1gor

Ruby: Roda

From the author of the Sequel gem. It can do everything that Rails can, faster and lighter by order of magnitude, expandable (turn on only the plugins you need), and it does it all 'the Ruby way', not 'the Rails way'. That means simplicity, clarity and power. Generally, all software Jeremy Evans releases is of excellent quality and actively supported. Oh, and this Roda framework is in active use by the US government and is subject to regular security audits...

The definition of obscure but powerful and quite beautiful web framework.

APIs you provide to consumers should aim to make their badly written code just work. That's what Linus said.

There was explosion on the sea platform and men were thrown off it by the blast to the water. They were searching for them for a while before pronouncing them dead. This was reported in the Russian media.

The article's study found that "people really don't want to confront information that could potentially disrupt their worldviews."

This thread's comments against "anti-partisanship" articles show that people also don't want to confront information about them not willing to confront information... etc.

> The number of people in slavery would have still decreased

On what basis are you making this assumption? "The fall of Rome" was not an anti-slavery uprising. It was gradual disappearance of the central authority (and all its benefits such as roads, law and order etc).

About 10% of England's population entered in the Domesday Book (1086) were slaves. Compare that with the Roman Empire where slave population (including Rome and all provinces) are estimated at 10-15% of the total.

> If you were a slave, you probably ended up somewhat better off

Slavery continued to exist in Western Europe after the fall of Roman empire until at least year 1000 AD.

In other former parts of Roman Empire such as Northern Africa slavery continued to flourish almost until the 19th century.

James C. Scott is a good illustration of 'no skin in the game' syndrome among intellectuals.

It would be very persuasive to see him personally bolting for freedom between warring warlords in present-day Libya, or improving his welfare in lawless mafia-ruled cities of ex-Soviet Union in the 1990s.

But no such chance, so his views may be safely ignored.

Funny thing is that a US project of nuclear-powered cruise missile Project Pluto has been abandoned in 1964 among other things in order to "not to provoke" the Russians into developing something similar... "against which there was no known defence".

Github is down for Russian developers because some anti-Putin political activists are eager to make a point.

It works like this:

- they push some content deemed illegal in Russia to a github repo (something like instructions on committing suicide or on growing marijuana).

- then they themselves post a complain to the Russian internet regulator, accompanied by the link to illegal content;

- the ugly bureaucrats machine (which is mostly automatic) bans the whole of Github.

- at some point later in the day a human intervenes and unblocks the site, as happened several times in the past.

However, by that time the media has picked up the story, and many oppressed Russian developers who don't know how to use a US proxy, have received job offers.

Imagine someone going to a library and making them remove a book from their catalogue/index.

That book then will be forever covering dust on a library shelf.

That is not a censorship, since anyone who knows where that basement shelf is can read the book. Or is it?

Try Padrino http://padrinorb.com

I obviously won't change your opinions, but here are some facts that may be relevant.

  Ukrainian Jews seek urgent help from Israel Director-general of European 
  Jewish Association urges Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense 
  Minister Moshe Ya'alon to send security forces to Jewish communities 
  in Ukraine due to 'growing wave of anti-Semitic attacks.'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4492710,00.html

http://www.totpi.com/2014/02/25/ukraines-jews-to-israel-help...

Plenty of Jewish activists hate Putin enough to complain that such appeals 'help Russian propaganda'.

But there is another way to look at it, and it is that Russian views are correct from the outset:

The Ukrainian coup that deposed a legitimately elected president has been spearheaded by neo-nazi paramilitaries.

They now control key positions in the government, intimidate their political opponents, including what has remained of the Ukrainian parliament.

I think your 'Goebbels this' and 'Goebbels that' arguments are amusing.

Thanks for confirming that 5 TV channels carrying alternative views are banned in Ukraine. That's no problem for you because you call them propaganda.

Some people disagree. A lot of Ukrainians Russian-speakers feel that their point of view is not represented in Ukrainian official media, and that Russian news provide some valuable alternative. After all, one of the first laws of new Kiev govt was an anti-Russian language law.

And then in a single breath you deny neo-Nazi issue as a bullshit. You obviously know that lenta.ru editor was fired allegedly for publishing a link to Ukrainian "Right Sector" content.

Next you of may want to deny that Svoboda and their paramilitary wing Right Sector are neo-nazis... I could refer to to European Union officials expressing concern about Svoboda's position in Kiev government, but I think my arguments will be lost on you.

I've corrected my comment. Not all Russian language news were banned.

Still, it seems Ukrainian government is also trying to censor some news sources.

I corrected my remark above. They did not ban all Russian language channels, only some of them.

Did EFF complain about Ukraine government outlawing access to any Russian language news a few days ago?

Correction: Above sentence is not correct. Not all Russian language news were outlawed. Instead, only Russian TV channels were banned in Ukraine a few days ago. This has caused OSCE to express concern. See the link below.

Almost a half of Ukrainians speak Russian language. New Kiev government has banned national broadcasts in this language, effectively denying its people access to information.

When we hear the arguments that banning Russian-language press/TV in Ukraine is OK, since those are necessarily 'Putin propaganda', but banning radical sites[1] in Russia is wrong, because they are 'independent news', we can only admire the ability to maintain double standards without as much at batting an eye.

(http://www.osce.org/fom/116312)

[1] I don't necessarily agree with Russian government definition of 'extremist/radical', but their point is that above Russian sites have given their pages to neo-Nazis to call to armed struggle against the state.

While the press freedom is important there are different priorities during the wartime.

Russia today is ready to go to war with the West in order to keep Ukraine from joining NATO. "Russia regards this as an existential threat and will do whatever it takes to prevent it happening. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26566452)"

The banned sites are considered enemy propaganda outfits by Kremlin.

  Putin is pretty evil

Since when Putin has became an euphemism for Russia? Why don't everyone simply say 'Russians are evil'?

Because ~65% of Russians voted for Putin, and they did it three times. He is very popular. Not difficult to see why. Since he came to power their GDP per capita (PPP-adjusted) almost doubled, law and order improved, corruption went down. And more Russians are being born than die, so the population decline is reversed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/02/04/five-myt...

For all his populism, Putin's economic policies have been very shrewd - Russia paid out its foreign debt and has currently some of the largest foreign currency reserves, and one of the lowest tax rates in the world.

As to the efforts to present Putin as some evil thug, throwing journalists to gulags etc. - this is just laughable. The best example are Pussy Riot. When the best anti-Putin propaganda can do is to call a punk-group who insults religious minorities a victim of political prosecution... Well, probably, Russians have to conclude that there are no real issues with freedom of speech in their country!

It's perfectly fine not to like Russians improving their life and enjoying a stronger country. But don't blame poor Putin for that. He is simply an elected official, it's just that Russians have been lucky to find a capable one.