[HN Gopher] Soviet 'Enigma' cipher machine sells for $22k at col...
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       Soviet 'Enigma' cipher machine sells for $22k at collapsed museum's
       auction
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2021-02-19 11:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | trhway wrote:
       | a true patriot would do anything for the Motherland - "A KGB
       | rectal concealment capsule"
       | https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2021/feb/10/relics...
       | 
       | The starting price looks to be $400 or $450. A total opposite to
       | glorious missile cars and laser watches of Bond. A kind of
       | illustration of a typical contrast between reality of a given
       | profession and it's portrayal in movies, etc.
        
         | IAmGraydon wrote:
         | And it's knurled. Those freaky Soviets.
        
         | ggm wrote:
         | It's in "papillon". Used in prisons worldwide
        
         | sargun wrote:
         | The CIA has the infamous escape toolkit:
         | https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/about-the-c...
         | 
         | Which is similar, but is designed for tools
        
           | jballer wrote:
           | needs a banana for scale...
        
         | WreckedAllFun wrote:
         | Unless they are Enemas of The People.
        
           | medium_burrito wrote:
           | Escape from zhopab!
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | 88840-8855 wrote:
       | It is very strange that nobody is talking about the dramatic
       | effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union. I believe that the
       | collapse is comparable to the post-colonisation effects.
       | 
       | Nobody is talking about the millions of people who got their
       | lives destroyed. Science ended in nothing. Careers disappeared.
       | The GDP took 20 years to recover as it plummeted to the 1960s
       | levels after the collapse. This all was celebrated as "great
       | victory" of freedom and the free markets, ignoring the
       | grandparents of the 1990s who hanged themselves because there was
       | no money to pay anything.
       | 
       | This "Fialka" mentioned in the article is just another artifact
       | of the big mistake we are continuing to do and are still not
       | realizing that we were wrong in the way we treated the countries
       | and people after the collapse. Funny enough that exactly this
       | arrogant behavior has lead to leaders like Xi, who is so consumed
       | by the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union that directly
       | impacts relationships we believe that matter, e.g. Hong Kong,
       | Taiwan and Xinjiang with their Uighurs.
        
         | seppin wrote:
         | > Funny enough that exactly this arrogant behavior has lead to
         | leaders like Xi, who is so consumed by the effects of the
         | collapse of the Soviet Union that directly impacts
         | relationships we believe that matter, e.g. Hong Kong, Taiwan
         | and Xinjiang with their Uighurs.
         | 
         | The west, by not recapitalizing a bankrupt system (that
         | threatened them with nuclear annihilation for decades) is to
         | blame for Xi operating concentration camps?
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | To clarify the title: Enigma was German, this is (predictably)
       | not an Enigma, being soviet. The quotes are to indicate faux, not
       | to specify exactly.
        
       | SimeVidas wrote:
       | In related news, a set of Pokemon trading cards from the 90's
       | recently sold for almost $200k [1]. Our species sure has strange
       | priorities.
       | 
       | [1]: https://gamerant.com/pokemon-card-set-record-price/
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-20 23:00 UTC)