Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-7-2010

[andrewducker]

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London
  (tags: wikileaks JulianAssange law uk)
• Britain powerless to break up banks
  (tags: uk banking europe)
• Abandoned on Everest: the unrecovered bodies and why people have left them there. Facsinating, and NSFW.
  (tags: death everest climbing mountains)
• African poverty is falling faster than you think
  (tags: africa economy poverty)
• The _real_ reason why the trains are running late.
  (tags: animals trains scotland snow)
• Why the Lib Dems should have a three way split on Tuition Fees… and lots of other issues!
  (tags: libdem politics uk)
• American Psycho to be made into a musical.
  (tags: EpicWin AmericanPsycho musicals)
• The myth of meaningful coincidence
  (tags: coincidence maths statistics)
• Inception, Explained
  (tags: inception movies ChristopherNolan)
• Christopher Nolan on Dreams, Architecture, and Ambiguity, and having his own definite explanation for Inception
  (tags: inception movies ChristopherNolan)

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

The thing is that the Wikileaks guy claimed yesterday to have a poison pill file he could release if he was arrested that could bring down governments.

Now we'll find out if he was bluffing.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

If he does then why hasn't he released it already? So far the majority of items I've seen released (at least recently) seem to be matters of diplomatic tension but ultimately meaningless. Telling Russia or China that Western countries have been discussing strategies of attack if it all goes wrong or various politicians or aids less delightful thoughts about other politicians or countries? What's the point of that?
Of course people think and say bad things about each other. If you heard every bad thing your friends had ever said about you behind your back you'd need to have very little ego or you'd probably end up having less friends.

But he has something that could bring down governments? Something actually important and he's not releasing it? Either that's bullshit or the reasons he's been releasing what he has, while not releasing that, are bullshit.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Well, he's not convicted yet. It doesn't make sense to set it off too early.

Plus, the file is probably in the control of his colleagues rather than Assange himself.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

What I meant was, why not release it anyway? Why is he holding it back in case he's convicted? If it's important he should release it now as most of what he has released has been singularly unimportant (not all of it, just most of it), so holding back something actually important just goes to show what bullshit wikileaks is.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Because Wikileaks is trying to act in an ethical manner. The reason the text is not being published all at once is that time is needed to go through it and remove the names of private individuals who might be put in danger.

Since it's possible to take these precautions, they should be taken except as a matter of last resort.

Also, a giant infodump has a much lower chance of being read by anyone than a series of reasonably sized infodumps.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

There certainly is a file that has been disseminated, needing only a crypto key to unlock it. The thing is, it seems that he's only going to a court hearing, not beeing rendered to Sweden. I think the file is for cases where wikileaks is completely unable to operate, which is still a way off. Wikileaks twitter feed says "Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations"

I suspect that "bring down governments" is an overstatement - more like, all the stuff that was going to be processed over the next year comes out in one unedited lump.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

the Everest article is fascinating, thanks for posting

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

I forwarded it to my dad, who is president of one of the larger mountaineering clubs in the UK, and he says:

"Aye, it's all a bit grim. When Brian Blessed went on his televised 1st Everest attempt he clearly wasn't up to it, so Alan Hinkes took him past a few bodies so he'd make a sensible decision. Blessed is an experienced mountaineer (Mt Blanc at 17) and realised he needed more training. & experience. He's been back twice since and always made good decisions and turned back. 27% of people who summit K2 die on the way down. 40% of those who've tried Annapurna have died on the mountain. All their bodies are all either up there or in the glacier.

I'm sticking to Hulme Park...."

(Hulme Park is the Duke of Northumberland's garden, this is a joke that would take too long to explain)

[andrewducker]

There's some interesting discussion here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1978295

The bit about the high altitude rescue is particularly interesting.

I find these stories fascinating, because they're people stretching themselves as far as it's possible for a human being to be stretched. But you'd never get me to do that myself.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Have you read any Joe Simpson? I often get really annoyed by people risking their lives for a thrill/bit of excitement, but Joe Simpson realised what he was doing when he has a young family, so stops crazy mountaineering, and he wrote The Beckoning Silence, about the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, which Channel 4 made a program about a few years ago - it had me in tears. He's more famous for Touching the Void, but I think this one is far superior.

Another good one is Andy Cave' autobiography Learning to Breathe.

That discussion is fascinting too - thanks for the link

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed, thanks for posting that, despite being very creepy. I remember watching the documentary about the search for Mallory's body, but there's something very odd about seeing people looking so lifelike, and yet long dead in the snow.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Actually, some friends of my sister recently climbed Everest. They must have seen all that first hand.