I've already mentioned it, but Sam Hall by Poul Anderson is a great example of what happens when the state knows everything and paranoia runs wild. In the story, the chief programmer creates a fictious rebel and the state eats itself trying to find anyone with the slightest connection to him. (Some of the connections helpfully supplied by the chief programmer.) It stands up very well for a story written in the '50's. Buy this book or wait for the paperback. (Cheapskate!:^)
You're linked to a terrorist. Sorry, it's true. Come with us.
Of course, through six degrees of seperation, you're supposed to be linked with everyone on the planet. (I question that, but without a traceroute for people, who knows?) My own link with terrorists is shorter than six. I once had some copies made at copy shop downtown Toronto. It turned out they were forging documents for terrorists.
Chilling coincidence. But what happens when programs start grinding a large amount of data and flagging any other coincidences? Perhaps I once slept in the same hotel on the same night as someone who is a friend of someone who might be a terrorist.. (You see how quickly you can march through those six degrees.) I have nothing to hide, but vaccum cleaner information gathering and processing bears watching -- Because we are all linked to a terrorist.
There's Orwell, but for a good read, try Sam Hall by Poul Anderson. Novelette, so you'll have to find it in an anthology. Like this one.
I hadn't read "Sam Hall", for some reason, and if I was putting together a post 9/11 collection of stories, I'd definitely want to include this tale of the downward spiral of an America that mistakes security for safety by issuing an id number to every citizen and tracking their every movement...and most of their thoughts. Ironically, I'm not necessarily against this sort of thing, but it's fraught with peril, as Poul pointed out.
+4 Informative?? H'okay, but I figured that the third book being called Xenocide was a bit of a give-away. (I did meet OSC back while he was trying to think of a name for that book. I suggested "Dead Ender". He did did seem to ponder that for a moment, but perhaps he was being polite.)
an example of [Western] imperialism streching out through history.. That said, we lucked out with Japan.
Indeed. Here's what happens when it goes wrong. Looks/sounds sadly familiar, don't it? (Start with the top item.) Right down to bickering over who gets the spoils of war.
Art of War, got it. Starship Troopers, got it. Also, Clausewitz On War, Miyamoto Musashi The Book of Five Rings, Machiavelli The Prince. (Hmm, maybe not the last. Wouldn't want them to get ideas.)
Makes sense. Helo and armor are fantastically expensive in cost/time to actually use for training (and there's always the occasional accident). Anything they can do in a simulator (as real as possible) is good. Plus they can try all the bone-head manuevers without anyone getting hurt.
True, in the book, the adults set Ender up. They told him not to shot planets, and told him it was a game. Then in the final round, when he was going to lose anyway, he broke the rules. They knew that Ender would bend or break the rules to win from all the battle room drills.
Ender at least didn't try to evade responsibility for his actions. They were done in ignorance, but he admits he did them.
Excellent post! Another interesting branch of clocks was nautical clocks. They were the GPS of the day, because with the accurate time, you could get a fix on your longitude position.
Of course, there was the slight problem of getting an accurate clock to work on a rolling, pitching, yawing, salt-water type environment.
so they rigged something up to the power line to alter its frequency
School clock systems (at least back in my day:^) used a central signal with the power line as a carrier. Once a minute the cental time clock would send a signal to advance a minute. There was also a reset and advance hour signal so they could fix borfed clocks and leap forward/fall back.
Add a line filter to the clock, inject your own signals, piece of pie!
As for Brazil, they're in a bad way. That sort of variation shows that they're not interconnected with other power grids. (Would you want to connect two out of sync grids? Ouch!)
...and if you're in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's call into
the RIAA wherever you are, just call in say "RIAA, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And hang up. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't listen. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both pirates and they won't listen to either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people calling in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and hangin up. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
fifty people a day calling in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and hangin up. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
The most accurate clock I have is an ancient "digital" flip-leaf that depends on the powerline 60 Hz for its time base. It's not very precise because the line freq does drift from time to time. However, once it drifts too far, the the power company applies a correction to bring it back into range. Accurate, but not precise.
My computers and other appliances use crystal clocks which are very precise. But they slowly drift, and no correction is applied (except when I net sync my computer) so they drift and keep on drifting. Precise, but not accurate.
The net connection/camera/lever arrangement may not be as precise as an atomic clock, but it will be very accurate. See how it works?;^)
Before anyone tries this, please recall that caller id to 800 numbers can't be blocked. (It uses a different system than regular calls. ANI?) It's their dime, so they get your number.
Still sure you want to war-dial them? (Unless you do something clever to hide your tracks, which might bring the RIAA and the phone company down on you.)
The Pythoness of Delphi predicts "A mighty empire shall fall!" (Of course she always smoked something before her predictions. Say, you don't suppose...?)
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I've already mentioned it, but Sam Hall by Poul Anderson is a great example of what happens when the state knows everything and paranoia runs wild. In the story, the chief programmer creates a fictious rebel and the state eats itself trying to find anyone with the slightest connection to him. (Some of the connections helpfully supplied by the chief programmer.) It stands up very well for a story written in the '50's. Buy this book or wait for the paperback. (Cheapskate! :^)
Of course, through six degrees of seperation, you're supposed to be linked with everyone on the planet. (I question that, but without a traceroute for people, who knows?) My own link with terrorists is shorter than six. I once had some copies made at copy shop downtown Toronto. It turned out they were forging documents for terrorists.
Chilling coincidence. But what happens when programs start grinding a large amount of data and flagging any other coincidences? Perhaps I once slept in the same hotel on the same night as someone who is a friend of someone who might be a terrorist.. (You see how quickly you can march through those six degrees.) I have nothing to hide, but vaccum cleaner information gathering and processing bears watching -- Because we are all linked to a terrorist.
Assume sarcasm where none was intended, and throw a hissy-fit when someone points out a historical example when meddling got us to where we are today.
Surprise, I am reluctantly in favour. I just think we'll have to be very careful afterwards not cause another 89 years of problems.
+4 Informative?? H'okay, but I figured that the third book being called Xenocide was a bit of a give-away. (I did meet OSC back while he was trying to think of a name for that book. I suggested "Dead Ender". He did did seem to ponder that for a moment, but perhaps he was being polite.)
Indeed. Here's what happens when it goes wrong. Looks/sounds sadly familiar, don't it? (Start with the top item.) Right down to bickering over who gets the spoils of war.
I thought he meant ramen, as in good with noodles. [/me Looks down at bowl] Uh-oh.
But seriously, he's just lucky the buggers thought that way. I doubt humans would have been so happy about it.
Art of War, got it. Starship Troopers, got it. Also, Clausewitz On War, Miyamoto Musashi The Book of Five Rings, Machiavelli The Prince. (Hmm, maybe not the last. Wouldn't want them to get ideas.)
Makes sense. Helo and armor are fantastically expensive in cost/time to actually use for training (and there's always the occasional accident). Anything they can do in a simulator (as real as possible) is good. Plus they can try all the bone-head manuevers without anyone getting hurt.
Ender at least didn't try to evade responsibility for his actions. They were done in ignorance, but he admits he did them.
Yes... And blowing up a planet implies littering.
"Who are these guys?"
Only if they can lay their hands on some Chemical X. (And cool theme music.) Hmm... Saddam as Mojo Jojo.
Xenocide in Ender's case.
Of course, there was the slight problem of getting an accurate clock to work on a rolling, pitching, yawing, salt-water type environment.
School clocks used a similar system (although not as beautiful as a Western Union clock). My only suggestion is that Google might be your friend.
Edgar Allan Poe about this? The timing on his pendulum was the pits!
School clock systems (at least back in my day :^) used a central signal with the power line as a carrier. Once a minute the cental time clock would send a signal to advance a minute. There was also a reset and advance hour signal so they could fix borfed clocks and leap forward/fall back.
Add a line filter to the clock, inject your own signals, piece of pie!
As for Brazil, they're in a bad way. That sort of variation shows that they're not interconnected with other power grids. (Would you want to connect two out of sync grids? Ouch!)
Thanks to Arlo Guthrie! :^)
Saying "atomic accuracy" would be more precise. :^P (More seriously, it will always be within 1/10 second, which is accurate. Just not very precise.)
My computers and other appliances use crystal clocks which are very precise. But they slowly drift, and no correction is applied (except when I net sync my computer) so they drift and keep on drifting. Precise, but not accurate.
The net connection/camera/lever arrangement may not be as precise as an atomic clock, but it will be very accurate. See how it works? ;^)
I didn't say it was. I was just cautioning to be careful.
Still sure you want to war-dial them? (Unless you do something clever to hide your tracks, which might bring the RIAA and the phone company down on you.)
The Pythoness of Delphi predicts "A mighty empire shall fall!" (Of course she always smoked something before her predictions. Say, you don't suppose...?)
He deliberately used the word to give himself an out later if it doesn't come to pass? Inconceivable!