As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a 'Deep State' in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/world/americas/deep-state-leaks-trump.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER3> A fantastic read on the so called 'Deep state' is "National Security and Double Government" [1] by Michael J. Glennon in the Harvard Law School National Security Journal.

Abstract:

"National security policy in the United States has remained largely constant from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. This continuity can be explained by the "double government" theory of 19th-century scholar of the English Constitution Walter Bagehot. As applied to the United States, Bagehot's theory suggests that U.S. national security policy is defined by the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and who, responding to structural incentives embedded in the U.S. political system, operate largely removed from public view and from constitutional constraints. The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken.

Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy."

[1] [http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon- Fin...](http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf)

<comment><USER4> > This continuity can be explained by the "double government" theory

It could also be explained by Obama and Bush sharing similar philosophies on the security state, and there's a lot of evidence that supports that. That's not to say that the agencies aren't problematic, but rather that elected officials have been mostly happy with what they're doing, and that this is the reason why they keep doing it.

Where there were differences in policy between the administrations, we did see a change - for instance, in the use of waterboarding. It's just that these differences weren't as numerous as many people assumed.

<comment><USER5> Or that Bush realized the folly of his foreign policy and dramatically changed it in the later part of his term after the shitshow in Iraq.

<comment><USER6> My understanding was that Iraq was less about real foreign policy and more about his dad's "unfinished business", hence all the nonsense surrounding legitimacy of invasion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I think the stated concern about a 'deep state' is rather exaggerated, I think there is a legitimate concern about friction between the executive and the bureaucracy. There is broad tradition of non-partisan civil service taking orders from the partisan government of the day across the Western world, and it exists for two very good reasons: If the civil service is partisan, worthy public servants will lose their positions upon any change in government; and if the civil service is partisan, governments will not trust them.

We saw this in Canada under the Harper government in the early part of this decade, with civil servants actively undermining the government and the government retaliating with gag orders; it didn't take long before the government, knowing that any research they asked for would be leaked in the most damaging way possible, abandoned evidence-based governing in favour of seat-of-the-pants policy-making.

Now, what took a decade in Canada seems to have happened in a matter of weeks in Washington; but the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.

<comment><USER8> With respect, I'd have to disagree with your portrayal of Harper as an honest toiler, betrayed by revanchist public servants at every turn, and forced by circumstances to take harsh but fair measures.

Harperites didn't like the facts, and did their absolute best to hide them. The woolly headed policy making was conducted in defiance of the facts. When the objective facts were highlighted by public servant, in full concordance with the espoused values of their organisations, the conservatives got nasty.

Harper didn't like ridicule, and he proved what a small man he is when he had his satirist sacked. A remote wildlife ecologist public servant writing funny rhymes! What a coward to manufacture a dismissal.

As to Trump: he might think it a mutiny, others would characterise it as obeying the law and understanding the Constitution.

<comment><USER9> It would appear your analysis is marred by personal politics, as are most analyses of Trump.

<comment><USER10> I _voted_ for Harper (at least the first time) and would have to say it's a pretty accurate analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Consider all the officials who have effectively been attacked by American intelligence agencies: Gen. Petraeus, Gen. Haight, Gen. Flynn, Hillary Clinton, and Trump!

All this is quite recent, and in each case there have been explanations about how discoveries about the person were made _coincidentally_ as part of other investigations, etc.

Establishing a false causal trail is one of the most basic strategies of using deep surveillance.

The recent leaks about Flynn and the Trump dossier seemed more nakedly political than the others, but leaks like this have always occurred, it's just unusual for them to be aimed at the current president and his cabinet.

The funny thing is that if you wanted to sabotage the US system of global mass surveillance, this is probably how you'd do it. Every story about monitored email accounts or phone calls illustrates how deep it goes, and the intrigue created by the allegations about Russia make the stories incredibly viral.

<comment><USER12> The funnier thing is that the preponderance of evidence suggests that the stories about Russia may - gasp - be true! No need to reach for your tinfoil hat here, friend!

<comment><USER11> > preponderance of evidence

What evidence are you referring to. As far as I know none has been made public. There have been a lot of accusations and a few rumors but (gasp) zero evidence of hacking or any other troubling links w/ Russia.

<comment><USER13> There are plenty of troubling links with Russia There are at least 5 individuals (Manafort, Cohen, Sater, Page, Flynn, Tillerson, Stone) whom were directly working with the Russian government and have received effusive praise from them. Combined with a very narrow focus on removing sanctions (without any talk about the violations of sovereignty of Crimea/Ukraine) and a nearly tireless praising of Putin and the Russian government, there are plenty of troubling links.

<comment><USER14> How is any of this evidence that the trump administration is working with Russia?

The connections alone don't mean a whole lot and the rest you have is just words. If trump was truly in the can for Russia, why wouldn't he just say bad things about putin to score more political points and distract people from his true motives?

Are we to believe that Putin would not allow trump to trash him in order to further his tangible goals?

<comment><USER15> >Are we to believe that Putin would not allow trump to trash him in order to further his tangible goals?

From what I've heard, Putin is now thinking twice on whether he even _wants_ to be associated with the Trump administration. He may have believed that men like Manafort or Bannon would keep Trump under control, only to find that his new "allies" in the White House are a chaotic mess.

<comment><USER14> Wait, what is the bannon connection to Russia? That's new to me.

Also, we would be led to believe that putin spent all this time and effort getting his boy in and now is just going to give up on him within a month?

I would ask for a source on that but considering it's nigh impossible for the west to get reliable intel (That dossier was quite something) out of Russia I'm not sure how much it would matter.

<comment><USER16> The rumour is that Bannon believes he can convince Putin to back the USA in a confrontation with Iran. Bannon sees Iran as a bigger threat and is trying to engineer a conflict. (I have no idea whether that's correct, just passing on an unsubstantiated rumor.)

<comment><USER17> I hadn't even heard that one on reddit before, is there _any_ evidence, even an out of context quote?

<comment><USER18> The broader version that seems to be fairly accepted is that there is a thought of realigning the US with Russia against "radical Islam" (Trump's term) in Syria and elsewhere. It is unclear how much of this is Bannon's idea and how much is Trump's, and unclear how much is aimed at Iran.

It would be surprising to me if Russia went along with US action against their ally Iran, but other combinations are certainly possible. Hell, that is too - who knows!

Here's a quote:

 _Trump and Putin spoke for one hour and vowed to join forces to fight terrorism in Syria and elsewhere, according to the White House and the Kremlin, signaling a potential shift in U.S.-Russian relations that have been marked by high tension._

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-holds-calls- wi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-holds-calls-with-putin- leaders-from-europe-and- asia/2017/01/28/42728948-e574-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html)

<comment><USER11> Trump has made statements about wishing to align with Russia against radical Islam, so how can this be part of a conspiracy?

Trump said a lot of that stuff during the campaign because he likely hadn't realized the extent of the proxy wars between the US and Russia since the wall came down.

One of the main reasons the US invaded Iraq was to do so before Russia took control of the region, due to its importance to the oil supply. Russia had good relations with Saddam's regime and with Iran. When Saddam was overthrown, many of the oil industry spoils that had been going to Russian firms were redistributed to US (or coalition) firms.

Russia is currently helping to stoke discord in Syria and aligning with Iran mainly to force an over-stretched US to react. For pennies on the dollar Putin can keep the US in a middle-east quagmire, so why not do this indefinitely?

Trump may not have realized the strategic purpose that US escalation in Syria was intended to achieve, he may have believed the PR that we were involved for humanitarian reasons, etc. But he seems to have concluded that it was a money pit waiting to happen with little humanitarian upside (which is a correct conclusion, and the conclusion Russia had hoped the US would draw). HRC was determined to signal the opposite so that Russia might stop spending its pennies there.

For those who don't realize this, the decades-long Iran/Iraq war was a proxy war fought between the US and the Soviet Union with both sides having the goal of creating a dominant footprint in the middle east to keep the other side at bay and guarantee the relative stability of oil extraction. This same goal also causes the US to act to prevent any sort of large scale democratic movements in the middle-east; Al Qaida began as that exact sort of pan-Arab movement.

So if Trump is proposing a negotiated deal with Putin involving Syria and Iran, that means he's willing to consider dividing the spoils in a way that may harm US coalition allies (France, Germany, etc.) who also have firms that are heavily invested in post-Saddam Iraq and some of which would likely be displaced by a new US/Russia agreement.

Similarly, allies of the US in Europe that fear an emboldened Russia also stand to lose if Russia gains better access to cheap petroleum. Russia, on the other hand, is poised to take a big leap forward in economic output and also reputation laundering. A successful negotiation with Trump could wipe away the penalties/sanctions that Russia has faced due to Putin's brutal approach to certain domestic issues.

So Russia's goal has been a larger presence in the middle east, a laundered reputation, and possibly more (everyone fears it will attempt to re-annex more former Soviet territory).

The thing that I think HRC and Obama misunderstood is that Russia is very likely to get this whether the US wishes it to happen or not. The US (and allies) are not in a position to undertake preemptive strikes, and so all they can do is vilify Putin and create a massive PR campaign and pressure allies into sanctions, etc. Meanwhile, the US can use clandestine operations to help goad Putin into various crackdowns or overreaches that will force him to act more like a dictator and increase the chances he will be unseated due to domestic dissent.

Why didn't Obama intervene in the Caucuses or the Ukraine? Because the US does not have the will to enter into conflicts like those, and certainly does not have the will to risk nuclear conflict.

Posturing by McCain about both annexations was nothing more than a bluff, as was HRC's sudden tough talk toward the end of the campaign. The hope was that somehow Putin would fall for this bluff and that rabid anti-Russian public opinion in the US would scare Putin into thinking the US might react with force.

Seriously, this isn't going to happen no matter who is president. The question is how long it takes and how many lives are lost in proxy wars before Russia occupies a position of greater dominance in Europe. The Soviet Union was too big and plagued by infrastructure problems, but Russia itself is well placed geopolitically and has historically been a seat of wealth, culture, and regional ambitions.

What is in the best interest of the US with respect to the negotiations (hard or soft) that take place with Russia over the next decade? I'm not sure. But Obama (and Trump also) saw that there was a certain inevitability to it and that it was not worth spilling too much blood over. In spite of this, Obama carried on proxy wars in Iraq and Syria which killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused untold suffering.

Trump has claimed that he may not wish to continue the proxy wars. We should all be relieved. Rather than debating rumors about Russian meddling, etc., we should figure out what is actually in US best interest over the medium to long term and negotiate accordingly. Bluffing isn't going to work. Both Russia and the US are willing to let lots of people die in proxy wars, but neither is willing to engage in direct conflict, so we will either inflict another decade of tragedy upon the victims of our proxy wars, or we will find a less violent equilibrium.

<comment><USER19> I'd point only two _major_ errors. There are too many minor errors though.

> decades-long Iran/Iraq war was a proxy war fought between the US and the > Soviet Union with both sides having the goal of creating a dominant > footprint in the middle east

No. Last Soviet attempt to gain a foothold in Middle East was a failed relationship with Egypt. Hint: War of Attrition followed by Yom Kippur War.

There was no major influx of military advisers or green men during Iran-Iraq war.

> The Soviet Union was too big and plagued by infrastructure problems, but > Russia itself is well placed geopolitically and has historically been a seat > of wealth, culture, and regional ambitions.

I have a bad news for you - Russia is about the same size as USSR and it's still plagued with infrastructure problems. And as for the culture - <USER2> can see the decline in post-Soviet cultural scene, especially in Russia.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it contains factual errors. If you could please elaborate on what you think the errors are I'd appreciate it (so I can learn more about specific aspects).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Iran%E2%8...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm having trouble parsing the narrative of the article. It's frankly bizarre. It seems to be implying very heavily that this leaking of the administrations actions is bad for democracy. And that the administration is right in attempting to consolidate more power away from agencies as a response. If the administration doesn't like its laundry being aired in public perhaps it should behave better. The worst part is it's attempt to somehow make a comparison to Turkey here. Erdogan is a dictator that has seized control of Turkey. His purging of the "deep state" was not a good thing. And it is an offensive stretch to suggest the 110,000 teachers, police, judges and other civil servants caught in that purge constitute some kind of evil "deep state".

<comment><USER7> The comparison to Turkey is indeed quite odd. What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"; to the contrary, Erdoğan has completed a very successful coup d'état.

<comment><USER21> To be fair, Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). We absolutely agree that the result was the same as an outright coup.

<comment><USER7> _Erdogan 's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely)._

Sure. But I'm a bit skeptical of the "initial coup", given that analysts at the time were saying things like "this is the most pathetically incompetent coup attempt I've ever seen"; I avoid using the word "countercoup" since it implies the conclusion that there was in fact a real coup attempt to which Erdoğan responded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one who thinks NYTimes should be a little more explicit in marking editorials? I'm sure among those of us familiar with newspapers it should be clear within a sentence that this is an opinion piece, however nowhere does the word "editorial" show up on this page and I suspect a fair number of younger or less educated individuals may not even understand what editorials are in general.

It helps me understand why individuals might be skeptical of newspapers when an agenda'd opinion piece (basically a hosted blog) shows up in the nytimes domain.

<comment><USER23> This is a hard news story, not an editorial. They are reporting on comments by global experts.

<comment><USER24> It looks like this is neither an editorial nor a hard news story, but rather a column[1]. The difference being an editorial is an opinion piece (typically?) representing the publication, and a column is a recurring opinion piece by named individuals. At least that's what wikipedia says--I can never keep these terms in my head.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/column/the- interpreter](https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-interpreter)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When Lincoln was elected, there were days he had difficulty getting from his room to his office -- the halls of the White House were full of people who came looking for a job from the president.

That was the old patronage system, where you elect a president and he can appoint thousands, maybe tens of thousands of jobs. All of these jobs had one major qualification: you had to be loyal to the president.

As much as we hate it now, for a long time the system worked well. When the government was small, there simply wasn't that much real power to pass around, and the U.S. Constitution was fairly clear that the president should be directly responsible for the executive branch. Nobody else. The founders discussed at length the idea of a complex bureaucratic system of state, like the Europeans had. They wanted no part of it.

But as we know, once the system grew during the Civil War and afterwards, it led to a terrible amount of corruption. Something had to be done. So the U.S. enacted Civil Service reform, where the president is allowed and expected to bring a bunch of partisan loyalists with him into office, but the lower levels of the bureaucracy were to be left alone to the professionals. In this way public opinion could have major impacts on national policy with each presidential election -- but elections wouldn't become such a feeding frenzy for people looking to make quick buck off the government.

Now it looks like we're seeing the endgame of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction: the deep state. As just some random internet dude, my suggestion to fix it would be to assert more executive control another level or two down, perhaps allow the managers at the next level, who are not appointees, more power over moving people around and letting them go.

If we do it right we'll probably correct too far in the other direction, and hopefully it'll take another dozen or so decades for yet another course correction to be made. Sadly, however, I expect much political wailing and gnashing of teeth during the entire process. Whether it's patronage or the deep state, there's a ton of money and political power being fought over.

<comment><USER26> Another option is to have department heads elected separately from the President.

People make better decisions when the job they're voting on has a more specific description.

<comment><USER25> I thought of that immediately after I wrote the comment.

It would work -- if the department heads were of the same party. Perhaps each candidate could provide multiple choices for major posts and voters could choose which one they liked on election day. But it needs to be a single vote, and with a single clear leader at the top. Otherwise you'd have the old Presidential/Vice Presidential system where each could be of a different party. That's no good. That's just the deep state on steroids.

Remember the purpose of the executive is that at some point voters require "single wringable neck" The problem is that the system is so ginormous that there's really no way one person can be responsible for it all. Oddly enough, the system was really still quite useful over the past several decades even when it was too big for one person to plausibly be in charge. This is because it provides the president as a guy you can blame when things go wrong. Our problems? It's all because of that guy! Get rid of him and see how well we do!

So the real danger of the deep state isn't just a system run amok. It's rubbing people's faces in the fact that this whole "electing a president" thing is just so much bullshit. The specifics of the leaks or whether they're in the interest of the country or not? Not as important as the long-term damage to credibility the entire system suffers.

As the system grows it's more and more evident the reason we are supposed to have a layered, federated system. If you can't have that single person anymore, you really no longer have an executive. If the president can't be the guy we blame for all this bad stuff, the Congress is ineffectual and the courts are jammed up, then where do we go for peaceful redress of our grievances?

<comment><USER26> Well, for something like this, the President would probably be elected by the elected cabinet members, sorta like a parliamentary system for the executive branch.

<comment><USER14> As an Australian, I think a president system is much better than having leader's you can't vote for directly and can be replaced whenever the polls don't look great.

<comment> barry-cotter If you want to become dictator being President is a much better position to be in than Prime Minister.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Never thought I'd say this but maybe Trump is right about the media. Part of me wants to think this is real reporting but to another part of me this screams like speculative albeit sophisticated conspiracy babble. It seems like the times by publishing this piece are really the ones culpable in sowing seeds of dissent and opposition in the mind of officials working for us gov. There's a lot of things wrong with this administration but in many cases the media is certainly not helping by amplifying the speakers on the circus.

<comment><USER28> That's exactly what Trump wants. He wants to be a primary source of information however inaccurate or incorrect, but lets be honest of "the media" because its a very wide spectrum that includes the likes of the NYTimes, WSJ, as well as Breitbart and the Daily Caller.

It wasn't long ago that many Trump supporters were reading articles likes this "Obama drops the pretense - He aims for confiscation of private arms, not 'control' of guns" ([http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/5/editorial- oba...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/5/editorial-obama-aims- for-confiscation-of-private-a/))

<comment><USER29> So it's better when the media is inaccurate or incorrect?

They so frequently use half-truths, lies by omission, complete removal of context, and in many cases report on things without substantiating evidence or credible sources, that it's hard to think they have much value at all. And it's not just one outlet, it's all of them. Sometimes they'll be accurate when the story fits what they want to say, and when it doesn't they will either say nothing at all (see: Sweden, Germany, France) or they'll grossly misrepresent things.

The recent Felix Kjellberg incident is a fine example of what I've seen happen non-stop over the past 4-5 years. Every single week it's yet again the same exact thing, this time with a different story. It has never relented.

If the choices are: direct from the source which may or may not be accurate 100% of the time, or via a media known to be incredibly dishonest and inaccurate at an alarming rate, it's really not a hard choice here for me.

<comment><USER28> "So it's better when the media is inaccurate or incorrect?" Where did this come from? I absolutely do not support inaccuracy by the media, nor did I suggest that I did. I do recognize that most all publications and writers exhibit bias, which is why it is important to get information representing multiple points of view.

Considering you likely have little or no access to most primary sources of information, like everyone else, I don't see how you have any choice other than to rely on their coverage combined with your own critical thinking and research.

Also considering that an incredible number of Donald Trump's statements are easily verifiably false, I don't see how he could be considered a primary source of anything other than his own words.

As far as "The recent Felix Kjellberg incident", What exactly do you mean? Some publications condemning his actions while others rush to his defense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The "Deep State" is just inertia.

It is only because America has elected a +radical president has this become somewhat apparent. But the inertia is democratic as it represents the democratic process and accumulation.

It is especially important when you have edge-case of a president wining, but with 46% of popular vote and 26.5% of the potential vote.

The "Deep State" being the actual institutions of law and governance is actually what makes democracy sustainable.

<comment><USER31> There's nothing radical about Trump's policies at all. In fact, he's hardly right of center on most things.

1) He's strongly in favor of keeping the welfare state and all the entitlement programs. Left loves it.

2) He wants to expand the military. Right loves it.

3) He's pushing a mixture of common right and left policies, including lower taxes and regulation, infrastructure spending. He's promoting American jobs / workers first (thus unions have applauded several of his efforts, such as killing the TPP), which used to be a left platform.

4) He wants to scrap the ACA, right loves it. But has talked about either expanding Medicare to all people as the solution, or kicking it down to the states to run their own ACA equivalent programs, both of which the left would be in favor of vs the worse conservative alternative of a total wipeout.

5) He's in favor of a strong border. This is something both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were supposedly in favor of. Bill Clinton talked openly about the need to stop illegal immigration because it was taking American jobs etc.

6) He ran on a platform of putting an end to the US proliferation of entanglement overseas, particularly when it comes to wars in the middle east. George W Bush ran on a platform not so different.

Radical? Where? There isn't anything even remotely radical about Trump other than his personality type. His policies are rehashes of decades of policies espoused by other Presidents.

Whether Trump won 44% or 47% or 50.1% of the popular has absolutely nothing to do with the deep state's response to him. The deep state operates entirely independent of the electorate.

None of the three Clinton runs for Presidency achieved over 50% for example. With only 43% of the popular vote in 1992, and an openly anti-military bias, Bill Clinton didn't have these kinds of problems with the deep state in his first term.

<comment><USER32> An assault of against the entire legitimacy of the judicial branch is hyper radical. Naming the news media the enemies of the American people is hyper radical. Illegally ordering legal permanent residents be detained without due process is hyper radical.

Some of his policies aren't radical, sure. He is a populist. The fact that one time he said he likes the welfare state and one time he said he didn't, or that one time he said he wants to scrap ALL of ACA and then some other time he described all of the policies in ACA and said they were good and wouldn't go away doesn't mean he's moderate, it means he's incapable of telling the truth because his mind changes too quickly to have a consistent position. But regardless, the president doesn't set policy, congress does. He leads the country in words and action, acts as the head of state diplomatically and oversees enforcement of the laws which the legislative and the judicial branch decide for him.

In that sense as the leader of our country he is the most radical president I can think of since FDR who was a wartime leader and was rapidly approaching a dangerous permanent control of the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't find the article's "deep state" narrative very convincing. The message I got from the article was, "there's a shadow government and it's using dirty tactics to subvert the normal operations of our elected representatives (including the POTUS)."

That view would be a lot more legitimate, IMO, if we had a functional government trying to carry on normal business for the benefit of the people. What's actually happening looks to me to be very different, and exceptionally so! An analogy that should ring a bell with many HN regulars would be the new technical manager with zero technical background who was hired because he's the CEO's nephew, who happens to be borderline mentally challenged but makes up for it with defiant corruption, extreme nepotism and flamboyant temper tantrums.

If you're (e.g.) a developer and your new manager is objectively incompetent and deeply disturbed, if he jeopardized important projects and the company's bottom line (that you depend on for a living), no one would be surprised if you voiced your concerns to the manager's superior. In this analogy, the manager's only superior is the public.

<comment><USER34> > That view would be a lot more legitimate, IMO, if we had a functional > government trying to carry on normal business for the benefit of the > people... An analogy that should ring a bell with many HN regulars would be > the new technical manager with zero technical background who was hired > because he's the CEO's nephew, who happens to be borderline mentally > challenged but makes up for it with defiant corruption, extreme nepotism and > flamboyant temper tantrums.

A lot of hyperbole gets thrown around, but do you legitimately believe the US government is no longer "functional" and run by "borderline mentally challenged" people?

You don't have personally like the newcomers to the top levels of the US government, but you're deluded if you think they're not capable people (or good at playing a game) acting within a system that's been built for hundreds of years.

<comment><USER33> The US government has been increasingly dysfunctional for several years now. I'd like to remind you that Congress has actually shut down the government's operations on more than one occasion, tried to blackmail the Executive with a government default, has passed a record low number of laws and refused to review Obama's appointment for the vacant SC position. Congress, for practical purposes, went on strike to attempt to ensure that Obama would not be able to accomplish most of his goals - in effect punishing the US people for political purposes.

This isn't getting any better with the change of POTUS - now the Democrats are determined to stalemate the new Executive in any way possible. This isn't healthy, this is destructive, and it's certainly not functional. It's disgraceful!

You're wondering whom I'm calling "borderline mentally challenged?" That would be Donald Trump, about whom many professional psychologists have voiced concerns of mental competency. He hasn't yet given the US public any indication that he's even as smart as George W. Bush or more knowledgeable of world politics than the average 5th grader.

The rest of the team is a mixed bag with regard to competence. Certainly Nancy DeVos has shown no indication of capability for her position, and the rest of the team has definitely been selected for ideological proximity to D. Trump rather than capability. Disturbingly, the EPA appointee is a declared enemy of the EPA, the energy guy is a global warming denier, and the national security guy is someone who has publicly announced his intention to overthrow the state. His pick for AG was previously disqualified for being an outspoken racist. Similar (dis)qualifications apply to numerous other of his picks.

I'd say, au contraire, that a considerable amount of delusion is required to believe that a team this poorly matched to their jobs will be effective improvers of the nation's status.

<comment><USER34> > Congress, for practical purposes, went on strike to attempt to ensure that > Obama would not be able to accomplish most of his goals - in effect > punishing the US people for political purposes.

Or, if acting in good faith, disagreed that his goals would be good for US people. More laws and actions do not mean the people are better off.

> You're wondering whom I'm calling "borderline mentally challenged?" That > would be Donald Trump

Thank you for your response, but we're going to just fundamentally disagree and while I'm fine with "in my opinion...", the level of hyperbole involved is enough to make me sit this one out. A "borderline mentally challenged" person would not be able to navigate his way to the position of POTUS.

<comment><USER33> I'm happy to let opinions stand as such, but in your support of Trump's mental competence you're denying reality.

Sarah Palin was McCain's pick for VP, and thus well on her way to "having navigated her way to the position of POTUS." And if you feel that the candidate who couldn't name a single newspaper she read was mentally competent to be POTUS then that's an opinion of yours I won't be able to share.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's unfortunate to see 'deep state' talk coming up in the US. I associate it mostly with Erdogan in Turkey and his attempts to change from elected leader to dictator for life. The deep state and Gulenist labels are used to attack and arrest or fire anyone who opposes that. I hope it doesn't go that way in the US.

</comment><comment><USER36> I feel like I'm seeing this term "deep state" everywhere now, and I never saw it before two weeks ago.

I feel like it's the newest political buzzword after "fake news".

<comment><USER37> It's been around for decades, but it was always a term used by the left, similar to "fake news." One of Trumps more effective (and disturbing) tactics in the past year or two has been to co-opt this language and redefine it in basically opposite terms by simply repeating it ad nauseum.

Now instead of having a debate about the allegations and evidence that people in this administration have broken numerous laws, we're discussing the _intentions_ of the "leakers" themselves, rather than the rather substantial amount of publicly sourced and substantiated evidence that suggests people have a right to be concerned.

It's like getting caught stealing a piece of candy and blaming it all on your friend because they ratted you out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Trump won with around 60 million votes in a country that has a population of around 340m people. Legally he may have the authority to do what he wants but he still has to work within a system of people who did not vote for him and who does not share his strong policies. I see this as a feature, not a bug. There's a saying that if you people don't earn a fair wage they'll find a way to pay themselves. I think a principal is at work here.

</comment><comment><USER39> From the article: "Though American democracy is resilient enough to resist such clashes".

That remains to be seen.

</comment><comment><USER40> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666325)

</comment><comment><USER41> The leaks serve several good purposes: \- They help remove questionable public officials. \- They show government officials what it's like to have no private conversation (strong encryption). \- They show both the public and government officials that government cannot be trusted to keep secrets. (Even the President is unable to prevent his own government from revealing detrimental secrets.)

<comment><USER42> There is some truth to this. However, instead of talking about the disturbing content in the leaked DNC and Podesta documents, the media only wishes to report on how this authentic content came to light. The deflection and bias is staggering. The lesson may be you can get away with anything if you have the media in your pocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm trying to follow the events in the U.S.A, I'm not american, it feels like that the "deep state" or "establishment" or whatever you want to call it, is laying the groundwork to kick Donald Trump out of the white house. Good luck to you guys anyway.

</comment><comment><USER44> It seems to me that the best way to encourage the development of a 'Deep State' is to exclude important stakeholders from things like the National Security Council.

When denied access to the formal structures, what are these people meant to do, seriously?

<comment><USER45> Who is being excluded? If anything the complaint I keep reading is that too many people are being added who have no business being there (e.g. Steve Bannon).

<comment><USER46> Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence are no longer permanent members of the Principals Committee (the actual subgroup that has people so wound up); effectively, they only get to attend meetings when they're invited (the wording is something along the lines of 'whenever their expertise is a topic of the meeting'). Since this is the National Security Council, people think it's weird that they'd have any meetings that wouldn't be in the purview of the military or intelligence communities.

<comment><USER14> Sean Spicer did explain this as a situation where both of those members were not excluded from meetings and could attend any meeting they wanted to, just that they were no longer required to attend every meeting.

As long as that's true and so far there hasn't been any reporting to say it isn't, I don't see the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is why you appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation. To grossly simplify: either the leakers are dangerous to democracy, or they're patriots blowing the whistle on serious misconduct. If we find that Flynn lied to the FBI and that he acted inappropriately with regard to sanctions, then the leaks certainly feel like an act of a whistleblower.

If there's nothing to the allegations, an investigation would vindicate the administration.

The fact that everyone is stalling on an investigation just raises questions.

</comment><comment><USER48> It is hard not to think there is a decent chance we are headed for a civil war, or rise of authorism.

</comment><comment><USER49> Paul Craig Roberts explains the stakes here:

[http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/18/stakes-trump- us-p...](http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/18/stakes-trump-us-paul- craig-roberts/)

</comment><comment><USER50> Interestingly this has been discussed here - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpaDEkkOcpM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpaDEkkOcpM)

</comment><comment><USER51> The article says: "[in Egypt], "the deep state is not official institutions rebelling," he said, but rather "shadowy networks within those institutions, and within business, who are conspiring together and forming parallel state institutions.""

I don't understand how the article can make this statement. The statement clearly outlines a Conspiracy Theory. As we all know, Conspiracy Theories are false - a priori. How can it be legitimate to concoct Conspiracy Theories for other nations, when, simultaneously, the very notion of (a national scale) conspiracy is seen as being equally as impossible as perpetual motors or faster-than-light travel? Double standards? What's going on?

</comment><comment><USER52> "Deep state" requires influence from outside, Russia? I really much doubt it. Turkeys deep state goes back all the way to Gladio setup by NATO after WWII

<comment><USER53> > "Deep state" requires influence from outside

no it doesn't. the definition is really about a state in a state...

<comment><USER52> Oh yeah...the countries listed in that article, which one has a state in state without any influence from outside?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> "So is the United States seeing the rise of its own deep state?"..."Not quite, experts say, but the echoes are real — and disturbing."

Wrong. The deep state not only is already in place and entrenched deeper than almost anyone could imagine, but it's power is at unprecedented levels. The problem is that the general public is being wowed by all the operation mockingbird CIA outlet propaganda to the point that they aren't seeing that right now there is being waged a very real war inside those deep recesses for who gains the power. I do have to say that the media is even bringing the phrase up those is amazing.

The originator of the term "deep state" and I believe "deep politics" is the former Canadian diplomat turned educator, author, poet, Peter Dale Scott. He really is the prime standard in studying the ds because he is very academic in his pronouncements and tries very hard to follow the evidence and not over- exert his positions. eg. he mostly sticks to deductive logic, with smatters of inductive logic. Now, the other authors worth reading on this matter are Michael Parenti, Webster Tarpley, Mike Lofgren, David Talbot, John Perkins, Jim Marrs, G Edward Griffin, Anthony Sutton, and Douglass Valentine.

Following the thread, one tends to come to one particular author though, that outpaces and outshines the others, because he not only gained unprecedented access to the historical documents behind one of the main groups pulling the deep states strings, but because he also was a well connected professor at Georgetown, mentor to Bill Clinton, and his writing is extremely heady: Carroll Quigley.

According to most of these authors, the deep state rose to power primarily in 63 via the JFK assasination (and of course they used a MKUltra/Artichoke victim Sirhan Sirhan to get RFK too), and I would posit that most of them would agree we have barely had a president not completely beholden to them since them. Any time one tried to buck them, he was given a warning very quickly (Reagan assassination attempt made him start playing ball, if he had died we would have had Bush Sr. early!), and the list of similar happenings to presidents goes on and on.

So, the deep state exists, so who are they? Factions and subfactions hiding within: "NSA, CIA, DIA, NSC, UN, NATO, FEMA, Round Table Groups, DHS, Bankers/Financial elite, Defense Companies, Big Oil/Gas, Big Pharma, Think Tanks, Other tax exempt foundations, K-street, The infiltrated media."

What has enabled the deep state? The NatSec Act of 47, The patriot act, the NDAA, 501c3s, COINTELPRO-esque operations against dissidents, abuse of national security as a get out of court free blanket, the black market funding of black budget operations, blackmail as a standard modus operandi on important people, and more than anything the abuse of compartmentalization in the intelligence groups, which creates a situation where top level comprimise can be hidden from everyone but still direct actions and moves in the interest of the deep state.

What are the goals and motives of the deep state? That one, I just have to say I don't know. I have suspicions based on all the contextual clues, but I will leave those for later.

The number one thing you could do research on that will really open your eyes to the deep state is this:

Continuity of Government (CoG)(Shadow Government) plans (which we primarily found out about in the Iran contra hearings), which were written in the 1980s by Rumsfeld and Cheney along with participation by some of the Iran Contra characters like Oliver North.

CoG is the key which can unravel the deep state. According to Peter Dale Scott, we are in a hidden constitutional crisis primarily centered around this issue, and CoG may still be in effect by way of the continual declerations of national emergency (Bush proclamation 7463, EO 13223, 13224, were the starting declerations, later continued with NSPD-51 in 2007, and Obama has continued them). These continual declerations have been in violation of (b) 50 U.S.C. 1622.

Supposedly, if some information Scott has is true, "the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would indicate that the constitutional system of checks and balances no longer applies, and also that secret decrees now override public legislation as the law of the land."

This is the true issue of the deep state in the United States of America, and is one of the most important issues of our time.

<comment><USER55> Peter Scott has the attention span of a six month old puppy.

<comment><USER54> Really? Care to back up your statement with any concrete example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I meant to say that I was looking forward to reading it and here it is. Lucky me. Not sure why that's a downvote? You can't just like something and say, yay! it's that thing?

EDIT: My spellinh isrterrible.

<comment><USER57> Shorter comments are more prone to misunderstanding—e.g. perhaps someone thought it was being snarky. In such cases someone else usually comes a long and gives a corrective upvote.

The HN guidelines ask you not to post about getting downvoted though: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686949) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER56> Thanks, I will try to keep that in mind and try to contribute a little more to the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> There's a darker explanation than the two suggested already: that Russia actually controls people high in the administration (possibly more than one, including Trump) and intelligence agencies are fighting them.

<comment><USER59> People give Russia too much credit. The narrative I've seen on Reddit lately has been that Russia controls pretty much everything in the world.

Russia is a barely middle income country with a shrinking GDP, a shrinking population and an ageing military.

Surprising that I've never heard a single story of Russian influence in my country, India. Apparently, Putin and his stooges were able to infiltrate all levels of politics and media in the rich western world, but don't give two hoots about its more direct economic rivals in the BRICS.

<comment><USER60> Russia is more interested in military rivals than in economic ones. If you talk to Russians about geopolitics, you'll notice that right away: the countries that are listed as the primary opponents are US and China, and the reasons given are always military: US leads NATO, and China has an eye on the Russian Far East. You'll never hear anyone so much as mention India, Brazil etc as competitors.

And while you're correct about your overall assessment of Russia, that is precisely why it has to resort to measures like these. It cannot compete militarily, and it cannot compete economically, so it is left to resort to Machiavellian devices to fight for (what it believes to be) its rightful place, if not on the top of the pile, then at least on the top tier of it. That's what really grates so many people in Russia, both elites and commoners - that it _was_ a superpower, but it isn't anymore. A lot of people really, really want it to be one again. And for them, the definition of superpower is, "they fear us".

<comment><USER61> Thank you for a good analysis. I was going to answer along the same lines, but you've beat me to it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Want to be a founder - don't do it. - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/rory-odriscoll/you-want-to-be-a-founder-dont-do-it.html

<comment><USER2> Short summary:

(1) Don't start a company just to feed your ego, or because it's trendy. You're unlikely to succeed, especially if that's your only reason for doing it, and failing is likely to bruise your ego even more.

(2) Don't start a company to "get rich quick," either. Most people don't get rich, and it's not quick. It's a load of work and involves a lot of sacrifice and a high probability of disappointment. You'd be statistically far better off with the "get rich slow" path of living below your means and investing.

I hope more people follow this advice. There's too much noise out there... too many get rich quick me-too schemes and Chief Ego Officers running around. Please clear the field for interesting stuff and experienced, honest founders.</comment>


Java drops to #2 in TIOBE index - <AUTHOR> http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=59932 <comment><USER2> My numbers are better than theirs: <http://langpop.com> \- I use multiple sources. While I stand by my results, I think that they are, by their very nature, not all that precise, so making a big deal out of a blip like this is great for publicity, but probably not very meaningful.

<comment><USER3> not sure if freshmeat and google code are the all that 'authorative' about the opensource projects using languages. for one most Ruby projects are hosted on github.

<comment><USER2> I'm more interested in releases than 'hosted projects', as many of the latter are unfinished. Which is why I've always used Freshmeat rather than Sourceforge.

I agree that it's probably a bit long in the tooth, and I'd be happy to add something newer, as long as it's not too terribly biased. Which, however, I think github (and StackOverflow) continue to be: the former in favor of Ruby, the latter in favor of various Microsoft things.

<comment><USER3> well, the best thing might be to just combine all the project listings you can pull from all the sites together. for what it worth you can try to only pull recent projects, or projects passing some minimal threshold of 'usage' like download count on sf or watch/fork count on github. but w/o counting the github you are _severely_ undercounting ruby projects. the ones on google code and freshmeat are a statistical aberration to the real count :) ruby people just don't care enough about freashmeat to use it much. all that matters is really just on the github. 'releases' announced on blogs/mailing lists and by releasing new version of a 'gem'. no need to duplicate it on some horrible 'releases' site still stuck in the 90-s :). rubygems package manager does a great job of informing people of new versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Is it cause for concern, or just a statistically insignificant blip?_

It seems obvious to me that it is neither. Even among java programmers, a miniscule fall that brought it a tiny bit below another language that isn't generally used for the same things as Java is totally unimportant. Not to mention other JVM languages are climbing up the rankings. And it's not very sound as a basis for what languages are important.

And it's _definitely_ not a blip. Java's been going down for years in the TIOBE rankings.

</comment><comment> tomh- Seriously? Go outranks action script? This list is flawed.

<comment><USER5> I'm suspicious of their sources when Delphi outranks Javascript as well...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The claim is that Java is losing ground to other languages that use the JVM yet very few in the top-50 rely on the JVM. JavaFX is cited but it's only "approaching" the top-20.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am only surprised it's second to C.

<comment><USER8> If you look at the list, Objective-C has also jumped up 31 spots since last April. I'm wondering if a shift toward development for mobile devices (iPhone and otherwise) has caused C to leapfrog Java.

<comment><USER7> > iPhone and otherwise

Objective-C is not particularly useful for any other mobile platform that's not Apple's

<comment><USER9> "otherwise" as ipad, ipod touch...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I get the feeling that C and C++ are undergoing a mini-renaissance right now. This is a good thing.

The high level language / low-level language thing is one of the "cycles of reincarnation" in software.

I do sometimes wonder... if we spent our time cleaning up the C/C++ ecosystem instead of recoding everything in the newest language of the month, would we get further with that?

</comment><comment><USER11> I noticed the delta from #1 to #2 is 0.007%, i.e. in the 4th significant digit if you round.

(I suppose that if a C programmer had the flu for a couple of weeks, it would be a tie ...)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's the new COBOL!

It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, I think one of the worst reasons to use a particular language is because of it's popularity. Java did a lot of great things but I think its time has passed.

The codebase that is out there makes it difficult to make any significant changes to the language. (eg. generics)

It's lagging because its popularity makes any revolutionary changes impractical to enterprise customers (eg. Oracle). I actually think that Oracle may piss the community off enough that the open source forks of java start making improvements to the language. (eg. MySQL)

New language features are being added to JVM based languages such as scala and clojure instead. This allows new ideas (i realize these are old ideas from a LISP perspective) to florish and reuse the extensive codebase.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you organize and keep track of stuff you've read online? - <AUTHOR> I read a lot of online material and it's all in tiny snippets. A blog post here, a tweet there, an image or a pdf, 10 minutes of a pod cast.
Does anyone keep track of an organize this stuff? If so how and what do you use?
Does anyone share these collections of info with others? If so, how? <comment><USER2> I treat 99.9% of what I read online as ephemeral. Browser bookmarks for the rest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same for me. But that 0.1% is often gold.

Bookmarks are the obvious tool here but they just aren't very useful. A google for my history would be pretty great. Maybe grouping together things that came from similar search sessions.

<comment><USER2> What about bookmarks isn't working for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, the UI for interacting with them I guess.

Often I want to provide some context to someone about what I've read and it's way more than a single article. It's a collected across many sessions.

Searching for things I've viewed at a similar time (history more so than bookmarks but I don't know when I'm going to want to remember something I read!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Evernote could help, it allows you to add tags to a bookmarked article.

</comment><comment><USER4> post it here then mark as a favorite.</comment>


Three geeks rescue a 50-year-old IBM 360 mainframe from an abandoned building - <AUTHOR> https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=22 <comment><USER2> Their main problem will be finding card stock. When compiling, the binary object is output on punched cards. They will need lots of blank Hollerith cards for compiling and testing. Not a lot of places make punched cards anymore.

Also, need card punches for input: IBM 029, Univac 1701. Will also need ribbon for printing readable characters at top of card.

Card readers are high-maintenance equipment. The cards are fed at high speed with a picker knife that needs precise adjustment. The card stock is sensitive to humidity. If it swells, it doesn't go through the card reader.

I wrote Assembler in the 70's on Univac 9300 and 9400's, 360 clones.

I see small lots of cards on eBay for astronomical prices. They probably wouldn't even work because of swelling.

<comment><USER3> Cards are widely available, even new.

Their main problem will be getting it running! For example: if there are germanium transistors in it, they often fail, and you can't get modern replacements easily.

Every board will need to be checked component by component and it will have to be powered up very carefully. Just getting everything connected together and damaged cables repaired will take a long time.

<comment><USER4> Not true! USSR produced germanium transistors much longer than the west. Large quantities are available on eBay. For example here they are being used for radio repair:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wet7QameYc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wet7QameYc4)

The main annoyance is the shipping delay.

One interesting thing I learned is that the metal can germanium transistors are often more reliable than the first generation of silicon transistors: those domed-top epoxy ones are all terrible.

<comment><USER5> Correct. For a Fuzz Factory guitar pedal I built instead of bought, everywhere I read online said to use the AC128 germanium transistors for a better sound. I got a pack off eBay for less than $10 shipped from the Czech Republic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The IBM 360/20 is very limited. It's punched cards in and out. But the IBM 360/125 has disks and communications.

Getting it working, though. Huge job. It's taken years to get the IBM 1401 machines at the Computer Museum in Mountain View running, and they have help from some of the designers and maintenance people.

<comment><USER7> Given sufficient motivation, I expect it would be possible to replace the card reader and punch with something a little more modern. It wouldn't be period- correct, but it would provide a more convenient way to get data into and out of the machine.

Frankly while the machine itself is interesting, what I'm really interested in is what they find on those tapes and disk packs!

I wonder if they have a Twitter feed or mailing list to keep updated on their progress. This is a really cool "barn find".

<comment><USER8> > I expect it would be possible to replace the card reader and punch with > something a little more modern.

The card reader/punch are part of the charm of something like this, though -- that immediate physicality is a real "oh, wow, so THIS is how it works" kind of moment that you can sort of follow up to records, floppy disks, and CDs.

Plus, I imagine if people could make their own little programs through a more modern interface that made the cards, those would make cool souvenirs that might help finance the museum a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My late father started collecting antique cars in the forties. I used to read his car collector magazines as a kid. They would have detailed stories about 'barn finds' of rare autos and this story reads like the best of them.

I well remember Michigan State's IBM 360 in the computer center back in the seventies. You could see it through glass windows from the hall, they were so proud of that machine.

<comment><USER10> What happened to your fathers collection? What cars were in it?

<comment><USER9> He gradually sold them off, sometimes to hire craftsmen to do work on his prized cars that he couldn't do. Things like upholstery and paint. The car he cared the most about and the last one he sold was his 1926 Wills Sainte Claire. My father sold the Wills Sainte Claire so that he could pay for college for my sister and me. But he remained a life long fan of C. Harold Wills and his company.

With the help of the Wills Sainte Claire museum I reunited my father with that car on his 100th birthday at Kellogg Center on the MSU campus. My dad did so much for me that it made me very proud to give him this much joy. It's the only time in my life that I ever totally stunned him. The classic car magazine,Hemmings, even did a story about it.

[https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2016/07/07/wills- sai...](https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2016/07/07/wills-sainte- claire-enthusiast-reunited-with-his-old-wills-on-100th-birthday/#comments- block)

<comment><USER10> That's a fantastic story. Thank you. He looks so happy!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm glad some people take upon themselves to salvage important pieces of our past.

As the technology evolves extremely fast, it seems that traditional preservation & archeology institutions can't deal with these fast enough.

Salvaging IBM360s will probably have the same historical importance in only a few dozens of years.as 16-17th centuries artefacts today.

I know of several private initiative to save items of first era of home computing but salvaging industrial sized computers comes with severe logistics challenges, as these gentlemen demonstrated

<comment><USER12> Funny thing is that it seems that future archaeologists need to have a STEM background.

<comment><USER11> Well, current archeologists need to have a vast range of expertise (water management, cooking techniques, building & more)

I've watched a few days ago a documentary about ScanPyramids, a team of nuclear physicists that used their knowledge to perform non destructive exploration of Kheops Pyramid:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids)

It could be argued that they're top of the line physicists AND archeologists at the same time :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I own and maintain a small retro computing collection, which I've recently put on display in a museum setting in a popular city here in Europe, and one of the most common questions I get from folks paying a visit is: "Why?"

The best answer I can give is, "do you throw old books away when you're done reading them?" .. this always makes people think about it a little, and then I follow up with ".. well throwing away computers is like throwing away old books. Exept it took 10,000 barrels of oil to build the computer, another few thousand barrels of oil to get it to you, probably a few thousand while you used it, and it'll take another few thousand barrels to get rid of it while it rots".

Better to just keep it running and find a user. For every old, archaic, 'outdated' computer that people chuck into the land-fill for the sake of consumerist satisfaction, there are a thousand users who you don't know about who will put that thing to valid use. Find those users, don't throw away the computer.

Old computers never die - their users do!

<comment><USER14> To be fair, plenty of sufficiently old computers are so power hungry that they can be replaced with a modern device that pays its cost (even including many externalities) after only a brief period of operation.

<comment><USER13> The ones that are sufficiently different from modern platforms still need to be preserved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've noticed looking through the site they have a gofundme to fund the return trip of the machine back to the UK. [https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384](https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384) .

<comment><USER16> Pasting the direct link: [https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from- germany-to-t...](https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from-germany-to- the-uk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This appears to be the building that contained the machines:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,11.0857279,3a,75y,31....](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,11.0857279,3a,75y,31.62h,74.19t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.132416%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656)

I found it via the "GlaserExpress" trailer that appears in a few pictures. I used to live nearby a decade ago.

<comment><USER18> I'm amazed that such a central space can be simply abandoned for decades.

<comment><USER19> I'm curious what is stored on all of those reels of tape they packed out. There was no obvious clues that I saw as to the previous use for those machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of the kid that bought an IBM z890 mainframe and brought it to his basement. And got it to work! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk)

<comment><USER21> His presentation was seriously awesome! Thanks a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's not mentioned in the article (too obvious?), but for wondering: Seems like those computers where used by the sports manufacturer Puma ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(brand)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_\(brand\)))

<comment><USER23> Was wondering. But it still looks so weird, this little shop in the midst of all those apartment buildings. Shouldn't puma have been a little larger by that time? And why not Adidas?

<comment><USER22> From what I can see in the pictures, this seems like an annex to a larger building. I imagine that the computer was run by a division of the accounting / book keeping department. Assuming that in the old days there were only a few specialists who were trained in operating a computer, they might have created that space for the (real) nerds. Why not Adidas?! Adidas is a competitor, founded by the brother.

<comment><USER23> Not that I'm an expert in their history, but they were running one company together until some time after ww2 when they split up. So I was wondering if you saw something specific that hinted at puma. Afaik even today they still both have their HQ in the same city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow. I'm a mainframe dev who just turned 30 and this is the dream.

Sometimes I see old VAX or IBM machines given away in Europe but getting it transported to Sweden is an even bigger project than finding something that can be made working.

<comment><USER25> If you can strap them to a couple euro pallets it shouldn't be too expensive to ship.

<comment><USER24> I plan on looking into that if I get a permanent contract (which comes with a pay raise) in a few weeks.

Would love to tinker with that, emulating OpenVMS, z/os etc on x86 gets boring after a while :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment> sean-duffy Fantastic set of posts, its good to see this system being rescued for future generations! The National Museum of Computing for which these gentlemen volunteer is a great place, when I visited it the passion of the volunteers there was really evident, and seeing the likes of the Colossus and WITCH in working order and being demonstrated really is amazing.

<comment><USER26> I second that. It's a fantastic day out

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of Planet of the Apes!

[http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/](http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/)

[http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164](http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164)

[http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732](http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732)

</comment><comment><USER28> "Seltene Anlage" in this context does not translate to plant.

System or machine would be much better fits.

<comment><USER29> There are other meanings to the word "plant", including an industrial site and industrial machinery.

<comment><USER30> "Plant hire" amuses me, as it's not the hiring of greenery for the workplace, but the hiring of dump trunks, excavators etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am picturing the lone gunmen from the xfiles trying to haul it up stairs now in some abandoned warehouse

</comment><comment><USER32> While not nearly as cool, I spent the entirety of April cleaning out the house of a hoarder. Buried beneath 40 years of garbage, I found an Apple II computer, still it its original box, complete with stickers and an integer ROM card (also still in the original box). It was interesting to see one of the first computers I ever touched after all these years.

<comment><USER33> Just curious if that hoarder's house was J--- W</comment></comment><comment>'s in California? He was a relative. Always heard about the house.

<comment><USER10> Ah, John William, yes, I remember him well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Oh great that this found a new home. I was concerned that it would be scrapped when I saw the ebay listing.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope they have the DOS/VSE or whatever operating system that ran on them on backup or installed on the hard drive.

I remember 360's had a level you pulled called the IPL button. Initial Program Load.

<comment><USER36> It's been over a decade since I was responsible for an IBM 400/iSeries, but we still used the term "IPL" for firing up the machine. I bet it's still in use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is reminiscent of Connor Krukosky, who had the IBM z890 in xyr parents' basement.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'll be honest, this was a much larger job than I had expected

</comment><comment><USER38> Love all of the pictures. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER39> The rest of the series:

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64)

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85)

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185)

The submitted url above was [https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks- resc...](https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks- rescue-a-50-year-old-ibm-360-mainframe-from-an-abandoned-building). We changed it to point to the original source.

<comment><USER40> These all give "Error establishing a database connection".

HN hug of death?

<comment><USER11> Most likely yes, it was working fine about 20min ago (0700GMT)</comment></comment></comment>


Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo suffers anomaly during test flight - <AUTHOR> http://spaceflightnow.com/2014/10/31/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-suffers-anomaly-during-test-flight/

<comment><USER2> [http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35117.240](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35117.240) says one pilot has been found alive and possibly another that didn't make it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not a good week for the space industry. :(

There are reports of parachutes, hopefully the pilot got out ok.</comment>


Some Ask a Taboo Question: Is America Overreacting to Coronavirus? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-hype-overreaction-social-distancing.html <comment><USER2> It's not exactly a taboo question: conservative outlets and voters are asking it constantly.

</comment><comment><USER3> i've been railing a lot lately against false dichotomies (because it short- circuits real critical thinking), but we shouldn't fall for framing this question as a left/liberal/democratic vs right/conservative/republican issue (i.e., tribalism makes us dumb).

yes, many people have overreacted: (over-)stating death rates with certainty, buying guns, stockpiling toilet paper and water, etc.

this is not the black plague. indications are that it's a strong form of the cold (many of which are also caused by coronaviruses), which should be taken seriously but not hysterically. the variable risk is that it's a new form of coronavirus, so we don't have a lot of data yet.

we've taken measures in many areas to both contain its spread and get that crucial data that will guide our long-term response. in the meantime, limit exposure, but don't get worked up or frenzied with fear. administrators are putting together economic measures for those who face serious economic risk. consider the next two weeks a staycation and loosely hang out with your family and (close) friends and chill.</comment>


The Modern Mind May Be 100k Years Old (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/the-modern-mind-may-be-100000-years-old <comment><USER2> If humans has the same capacity for thought 100,000 years go as they have now, why didn't "modern civilization" develop earlier? Or rather, why didn't the catalysts for civilization: agriculture, language, writing, etc... happen earlier?

<comment><USER3> Agriculture is a bad deal compared to hunting and gathering. Early agricultural societies had worse health and had harder lives than contemporary hunter gatherers. My hunch is that we spend a lot of time at local maximums until an outside force motivates us to go through a period of being worse off before becoming better off (after the negatives have been addressed and the positives refined).

<comment><USER4> > _Agriculture is a bad deal compared to hunting and gathering. Early > agricultural societies had worse health and had harder lives than > contemporary hunter gatherers._

I keep hearing this, and it's probably true in some sense.

But agriculture is also an _incredibly_ good deal, in that it now supports 7000 million human lives. H&G only reached about 50 million.

So it becomes a philosophical question: Is it better to have a few happy people alive or a huge population of less happy ones?

I'm reminded of the old "explorer's fallacy", where you encounter a tribe in the jungle and marvel at how healthy everyone is. Not realizing that the sick and infirm aren't allowed to live there.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if it's a question of happiness, but instead it was probably one of necessity. H-G numbers were kept in check by available resources randomly dispersed in nature. Agriculture gave man the ability to manifest abundance without necessarily depending on nature to provide.

I think there are many studies on the overall health of hunter-gatherers as a result of diet and exercise and leisure time as demanded by the lifestyle. In early agricultural societies you have to work harder and longer and you're forced to eat a lot of bread, potatoes and corn and other low quality foods.

<comment><USER4> Of course, you can only study the diets of the living.

> _H-G numbers were kept in check by available resources randomly dispersed in > nature._

But... doesn't "numbers were kept in check" mean "surplus people starved to death"?

<comment><USER5> Yes, but that tended to happen in linear fashion. Whereas, after agriculture, growth could occur exponentially and then when a major multi-year drought would hit, you'd have huge devastating loss of life. The deaths of some H-G humans is not much different than the limits of growth modern predators hit today. Hunter-gatherer humans could also keep their numbers in check by breastfeeding longer (sometimes until their children were as old as 5), since breastfeeding delays ovulation. Agricultural societies, meanwhile, developed lactose tolerance for cow's milk, and could use that as a supplement for child nutrition. And women would spend more of their time on the work necessary to run a farm or home, which is more labor intensive than what nomadic H-G tribes did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Taboo observation: the human population has experienced multiple divergent migrations starting potentially as early as 300k years ago[1].

This would have significant implications for potentially different cognition among different human subgroups. Especially those that have lived in isolation for 10s-100s of thousands of years until recent history with modernized travel and interconnectivity.

This may not be a pleasant realization, but it cannot be overlooked in the quest to understand sociological dynamics.

1.[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_mod...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans)

</comment><comment><USER7> Recent theories around Prefrontal Synthesis are useful to consider with regard to the evolution of the "modern mind". ".. the existence of a strong critical period for PFS acquisition creates an evolutionary barrier for behavioral modernity"[1]. In short, the PFS acquisition theory explains functionality of recursive language and imagination. These adaptations are thought to occur about 70k years ago.

[1] [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v8.full](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/166520v8.full), 2019

</comment><comment><USER8> I remember reading about this on reddit and how the idea that there was an explosion of thought 50kya years ago is misleading. This seems to support that idea, I wonder why it hasn't made it's way into the public consciousness yet.

The comment in question: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/4ehwdp/wou...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/4ehwdp/would_an_anatomically_modern_human_newborn_from/d24e5ln/?st=jlcaqf3z&sh=f368960c)

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems odd to me that the ability of us to properly date these things isn't questioned more.

<comment><USER10> Dating like any science has to be based on evidence. As we gather more evidence and learn to identify it, we get better dates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I sometimes like to go down the rabbit hole of Atlantis and related conspiracies. I recall a time in my life those ideas seemed so laughable that they were completely pointless. I blame Joe Rogan and his podcasts with Graham Hancock for forcing me to consider ideas of ancient civilizations seriously. Not that I consider Graham Hancock's specific ideas to be serious. But it did force me to challenge my own preconceptions of what is possible.

I do recall, on hacker news I believe, an article posted based on a study by NASA scientists that tried to calculate the likelihood of finding evidence for civilizations 10 thousand years, 100 thousand years or older. What is shocking is how quickly any remnants of an advanced civilization could deteriorate. IIRC, the conclusion of the study was that the chance of us finding any evidence of civilizations that old were extremely small.

The idea that there was an ancient civilization over 10 thousand years ago is entirely plausible to me. Massive geological events (or even astrological ones like asteroid impacts) could have altered entire continents. Who knows what evidence is at the bottom of the Pacific ocean that we cannot access. Or what evidence has been forced under tectonic plates through subduction.

Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and so far none of the presented evidence is extraordinary (IMO). But our fixed notion that civilization sprang up nearly fully formed 10 thousand years ago doesn't seem as clear to me as it once did.

<comment><USER12> Zero evidence of things like refined metals or synthetic materials in the geologic record makes the odds of an advanced ancient civilization seem highly improbable.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I've heard of refined glass as being one of the indicators. However, pretty advanced technologies like pottery would not have made it.

I can't be sure this [1] is the original article I was remembering but it might be an interesting read anyways. I am sure the study authors approach the subject with far greater care than I could.

1\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-an- industri...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-an-industrial- prehuman-civilization-have-existed-on-earth-before-ours/)

<comment><USER12> I don't agree that pottery is "pretty advanced". It's just fire applied to clay.

Concrete, on the other hand, is advanced.

The novel "The Hab Theory" is a good story about the discovery of prehistoric civilizations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Ace a Data Science Interview - <AUTHOR> http://alyaabbott.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/how-to-ace-a-data-science-interview/

<comment><USER2> What's great about this is that most of the advice shared can be applied to just about any technical interview, especially in software engineering. Knowing your projects and being able to perform on the spot quite technically is always a plus, I've noticed. No matter what, I've learned, being familiar with the fundamentals of the technical area you're trying to become employed in will land you the gig, even with very little experience. Have one or two projects to explain in a sophisticated, detailed manner, and you're likely to beat every other applicant. haha

</comment><comment><USER3> On a slightly tangential note: i too recently interviewed for data scientist positions, and ended up with multiple offers. If you need advise for preparing for data science interviews / need help understanding concepts in machine learning, i'll be happy to help. Contact info is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is useful.</comment>


Rhizome announces 7on7 2011: Chris Poole, Mr. Doob & More - <AUTHOR> http://rhizome.org/sevenonseven/

<comment><USER2> I can't wait for Seven on Seven this year. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to last years event and the quality of all the presentations was amazing. I especially enjoyed Hilary Mason's presentation that added an API to everyday umbrellas and Matt Mullenweg & Evan Roth's WordPress hacks. I'm pretty sure the videos from last year are somewhere on Vimeo. Happy to see that Rhizome has a stellar lineup for this year.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, the videos are on Vimeo. <http://vimeo.com/user365623/videos> I really really enjoyed it last year's 7on7, if you're in NY you really don't want to miss this one. I wish I was there!

</comment><comment><USER4> Beyond the amazing presentation, I was lucky enough to get some behind the scenes insight last year and there were some really incredible minds melding together in whacky/awesome ways. Really cool event!

</comment><comment><USER5> Hooray! I hope I can make it this year! I really enjoyed participating last year.</comment>