Orwell was writing about the concept of people having their lives run for them.
He then speculated as to how this could be done, and used the Stalinist state as a model.
The book is in fact a general warning against all organisations that feel the need to control us to get what they want, (which is their security and power), be they Communist, Fascist or Corporate.
The whole problem is that large societies come up against a paradox, how do we make people accountable and responsible to each other, as part of a society. As man grows from the village, where everyone knows everyone else, and can be made to conform using societal pressure, to the metropolis, how do we ensure that people are still responsible to each other.
In the metropolis, most people are anonymous. (It is often sad seeing people get off the country train. At first, they wave or smile to each person they pass. This quickly ends).
People such as serial killers can easily hide and get away with their hobby for years. In a village, this would not be possible. The State takes over the task of ensuring moral action, but must resort to technology and beauracracy to get this task done. For the state to ensure perfect conformance, it must be as invasive as life in the village. This is not acceptable in modern society, and leads to absudities in evidence gathering for crimes, where evidence that would quickly convict someone cannot be presented.
At the same time, the State is subject to the forces that assail all large beauracracies, the rise of the power monger. These people have little talent for much, except rising to positions of power in large organisations. They see the world in terms of the power they have, and can then abuse the power available to them to cement their position.
The US today is arguably not a democracy, as less than half of eligeable people vote. Why is that, do people feel that Big Brother is looking after them just fine, or that no matter what they do, Big Brother can never be removed using democratic means?
You can guarantee that Tom's won't think much of this. I can see it now "Overclocking with this chip is impossible, a huge drawback, meaning the the 1423 fps is all you will get in Quake III."
I think that the major difference between apple and MS is that Apple owns the hardware and the software. They don't have to worry about a thousand and one, (ten thousand and one, million and one?), hardware devices involved in running the O/S. No driver hell, no motherboard hell, no processor hell.
Even then it took Apple many years too many to get a real operating system going, and even then it was just Steve Jobs rehashing the Next machine, (except this time he was smart enought to use a colour screen).
The problem in your fathers case would be, at a guess, not that the processor is too fast, but that the motherboard is not up to the job, and by slowing it down, the system is more stable.
Many BSODs are really an indication of hardware rather than software problems, or problems with 3rd party drivers. (Not that I think MS is entirely innocent, just that they sometimes get blamed for things they didn't do).
The problem is it acts like a drug. You sit down to watch the show you want to watch, then you watch the next show. You feel a bit bored, on goes the TV. I try to control my TV watching, then kids want to watch this, and then that. They see ads for Smallville, then they HAVE to watch it. Then the want to watch Ed. I go to turn it off, "hey, we always watch ed". More and more time gets taken up with TV, week by week.
Time for the next TV crackdown, no Ed, no Smallville.
What you need is the Australian system, where ad free TV is paid for by taxes. (For those that pay them, at least). Channel 2 has the best shows, news and current affairs.
You've finally figured it out, all those years of silence at the chess club, when what we really needed was blasting techo track (with light effects) to get the punters in.
My wife inherited a lan using a linux server and windows desktops. It turned out to be a great setup, once the linux server had some maintenance and housekeeping done to it. Windows server prices are outrageous and small business/community projects cannot afford it.
As for windows XP, I can't say drivers are any easier than linux, as even relatively recent hardware, such as a HP 3400c scanner, just doesn't work properly.
I share the same sentiments, it just annoys me that per dollar I pay for the CD, that artist gets less than ten cents. Most of the rest just goes up the noses and into the tech stocks of the management and overhead.
If there is one thing out there that has succeeded in computing terms, it is the RDBMS. Databases are being built and run now using RDBMS that would never have been thought possible years ago. It is time that the UNIX flat file idea, (If I can recall that puffed up piece of waffle, called, I think, The Programmers Guide to Unix, by Saints KR etc, Unix doesn't have any specified file types, it leaves it up to the programmer to do whatever he wants with a flat, binary file. Talk about getting Unix stuck in the stone age.
A simple RDBMS should be built into the operating system, complete with transactional, editing tools. Then you can use tables all the time, and never have to worry about the overhead. The SAP system has built tables built into the programming language, and it's the rare program that does not use them.
I agree, they should get intel in to help them out with learning how to design something that runs a bit faster. And Tom could probably give them a few pointers on how to overclock it.
They wouldn't do that to Sydney, too much of a buddy to the US. Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam seem to be more appropriate for creating some late night entertainment. (Although the general consensus is that the plot for Vietnam sucked.)
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He then speculated as to how this could be done, and used the Stalinist state as a model.
The book is in fact a general warning against all organisations that feel the need to control us to get what they want, (which is their security and power), be they Communist, Fascist or Corporate.
The whole problem is that large societies come up against a paradox, how do we make people accountable and responsible to each other, as part of a society. As man grows from the village, where everyone knows everyone else, and can be made to conform using societal pressure, to the metropolis, how do we ensure that people are still responsible to each other.
In the metropolis, most people are anonymous. (It is often sad seeing people get off the country train. At first, they wave or smile to each person they pass. This quickly ends).
People such as serial killers can easily hide and get away with their hobby for years. In a village, this would not be possible. The State takes over the task of ensuring moral action, but must resort to technology and beauracracy to get this task done. For the state to ensure perfect conformance, it must be as invasive as life in the village. This is not acceptable in modern society, and leads to absudities in evidence gathering for crimes, where evidence that would quickly convict someone cannot be presented.
At the same time, the State is subject to the forces that assail all large beauracracies, the rise of the power monger. These people have little talent for much, except rising to positions of power in large organisations. They see the world in terms of the power they have, and can then abuse the power available to them to cement their position.
The US today is arguably not a democracy, as less than half of eligeable people vote. Why is that, do people feel that Big Brother is looking after them just fine, or that no matter what they do, Big Brother can never be removed using democratic means?
You can guarantee that Tom's won't think much of this. I can see it now "Overclocking with this chip is impossible, a huge drawback, meaning the the 1423 fps is all you will get in Quake III."
Even then it took Apple many years too many to get a real operating system going, and even then it was just Steve Jobs rehashing the Next machine, (except this time he was smart enought to use a colour screen).
The problem in your fathers case would be, at a guess, not that the processor is too fast, but that the motherboard is not up to the job, and by slowing it down, the system is more stable.
Many BSODs are really an indication of hardware rather than software problems, or problems with 3rd party drivers. (Not that I think MS is entirely innocent, just that they sometimes get blamed for things they didn't do).
Time for the next TV crackdown, no Ed, no Smallville.
What you need is the Australian system, where ad free TV is paid for by taxes. (For those that pay them, at least). Channel 2 has the best shows, news and current affairs.
You've finally figured it out, all those years of silence at the chess club, when what we really needed was blasting techo track (with light effects) to get the punters in.
As for windows XP, I can't say drivers are any easier than linux, as even relatively recent hardware, such as a HP 3400c scanner, just doesn't work properly.
Harrison Ford was supposed to have said something along the lines of "You can type this crap George, but we have to say it."
Yes, usually nowhere near you.
The diesel engine was invented because it could run on coal dust.
Then what about all the Americans who made the pledge without 'under god' in it before 1953, and those heathen wretches who wrote the pledge?
When will they drop all this C based programming and start using functional programming? Enough of software bugs.
That was how it worked, what it was used for was multiplication and division.
Like a diamond mine, 99.9% crap, but some genuine gems in there.
I share the same sentiments, it just annoys me that per dollar I pay for the CD, that artist gets less than ten cents. Most of the rest just goes up the noses and into the tech stocks of the management and overhead.
Read in the paper today that falling asleep in a coutroom is.
Can we get to see the gold tablets one day, or did someone leave them in a cupboard somewhere when they moved, so they got lost?
No, I believe South Yorkshire is just 300km SW of Jindabyne.
Crickey, -1 for overrated. Doesn't anyone have a sense of humour around here.
I would ban anything with links to goatse.cx in it.
A simple RDBMS should be built into the operating system, complete with transactional, editing tools. Then you can use tables all the time, and never have to worry about the overhead. The SAP system has built tables built into the programming language, and it's the rare program that does not use them.
I imagine it would be something like a star trek convention. What do I dress up in?
I'd like to meet Klerck
I agree, they should get intel in to help them out with learning how to design something that runs a bit faster. And Tom could probably give them a few pointers on how to overclock it.
They wouldn't do that to Sydney, too much of a buddy to the US. Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam seem to be more appropriate for creating some late night entertainment. (Although the general consensus is that the plot for Vietnam sucked.)