Putin, certainly, is one of them; in fact, he's often criticized for being "too soft with the West", out of the (today almost entirely evaporated) idealistic notion that West wants Russia to be part of it, as an "equal partner" (as the cliche goes). He is being rejected, for reasons that may or may not be justified, but he still wants it, progressive or not.
I agree that statement of his about the "greatest catastrophe" was an exaggeration; note however that his statement is an evaluation of a magnitude of the geopolitical effect of an event and not "pining for the old days" at all. If I were asked, I would say that the fall of the USSR ties for 2nd place with WW1, and WW2 is the undisputed leader as far as 20th centuries catastrophes go. I don't see what being or not being a progressive has to do with this historical perspective, and in any case it was not a statement to be understood as "it was good back in the day", because that was not what he said nor what he meant.
As for what you refer to as "invasions", I'm aware that's how Western media paints Russian actions, and usually avoid debates on the topic, since most people aren't really interested in debating, but rather embrace the kind of propaganda that appeals to them, whether it is Western, Russian, or otherwise. But let me restate again that regardless of whether there is agreement on who is has higher moral ground in international matters today, the European cultural choice of Russians has been made long ago - the two centuries of importing the French and to a somewhat smaller degree German culture during the 18th-19th centuries shaped Russians the nation is today. It is not up to Putin to undo this, and he is well aware of that, so he embraces it, whether or not he sincerely thinks so himself, agrees with it, or acts in a fashion that makes the acceptance of Russia in the West more likely.
I doubt that very much. Culturally, Russia has been looking to the west for the last 300 years, and it is the desire of many in the intellectual elite to be recognized as a European country - no amount of sanctions, economical integration with the Asian countries and even limited military conflict are going to change that. Putin has always wanted the West to be much friendlier than it turned out to be. While there may be a desire to limit the psych-ops via the Internet, that war is being waged with similar means - the Iron Curtain is not coming back, both online and offline.
This is all very different from China where they have no cultural desire to be recognized part of the West, so the Politburo's desire of political control aligned with the policy of extreme protectionism make the Great Firewall practically a necessity. Russia is nowhere near that.
That doesn't have to be THE reason, or the only reason. There are at least three possible reasons - protectionism in software, privacy/security concerns, and desire to "bite back" because of sanctions. They probably all come into play here, at different degrees of importance.
Yeah, the notion that a czar can be appointed, or self-appointed, just doesn't make any sense to Russians. Funny as this sounds, the expression "internet king" could be a better fit, even though "king" in this context in Russian would imply being #1 in a field rather than having actual authority over others in it.
I'm pretty sure the move to impose additional taxation on the technology giants in Russia has much more to do with the government seeking a way to reciprocate sanctions in a way that hurts than with an actual strategy.
That said, the idea to rid Russian government computers away of US-made software in favor of domestic solutions has been circulated for a while. It still remains to be seen where they are today in their capability to replace the functionality, however forking a free OS and an office suit can't be that hard circa 2016, should an urgent need arise.
And that need ostensibly *could* arise. Apple is happily(?) blocking users in Crimea from accessing their services, which can be viewed as a trial balloon of taking entire Russia off internet services provided in the US, should the international relations continue deteriorating. (I'm not saying it is - just that it can be viewed as such.) Under the circumstances, I would say this direction Kremlin is taking seems to be justified.
>This hack hurts the individuals more than the agency as a whole. It won't stop any of the things you listed.
If someone considers the three-letter agencies criminal, it's easy to see how demonstrating to the "innocent people" who in that person's view are accomplices that they are not safe, is going to act as a deterrent for current and future employees. This stuff scales, because it affects the organization's job market as whole, and thus may eventually have an effect on what the organization actually does. Not by itself, and not by a single act, but it certainly contributes. Doesn't make it any less unlawful, but still effective, to a certain degree.
>I hope my employer doesn't do something you don't like, because then me and 30,000 other innocent people who work for this company suddenly get on your shit list, and you think it is okay to release our personal data.
Oh yes, if you work in a non-government-related software engineering, then releasing your name, address, email and phone number is going to do so much damage to you, these FBI employees would be happy to realize they are not in your shoes! </sarcasm>
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I have to login every other day, which is annoying since i would like to read comments with my customizations. Oh, and why have the multiple 3rd level domains?
this is not a web browser where you have web sites that do not support https, and you have to comply.
if all users care, then all conversations should be secure, with no opt-out, and no indication is needed. (assuming there is no/really little additional cost to do that.)
if some users care, then those who care should be able to make all their conversations secure, and those who don't, well, don't need an indicator either.
is there something I'm missing here? I do not have a WhatsApp account.
so cannot be forced to shut down access only on these particular grounds, but not in general. Russia, for one example, passed a law saying ISPs are required to cut access to offending web sites and services if prosecution (not even a judge) holds them in violation. I kinda expect the western world to adopt similar legislation soon.
If you're an adult, you got over being called names. Expecting others to sanitize your environment wherever you go is insanity.
I agree with this, and I don't really expect much. I'm merely pointing out that using feminine-as-perjorative is part of the problem the panel in question is about.
Oh lookie, a person talking about harassment panels calls SXSW "pussies". That is, uses a colloquial term for a female genitalia to describe something bad.
this is a pretty awesome feature, and very apple'y in that it does things under the hood without bothering the user with stupid prompts. as long as the user consented to it, there should absolutely be no problem with it. now since it seems they didn't request that user's consent, and since people were charged money because of that, looks like there may well be grounds for a lawsuit. but the quote from an employee presented doesn't mention that!
there *may* have been technical (and possibly even legal, at least it seems from the tone in the quotation) problems that management didn't want to hear about it, and there *may* have been good reasons to invoke the PHB's image - but, as Wikipedia would put it, {{Not in citation given}}.
1. Russians were (in various ways still are) bad in psy-ops. Internet, as a great medium for subverting Russians was (and still is), a threat to the regime. For better or worse for the Russians being subverted, is a separate question - but in that regard, the generals were correct. 2. Controlling the internet the Chinese way is certainly a way to mitigate the psy-warfare, but the cost is way too high. Not going to preach merits of free flow of information and discussion to the slashdot choir.:) 3. As Russians got better at waging this war, they realized there are ways to deal with this within the existing Internet framework.
Overall, the article is an anti-Russian and anti-Putin propaganda piece, which is not surprising nor remarkable (not that it matters much though, as it does raise a few valid concerns).
What is more important today is not what the article is about. The biggest potential problem with the Internet architecture is the possibility of the US cutting off Russia's access to it, should the relationship between the two countries degrade to that level. This is not a theoretical scenario; Apple and Google went as far as shutting off their services for a part of Russia, and that can be seen as a first step of cutting Russia off the network. This prompted the Russian Security Council (that really makes all high level decisions in the country) to consider providing an alternative system that can be switched to in case of things going down fast. I suspect this system, once live, may be seriously considered for switching over to, partly for the reasons outlined in the article, with the "rest of the internet" accessible through some sort of a government-controlled gateway. Which would be a loss for everyone, but what are you going to do.
Little surprise here, since Nobel prize has long since turned into yet another political propaganda tool. So awards are granted based not on artistic merit, but rather on whether their story aligns well with political agenda of (political powers behind) the committee. Hence, the message they're sending out is like "Hey, want to be noted? Do something that we are going to like very much."
What you are describing usually works when a company is doing great. Then management can be upfront about the department's goals and criteria, and in general be transparent on what is expected out of its employees. However reality is such that if there are some problems, being upfront about these often leads to best employees leaving for greener pastures, so enforcing the whole transparency policy can be compared to sentencing oneself to death. Since companies cannot really plan for good times or bad times, idk how applicable that approach in general is.
Otherwise I agree that yes, many management positions are filled by people who don't really understand that their job is to facilitate and not to "just in general be right about everything". They should not be there, but that's the problem of the culture they indoctrinate people in MBA courses with, and not easily solvable within a company that doesn't have access to a great management talent pool.
Perhaps the problem is that the message you intend to squash is true, and that the US government is *actually* "the evilest entity to ever take part on history's stage"? That they are, in fact, keeping "US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped", doesn't really contradict the previous statement.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure they do understand it, it's just that there is only so much you can do, short of banning the internet.
>But make no mistake, there are still many Flash-powered multimedia items on the web, including graphics, videos, games and animations, like GIFs, a preferred method of expression for millennials and adults alike.
The problem with not eliminating players in a free-for-all type of games (like Settlers of Catan) is that often worst players become kingmakers. It's been more than on a single occasion in Catan that if A and B are way ahead but of more or less equal strength, C who has no realistic chance to win the game can essentially decide if A or B does. And that is is arguably even worse than blind luck.
Depends on how the sites are structured. It's not uncommon for some sites to make users click around a lot to artificially inflate # of ad impressions. If your "favorite" website isn't doing this, and the other ones you are using do, sadly, this encourages the wrong behavior [even further].
And you seriously expect agents to be able to thoroughly understand all this enough to be able to use it?
>They don't just know the library, they recognize the functions they are traversing from the debugger output
do you think there is even a way to evaluate programmers on this level? I agree this matters, but there is no way to know until you have actually worked with that person, which takes us back to square one. And even if you do obtain this evaluation somehow, not only it's going to be hard to comprehend for someone who is not a professional themselves (doesn't look like there are a lot of programmer professionals among agents) - it also requires a non-trivial amount of knowledge about the position that needs to be filled.
This is not how we use Facebook today, and not how we use social networks in general. The difference between "most video" and "text-based news feed with pics" is very roughly the same as the difference between television and books - there're just different mediums (media?), and they do not replace but complement each other. And he says "we'll replace your book with a TV programme".
Which means that: - either he expects Facebook users (really, most of us) to change our "information consumption" habits with time so that people will actually prefer video to text - or he wants to change more text-oriented Facebook to a more video-oriented FaceTV, in effect creating a different kind of resource
Either seems like a significant change from what we have today. Yet Facebook succeeded as a text-with-pics-based platform, and while everyone understands we have to move on as times change and markets evolve, a change from a news-feed-from-friends-and-ads to some sort of an entertainment provider looks really risky from a business PoV.
Personally I don't come to Facebook to watch videos, and I in general watch videos rarely, because I like to focus on the message and not the carrier, and I like the music in my last.fm more anyways. If one day I come to Facebook and it's most videos, I, for one, would likely relegate Facebook to a feature-poor LinkedIn clone. I don't know how many people there are like myself, but who knows how much money people like myself add to their bottom line %-wise.
Slashdot Mirror
Putin, certainly, is one of them; in fact, he's often criticized for being "too soft with the West", out of the (today almost entirely evaporated) idealistic notion that West wants Russia to be part of it, as an "equal partner" (as the cliche goes). He is being rejected, for reasons that may or may not be justified, but he still wants it, progressive or not.
I agree that statement of his about the "greatest catastrophe" was an exaggeration; note however that his statement is an evaluation of a magnitude of the geopolitical effect of an event and not "pining for the old days" at all. If I were asked, I would say that the fall of the USSR ties for 2nd place with WW1, and WW2 is the undisputed leader as far as 20th centuries catastrophes go. I don't see what being or not being a progressive has to do with this historical perspective, and in any case it was not a statement to be understood as "it was good back in the day", because that was not what he said nor what he meant.
As for what you refer to as "invasions", I'm aware that's how Western media paints Russian actions, and usually avoid debates on the topic, since most people aren't really interested in debating, but rather embrace the kind of propaganda that appeals to them, whether it is Western, Russian, or otherwise. But let me restate again that regardless of whether there is agreement on who is has higher moral ground in international matters today, the European cultural choice of Russians has been made long ago - the two centuries of importing the French and to a somewhat smaller degree German culture during the 18th-19th centuries shaped Russians the nation is today. It is not up to Putin to undo this, and he is well aware of that, so he embraces it, whether or not he sincerely thinks so himself, agrees with it, or acts in a fashion that makes the acceptance of Russia in the West more likely.
I doubt that very much. Culturally, Russia has been looking to the west for the last 300 years, and it is the desire of many in the intellectual elite to be recognized as a European country - no amount of sanctions, economical integration with the Asian countries and even limited military conflict are going to change that. Putin has always wanted the West to be much friendlier than it turned out to be. While there may be a desire to limit the psych-ops via the Internet, that war is being waged with similar means - the Iron Curtain is not coming back, both online and offline.
This is all very different from China where they have no cultural desire to be recognized part of the West, so the Politburo's desire of political control aligned with the policy of extreme protectionism make the Great Firewall practically a necessity. Russia is nowhere near that.
That doesn't have to be THE reason, or the only reason. There are at least three possible reasons - protectionism in software, privacy/security concerns, and desire to "bite back" because of sanctions. They probably all come into play here, at different degrees of importance.
Yeah, the notion that a czar can be appointed, or self-appointed, just doesn't make any sense to Russians. Funny as this sounds, the expression "internet king" could be a better fit, even though "king" in this context in Russian would imply being #1 in a field rather than having actual authority over others in it.
I'm pretty sure the move to impose additional taxation on the technology giants in Russia has much more to do with the government seeking a way to reciprocate sanctions in a way that hurts than with an actual strategy.
That said, the idea to rid Russian government computers away of US-made software in favor of domestic solutions has been circulated for a while. It still remains to be seen where they are today in their capability to replace the functionality, however forking a free OS and an office suit can't be that hard circa 2016, should an urgent need arise.
And that need ostensibly *could* arise. Apple is happily(?) blocking users in Crimea from accessing their services, which can be viewed as a trial balloon of taking entire Russia off internet services provided in the US, should the international relations continue deteriorating. (I'm not saying it is - just that it can be viewed as such.) Under the circumstances, I would say this direction Kremlin is taking seems to be justified.
>This hack hurts the individuals more than the agency as a whole. It won't stop any of the things you listed.
If someone considers the three-letter agencies criminal, it's easy to see how demonstrating to the "innocent people" who in that person's view are accomplices that they are not safe, is going to act as a deterrent for current and future employees. This stuff scales, because it affects the organization's job market as whole, and thus may eventually have an effect on what the organization actually does. Not by itself, and not by a single act, but it certainly contributes. Doesn't make it any less unlawful, but still effective, to a certain degree.
>I hope my employer doesn't do something you don't like, because then me and 30,000 other innocent people who work for this company suddenly get on your shit list, and you think it is okay to release our personal data.
Oh yes, if you work in a non-government-related software engineering, then releasing your name, address, email and phone number is going to do so much damage to you, these FBI employees would be happy to realize they are not in your shoes! </sarcasm>
I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I have to login every other day, which is annoying since i would like to read comments with my customizations. Oh, and why have the multiple 3rd level domains?
Otherwise, looking forward to our new overlords :)
this is not a web browser where you have web sites that do not support https, and you have to comply.
if all users care, then all conversations should be secure, with no opt-out, and no indication is needed. (assuming there is no/really little additional cost to do that.)
if some users care, then those who care should be able to make all their conversations secure, and those who don't, well, don't need an indicator either.
is there something I'm missing here? I do not have a WhatsApp account.
so cannot be forced to shut down access only on these particular grounds, but not in general. Russia, for one example, passed a law saying ISPs are required to cut access to offending web sites and services if prosecution (not even a judge) holds them in violation. I kinda expect the western world to adopt similar legislation soon.
They aren't looking for housing, they are looking for socialist freebies in the (still) richer part of Europe.
If you're an adult, you got over being called names. Expecting others to sanitize your environment wherever you go is insanity.
I agree with this, and I don't really expect much. I'm merely pointing out that using feminine-as-perjorative is part of the problem the panel in question is about.
Oh lookie, a person talking about harassment panels calls SXSW "pussies". That is, uses a colloquial term for a female genitalia to describe something bad.
The irony is so strong in this one, I can't even.
are you kidding me?
this is a pretty awesome feature, and very apple'y in that it does things under the hood without bothering the user with stupid prompts. as long as the user consented to it, there should absolutely be no problem with it. now since it seems they didn't request that user's consent, and since people were charged money because of that, looks like there may well be grounds for a lawsuit. but the quote from an employee presented doesn't mention that!
there *may* have been technical (and possibly even legal, at least it seems from the tone in the quotation) problems that management didn't want to hear about it, and there *may* have been good reasons to invoke the PHB's image - but, as Wikipedia would put it, {{Not in citation given}}.
I can see a few novel ways to trick (as in trick-or-treat) people with this...
1. Russians were (in various ways still are) bad in psy-ops. Internet, as a great medium for subverting Russians was (and still is), a threat to the regime. For better or worse for the Russians being subverted, is a separate question - but in that regard, the generals were correct. :)
2. Controlling the internet the Chinese way is certainly a way to mitigate the psy-warfare, but the cost is way too high. Not going to preach merits of free flow of information and discussion to the slashdot choir.
3. As Russians got better at waging this war, they realized there are ways to deal with this within the existing Internet framework.
Overall, the article is an anti-Russian and anti-Putin propaganda piece, which is not surprising nor remarkable (not that it matters much though, as it does raise a few valid concerns).
What is more important today is not what the article is about. The biggest potential problem with the Internet architecture is the possibility of the US cutting off Russia's access to it, should the relationship between the two countries degrade to that level. This is not a theoretical scenario; Apple and Google went as far as shutting off their services for a part of Russia, and that can be seen as a first step of cutting Russia off the network. This prompted the Russian Security Council (that really makes all high level decisions in the country) to consider providing an alternative system that can be switched to in case of things going down fast. I suspect this system, once live, may be seriously considered for switching over to, partly for the reasons outlined in the article, with the "rest of the internet" accessible through some sort of a government-controlled gateway. Which would be a loss for everyone, but what are you going to do.
Little surprise here, since Nobel prize has long since turned into yet another political propaganda tool. So awards are granted based not on artistic merit, but rather on whether their story aligns well with political agenda of (political powers behind) the committee. Hence, the message they're sending out is like "Hey, want to be noted? Do something that we are going to like very much."
What you are describing usually works when a company is doing great. Then management can be upfront about the department's goals and criteria, and in general be transparent on what is expected out of its employees. However reality is such that if there are some problems, being upfront about these often leads to best employees leaving for greener pastures, so enforcing the whole transparency policy can be compared to sentencing oneself to death. Since companies cannot really plan for good times or bad times, idk how applicable that approach in general is.
Otherwise I agree that yes, many management positions are filled by people who don't really understand that their job is to facilitate and not to "just in general be right about everything". They should not be there, but that's the problem of the culture they indoctrinate people in MBA courses with, and not easily solvable within a company that doesn't have access to a great management talent pool.
Perhaps the problem is that the message you intend to squash is true, and that the US government is *actually* "the evilest entity to ever take part on history's stage"? That they are, in fact, keeping "US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped", doesn't really contradict the previous statement.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure they do understand it, it's just that there is only so much you can do, short of banning the internet.
from TFA:
>But make no mistake, there are still many Flash-powered multimedia items on the web, including graphics, videos, games and animations, like GIFs, a preferred method of expression for millennials and adults alike.
The problem with not eliminating players in a free-for-all type of games (like Settlers of Catan) is that often worst players become kingmakers. It's been more than on a single occasion in Catan that if A and B are way ahead but of more or less equal strength, C who has no realistic chance to win the game can essentially decide if A or B does. And that is is arguably even worse than blind luck.
it's good enough for the purpose because you can make little changes in lua and immediately see them in action, which keeps a child motivated.
11yo may be a bit too early, but some kids could be up to the task.
Depends on how the sites are structured. It's not uncommon for some sites to make users click around a lot to artificially inflate # of ad impressions. If your "favorite" website isn't doing this, and the other ones you are using do, sadly, this encourages the wrong behavior [even further].
And you seriously expect agents to be able to thoroughly understand all this enough to be able to use it?
>They don't just know the library, they recognize the functions they are traversing from the debugger output
do you think there is even a way to evaluate programmers on this level? I agree this matters, but there is no way to know until you have actually worked with that person, which takes us back to square one. And even if you do obtain this evaluation somehow, not only it's going to be hard to comprehend for someone who is not a professional themselves (doesn't look like there are a lot of programmer professionals among agents) - it also requires a non-trivial amount of knowledge about the position that needs to be filled.
This is not how we use Facebook today, and not how we use social networks in general. The difference between "most video" and "text-based news feed with pics" is very roughly the same as the difference between television and books - there're just different mediums (media?), and they do not replace but complement each other. And he says "we'll replace your book with a TV programme".
Which means that:
- either he expects Facebook users (really, most of us) to change our "information consumption" habits with time so that people will actually prefer video to text
- or he wants to change more text-oriented Facebook to a more video-oriented FaceTV, in effect creating a different kind of resource
Either seems like a significant change from what we have today. Yet Facebook succeeded as a text-with-pics-based platform, and while everyone understands we have to move on as times change and markets evolve, a change from a news-feed-from-friends-and-ads to some sort of an entertainment provider looks really risky from a business PoV.
Personally I don't come to Facebook to watch videos, and I in general watch videos rarely, because I like to focus on the message and not the carrier, and I like the music in my last.fm more anyways. If one day I come to Facebook and it's most videos, I, for one, would likely relegate Facebook to a feature-poor LinkedIn clone. I don't know how many people there are like myself, but who knows how much money people like myself add to their bottom line %-wise.
I suspect all browsers will have video autoplay blockers, just like every browser has popup blockers now.