The server is running on EC2. As far as I can tell, EC2 does not have a virtual console interface or any other way to rescue a server that blocks all network connections with a firewall.
There's something to be said for relatively simple tool like make. It can be a lot easier to understand what's going on with Make because it eliminates the layers of stuff between the build script and the actual commands that are run. That's not to say that it's possible to write inscrutable Makefiles.
Java presents a lot of problems for make (multiple classes from a single java file, JNI produced files, circular class references, package to package dependencies).
I recommend the book "Parasite Rex" by Carl Zimmer for those who are fascinated by this sort of thing. The book discusses several interesting and creepy parasites.
I heard that acquisitions often involve a merger with a shell company because of a tax or liability advantage. I searched for info on this, but couldn't find anything. Can somebody please comment on how this works?
It is also an error to assume that disallowing GET for updates adds any security. I recommend reading about cross site request forgery. CSRF is the type of attack used on Twitter today.
Yes, you did. You said that not allowing GET requests to change data on a site is commonly covered in network security books. It's not a security issue, it's a behavior issue. GET requests are supposed to "safe" in that they don't result in changing any data on the site[1]. Breaking that expectation can result in all sorts of unintended consequences, such as unintended changes caused by link prefetching.
The article is also subtly wrong. GET requests can be protected from CSRF attacks. There just isn't ever a reason to do that if you're doing things right.
1. "Never said it did prevent CSRF" -- probably should have clarified.
2. You're arguing about semantics. CSRF is a security issue. Being able to send updates without user's knowledge is a security hole too. Backed up by a wrong behaviour if you wish. I should never forget that HN is a Serious Business.
None of the above mentioned makes twitter guys any less lame.
Seriously. Search the web for documents on "cross site request forgery". Most of the documents discuss the POST issue. Some documents don't mention GET because GET should not be used when the request has side effects.
If browsers didn't support cross-site form submission, many common "web gadgets" wouldn't work: there would be no site-customized Google search boxes, and none of those third-party "share this page" buttons. Sure, the merit of those things is itself debatable—but they exist, and web developers will increasingly rely on them (e.g. the Facebook Like button.)
Also, sure, every webserver could proxy the requests—but then you have to guarantee that you haven't created an open proxy, which is a much worse hole than a simple CSRF—and then you have to do some more server-side configuration every time you want to enable your views to touch a new third-party API—which excludes a lot of hosted sites, like blogs, from using any API that their server admin hasn't considered.
It might be that there is a simple and straightforward model, but there are incentives for politicians, academics and other actors in the system to reject this model. For example, politicians will prefer models that defer pain to the future over models that take the pain now. If the simple and straightforward model says that we should take the pain now, then politicians will prefer a different model.
Your analysis of the situation is incomplete because it does not consider the source of the resources used in the government stimulus. The resources need to come from someplace in economy. For the stimulus to be a net positive, the government's allocation of resources must be more efficient than where the resources were taken from.
The resources used in the stimulus come from someplace in the economy. The resources do not magically appear out of thin air when the Fed buys government debt.
It is not obvious that the bulk of the resources come from the idled workers. Resources are needed to pay the workers. Resources are needed to buy the steel, concreate and other materials used in the projects.
>It is not obvious that the bulk of the resources come from the idled workers. Resources are needed to pay the workers.
The resources are the idled workers. Yes, commodity-type resources are used as well, but there is for example a lot of idled equipment out there as well.
"To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip...
Maybe It's because English is not my native language... But I fail to see how Krugman in this article said that policy-makers should go out and create a 2007 recession or put mildly - that he advocated the policy that happened round that time and resulted in following years. To me it seems more like he is describing the mechanics of situation, eg: If you want the car to go faster - step on the right pedal. This sentence doesn't imply that going faster is actually good or desired.
Also as little as I have read Krugman - he (to me at least) came across as very on-point about the issues. I nowhere see the "Hawk" that everyone tries to paint.
This is why I'm going on a "read all Krugman's columns since 2000" one of these days - since I really want to understand flaw not in his but in my logic - since I fail to see Krugman as someone who cheered the disaster we are in.
The Krugman detractors seem to be of the opinion that Krugman is clueless, not that he advocated a recession or cheered on the disaster.
In this article, Krugman says that consumers need to spend more and that a housing bubble is one way to increase consumer spending. Perhaps he was not advocating a housing bubble, but he clearly didn't see a housing bubble as the terrible thing that it turned out to be. If he thought the policy was bad, he wouldn't have offered it as a solution.
Specifically, he does not understand monetary economics on a fundamental level. He could be called a Keynsian, but this would be an insult to Mr. Keynes. (Who only advocated inflation as a short term measure, not as a way of life, and who warned against the results if it were not reversed.)
So, in short, both John Maynard Keynes, and the Austrian School of Economics would say Krugman is clueless about monetary policy.
I think he is not actually clueless. He is a silver tongued liar employed by the government to spread misinformation and make those who think that they are well educated buy into nonsense so that they support unlimited government spending.
IT would take a very long time to read all the krugman articles, and he doesn't write in a very straightforward manner anyway.
However, you can save a bunch of time, and get counter arguments to krugman along with citations of his articles relevant to the bailout at Mises's bailout reader: http://mises.org/daily/3128
Thank you a lot - I'm certainly willing to educate myself on the issue.
I'd just like to state that I'm in no way a Krugman supporter - It wouldn't make sense anyway - since I'm not living in the US and it would be utterly insane to support someone if you don't even understand the context he is operating in. But on the limited exposure I had to his work (columns mostly) - I wasn't able to see the nearly unanimous point that most of the people here seem to hold. Thank you again.
EDIT: I went through all the linked articles - and only one mentions Paul Krugman: http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Thornton13.pdf. I guess I will still have to go through whole Krugman portfolio to figure out who the idiot is here...
Well, thanks for the link. It took some extreme creative interpretation to get the intent and motivation of the writer. Whenever I read opinions like those stated by lzw I make an attempt to understand the social and economic situation the writer is coming from. Quite often one can then understand the forces that twist the logic.
JanezStupar above, pretty much points out that what I was mentioning. Intent is being read into Krugman's article that does not actually appear in the article, The commentators view seems be colored by previously held beliefs.
