Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination • Hacker News Board

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#321

Post by FpUser » Thu, May 05, 2022, 12:03 AM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #240

skissane wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of people who'd be easily willing to just murder a bunch of people for an invented reason is much greater than elsewhere. The 2003 invasion of Iraq? Quite popular in the US at first (opinion polls at the time of the invasion showed over 70% support); people who opposed it were frequently belittled, shunned, harassed, boycotted (remember the controversy over the Dixie Chicks?). The reasons for the war wer…

? There were massive movements against the war in Iraq, including I thin the largest protests in all of history on Jan 15 2003 around the world, 100's of thousands of people in major cities. That there were antagonisms between pro/against doesn't mean Americans were not empathetic one way or another, and the 'pro war' were as maligned by other side just as well i.e. 'war monger' etc.. While the popular justification…

>"Most poignantly - the US wasn't trying to create a vassal, just the opposite."

Hundreds of thousands of dead and god knows how many maimed, starved, displaced would not give a flying fuck about what the US was trying to do. Go there and try to oopsy in the face of the victims and see what happens.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#322

Post by infamia » Thu, May 05, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

blub wrote: post #314

infamia wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more likely explanation is that the US wants to hurt Russia and NATO & co are tagging along. Europe was out in front of everyone issuing sanctions before the US was able to come up with anything. All of Europe was singing the same tune of it's own accord. Watch Prime Minister's Questions (UK) and you'll see all the houses are united in a way I've never seen before. They're all trying to one up each another in p…

Sanctioning and sending weapons has become a (dangerous) game of one-upmanship. But before it reached this point, Europe was very much split on both because it can’t stand up to Russia militarily and was also cautious about hurting Russia economically because that implied hurting itself. Many European countries also had and have connections to Russia. The US was preparing sanctions around the use of the USD and SWIFT…

> The sanctions game certainly has a life of its own now, especially as Russia’s military stumbled, but I don’t believe it would have reached this intensity without motivation from the US. And who knows what diplomacy could have achieved if given a chance instead of continuous escalation.

Russia had a golden opportunity to stop the invasion before it began when Zelensky indicated that he was willing to forgo NATO membership and keep Ukraine neutral. That was really the only window, which Putin decided to ignore and invade. Almost from the moment the bombs started dropping on Kyiv and elsewhere, the window had closed. Europe has been driving the diplomatic, sanctions, and military aid the entire time, and the U.S. has been following their lead. Putin invaded Ukraine and made Europeans and Scandinavian countries question their economic and national security with his aims of reconstituting the Warsaw Pact. Putin bet big, doubled down, and it blew up in his face for once. The U.S. has been trying to convince Europe to ditch Nordstream 2 for years spanning multiple Presidents and gained absolutely zero traction. I don't see how this supposedly moved the needle in any appreciable way.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#323

Post by oneoff786 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 1:19 AM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #313

oneoff786 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has nuclear weapons, but seemingly nothing else sitting around to use. They’re over extended in Ukraine already.

They have plenty of artillery too, so they can gradually turn cities to rubble. But they simply don't have then power to occupy much territory with any real degree of control, except maybe in the east.

It doesn’t seem like it. Their artillery is old and can’t aim well. Their intel sucks. Their supplies suck.

It seems very unlikely that they could launch another front against Finland and achieve anything, even shelling a city.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#324

Post by skissane » Thu, May 05, 2022, 2:12 AM UTC

aforwardslash wrote: post #226

skissane wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huge population!? Not even twice bigger than Germany Germany also has a huge population, especially by European standards, even if somewhat less huge than Russia’s. Both Germany and Russia are outliers, being in some ways far from the European average. What makes Russia much more distinctive, is in how many different ways it is an outlier - arguably in a fair few more ways than contemporary Germany is, which makes…

Maintenance of nuclear weapons (specially if old design) is actually very expensive - probably more than their manufacturing cost. Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population). There is a huge disproportion between the military might Russia claims yo have, and their actual capacity of paying for it. If on paper it doesn't add up, the reality…

I can't really debate the ease of maintaining nuclear weapons with you–our impressions are different, it would be great to find some reliable sources to objectively judge those impressions against, but I don't know of any, unless you do.

> Russia claims to have a huge stockpile, but their PIB is at the level of Spain (that has like 40% of russia's population).

I was confused by this–what is PIB? Then I realised you are probably a French-speaker, and PIB means produit intérieur brut, which is the French equivalent to what we call in English, GDP.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#325

Post by fosk » Thu, May 05, 2022, 5:00 AM UTC

trasz wrote: post #295

fosk wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia has no real threat from NATO - there is 0% chance of NATO aggression towards Russia, and they know it. I actually think that this is wrong. And that is the key to understand Russia’s behavior. Russia seems to have (legitimate I would say, given the past) fears that it will be attacked eventually like it happened in the past and needs to be - as a result of that - heavily defended.

I actually agree about the legitimate fears, but this doesn't justify invading anyone. And the situation in Ukraine was manufactured by Russia on purpose. It's true that USA has done some terrible things in the past. And it's too bad the perpetrators never got punished. But it doesn't mean we should tolerate this behaviour elsewhere.

Just want to clarify that I am personally against invading any country. But Russia did indeed invade this country, so I am brainstorming as to what their equation may be.

Russia is after all a rational actor on the world stage, and they must have thought the benefits are stronger than the cons.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#326

Post by blub » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:17 AM UTC

trasz wrote: post #318

blub wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine will take decades to recover unless they receive massive economical aid from the EU or US. Right now they say they will provide that help, but at least in the case of the EU I don’t see how that’s possible given the big economical and social problems inside the bloc. And in the US it’s not clear how the next elections will turn out and what kind of policies will be implemented. Anyway your key point was that…

Russian frozen reserves were what, 200 billion? Passing it to Ukraine shouldn’t strain EU or US budgets. As for losses - in war the victor always suffers some losses. The point is: Ukraine will survive this, Russia probably won’t.

Based on media interviews with experts it doesn’t seem like the West has any legitimate claim on the money/assets and there’s a lot to untangle to make it legally possible to touch them. Even if that were to happen, the consequences would be significant.

The EU and the US could casually and arbitrarily claim the assets of any country which is involved in a random conflict not associated with either the EU or US. Nobody will like that, the former two included.

Hard to see why you keep talking about victory and which country will survive or not when the war is not over and nobody knows when or how it will end. You’re presenting personal preferences as facts.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#327

Post by srg0 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

Ciantic wrote: post #136

riffraff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's worth noting that the whole EU starting from the earlier european communities was built on such an idea that tighter and tighter integration would make war unlikely (and in some cases, unthinkable). While this didn't work out for the Russian relationship, it wasn't a totally stupid plan.

It wasn't totally stupid plan, but it doesn't work if one party ceases to be interested in economics more than other grandiose plans. The idea that interdependence leads to less wars is very old one. I was reading The Guns of August which tells about beginning of first World War, it refers to book released in 1910 called "the Great Illusion" [1]. I have not read it, but the book became best seller just before first W…

> It wasn't totally stupid plan, but it doesn't work if one party ceases to be interested in economics more than other grandiose plans.

It doesn't work if the other party is just one person (or few people) in power for over twenty years, and all open society institutions in that other country have been systematically suppressed.

What's a chance that the same person is capable and willing to represent all possible economic and society interests?

> The Great Illusion

Publication date: 1909; 1933. Interesting. The idea stood the test of time.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#328

Post by blub » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

infamia wrote: post #322

blub wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanctioning and sending weapons has become a (dangerous) game of one-upmanship. But before it reached this point, Europe was very much split on both because it can’t stand up to Russia militarily and was also cautious about hurting Russia economically because that implied hurting itself. Many European countries also had and have connections to Russia. The US was preparing sanctions around the use of the USD and SWIFT…

> The sanctions game certainly has a life of its own now, especially as Russia’s military stumbled, but I don’t believe it would have reached this intensity without motivation from the US. And who knows what diplomacy could have achieved if given a chance instead of continuous escalation. Russia had a golden opportunity to stop the invasion before it began when Zelensky indicated that he was willing to forgo NATO mem…

Disagree on the US following the EU lead. Yes, the EU sanctions have perhaps more bite because of closer relations to Russia, but the EU required a lot of convincing and internal discussions to reach this point. There are important differences of opinion within the EU on how to handle Russia, whereas the US is fully behind its current course.

The seeds of today’s conflict had been planted one by one in the past 22 years and even beyond. What started as a an ambitious goal of an undivided Europe from Vancouver to Vladivostok ended because of inertia, decisions with unforseen consequencss and a level of mistrust into stark divisions between Russia on one side and the EU and US on the other.

This was not inevitable and indeed not the intention. 2011-2012 and the Western support for anti-government and anti-Putin protests in Russia marked a sharp deterioration of relations and the 2014 Maidan uprising, annexation of Crimea and Donbass war cemented the course we see today.

That the president of Ukraine indicated his willingness to forego NATO membership did nothing to change the above. Ukraine was training with NATO, receiving support and fighting an indirect war with Russia, so it seems unlikely that the words of the president were given much weight in Russia.

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#329

Post by ivan_gammel » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:30 AM UTC

obscurette wrote: post #305

ivan_gammel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is normal for every society to take a time to adapt with completely new situation. This is a very generic and abstract statement. If you think that the growth could happen without economic reforms that took place in early 2000s, please explain how exactly could that happen in the aftermath of second Chechen War and economic crisis of 1998.

With collapse of eastern block life became objectively worse in all countries of it – old structures were destroyed, but new ones weren't in place yet. It took the whole decade to reform and to build these new structures. And most of these countries have some crisis in the end of 1990s, had to learn a little bit from it, but it was already fine tuning. What you saw in early 2000s in Russia was mostly caused by reform…

You are wrong. If you are truly interested in what's happened there, Internet has plenty of information about that period - just go and read it. During his first term Putin's government implemented a number of successful economic reforms that boosted growth and helped to reallocate profits from oil and gas to support the economy. Those reforms continued what has started in 1990s, but they had to happen to enable real growth (esp. tax reform).

1. Tax reform: flat income tax of 13%, reduction in total number of taxes by 70%, reduction in social security tax, introduction of severance tax (captured 84% of profits from oil and gas in state budget)

2. Zero budget deficit and significant reduction of foreign debt

3. Reform of land ownership: created free market of the land

4. New Labor code and pension reform

5. Reform of banking sector and new bankruptcy law

Re: Yandex data center in Finland loses power due to contract termination

#330

Post by ivan_gammel » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:40 AM UTC

nogenhat wrote: post #307

ivan_gammel wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But if you think that there is 'ex' in their circle of relationships - you are completely wrong. The fact that he was arrested actually proves it. Sorry, I do not understand this. I did not mean literally Putin himself, but VK was not in any relationship with anyone from his inner circle (e.g. Timchenko, Rotenberg) or other oligarchs (e.g. Matvienko clan). Founders were forced to sell the company under pressure exac…

//. Founders were forced to sell the company under pressure exactly because the government intended to get control over the most important social network, which it did not have.// Lol, I assume you didn't believe the 'story' that Pasha was forced to sell his company? //It is a typical success story of an online retail business. It actually does not show anything that could be even slightly resemble affiliation with P…

>In Russia? really? show me them

I will not give you a name, but this is a large online DYI retailer with over $0.5B in revenue. I know execs from there personally.

>For now, I think you are really trying to look fav into Russian biz-scene, but that's not the case for the last 9 years.

You probably forgot that we were talking about 2000s, not 2010s. Until 3rd term of Putin relationship of business and siloviki was usually transactional, but the economy was booming and the pie was big enough that some of the businesses were operating unnoticed. After events of 2012-2014 many things changed, but the climate was still tolerable - new companies were starting (e.g. Miro - it's great that they relocated early), there was visible progress in quality of life in big cities etc. 24.02.2022 changed everything.