The audacity to critique Apple's use of icons (which is objectively justified critique, IMO) while having animated snowflakes falling over the text and images on the site is something on an entirely different level.
Thank goodness for Firefox reader mode. That animation is so incredibly distracting.
It is a personal blog. I would not apply the same kind of criticism to a personal blog, even though it does sound ironic. Moreover, turning off JS was an easy solution. There is no solution right now for apple's UI mess (except not updating).
Personal blog or no, I think the UX and usability critiques are equally valid.
Whether or not the author cares will certainly be influenced by the fact it’s just a personal blog. I wouldn’t expect them to change anything for that reason alone, but the criticism stands nonetheless.
An author of a personal blog does not have to care about judgements of usability vs what they find appealing. A personal blog is a place of self-expression firstmost, not a public service nor a product that targets users. When usability is not the primary goal, you may take unconventional design decisions. If the author likes snowflakes all over the canvas, snowflakes it is. They put an easy way to disable them, I did it in <1 second through disabling JS before I even noticed there was a switch, that's all. Similarly, I would not care about the design choices of apple if I could just disable them even if it took me 5 minutes to do so.
I agree that the author has the right to self express. But in this case, I think the point being made is that it's less about what the author cares about, and more about the author's topic. They're writing about usability and design, while using (arguably) poor judgment and taste for both. It would be a little bit like an extremely out-of-shape person criticizing a marathon running program as being too hard on someone's body, or a homeless person writing that active investing is better than Vanguard's low-fee indexing model. The person's context doesn't make their arguments right or wrong, it just lowers their authority and believability.
> It would be a little bit like an extremely out-of-shape person criticizing a marathon running program as being too hard on someone's body, or a homeless person writing that active investing is better than Vanguard's low-fee indexing model. The person's context doesn't make their arguments right or wrong, it just lowers their authority and believability.
it absolutely would not, it would be more akin to someone wearing a fat-suite for a joke and criticizing someone for running with bad form
but you are taking this so seriously I can't quite tell if you're joking anyway
Yeah. I immediately went to the snowflake icon at the top of the page thinking it would turn the animation off. Instead, it changed the background color :-(
I can't stand animations while I'm trying to read something, and this one is particularly egregious.
It change the background color AND turns off the animation.
(TBF, it slowly fades the animation out, probably for aesthetic reasons, to avoid a jarring sudden stop. I do agree, though, that a sudden stop would probably be more appropriate in this context)
Ohhh thank you! I thought the same as the parent comment: I expected that button to turn off the animation immediately. I guess the author wanted the yellow background to "melt" the snowflakes?
Hah, that's a blast from the past! You've reminded me of "Ameko", which added a little cat to the Amiga Workbench, walking around over the windows. I think I had it from a magazine coverdisk.
A personal blog is not the same as the UI of an operating system. More expressiveness is to be expected in a personal blog. That said it’s so easy to turn off that I was distracted for less than 5 seconds. How easy is it to turn off icons in the menu bar in Tahoe?
In my opinion, I can be a worst UX expert in the world, and I still reserve the right to criticize bad UX elsewhere: the fact that you are a bad "creator" does not mean that you are a stupid "user".
Yes, it is a bit hypocritical, but you can look at the content of the message and judge it without judging the presentation of the message, even if it talks about usability of interfaces in computer software.
Sure. But as Ray Dalio suggests in Principles (https://www.principles.com/principles/633d5d13-8610-425f-ad6...), you will be more likely to succeed at your task if you believability-weight the information you receive. When considering a military strategy, you should probably weigh the advice from a 4-star general who's served in similar circumstances over the advice of a 4-year-old boy who is relying on his experience watching Paw Patrol.
As the worst UX expert in the world, you can obviously feel free to criticize others, but you're probably going to lose a lot of people after the first sentence if you're using 2003 MySpace-style blinking text and animated GIFs to make your point.
But, if a 4-year old boy finds "there's more of them with bigger guns", and a general has a personal interest in hurting someone without you knowing that, you'd be unwise to not consider the words of the boy as you prep your military strategy.
Note that you were careful to establish hard-to-prove circumstances ("served in similar circumstances"), which seems to say that you don't want to discount what the non-expert is saying too easily either.
Sometimes you need an animation to turn your site into a special snowflake of a site, and what better way to do that than to use a snowflake animation? TBF, you can turn it off by clicking on the snowflake icon in the top right corner. But then the background turns from blue into an annoying shade of yellow. Ok, you can click on the sun icon to fix it by switching to night mode. But then... aaaaargh!
This is exactly my thoughts. If you are reading this, author, please either make the snowflakes less distracting or toggleable. They are a pain on mobile.
Yup: all the animation stops, the overlaid snowflakes disappear, and the background changes from blue to yellow. I haven't bothered to check the foreground/background contrast of the two versions, but I suspect that, although the yellow version will have less contrast, the removal of the snowflakes will make for a net benefit to readability for the average person.
I genuinely went looking for an "off" button, and was very confused when the snowflake icon changed the background color instead. I didn't even notice that the snow stops being generated until I read your comment and tried again. I'm both impressed and annoyed.
> Sometimes you need an animation to turn your site into a special snowflake of a site, and what better way to do that than to use a snowflake animation?
It's Christmas, lighten up. I think the animation adds a glorious bit of irony: "look, here's a horribly distracting effect that is almost designed to make it difficult to read the article, and it's still not as egregious as Apple's Tahoe design!"
It's a shame the author didn't test on mobile, but I think we should cut them some slack. It would be understandable for this particular article's audience to mostly be viewing on desktop.
Even if they were being hypocritical, I think the impact of briefly-bad UI on someone's blog post pales in comparison with bad UI in a product of macOS scale.
I don't know, I figure with a billion dollars Apple should be able to do much better at being awful than this. More proactive rather than accidental awfulness. Something that isn't just bad but capital intensive at the same time. Anyone can build a bad UX on a few menus, or a whole system incrementally over time. But to really lean in? Maybe commission famous artists with eye watering fees for each icon, truly over the top marketing campaigns, really get the cash-fired furnaces going. Really just go full-potlatch on things.
Author seems to enjoy writing posts that get lots of votes on site that I would describe as eye-rending, especially the "normal" yellow color scheme. It's aggressively unpleasant to read.
It's easy to justify: it's cute. Just like the other options up at the top. If you click the sun it turns out the lights and turns your cursor into a flashlight. And it has an actual hamburger as the icon for the menu.
It also immediately eats 5% of the raw compute on my RTX 4080 Super, which is more than a dozen tabs in chrome and 3 active youtube videos running, run in each of Chrome, Firefox, Edge-- all combined, which was 3% before loading this page (which is 5% on its own) up to 9% total.
That explains my other comment, which speculated the snow as the cause for my iPhone instantly overheating, followed by screen-dimming throttling.
Also: this is not a plea to stop putting snow/etc on pages. I miss the days of such things in earlier internet. I'd trade back janky plugins and Flash player crashes for the humanizing & personalized touch many sites had back then.
I was starting to wonder why my iPhone got crazy hot. I’m using reader mode and it appears to continue running the web page and animation in the background… crazy.
I found this kinda funny. The content of the page is something I strongly agree with. But then the page itself was just so distracting. I saw the snow flake icon so I tapped it but it just turned my snow into the dreaded yellow snow.
> including the way snow doesn't just immediately turn off but stops falling slowly. I love it.
Funny, i disliked this exact detail. I thought turning it off hadn't worked for a few seconds and i retoggled it on and off a bunch of times before i got it
Can people actually read it with the snowflakes? The motion draws my eyes and makes it extremely unpleasant trying to read the underlying text. Very poorly thought out decoration.
And yes, I did think "this is terrible, there must be a way to change it", clicking the snowflake icon. The colour changed to a new colour but otherwise it didn't seem to change, so I just clicked back.
Because, as you noted, the snowflakes slowly end, which I didn't realize until seeing your comment.
It's fun. Looks neat. It's an extremely poor idea for a site trying to convey textual information.
:-) and while doing this, the background turns yellow — why? how annoying it would be if something like this existed in real life - turning off the fan switches on the lights, and turning off the lights switches on the fan.
Hot take: The snowflakes are fun and when blogs integrate fun things they make me feel joy like when I was throwing marquee elements all over my geocities site in grade school. In an era where most of the content I read is written by AI, the more personal a blog feels to me, the better.
It takes over 10 seconds to turn off fully. I had to go back and try it after your comment, because I thought that button just turned the page yellow, which was worse than the blue.
I ended up using reader mode to read the page. The whole site design undermined the point being made. One of the first things mentioned is not to be distracting. Yet they went out of their way to make their own site distracting. "Do as I say, not as I do."
I literally didn't notice that the snowflake icon turned it off:
1. I scrolled through the article getting more and more frustrated with the snow
2. I scrolled all the way back to the top and saw the snowflake icon
3. I clicked the snowflake, saw the hideous yellow, said WTF and clicked again to go back to blue
4. **I never noticed** that the snowflake *does* stop the snow, but *only* stops *new* snow, so the existing snow continues to fall across the screen
5. I clicked several other things, then came here to complain and saw this thread
FWIW, while I'm complaining about this site I'm actually adding a nice easy-on-the eyes particle system in the background of a point-and-click online game. You don't put it in front of the content or behind text people are supposed to read.
This is such a common failure mode with coders who do their own design. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Came here to say the same. Not only is it redundant and distracting, destroying the reading experience, it even makes the fucking fan turn on and make noise because apparently it’s a lot of work for the video card. A presentation of valid arguments destroyed by something completely superfluous and ironically the same kind of stupidity that’s the target of the criticism made.
A hint to the site developer: add an option to purchase the Weather Control Pack Platinum Pro+ to get to choose your site weather any way you like. It would fity nicely next to that 'Personal Information' section. Who knows, someone might even 'purchase' it since that seems to the thing to do in the Cult of the Fruit.
Not sure how this would work, if you blocked those IPv6, the mostly innocent companies and people that are now blocked will be in short order getting a new IPv6 assigned by the ISP after a support call.
I was under the impression that these botnets still rely on vulnerable computers, which have a human that will be calling support asking for the issue to be resolved.
Then it needs an ISP to figure out the issue and ask the client to sort out their compromised computer, but unlikely the ISP will stop a paying customer from internet access especially if it's not clear why their original assigned IPv6 is blocked.
A flagged post mentions this is racist and typical anti immigration rhetoric.
That's not true, there are only two types of North Korean people you'll meet, either those that have defected and escaped North Korea or those that are agents of the state of North Korea.
There are very few defectors in existence and once they escape they're given full South Korean citizenship. This article is not about those people.
The vast majority of North Koreans outside North Korea are not defectors, instead they are controlled state assets. There are no North Korean people outside the country that are free citizens. Every single North Korean authorised to leave the country is working directly for their government often to raise money for the regime, to steal IP, to infiltrate for some nefarious purpose.
Having one of these North Korean active assets in your company is extremely dangerous, your business is now at risk of leaks, theft, or worst something being modified like added vulnerabilities that could be exploited later in cyber attacks.
So no, this article is not racist at all and really has nothing to do with the recent political situation.
What about Australia in comparison? Australians can be legally compelled in secret courts to install backdoors in the companies in which they are employed, and gagged from telling the company itself or any journalists (see the Access and Assistance Bill). That doesn't cross the same 'agents of the state' line?
> Australians can be legally compelled in secret courts to install backdoors in the companies in which they are employed, and gagged from telling the company itself or any journalists (see the Access and Assistance Bill).
My thoughts on this as an Australian software engineer: how could they possibly “order” me to “install a backdoor”? To change a production system, I need an issue in the issue tracker, I need a PR, I need a colleague to review and approve it-if I’m not allowed to call it “install backdoor at Australian government’s demand”, what am I going to call it? How am I suppose to justify it to the reviewer? How do I respond to their questions? How do I convince them to approve it? “I’m sorry I’m not allowed to tell you why this PR is needed” is not going to get it approved
And in the (I think highly implausible) event the government did order me to do such a thing-first I’d insist it was impossible (due to the kind of internal controls I’ve already mentioned), and if they wouldn’t accept that answer, then I’d resign rather than do it. I don’t think the law can stop you from quitting your job, and once you quit, you are no longer able to comply with any such orders.
It seems to me like one of these laws which has disturbing wording but is going to be very difficult for the authorities to utilise in practice.
(Disclaimer: of course I don’t speak for my employer, etc)
I suppose you'd do it the same way any North Korean operative would. They'd offer you training on how to bypass the controls. They'd get you to exfiltrate the code and the product roadmap. They'd have someone more skilled suggest a plausible backdoor as part of an innocent change, like the xzutils one.
As for how they'd force you, just like any intelligence agency, they'd start with carrots. They'd offer you money, or the chance to feel you were serving your country (both are free to the Australian government, and likely more effective than a double ration of wheat). They'd have you do very innocent, justifiable things at first. They'd work their way up to higher demands. If you got cold feet, they'd tell you you were in too deep. They'd then consider the sticks. They'd threaten to expose your spying, or release some other compromat. They'd arrest you or a family member on a he-said-the-cops-said enemy-of-the-people crime like drugs, child pornography or terrorism, and make it clear that only your full cooperation would see a release.
Nobody thinks the Australian government relies on this kind of thing as much as NK, and the checks and balances of a democracy make it too expensive to do this at an industrial scale. But you'd be foolish if you thought the state doesn't have these capabilities, and the complete willingness to use them for matters of national security, and the ability to make it "legal", perhaps by pardoning people or not cooperating with any court.
The state always could go after your family, but it seems like some are much better at not doing that than others.
The state is a coercive institution, but seeing how Australia is a liberal democracy with a constitution I would want to see some actual proof of threatening families.
> I suppose you'd do it the same way any North Korean operative would.
What you are describing here is something any country could do – yes, it is conceivable that Australia's intelligence agencies could use bribery/harassment/threats/blackmail/etc to turn Australian citizens into unwilling spies – but the same is true of the UK, the US, France, Germany, whatever.
The thing that people are calling out Australia over, is a law which says a court can order someone to install a secret backdoor, and furthermore order them not to tell (almost) anyone about it. [0] And I'm sceptical that law could be used in the way you describe – e.g. "They'd offer you training on how to bypass the controls" – the law says a court can order you to install a backdoor – it doesn't say it can order you to attend a training course on how to "bypass controls".
Keep in mind, while proceedings are under seal, you are allowed to retain a lawyer, and your lawyer can make legal arguments before the judge, and can appeal the judge's rulings. IANAL, but would a judge rule that a power to order someone to install a backdoor extends to ordering them to attend a government-run training course on how to deceive their employer? Even if a judge did rule that way, would the appellate courts uphold the ruling?
Or, similarly – "They'd get you to exfiltrate the code and the product roadmap" – does a legal power to order someone to install a backdoor, extend to a legal power to order them to hand over generalised confidential information of their employer? Or similarly – "They'd have you do very innocent, justifiable things at first" – does a legal power to order someone to install a backdoor, extend to a legal power to order them to do "very innocent, justifiable things" which don't in themselves directly contribute to installing any backdoor?
And, as I said, if your lawyer can't talk the court out of it – resign. Will a judge hold that a judicial power to order to the installation of a backdoor extends to ordering a person not to resign their job?
Get a medical certificate saying you can't work. Get yourself admitted to a private psychiatric hospital on the grounds that the stress of this secret government order has caused you to have a nervous breakdown / panic episode / suicidal ideation / etc. (I think if I ever were issued such a secret government order, it really would have that kind of extreme detrimental impact on my mental health, I wouldn't be faking it.) I think a lot of psychologists/psychiatrists/etc would be very sympathetic to your plight. What's a judge supposed to do if they have a psychiatrist testifying that you are medically unfit to comply with the order, or return to the job which the order is associated with?
[0] You are explicitly allowed to tell your personal legal counsel.
it doesn't need to be every Australian. It only needs to be Australians that get jobs at fortune 500 companies. Australians don't even need to leave the country to be hired and compelled.
I'm pretty sure I see where you're going there, but hhjinks' argument covers that. Even if the Aus. government makes someone an agent retroactively after hiring the odds are still much smaller that an Australian is a government agent. Because every NK citizen is assumed to be an agent, but only some Australians become agents, retroactive or otherwise.
Besides, if we wanted information about Fortune 500 companies we'd presumably ask the US intelligence services or directly infiltrate their network from an Australian office. Many of them have a pretty big attack surface from the Australian perspective.
I understand your point, and that law is a problem. But there is a big difference between a law and a practice. In the case of NK, we have a long, documented trail showing that the country controls its foreign nationals. Despite that law, the same is not true of Australia.
Surprising we have so many NK sympathizers here. We have decades of reporting for different groups and yet here we are defending NK and calling folks racists.
I do not sympathize with NK at all, they are monsters.
What I am surprised about is that the same people who criticized other countries for doing X will not criticize their own/allied country doing a variation of X. I believe that we in the free West have a duty to keep our democrackes and we do that by not copying rules from the like of North Korea and by not constantly creating tools that help abolishing the division of powers.
That means when I critique Australia for that law I do so on the moral ground that Australia should know better, while North Korea is more or less openly evil.
I am a big fan of fixing our own problems instead of pointing elsewhere where it is even worse.
But I learned that there is a big group of people who think that pointing out that there is dog shit on the carpet makes you somehow a traiter and not someone who wants to live in a country without dogshit on the carpet.
Anyone from any country could be a state asset. That's all entirely hypothetical though. Maybe the universe is all a simulation! There's no limit to where you can go with hypotheticals.
The article, and linked sources, cite evidence from 6 named private citizens, each that have personal experience of multiple cases of exposing actual North Korean infiltrators posing as citizens of other countries to try and get tech jobs. Including one guy who infiltrated such a team of North Koreans. Then there are two successful convictions in court of US citizens aiding and abetting active cells of infiltrators.
So, these are not at all hypothetical and they're not just unsubstantiated claims by US agencies. In fact this issue is also reported by the United Nations.
This is true of every person everywhere, but it's not normal. Australians you encounter aren't pre-filtered to only include the ones who have received such orders.
Yeah this is true and a good point. As an Australian when the government passed that law it hurt so much, like a betrayal of enormous magnitude, it's disgusting.
I suppose one difference is that I can fight the government legally on the issue and am more free in many ways to resist, especially as I'm not employed by the state.
But I do agree, on the scale (0-1?) of how much your government can take away your liberty (when you haven't committed a crime) and compel you commit crimes, most western countries probably sit around 0.01 to 0.05 maybe, North Korea sits around 0.98 to 0.99 and Australia probably 0.4
Thanks for bringing that up, Australia seems to be the test state for how many draconian laws a "free" society will bare, and it is terrifying.
> But I do agree, on the scale (0-1?) of how much your government can take away your liberty (when you haven't committed a crime) and compel you commit crimes, most western countries probably sit around 0.01 to 0.05 maybe, North Korea sits around 0.98 to 0.99 and Australia probably 0.4
It is. The actual text of the law makes it very clear and it has been discussed a lot. That Home Affairs webpage that tries to spin it is yet another disturbing sign.
The only difference b/w western countries and eastern countries is in the freedom of speech. Though, the alien enemies act , and the canadian who got arrested for no apparant reason in USA.... yeah, I mean , the difference is close to 0.
US could definitely put a law where it can say that freedom of speech is harming the country by speculating in the stock market and now it needs to curb freedom of speech.
if you didn't mention United States - your statement would have been believable, but you cannot use words like US and civilized and democratic together in the same sentence.
The people on the receiving end of the US military industrial complex won't agree to your assessment. NK and China have never nuked a civilian city, never genocided civilian population with "strategic carpet bombing", and they never occupied one, never bombed one into the stone age, never caused millions of refugees
Just to nitpick, there are North Korean defectors who are not South Korean citizens. For example, the U.S. has resettled North Korean defectors under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_Human_Rights_Act_...
Whether it is correct or not (I don’t know), that statement was based on current apparent (again, correct?) political realities, not ethnicity or race.
> The vast majority of North Koreans outside North Korea are not defectors, instead they are controlled state assets.
So, I'm not a fan of North Korea (is anyone?), but this is definitely racist rhetoric. One thing that helps me see whether I'm saying something iffy is by replacing the ethnic group I'm talking about, and replacing it with another. If the resulting statement is either silly, deeply offensive, or obvious scare mongering, typically it means the original statement is worth reconsidering.
North Koreans and South Koreans are the same race, divided only by fairly recent politics. This is nationalist, if anything, not racist. Try replacing "North Korean" with "Soviets".
Ok, so then take Israel, whatever. Despite the ethnic cleansing that Israel is carrying out, it is not valid to look at a person with suspicion just because they're from Israel.
"But it's true!" is in my opinion a poor response to accusations of prejudice. "Black people are criminals" "That's racist" "But it's true, look at the statistics!" It doesn't make the original statement any less racist.
Tbh, before october 7th I wasn't as radicalised as I am now.
It's just kind of pathetic to see westerns claim to be the free-est free people of the whole world, without showing any form of understanding as to why NK is the way it is. This country's apparent paranoia and distaste for anything westerner is totally unrelated to the national trauma imposed by an imperial power coming from abroad, right guys?
Which imperial power? If the US is an imperial power for defending their local dictator, how is PRC not one for doing likewise? Is it because the Communist empires loudly screamed that they‘re anti-imperialist as they went out and conquered their empires?
There is Tibet, which had declared independence in 1913 and then decisively split itself from China by expelling all Chinese in 1945. The PRC conquered them because they were part of the Chinese "motherland". You can argue that the communist were the lesser of two evils (I would agree), but you can't argue this wasn't an imperial conquest.
The situation in the rest of China is a lot more complex. Most of warlords joined the PRC (sometimes through negotiation, mostly through surrender) when it was clear that the ROC - the competing but less centralized imperial power - had lost. The program of Han settlement, Sinicization and ethnic repression that occured in multiple waves (most acute in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and some areas of SW China) was an imperial project.
Externally, there is the Sino-Vietnamese war of 1979. While the reasons for the conflict were multi-faceted, one of them was that Vietnam had broken Cambodia out of the Chinese sphere by deposing the Khmer Rouge.
Recently China has been building bases and shaping countries' economies and political systems around the world. Arguably they have already made the Solomon Islands a protectorate and a few African countries are also moving in that direction.
The sino-vietnamese was a ridiculous mistake for the socialist project, that I agree with. But this wasn't an imperial war.
When I mentioned modern China, I referred to the PRC, so after (most of its) national reunification.
I fail to see how anti-terrorist repression in Xinjiang is akin to any form of imperialism. Otherwise they wouldn't celebrate those cultures on TV and during huge national events. This applies to Mongolia too.
If the situation in China was similar to the genocide in Palestine, then those cultures and their people would be suppressed and not supported nor promoted.
> The sino-vietnamese was a ridiculous mistake for the socialist project, that I agree with. But this wasn't an imperial war.
Fair enough, but then you can't claim that the US involvement in Korea was imperial.
> When I mentioned modern China, I referred to the PRC, so after (most of its) national reunification.
Why do you set this as a cut-off? Is an empire no longer imperial once it has conquered all its provinces? Besides that, what happened in Hong Kong? Was that not an Empire aligning its rebellious province by force?
> I fail to see how anti-terrorist repression in Xinjiang is akin to any form of imperialism.
I was mostly referring to the many purges between 1949 and 1976. While most of the millions killed in them were Han Chinese "class enemies", not pro-independence ethnic minorities, it was nonetheless part of the central committee solidifying total control of the country.
Since you mention it though, I'll just ask you: Are the various Uyghur councils and international NGOs just covering for terrorists? Did they fake all those official documents and the satellite pictures? How can you handwave what is happening in Xinjiang, yet be so concerned with Palestine? If you want to engage in some victim blaming, were the daily rocket attacks not terrorism?
I think the last point is the easiest to address for me for now:
Yes, the allegations of genocide against the Uyghur were fabricated. Pure CIA fiction. After all, neither Muslim nations nor the UN are denouncing or investigating Chinese anti terrorist policies as genocidal, unlike a certain totalitarian dictatorship that likes to portray itself as the Hebrew state and who happens to livecam and brag about its demonic acts on TV.
Tibet, before being re-integrated into the Chinese homeland, was a brutal theocracy whose population was 90% made of slaves. I hope you mentioned Tibet out of ignorance, and not out of nostalgia for human trafficking.
> Tibet, before being re-integrated into the Chinese homeland, was a brutal theocracy whose population was 90% made of slaves. I hope you mentioned Tibet out of ignorance, and not out of nostalgia for human trafficking.
I suspect that's a lie told by the Chinese, but even if it were true, it wouldn't change the fact that it's a country under Chinese occupation. Attempting to justify empire doesn't mean they aren't an empire.
Anyway, let's set that aside and return to your question:
> If so, can you name at least one country under Chinese occupation, or one Chinese protectorate?
If you won't accept Tibet as occupied by China, consider North Korea as a Chinese protectorate.
Except Tibet was part of China before westerns divorced it from China.
I dunno why but I think I'm gonna trust people who used to be the victims of colonial domination and looting over the recidivist offenders of the said colonial domination and looting when it comes to Asian history.
Also NK is a Chinese protectorate as much as the USA is a Republic.
Because the way the US treats other nations. For most of its history, it has been a war. It bullies other nations, interfere in their democratic process, when it doesn't invade them, or suspend their constitution or fund fascist paramilitary death squads to destabilise them. It could strike and annihilate Denmark tomorrow; a lot of Americans would cheer.
The US is very similar to the french Empire after the 1st Republic. It cloaks itself under the name of Republic, but isn't one itself. It's an evil country ran by evil people. The only difference is that Americans get to chose the Emperor every 4 years, whilst knowing no matter who is in charge, very little will change.
Of course its people aren't inherently evil or anything. But the propaganda is intense and permanent, so Americans unfortunately behave like little emperors themselves. This applies to most of Europe too, naturally.
That's why sometimes, I wish to pray to a higher power to spread class consciousness to the whole masses of America and Europe, but am also aware I'm part of the issue, and that it's wishful thinking.
China "occupies" Tibet to the same degree that USA occupies California Republic, or Texas Republic.
The fact that this meme stil lives in western mind just shows how pathetic and detached from reality is western anti-CCP propaganda. Propaganda should contain truth, to be credible, otherwise it ceased to be effective
> China "occupies" Tibet to the same degree that USA occupies California Republic, or Texas Republic.
You've got some facts wrong. The "California Republic" was a tiny rebellion against Mexico whose goal was to join the US. The Texas Republic also asked to join the US (and was turned down the first time).
But if your point is that the US is as much an empire as China, I agree.
I mean, just literally if you run a poll among United Nations members, people would rate the statement like "China occupies Tibet" and "USA occupies Texas" as the same delusional things - fantasy detached from reality
You cannot assume a Chinese person to be a Chinese state actor just for being Chinese. But you can assume a North Korean citizen to be a state actor as by definition he is only leagally allowed to be outside of North Korea as a state actor. Only exceptions are people who defected.
Is it really racist? North Korea is the most tightly controlled country in the world. Seems too easy to just throw out the racist card when you did not refute or provide any counter point.
I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.
May I suggest you may have meant ‘there are probably people who in the deepest of their heart disagree with state policy’.
If the state can execute your family on a whim because somebody stepped out of line you keep generally those sentiments well hidden.
But _liking_ the policies of the state where you live in is generally not considered a vice. So if a person who disagrees with the NK state is ‘good’ this implies people who agree NK state are ‘bad’ and I don’t think that’s the right framework when discussing large populations of nation states.
It’s mostly just a hand-waving acknowledgment that, yes, I’m broadly categorizing everyone as a North Korean state actor. I get that there are gradients of belief, some coerced, some true believers, but in the end, they’re all still acting on behalf of the state, one way or another.
> I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.
Numerous different documentaries and individual travel videos. Like all things there is a bias but I am also not sure what your point is? Are you suggesting North Koreans are not subject to massive amounts of propaganda and indoctrination into this idea of the supreme leader?
This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.
I get it, nuance is hard, but this isn’t nuance, it’s lazy contrarianism. You’re not defending truth, you’re just allergic to anyone speaking plainly about a brutal dictatorship. If you’ve got a credible counterpoint, make it. Otherwise, tossing out “bias” like it’s a trump card isn’t an argument, it’s a dodge.
Once again, you made broad generalizations based off some videos you saw (who even knows how biased or truthful they were). You know nothing of NK and yet here you are confidently making statements about it and its people.
It is typical western chauvinism and it is embarrassing to read you try to pretend it isn't.
Ah, there it is, “Western chauvinism,” the all-purpose dismissal when you’ve got no real counterargument. You’re not engaging with what I said, you’re just performing indignation.
Yes, I’ve seen videos, read books, listened to defectors, and followed reports from Amnesty, the UN, and others. You? You’re just here to sneer at the idea that anyone outside North Korea could possibly know anything. That’s not humility, it’s nihilism in a moral disguise.
You say I “know nothing” about North Korea. Maybe not everything. But I know enough to not reflexively defend a regime that starves its people while building monuments to a cult of personality. If that makes you uncomfortable, good.
>Ah, there it is, “Western chauvinism,” the all-purpose dismissal when you’ve got no real counterargument. You’re not engaging with what I said, you’re just performing indignation.
Gotta call a spade a spade sometimes, sorry bud.
>Yes, I’ve seen videos, read books, listened to defectors, and followed reports from Amnesty, the UN, and others. You? You’re just here to sneer at the idea that anyone outside North Korea could possibly know anything. That’s not humility, it’s nihilism in a moral disguise.
This isn't even an argument. You read things? Wow, me too. I read NK is awesome. They are trying to sustain their nation. Your repeating of biased western propaganda uncritically is the nihilism.
> You say I “know nothing” about North Korea. Maybe not everything. But I know enough to not reflexively defend a regime that starves its people while building monuments to a cult of personality. If that makes you uncomfortable, good.
I never even defended them. Just pointed out your ignorance and racism. Cheers. Nice edit btw.
> I never even defended them. Just pointed out your ignorance and racism. Cheers. Nice edit btw.
This refers to the edit that the sibling comment made from:
> Thank you for finally bringing your silly antics to a conclusion.
To adding four more sentences (ending with “We have decades ...”). Which seemed weird given that the first sentence was thanking OP here for bringing the “antics” to an end.
Thank you for finally bringing your silly antics to a conclusion. Sorry I don’t appreciate NK like you do but since you have no counterpoints and simply should trust you instead of reports from various NGOs and the UN you have run out of steam.
The racist card is boring and over used. Build a backbone and a real opinion.
We have decades of reports regarding NK please go elsewhere with your conspiracies.
> Numerous different documentaries and individual travel videos. Like all things there is a bias but I am also not sure what your point is? Are you suggesting North Koreans are not subject to massive amounts of propaganda and indoctrination into this idea of the supreme leader?
North Korea is famously one of the most closed-off countries in the world. Its Western-aligned neighbor is officially still at war with it. But at the same time people will make assertions with certainty about what North Korea is.
North Korea is an unreliable narrator. So are South Korea and America because they are hostile to NK. And people in the West don’t trust whatever countries are aligned with North Korea.
That’s the discrepancy—speaking boldly about the most closed off country in the world. Like documentaries and travel videos? Travel videos will be cherry-picked because of the government’s[1] policy of stalking and sheepherding all their tourists. That’s just one example from the NK side. We can also get into Western outlets making up NK fairytales based on no NK sources at all.
> This is starting to feel like a flat earth discussion.
Asking what level of information you have on a very closed-off country is comparable to denying a scientific fact that has been hypothesized for millenia, empirically proven probably for centuries, and can probably be empirically proven by an amateur scientist mountaineer?
Oh yeah? Have you got any more tired cliches up your sleeve?[2] “Oh hush” to quote a HN user.
You spent a lot of words saying “nobody knows anything” while conveniently ignoring the mountains of defectors’ testimonies, satellite imagery, and reports from human rights orgs that paint a bleak but consistent picture. But sure, let’s pretend the real problem is me not being epistemologically pure enough about the world’s most repressive regime.
Your entire comment boils down to: “We can’t trust any sources, so how dare you have an opinion.” That’s not skepticism, that’s intellectual paralysis dressed up as nuance.
And yes, invoking Flat Earth was apt—because entertaining every counter-narrative, no matter how unmoored from reality, in the name of balance is exactly how we ended up with people thinking the Earth is a disk.
But by all means, tell me more about the utopia behind the DMZ, if not hush too. You have said a lot of nothing.
What a world we live in. You cannot even call NK a repressive regime without folks jumping to point out how wrong you are. Maybe you need to go through the test your self and denounce the supreme leader.
I should gather my thoughts and focus my statement now that I recalled why I made it to begin with. I was really mostly curious specifically why you were so certain about the “lifetime of propaganda” and what it can do to the mind. Being a closed society we don’t have access to North Koreans to just talk to. You have defectors who are outliers. Secondly, taking the statement about the propaganda at face value, the next problem is what it does to the mind. Because we can’t point to people praising “the dear leader” or whatever in public as proof of the inner life of someone. If they live in such an authoritarian hellhole then they will have to say that just to survive. So is it a lifetime of propaganda? Or are they just getting by?
The next point would be juxtapose the lifetime of propaganda with your complete and unwavering certainty about the state of mind in the hermit kingdom, but you don’t seem quite ready for that.
Now to your reply here. There’s too many muddied points, too many strawmen to go into in detail without boring you in turn. So I won’t. But notice that I haven’t even defended North Korea. In fact one of the points I made was how they will sheepherd tourists. My comment was 80% epistemological, as you say. And your response? Talking about “the Utopia” of the DMZ? Oh wait, that’s exactly the phrase you brought up to someone else[1] and they too never ever said that North Korea was a great place to live (only that the narrative was “racist”).
So why go into these epistemological sleep study sessions? Because as evidenced by the conversation in [2], you (but also serving as an example because this is far from unique) will dismiss people who question the narrative of the OP, namely “The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations”. This is perfectly germane to the topic: is this a thing of concern or is it a convenient narrative? You dismiss that as a “conspiracy” in your reply and waffle on about “sure, other countries do bad things, but NK worse”. Your dismissal has got nothing to do with the topic, though. The topic is not if NK is a fantastic place to live, a “utopia” or whatever. The topic is if they did something that other countries don’t do.
You write a novel to say “we can’t really know,” then act like that’s some brave intellectual stance. It’s not. It’s just a way to dodge moral clarity.
Defectors are “outliers”? Of course they are—it’s a police state. That’s how tyranny works. You don’t get a representative sample when dissent gets you killed.
You’re not offering insight. You’re drowning basic truths in a flood of words to avoid saying anything with weight. At some point, skepticism becomes cowardice.
You’re going on about moral clarity and cowardice, dodging any real arguments that could be had. This is just obfuscation and relativism (but NK is worse than X). There have been concrete counter-arguments to the narrative in the OP. It doesn’t matter if the head of state of NK has killed more people than Genghis Khan.
There’s also no point in fretting about cowardice. Critiquing a poor Asian country from an apartment in Europe/America/South America won’t get you harmed.
"A lifetime of propaganda" about how NK is some nightmare land?
The evidentiary standard on reporting goes basically to zero if it's about NK. Outlandish claims are to be taken at face value and not interrogated, because of a "lifetime of propaganda" in the US, since the Korean War. Yes, that is linked with racism. The evidentiary standard in the media on other European countries for example is much much higher. For the most part, the racist narrative follows that places where white people are good and free, and places where non-white people are dangerous and bad. Classic racist rhetoric.
With regards to the specific points the article is making: "The FBI reported the money funds nuclear weapons and operations". Is a laughable fearmongering hypcrocrisy. part of Every tax dollar in the US goes towards funding nuclear weapons and operations. But good luck trying to get reporters at Fortune to be self-aware of their hypocrisy. That's the propaganda: bad when they do it. Good or neutral when we do it. Uncritical re-printing of statements from government agents (FBI). A reporter with an evidentiary standard would ask for evidence before printing that. Last I checked there was only one country that has actually used a nuclear weapon. Objectively, I would say that country is far more dangerous.
So, which evidence are you questioning. That Harrison Leggio has identified many North Koreans posing as US citizens? His claim that other companies he is familiar with are finding the same thing?
Are you disputing the evidence from other specific named private citizens in companiess that are reporting this happening, such as Michael Barnhart and Jamie Collier of Google, Bojan Simic of Hypr and Emi Chiba at Gartner who are confirming they have experienced the same activity in their firms? How about the evidence from Aidan Raney, a private security researcher, who reports he personally infiltrated one of these scam operations?
Furthermore it’s not just unsubstantiated claims by US agencies, the article also refers to two successfully prosecuted court cases in which they had to present evidence to secure convictions.
Your criticisms are aimed at US reporting, but the United Nations reports the same thing.
Oh hush. I have zero tolerance for conspiracies. Yes, every country has its own flavor of nationalism, pride or propaganda but let’s not confuse ourselves and try to sell NK as some misunderstood nation.
Expecting journalists to have evidentiary integrity is now a conspiracy? I didn't say it was false, or that it was true. I'm saying that uncritically reprinting dramatized, political statements from government agents without evidence is propaganda. When they operate in this way, the media acts as a propaganda wing of the government.
Come on. There’s a difference between questioning U.S. foreign policy and pretending North Korea is some misunderstood utopia. You’re right that propaganda exists in the West, but that doesn’t mean every criticism of the DPRK is racist or unexamined.
Calling out the regime’s control and the risk posed by state-backed cyber ops isn’t some “classic racist rhetoric”, it’s acknowledging reality. This is a country where you can be executed for watching the wrong movie. Pretending that’s morally equivalent to U.S. hypocrisy is lazy relativism.
Yes, the U.S. has done awful things. Yes, our media should be more critical. But no, I’m not going to pretend North Korean IT operatives raising money for a weapons program isn’t a serious issue just because the U.S. also has nukes. That’s not nuance, that’s deflection
Where is “racist” even factoring into it? I see this argument all the time, mostly about North Korea or china. There is nothing racist about suspecting someone from a specific country because you don’t trust that country’s government. That is not racist and what’s more I think you know that. It think these arguments are extremely bad faith. Here’s the test: is it about race? If not, then it’s not racist. For example, if I don’t trust Chinese nationals to work at my company because I think they will steal secrets, but I absolutely don’t have that same fear about people who are ethnically Chinese but born in my country, that’s not racist. If you want to call it xenophobic, sure, I’ll buy that. But racist? You are conflating nation and race on purpose.
It's tricky to weed out spies, if they are American ("Tell me a bad thing about Donald Trump"), Australians, Chinese, Russian or North Korean. That's why you have recruiters doing background checks.
If it was racist rhetoric, wouldn’t it necessarily also have to implicate South Koreans as nefarious agents as well, if we’re claiming that being a nefarious agent is an intrinsic feature of the Korean race?
Well, they have no choice. Similar to chinese students abroad who discover freedom and then get a video call of the police visiting their parents . Its like s mafia thing, you do not volunteer to that, you are born into that slavery anf you either serve or get broken . Oh, and than there is the tanki left, refusing to acknowledge the problem, helping to undermine dissenters escapeplans by downplaying the problem . The worst are the ones with good intentions refusing the call to horror that is reality .
Is it racist if I hire happily hire South Koreans and not North Koreans? Are they a different race? If they are, I'm sure they'd be interested to hear about it.
I wonder what other health measurements could be obtained with this technology? Sending radar through the wrist seems like a method that could observe much more information, although I am not sure which.
- Getting over the blank canvas hurdle, this is great for kick starting a small project and even if the code isn't amazing, it gets my brain to the "start writing code and thinking about algo/data-structures/interesting-problem" rather than being held up at the "Where to begin?" Metaphorically where to place my first stroke, this helps somewhat.
- Sometimes LLM has helped when stuck on issues but this is hit and miss, more specifically it will often show a solution that jogs my brain and gets me there, "oh yeah of course" however I've noticed I'm more in than state when tired and need sleep, so the LLM might let me push a bit longer making up for tired brain. However this is more harmful to be honest without the LLM I go to sleep and then magically like brains do solve 4 hours of issues in 20 minutes after waking up.
So LLM might be helping in ways that actually indicate you should sleep as brain is slooooowwwwing down
Yes, this. I was skeptical and disgusted at a lot of what was being done or promised by using LLMs, but this was because I initially saw a lot of wholesale: "Make thing for me," being hyped or discussed.
In practice, I have found them to be good tools for getting going or un-stuck, and use them more like an inspiration engine, or brain kick-starter.
- Getting over the blank canvas hurdle, this is great for kick starting a small project and even if the code isn't amazing, it gets my brain to the "start writing code and thinking about algo/data-structures/interesting-problem" rather than being held up at the "Where to begin?" Metaphorically where to place my first stroke, this helps somewhat.
- Sometimes LLM has helped when stuck on issues but this is hit and miss, more specifically it will often show a solution that jogs my brain and gets me there, "oh yeah of course" however I've noticed I'm more in than state when tired and need sleep, so the LLM might let me push a bit longer making up for tired brain. However this is more harmful to be honest without the LLM I go to sleep and then magically like brains do solve 4 hours of issues in 20 minutes after waking up.
So LLM might be helping in ways that actually indicate you should sleep as brain is slooooowwwwing down
This vulnerability isn't with the underlying OS though. They just installed a disabled application that has security concerns, but someone has to manually enable it for it to be a problem.
- Enable fall back controls where the pilot can input "traditional" controls when the more advanced system is degraded, even though it's all fly by wire their should still be inputs that fully mimic a traditional cockpit and ability to use this system should be allowed if the pilot requires it.
- Drop any focus or marketing on getting more people flying, if the ease of use of your aircraft is such that pilots who otherwise would not be qualified to fly now can fly, this is a recipe for disaster.
- Instead, focus on bringing a higher quality aircraft to market for pilots who want a more capable system, this cannot do any harm imo.
- Any system that lowers mental workload so that more focus can go into other areas of flying is welcome, just ensure there is always a method to fly the aircraft without the "auto" magic, there should always be controls that give raw control if needed even modern fly by wire commercial airliners have this fall back ability.
If you watch the video, they are advertising two inputs: a stick (which doesn't act like a stick) and a speed suggestion (not actually a throttle.) If the system were to suddenly degrade to standard inputs, it could be confusing and potentially lethal.
I don't think this is a system for pilots. This is a system for ... someone else.
> if the ease of use of your aircraft is such that pilots who otherwise would not be qualified to fly now can fly, this is a recipe for disaster.
How does that work? If they’re now qualified to fly then clearly they meet the standards set out for that. It could be argued that if they meet those standards but would be a danger to themselves and others in a different plane, it’s still a net win.
How would a server/workstation like this be setup?
I thought you could only use the vram on the GPU, so for 700GB you would need 8-9 A100 nodes as 2 only gives 160GB.
I've been trying to figure out how to build a local system to run inference and train on top of LLM models, I thought there was no way to add vram to a system outside of adding more and more GPU's or use system ram (DDR5) even though that would be considerably slower.
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