They may not be the richest countries (after all, there aren't any Fourth World countries to exploit), but at least the government feels a responsibility to care for the citizens and laws aren't bought by the highest corporate bidder.
P.S. And please, I don't want to hear any BS complaints about "human rights abuse". These countries may have a couple hundreds political prisoners and may limit organised opposition, but is that really worse than killing people randomly in the Tube or letting corporation extort money from 12-year-old girls and disabled single moms?
How do you explain detailed chemistry to computer geeks? In some cases a pretty simplistic idea is transferred successfully, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Well, you just answered your own question. You start from the basics that are understood by your intended audience and explain using accessible language, but without oversimplification. Each next concept following from the previous you gradually get to explain the topic at hand, like you brilliantly did. If more space/time is available, each step can be explained in more detail, but the magic rule is to start at the level of your audience (readers) and go from there. Intelligent people are capable of following the explanation and understanding arbitrarily complex concept.
Thanks again for the great explanation. If only everyone was this considerate.
Slashdot Mirror
You will be permitted to record everything that you want. The competitive pressure from alternative distributors (pirates) will ensure that. No matter how much the content industries try to pull shit like broadcasting flags, DRM, etc., most media works (movies, TV shows, music, books) will be available for free on P2P. Relatively safe and anonymous P2P. So don't worry, no one will be able to stop you from viewing shows that you've paid for and even those that you haven't.
If having a nice climate is all it takes, then Africa should be a effing paradise, wich it is certianly not.
The rumour has it that it used to be before colonialism. May be if +100 million of Africans weren't tossed into the Atlantic ocean by certain people, Africa would actually be a little bit better off today.
Actually a theory is that a colder less hospitible climate helps spur innovation and creativity.
In the past - possibly. But not today. Russian people are indeed considered very creative, but obviously it can only offset the negative effect of the climate, not completely overcome it.
Famine in Cuba? That's news to me. In fact, North Korea is the only socialist country affected by famines now - about 98% of people suffering from hunger live in non-socialist countries.
Cuba isn't rich, but its people are well-fed, healthy, live long and have quality free education (not to mention other perks coming from living in a socialist state). And North Korea would fare much better if the US was not constantly threatening it (it isn't easy to protect itself from a global superpower all by itself).
And the single most important characteristic of China's experiment is the huge influx of investment from abroad, attracted by cheap labour. If a comparative amount of investment (per capita) was made into the North Korean economy, it would grow just as well.
There is no evidence that central planning is a bad system. In the Soviet Union it worked spectacularly well, turning a backwards agricultural country with poor climate, no industry and illiterate population into the world's superpower with top-notch science, every conceivable industry, including high-tech ones, educated well-fed healthy people living in equality without poverty and in comfort, being able to work in good conditions, develop themselves intellectually and culturally and otherwise enjoying themselves. All that without having media-forced stupidity, consumerism and other ills of the Western society. All of that using internal resources without resorting to exploitation of other countries, like capitalist countries must do.
If you consider real natural indicators in many industries, they are very telling. The efficiency of Soviet transportation systems, energy system was higher than that in the US. The efficiency of the R&D was higher than elsewhere in the world. Overall the planned system was astonishingly efficient. In 1930s even the Western media (such as Financial Times, Nation, etc., etc.) had to admit that (even though communists are evil) central planning works miraculously.
Who do you think runs giant corporations? Markets? Inside each corporation is a planning system (i.e. a small group of humans running a command economy). It's only logical to make the next step and make the whole country run according to the plan. And it worked well.
First, don't forget that Norway and Sweden have Gulfstream. This map doesn't reveal it as well (BTW, it was indeed taken in January, see the filename), a map with isothermes might show it better that those countries still have a better climate. Second, the situation is obviously complex and there is more than one factor (the climate) influencing the economic condition of the country, but it is clear that having long cold winters is a strong negative factor.
And while you are right that high-tech is less influenced by cliamte than agriculture, you must realise that it was agriculture that allowed the build-up of wealth over many centuries. And that even cell-phones need to be built somewhere, so you need to consider construction costs. And that people need heating in winter (an average Moscow apartment needs $2000-worth of fuel each year for heating).
Also, you example is invalid. Innovation today is not stimulated by tough climate. Regardless, Soviet Union was very innovative (what other country built both a space shuttle and a supersonic passenger jet?), it just had very bad starting conditions.
I think the author of the article and 95% of the posters here miss one simple fact. Games are not art, they are games. Entertainment that allows you to play.
Some games can be both entertainment AND art. That's nice. Everything can be art - a computer mouse can be art, a sound of a door opening can be art, anything at all. But it doesn't need to be.
Games exist to allow us to play. One of the most common modes of play is killing things and blowing stuff up, exemplified in the FPS genre. This genre doesn't benefit from a comic style, from a black and white style, from artsy style, etc. Yes, occasionally a game such as Alice can be both artsy and fun, but overall the most reasonable style choice is photorealism.
Same for the RPGs. When the game simulates an environment for us to live in, it better do it realistically or else. The best aesthetics for these games are the realistic ones - sci-fi space, military base, jungle, WW2 battlefield, medieval dungeon, etc. Yes, there are lots of design options, but they all begin with photorealism.
Interestingly, this Earth image is a great illustration to why Soviet Union was having great difficulties competing with other countries.
The common answer is "communism is evil" or "planned economy is inefficient", but I suggest you look at the above image and find the Soviet Union there. Can you guess what substance the whole territory of the USSR is covered with? Hint: it's white, cold and tasteless.
Yep, you probably guessed right, even if you rarely see it in your country. Because you are so forunate to have warmer climate, the agricultural productivity in your country is probably several times higher, the investments required are several times lower.
Interesting what an innocuous satellite image can reveal...
Hell, we've even hired the former head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov, to consult for homeland security.
Not head of the KGB, head of the external intelligence service.
The Soviet police may have not locked you up as a four year old, but they sure would have if you were a threat to the party.
I know that many people beleive that, but it wasn't true. Read about Sakharov, read his memoirs and the memoirs of his investigator (it's the best example of how far from reality this vision of "threaten the party, go to Siberia" is). When you were a threat to the country (not the party), you were asked to stop. Then asked again. Then some pressure was put on you at your workplace. If you ignored all that and insisted on doing something that threatened (or outright harmed) the country, you may have been tried in a court and punished according to the law.
There is nothing wrong with being locked up if you are a threat to the social order, as long as the criteria are just and well known to everyone. For example, I would have not be allowed to distribute American anti-Soviet propaganda in the Soviet Union. If I did, I risked going to jail (although the initial punishment would likely have been lighter).
The most importnt thing is that in Soviet Union I would have been (and was) free to do pretty much everything that I wanted. The limitations were there (total freedom is anarchy), but they weren't encountered by normal people (normal people didn't actively work to destroy the socialist order). I wouldn't be randomly shot in a subway, fined 1000$ because I sit on a bench in the playground without a kid, or fined 10000$ for downloading an MP3.
In real, everyday terms Soviet Union was the freest place there ever was. Much freer than any country today. I would love to find a place where I would be free, but I don't really see many choices. Holland or Switzerland might be ok. Or, alternatively, Cuba, Vietnam or Belarus... But all these options have their shortcomings.
Every nation gets the government it deserves....
Say that to trying to subjugate Berlin after going in a raping nearly the whole female population of that city.
Facts counter you easily. Complete inane bullshit on your part.
The Cold War was already on during the time the Soviets were supposedly our allies. When they had spies in our nuclear weapons development. When there was a direct outplay from the Soviet's declaring war on Japan in the late stages of the war as a political power and land grab, despite not being involved in the eastern front nearly at all to that point. Oh, you forgot the Soviets declaration of war on Japan when they were, oh, gee, nowhere to be seen prior?
What? What? What? Do you enjoy making stuff up that much? Please try to build a coherent argument and not just ramble on, ok?
Further, for your disingenous argument lies soley re propaganda, that's why there's a word of it. The Soviet threat was real, namely because of the Soviet propaganda to their own people about US military might. Overblown US claims? Most certainly. Played up by the US? Definitely. But it existed due to their own actions, and our actions did not rise to anything reckless or greater than the political and economic norms of the time. This was the age where in Europe, it was considered a coming of age for young men to go to war.
Are you on crack?
We didn't give a shit about Bosnia before or since. We did give a shit about people getting murdered because of their look or religion.
Do the words "Tutsi" and "Hutu" ring a bell? I thought not.
What you say doesn't make any sense. I can't really respond to that rationally, because how does one respond to such gibberish? You just make stuff up, pile one outlandish claim upon another. You don't seem to care about facts or reality.
Really, you seem to be crazy. Can't help you much, though, sorry, pal.
A simple lesson from economics. Game development always costs as much as the market can bear. It's not related to photorealism at all. Developers will spend as much as they can to beat the competition and still ensure a profit.
Any game released today could have been made with 50% of the money spent and the result would probably have been only 10-20% worse (and mostly in quantity, not in quality). But if your competitor is willing to spend enough to get that 10% improvement, you have to do it too.
As the market expands, the game development costs will continue increase. However, the quality will increase even faster, because technology allows faster development. Digital technology is wonderful, because you can write and reuse. Once something becomes complicated enough, it will be developed separately and reused by everyone. Consider physics in games, for example. Do you hear developers complaining about programming costs skyrocketing because of the need for realistic physics? No, because it's licensed. So are the graphics engines. Eventually content will be generated programatically and developed separately from the games. There are tons of middleware and as soon as something becomes labour-intensive enough you can bet on a small company developing middleware solution for it.
You mean there was no such thing as the Concorde? Heh. Dude, I'll tell you what I tell the Americans too: please don't get your "facts" about other countries purely from propaganda. :D Tu-144 was.
I mean the Concorde was not created by a single country.
There's a fine line between parity and having 2-3 times the army of the whole NATO combined. We're talking countries combined which had more than twice your population, and an order of magnitude more powerful economies.
The number of soldiers is just one indicator. Why aren't you surprised that the United States spends nearly three times that of all its potential adversaries combined (and almost as much as during the Cold War)? The Army the Soviet Union had was adequate for its defence. Nobody would support a huge army just in spite.
Not enough of either of them per capita, that's what you didn't have. Your industry divided by the population lagged behind more and more. And it was more and more lagging behind technologically, as in: more and more of what you produced was lower tech. Which is really why it lagged. All while military spending per capita was growing higher and higher.
Aha! Now I get it. In 1917 we had higher tech industry, with tons of different products per capita. But then with each passing year we had less and less and it was lower and lower tech. Now I get it. You really make no sense at all.
Yeah, technically you had a bit of every industry, but in some cases after you subtract the part that was producing or researching exclusively to support the army, you're left with... well, let's put it like this: _technically_ you had some, in the same way as I _technically_ have an agriculture, because I have a couple of potted plants on the balcony.
This simply isn't true. Military expenditures were high, that's true. According to Ponomarenko A., they were 1416% of GDP in 1960s, 1013% in 1970s and 89% in 1980s. For comparision, the United States spent about 67% of GDP in 19651988. Considering that a) the US economy was larger than the Soviet economy and that b) other NATO countries spent money too, it was not surprising that the Soviet Union had to spend a bit more. But that hardly matters that much.
At some point, Gorbachev found the country in a position where it just didn't have enough industrial capacity (after subtracting all the expenses) to keep up with the NATO any more. That's why he, and most of the supreme soviet for that matter, rushed to suddenly play nice and democratic. Because there just wasn't enough industrial capacity left to keep up the old "we can bury you all" game and facade.
That is a lie. Gorbachev is a traitor and a liar. For example (speaking about the same figures), in 1991 he claimed that the Soviet Union spent +20% of its GDP on defence. Careful scientific analysis carried out by specialists (historians, economists, military strategists, etc.) shows that this is demonstrably false. In the late 1980s defence spendings amounted to about 6-7%.
So if you don't believe me about the state of the industry, hell, I guess you can argue that with them too, then. Because it didn't look more viable to your own supreme soviet either.
Gorbachev is a liar. That was demonstrated time and again. He was motivated to destroy the Soviet Union (paid by Pizza Hut, may be) and he did it.
So I guess you didn't plunder the resources of the whole Eastern Europe after WW2, right? I happen to know first hand that whole countries were not just drained of some mineral resources to support the URSS economy, but in a couple of cases were left literally depleted of some resources. So, please. Spare me the propaganda.
Any examples? Spare me baseless accusations. Please tell me which exactly whole countries were literally depleted of some resources that were sent to the Soviet Union either for free o
Actually, you know what? I'm not a "Yank", and I've been even known to piss off the "Yanks" occasionally, but it's sorta heart-warming to see that they don't have a monopoly on ignorance.
Look, this is not directed at you or at anyone personally. I expect fellow slashdot users to actually "get" what I am saying, because I can't afford to spell everything out.
Get this: it wasn't the Americans that destroyed your country. The Americans didn't do anything to you, and even sold you pretty much anything you wanted to buy.
I am not dumb. I know that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a result of many different factors. However, sometimes I simplify things.
E.g., grain. Yes, most of the bread you ate in the Soviet days was made from American grain.
Nope. Imported grain amounted only to few percent of total grain consumption. And most of the imported grain was used to feed cattle, because it was perceived that the share of animal proteins in the diet of Soviet citizens should be increased. However, manipulators can twist any fact to fit their agenda.
Your country was destroyed by your own Communist Party officials.
To some extent this is true.
While other countries invested most of their funds in industrial research and modernizing the industry, the CCCP invested almost everything in the army. That's why you fell behind.
Soviet Union had the world highest R&D spending as a percentage of GDP - slightly more than 4%. Soviet Union invested heavily in industrial research and modernizing the industry. It is a popular claim that Soviet Union wasted everything on military research, but there is no evidence to back it. Soviet Union had strong capability in most industrial fields. How many other countries you know, for example, that developed a supersonic passenger jet (the correct answer is that there was no other such country). Soviet research was exceptional - the list of startling achievements would take volumes. You just look around here and see things that would be impossible to build without strong industrial research.
See, you had more army than the whole NATO put together. Very modern army too. You had so much army that western Europe shit its pants when Reagan announced the SDI (a.k.a. "Star Wars") programme: with the USA no longer needing Europe to keep the URSS in check, there was a distinct possibility that the USA would just let Europe deal with the URSS on its own. And the estimation was that the military disparity was so insane, that western europe as a whole would lose within a couple of weeks.
The army was large, indeed, but military spendings as a percentage of GDP were not extremely high. Furthermore, there were no other options for the Soviet Union, given that the United States was busy waging the Cold War against it. Parity with the NATO was the only option.
But that army came at the expense of your industry. The USA evolved by investing in more/better industry, and having the military expenses as a very small percentage of their GDP. The USSR invested everything they could in more army, and your industry stagnated. By the 1980's your industry wasn't in that much better shape than in the 50's.
This is simply nonsense. I don't mean to offend it, because I know how people get manipulated to believe even more outlandish ideas, but this is simply retarded. Take any economic indicator and compare the figures in 1950s and 1980s. What you said is not just not true, it's completely, totally and utterly bogus. The Soviet economy experienced constant growth up until the very year 1990. Soviet economy in the 1980s was extremely capable and strong. I wouldn't be able to create stuff such as reusable space place otherwise, would it? And it was hardly the only achievement.
You could have been an industrial power equal to the USA. But your supreme soviet decided you'd rather be a military behemoth, even at the expense of stagnating as an economic power.
Well, we were an industrial power. W
What is interesting is that the other side already convinced you that chatting with a 16 year old girl is a crime...
Next is persuading you that looking at 16 year old girls is a crime. Wanna bet on how long will it take them?
Ah, those Americans and their strange ideas about freedom. I grew up in Soviet Union and I knew that I can go wherether the fuck I want to. When I was 4 years old, I took my girlfriend (yes, I had one when I was 4 years old, although we didn't kiss or anything, only held hands) and decided to go across the city to my grandparents (about 10-15 kilometers, no big deal). Sadly, we were stopped by policemen (militiamen) on the second or third street crossing, who politely enquired, where two 4 year old kids are going all alone. :-)
:) Anyway, the militia found our parents and drove us back home with the police lights on. :) True story.
:( That it wasn't the only country you destroyed is not a consolation.
We were taken to the militia station, where I got to play with guns and some other stuff (I still remember a book with a cut-out for a gun inside). It was so fun I am afraid I even forgot about the girlfriend.
My point with all that is that the sense of freedom you get living in the USA is wonderful. You can't do that in a mall, you can't do that in subway, you can't do that in a park, you can't go here, you can't sit there, you can't do this, you can't do that. And since pretty much everything is private property nowdays, the owners have every right to stop you from doing anything (and call the police). And of course, the local governments do not lag behind. Only in the US can they prohibit you from making a photos of a public monument (Yes, Chicago, I am talking to you).
Really, living in the Soviet Union was heaven compared with the modern police states of the US and the UK. Too bad you Yanks had to destroy my country.
First, it didn't happen overnight. The seeds of destruction were planted as early as in 1960s. The destruction of the country was started by Gorbachev in 1985 and a small minority of people saw where it's leading the Soviet Union.
The main reason for the collapse is the wealth- and power-hungry elite. The leaders in Soviet republics wanted power for themselves, so they played the nationalism card. Dissidents in the center wanted to use every opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union, so they supported the nationalists (this lead to bloody wars in Armenia, Moldova, Chechnya, etc.).
The elite in Moscow wanted to have money, to live like Western capitalists do. Just look at the Gorbachev and his wife. They embraced the lifestyle of American presidents, changing suits and dresses every day, which was never accepted before. All Soviet leaders before Gorbachev led a relatively modest life. This was, of course, not the direct cause for the collapse, but an indicator. Parts of the Soviet nomenclature wanted to control the wealth, so they allied with the organised crime and started to channel the national wealth into their own pockets.
Economic growth in Soviet Union continued until the very 1990. Soon after that the planned economy was destroyed and a huge race to steal the most assets started. It started with rare-earth metals, tractors, trucks, wood, fertilizers, etc. In 1993-1995 it continued with wholesale theft of huge Soviet enterprises during the privatisation.
So in a sense the government toppled itself because a number of factors combined to make it possible, primarily the election of Gorbachev the Secretary General. It would have never happened if, for example, Andropov lived long enough.
And there is no joy today in the former republics. For example, in Georgia (the proud independent marionette of the US) more than 80% of people would like to leave their country. The poverty in the former republics is simply abhorrent. Yes, they believed the lies of their nationalist leaders, just like all Soviet people beleived the lies of their Soviet leaders - "let us pass a few laws, destroy the horrible Soviet system and you will all live as well as Swedes or Americans".
Obviously, this is a simplistic account. It doesn't say anything about the role of the United States that led a 40-year long Cold War against the Soviet Union, it doesn't say about many factors. But the simple truth is that Soviet Union didn't collapse because it was too bad. It was destroyed because it was too successful.
This is a problem with guardian.co.uk. They have doubleclick elements on the page and if you block the host, the page doesn't load at all past the first banner (at least it doesn't on my computer)...
Why do I block online ads? Because I can.
Advertising is evil. It is an attempt to manipulate me so that some corporation can profit while making stuff that noone needs. I turn TV sound off every time there is a commercial break (I don't watch TV myself, but I am sometimes present in a room when others do), I don't listen to radio ads. I throw away any paper spam, filter my e-mail and block online ad. As soon as I can use my augmented reality display to block real life ads, I will.
I once saw a reference to an old study that found that about 30% Americans would be willing to accept a lower standard of living as a price for eliminating all advertising. I am not surprised.
As usual in a discussion, you have a choice - either to repeat baseless accusations that have no ground in reality, but which make you feel very confident and smart, or to actually try to understand the facts available, the reasoning of the opponent and reconsider your position. So far you seem to be choosing the first option... :(
The Soviet Union's economy was never good. It was always terribly inefficient.
I have gave you several real economic indicators (that can be looked up with some effort). You chose to dumbly repeat the "it was inefficient" lie. Do you have any data at all? What exactly economic efficiency indicator was much lower in the USSR than in the US? I dare you to find such indicators.
As to starvation of the Soviet Union, it is true that the Soviet Union had all but eliminated starvation by the 80's. Of course, this had more to do with the fact that it was because they had all but abandoned collective farming and received large amounts of food aid from the West then the efficiency of planned economies.
The paragraph quoted above consists of a bunch of lies.
1) The Soviet Union has eliminated starvation by the 1950s. It last happened naturally in 1930s and in 1940s the Nazi Germany burned and pillaged half of the country. But after the 1950s there wasn't and couldn't have been starvation. Again, if you stop repeating empty false claims and instead look at the figures, you would realise that Soviet Union was in world's top ten in food consumption (for most food groups, with the exception of milk and meat it actually beat the US at the time).
2) There is absolutely no evidence that Soviet Union "abandoned collective farming". This is patent nonsense! Of course, it haven't done that, collective farms were more strong than ever, the production was growing each year, significant investments were made and the Soviet agriculture was actually in a great shape, especially considering the climate, lack of government subsidies (a la Western Europe) and relatively low mechanisation.
3) Soviet Union haven't been and couldn't be receiving food aid in the 1980s. Are you smoking crack? Soviet Union did import small amount of food, but the amounts were insignificant compared to total production and the idea that it was receiving aid is ridiculous. Of course, you won't be able to provide any references, so we must assume that you just invented this lie.
Whatever the case, comparing the Soviet Union to the Russia of today and using that as proof that democracy and capitalism are failed systems is at best dishonest. Russia is not a democracy and it isn't a free market. Russia is closer to the Chinese system then it is to the American or European system.
And you are an expert on Russia? Or an economist? Right? Or not?
If you don't like the comparision, what do you suggest instead? What should we compare the Soviet Union with? The Czarist Russia? Soviet Union wins? The modern Russia? Soviet Union wins again. The third world countries? Another win for the Soviet Union. The United States, an imperialist country exploiting half of the world and consuming a disproportionate amount of world resources, thanks to its global military domination? Well, if you look deep into this last comparision, you would actually see that Soviet Union may still win. Yes, the per capita consumption is lower, but mostly because there were no millionaires in Soviet Union. However, there was almost no poverty either.
But you don't care about facts and real figures, so I won't tell you how many people had access to free education and free health care in Soviet Union. I won't tell you the amounts of money spent on free public housing, I won't tell you per capita nutrition indicators, I won't cite growth in life expectancy, I won't talk about sport and scientific achievements, no...
Let's just close our eyes and repeat the thinktank-invented government-sanctioned media-spread capitalist mantra: "The Soviet Union's economy was never good. It was always terribly inefficient." And I hope you don't forget that "The United States was always at war with Iraq". Don't miss your Two Minutes Hate, your Prosium injection and don't forget to attend the daily brainwashing session.
As hard as it is, I am going to try this without foaming around the mouth. It is true that the defense of Europe was in no small way an endeavor of self preservation on the part of the United States. Nonetheless, the Marshall Plan and the defense of Western Europe benefitted hundreds of millions outside the U.S.
Well, the defence of Western Europe from whom? Soviet Union was not a threat to Western Europe. This "threat" was manufactured by US propaganda to justify the Cold War agains the Soviet Union. Most original US documents have been declassified (50 years passed), so read them. So all that "defence" was bogus. Soviet Union liberated the Europe from the Nazis, not threatened it. Marshall Plan was a successful attempt to tie Europe closer to the US, while making sure that US industry benefits from the reconstruction (just like in Iraq and elsewhere today).
For pure altruism, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti all were peacekeeping missions performed by the evil U.S. Army and its madmen.
Somalia was altruistic? Perhaps the US-led attacks on women there were also altruistic? Like blow up a pieceful meeting of Somalian delegates and then pretend it was a terrorist cell. Read up the prehistory of the Mogadishu disaster someday. To call Bosnia altruism is just as ridiculous. The US manufactured lies about ethnic cleansings, armed the Albanian Islamic extremists, ignored massacres of Serbs, destroyed the infrastructure and overall caused innumerable harm. Haiti wasn't any better - a total mess, with supporting some pro-American dictators, assassinating heads of state, then invading and killing tens of thousands of civilians. Is supporting FRAPH death squads an act of altruism? If yes, then the US indeed acted altruistically in Haiti. Or how about the fact that Aristide had to agree to all requirements of the IMF and allow the continued operation of sweatshops in Haiti in order to get the US backing? Altruistic too? You are hopelessly naive, or indeed brainwashed by the government-sanctioned propaganda that you are subjected to by the corporate-owned US media.
Wrong. You see, I actually lived in the Soviet Union and live in Russia now. And it doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics (which incidentally I do have) to note that economic situation today (and for the past 15 years) is drastically worse than it was before 1990. As a matter of fact, you can just listen to the President to hear him admit just that.
About one-third of Russian people are starving today (i.e. they are not getting enough nutrition according to WHO health norms). The average caloric intake has been decreasing since 1990. Almost every economic indicator you can think of is worse today than it was in 1990 (with the exceptions of number of cars, mobile phones and Internet use). The freedom is only nominal, people travel abroad as much as they did in the Soviet Union (not more), the circulation of newspapers is much less than it was, the self-censorship is prevalent and so on and so forth.
Soviet Union economy was pure pwn4g3. It started that way in 1930s (and it was admitted by Financial Times, Nation and Western media in general), it continued that way through the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s. If you consider the fact that the climate in most of the Soviet Union is much worse than in Western Europe and the US, when you consider that Soviet Union never exploited third world countries chanelling wealth from them, then you must realise that the planned economy was extremely efficient. Also, if you consider real-world quantitative indicators, such as fuel used per 1 ton*km of cargo transported, number of loading/unloading operations per 1000 km of transit, energy used per unit of output, you will realise that the planned economy was in fact more efficient than the capitalist market economy of the United States.
Such comparisions, however, are totally Unamerican and are doubleplusungood to make in the US. So you must immediately forget that I said it and never question the authority.
Please continue believing in myths about the Soviet Union, such as the myth that millions of people were dying because of lack of food. You must believe that it weren't isolated cases of famine caused by the Civil War devasation and exceptionally bad harvests in 1920s and 1930s. No, you must believe that in 1970s and 1980s people were starving. Who cares that this is total bullshit? Who cares that people are starving today in Russia, with free market and capitalism? Nobody cares about that.
What a crock of shit. American army hasn't defended the country for half a century now. The only thing it defends is American economic interests in other countries. In other words, the US Army exists to support American imperialism, help the US exploit other countries and rob them of everything they have (oil, metal ores, channels, opium poppy, coca, etc.).
Private enterprise is not better than state-funded organisations. The inefficiency of the government is a libertarian myth. The very Internet that Google is based on was created by the government.
P.S. Mod me down, but public ownership of the means of production always was better, is better and will always be better. Workers of the world, unite!
I don't know about audio sync in games and audio sync in audio (what are we syncing it with?), but I often notice 100 ms A/V delays when watching movies on my computer. A 200 ms delay is often obvious, a 100 ms delay is sometimes noticeable, a 50 ms delay (1 frame) is almost imperceptible.
This depends on source material a lot, but in some cases bad sync can reduce the quality of the final experience 25-50% (subjectively).
Are there any legitimate governments (not owned by the MNCs) left at all?
Yep. Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, Belarus and a couple of others. By the people for the people. They may not be the richest countries (after all, there aren't any Fourth World countries to exploit), but at least the government feels a responsibility to care for the citizens and laws aren't bought by the highest corporate bidder.
P.S. And please, I don't want to hear any BS complaints about "human rights abuse". These countries may have a couple hundreds political prisoners and may limit organised opposition, but is that really worse than killing people randomly in the Tube or letting corporation extort money from 12-year-old girls and disabled single moms?
How do you explain detailed chemistry to computer geeks? In some cases a pretty simplistic idea is transferred successfully, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Well, you just answered your own question. You start from the basics that are understood by your intended audience and explain using accessible language, but without oversimplification. Each next concept following from the previous you gradually get to explain the topic at hand, like you brilliantly did. If more space/time is available, each step can be explained in more detail, but the magic rule is to start at the level of your audience (readers) and go from there. Intelligent people are capable of following the explanation and understanding arbitrarily complex concept.
Thanks again for the great explanation. If only everyone was this considerate.