For those who were astonished by the claims that the K-202 could "conduct a million operations per second" - it did 1 million memory reads/writes per second. It wasn't doing a megaflop.
Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
111–120 of 153 posts
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get it. Are you arguing that the majority of Poles enjoyed being forced to pay (indirectly) for military equipment, and that that particular pleasure or pride and its consequences hence can be used to browbeat everything and everyone else? "Comrade, stop whistling? Don't you know you cannot be happier than us, who have to work for planes and guns?"
No, he wrote about motivation of ruling class, not rest of Poles.
Of course, and then you have to remember that the ones calling the shots were not even Polish, and the situation was common for the whole Eastern Bloc. The Polish government was appointed from Moscow. Stalin went so far as to send one of his top brass, Rokossovsky, to be Polish minister of Defense.
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
So in other words the crappy economic theory drove the militarism, lest the population recognize the fallout of the theory for what it was?
Sounds like most economic theories that are implemented around the globe today to me.
There are shades of grey, and then there's jet black.
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was incredibly expensive to have dozens of research institutes work on esoteric architectures at their pleasure. The majority of the population worked their asses of in poverty to make thousands of tanks and dozens of submarines, not entertain some computer scientists.
Sounds like the problems of acrappy economic theory
Not the theory, a crappy economic reality. If the economy were sound the computer researchers should have been able to fund their own research by commercializing it, instead of expecting handouts funded by the working class's hard labor.
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like the problems of acrappy economic theory
Not the theory, a crappy economic reality. If the economy were sound the computer researchers should have been able to fund their own research by commercializing it, instead of expecting handouts funded by the working class's hard labor.
My understanding of planned economies is that credit, investment, and profits are controlled by the state.
In any way starting a commercial enterprise would surely mark them as capitalist class traitors, wouldn't it?
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the theory, a crappy economic reality. If the economy were sound the computer researchers should have been able to fund their own research by commercializing it, instead of expecting handouts funded by the working class's hard labor.
My understanding of planned economies is that credit, investment, and profits are controlled by the state. In any way starting a commercial enterprise would surely mark them as capitalist class traitors, wouldn't it?
Not in the case of the planned economies of China nor the USSR (post Stalin, IIRC) nor Russia (if, indeed, there's still a plan there).
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The theory might or might not have worked if the leadership wasn't hell-bent on converting the entire world into their ideology by military force. Which it kind of had to do lest their citizens noticed they live in abject poverty compared to other countries.
The article presents a beautiful, self-contained, anecdotal but representative example of why communism never worked, doesn’t work, won’t work, and wouldn’t work in your imaginary parallel spider-man universe scenario.
Is there a way to read what I wrote without getting that I'm not a fan of communism at all? There shouldn't be. I have enough family anecdotes of how bad it could be. Also I hope you meant to say "...except in your imaginary..." cause in this one it definitely didn't.
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#118> After World War II, the communist regime in Poland considered members of the resistance a threat to its existence, convinced that people who had risked their lives to free Poland of its Nazi oppressors could also act to undermine the new Soviet regime Interesting fact from the article...
Not particularly surprising, IMHO. A group that worked against one occupier is likely to work against the next as well.
The fact that that "next" occupier was also the initial co-occupier and massacred over 20,000 people from the same poll/social class the same resistance group was mainly composed from (army officers/intelligentsia/landowners/>=middle class in general and their associates) at very beginning of the war kind of left very few options.
Also the whole thing about letting them be massacred by the nazis during Warsaw Uprising without moving a finger...
Any type of "reconciliation" was pretty much inconceivable (not something the soviets were ever interested in the first place anyway).
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article presents a beautiful, self-contained, anecdotal but representative example of why communism never worked, doesn’t work, won’t work, and wouldn’t work in your imaginary parallel spider-man universe scenario.
It's not really about communism, though. You'd have to be blind not to see parallels under capitalism. Employees cannot profit from inventions and improvements, so they don't engage in them. Improving efficiency means budget cuts and animosity from under performers. This might not be true for smallest companies, but those don't really drive the economy.
Except employees do in fact benefit from innovations and improvements, and most inventions and innovations of the past 100 years come from capitalist, not socialist, countries. To the contrary, soviet orgs paid set awards for "rationalizing suggestions", and without the market value control 99% of them were of course bullshit.
Re: Jacek Karpińśki, the computer genius the communists couldn't stand (2017)
#120> After World War II, the communist regime in Poland considered members of the resistance a threat to its existence, convinced that people who had risked their lives to free Poland of its Nazi oppressors could also act to undermine the new Soviet regime Interesting fact from the article...
That was a huge issue in the Soviet invasion of German-occupied Poland. As I recall, on more than one occasion, the Soviets held back while the Germans slaughtered the Polish resistance before moving in to take over various cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
I don't think there was any going back from this...
The core of the Polish Home Army was made up of people belonging to the same social groups and their relatives or associates.
By 43-44 there were even a few cases of a limited truce or even some minor cooperation between the Germans and the Polish resistance since the Soviets turned on them immediately after entering (former) Polish territory in the east.