UnlistedStepInside @artiom@librem.one

the UNIX v4 tape reminded me of this story by Ali Akurgal about Turkish bureaucracy:

Do you know what the unit of software is? A meter! Do you know why? In 1992, we did our first software export at Netaş. We wrote the software, pressed a button, and via the satellite dish on the roof, at the incredible speed of 128 kb/s, we sent it to England. We sent the invoice by postal mail. $2M arrived at the bank. 3-4 months passed, and tax inspectors came. They said, “You sent an invoice for $2M?” “Yes,” we said. “This money has been paid?” they asked. “Yes,” we said. “But there is no goods export; this is fictitious export,” they said! So we took the tax inspectors to R&D and sat them in front of a computer. “Would you press this ‘Enter’ key?” we asked. One of them pressed it, then asked, “What happened?” “You just made a $300k export, and we’ll send its invoice too, and that will be paid as well,” we said. The man felt terrible because he had become an accomplice! Then we explained how software is written, what a satellite connection is, and how much this is worth. They said, “We understand, but there has to be a physical goods export; that’s what the regulations require.” So we said: “Let’s record this software onto tape (there were no CDs back then—nor cassettes; we used ½-inch tapes) and send that.” Happy to have found a solution, they said, “Okay, record it and send it.” The software filled two reels, which were handed to a customs broker, who took them to customs and started the export procedure. The customs officer processed things and at one point asked, “Where are the trucks?” The broker said, “There are no trucks—this is all there is,” and pointed to the tape reels on the desk. The customs officer said, “These two envelopes can’t be worth $2M; I can’t process this.” We went to court, an expert committee examined whether the two reels were worth $2M. Fortunately, they ruled that they were, and we were saved from the charge of fictitious export. The same broker took the same two reels to the same customs officer, with the court ruling, and restarted the procedure. However, during the process, the unit price, quantity, and total price of the exported goods had to be entered—as per the regulations. To avoid dragging things out further, they looked at the envelope, saw that it contained tape, estimated how many meters of tape there are on one reel, and concluded that we had exported 1k to 2k meters of software. So the unit of software became the meter.

I want a repairable Linux laptop with a battery that will last 10h, and that will suspend reliably.

I want a repairable and reliable Linux phone that lets me phone, text, do banking, navigation, calendaring and email, without snooping on me.

Hardware innovation is dead for laptops and phones.

Now I want technology that won’t backstab me. I want tech that’s reasonably safe to use, that’s stable in time, that gives me a choice, and that adapts to how I want to use it.

ENLIGHTENMENT NARRATIVE
capital smokescreen

#ClimateCrisis #Science #Capital #WhoWins

On 29 July 1987 the trial of #Chernobyl plant leadership ended with 10 years sentences for the director Bryukhanov, head of engineering Fomin and his deputy Dyatlov.

This ruling was a classic example of the Soviet “legal system” - the people convicted were formally responsible for the decisions that led to the disaster, but they were not the decision makers.

The primary responsibility for the disaster was on the local (Kiev) and central (Moscow) Communist Party authorities who insisted on conducting the planned reactor test in spite of its known faults, specifically because it was planned. In #USSR the Plan was absolutely sacred and built from top to bottom, in detachment of any physical reality. Executive level not following the Plan was subject to criminal charges based on article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (“sabotage” and others). The Party leadership insisted on the testing to be conducted in spite of the plant management - the one who was convicted - asking to postpone it due to reactor faults.

The faults in reactor were known for a long time by its designer and manufacturer - the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy (NIKIET) - who however chose to hide them because, if revealed, they would hamper their own Plan. Therefore reactor operating procedures, closely followed by the plant staff during the tragic test, did not account for the faults.

In the period immediately following the reactor explosion and fire, local Party officials actively blocked emergency response and dismissed the impact in their communication to Moscow - once again, because that would negatively impact their careers. None of them were actually convicted, of course.

So if you want an example in corporate greed and dysfunctional management leading to world-scale environmental disaster, the Soviet management of Chernobyl makes a perfect case study. Except nobody uses it, because USSR had “Socialist” in its name so when they caused an environmental disaster that must have been, naturally, a “honest mistake” that had nothing to do with incompetence or greed 🤷

If you want a book that documents all of the above details - which are usually skipped in most narratives about Chernobyl - I can recommend a 2019 book “Midnight in Chernobyl” by Adam Higginbotham which uses tons of Soviet original documents to show what has really happened there and why.