You may have a point. I do recall that Eastasia was said to have a "denial of the self" ideology which was said to correspond (approximately) to the mind-control aspects of Oceania such as the two-minute hate and thoughtcrime. Of course, it's possible to interpret the existence of the other two blocks in a number of ways. Once can take the propaganda at near face-value, or one can posit a world in which, as you suggest, only Oceania is "the bad guy". I think the general tenor of the book supports the first argument. You could even argue that since all the action takes place in a small part of airstrip 1, who knows what's really going on anywhere? (The extreme view -- which I don't suggest you were advocating -- would tend towards an extreme solipsistic view where it's all happening in Winston's head. But that's a trivialised interpretation that can be applied to almost every novel from Austen to Jackie Collins...)
My main point was that contrary to the grandparent post, the conditions described in 1984 are not in any way unique to Britain. They could happen anywhere in the world under appropriate conditions, and clearly some aspects of Oceania society have materialised in various regimes around the world since 1948.
The point about 1984 is the whole world is under the control of three powerblocks, and we are given to understand that they are all pretty much the *same* (give or take local cultural differences) in their attitude to personal liberty. (This assumes that the documents that Winston finds are true and not merely the thought police playing mind games with him, of course).It could well be argued that you could change "Winston Smith from England" to "John Doe from Idaho" or "Ivan Ivanovitch from Russia" and the message would be the same.
It's 20 years since I read the book, so my memory might be playing tricks. But I have actually bothered to read the book.
Portable.NET has a Windows forms implementation - I wonder if that would be a better bet? It strikes me as a little unfair that Mono (fine though it is) gets more publicity and kudos than the dotGNU project. Anyone know why that is?
The article dismisses NetBSD as a server platform because it's more suitable for a heterogeous hardware enviroment (i.e. because it's portable). That seems like a huge non-sequitur to me. It may be true that Open/Free is a better plaform for servers for all I know, but that can't be the reason, can it?
No one should be using ODBC to access Oracle with.NET. There's a "managed code" provider now, and there's an OleDb wrapper too. And, if memory serves, a choice between Microsoft's provider and Oracle's. I've not had an issues with the MS one, but your mileage may vary.
The article implies that CLR code is interpreted. All.NET runs compiled code, either JIT or AOT compiled. And there's an unsubstantiated remark about efficiency and "Long code paths". That looks like FUD to me, and without something substantial it seems suspicious.
It's an interesting point of view expressed in the article. But although it mentions Miguel de Icaza, there's no mention of Mono. Not that there necessarily has to be a mention of Mono, of course, but it struck me as a strange omission. I'm very interested in the mono project and I got the impression that it was regarded as quite significant to Novell alongside the other Linux-type offerings.
And, oddly enough, this museum is on the Swindon campus. So don't turn up in Bath looking for it. You have to drive 25 miles east and get lost in Swindon first.
www.icannwatch.org is recommended reading, especially for anyone who is concerned about the way ICANN is heading. But I wouldn't claim that it is always even-handed.
"good practice" and "legal duty" are two different things - sometimes the two coincide, sometimes not.
A fair point. However, there still seems to be an unwarranted jump between "requirement to keep records" and "changing the burden of proof". I just can't see that one necessitates the other.
As an aside, I presume in the US that businesses have to keep records of financial transactions going back a number of years. It's not an exact analogy, but no one complains that it's shifting the burden of proof if you have a complaint against your company. It's just requiring you to keep evidence. I'm not completely au fait with the fifth amendement, so I don't know how this pans out in the USA.
But it's EXPENSIVE to defend a case. In either case, just keeping a simple record (even crappy VHS) of the broadcast allows you to easily defend matters of fact.
But how long will the court case be? How much bad publicity is generated for your little station? How much does your legal representation cost? How many misinformed viewers assume you are guilty and watch another station? All because you didn't bother to record a little tape.
Let's continue the example.... OK, so your accuser finds ten associates (who despite being half deaf and stupid are prepared to swear in court you said "embezzle") and they have a lot of money and an flash lawyer and want to drag the thing interminably through the courts until they bankrupt you.. wouldn't it be nice if you could hand them a VHS copy and say "listen to this, you idiot, and get a hearing aid".
Yes, burden of proof should be on the accuser, but you have actual evidence in your defence you can get rid of the court case so much more quickly.
I think the point still stands that keeping records of what you do is responsible broadcasting.
By European standards, US broadcast TV is extraordinarily prudish when it comes to matters of anatomy. Evidence: the Jackson nipple. I have it on good authority that when it comes to violent acts, there's more on US TV. But this isn't of itself an issue about where the standards are, but a question about broadcasters accepting responsibilty for what they disseminate.
Say you broadcast a live interview criticising the president. And someone comes up to you the next day and says you accused the president of imbezzlement. And you say "no, I said he was an imbecile, not am imbezzler, but unfortunately I can't prove it because I don't have the tapes..." then what?
It's merely a tool that can be used to prove that a broadcast was offensive/libellous/indecent/whatever, or not. It just records the fact of transmission.
Why is it censorship if you require the broadcaster to keep a record of what was transmitted?
And if a broadcaster has something to say, whether contentious or not, why would you not want to keep a record of it?
I'm not overly impressed by FC2, if only because I tried to install it as a VMWare 3.2 client operating system, and WMWare completely died. So naturally I'm blaming FC2:)
However if anyone has a fix for this....?
Folks in the UK might like to take a look at the museum of computing in Swindon, UK. http://www.digitalhistory.org.uk. It's a small-scale operation that needs your support too. I couldn't compare the this one with the Australian one, but we do need to preserve our history.
Slashdot Mirror
My main point was that contrary to the grandparent post, the conditions described in 1984 are not in any way unique to Britain. They could happen anywhere in the world under appropriate conditions, and clearly some aspects of Oceania society have materialised in various regimes around the world since 1948.
The point about 1984 is the whole world is under the control of three powerblocks, and we are given to understand that they are all pretty much the *same* (give or take local cultural differences) in their attitude to personal liberty. (This assumes that the documents that Winston finds are true and not merely the thought police playing mind games with him, of course).It could well be argued that you could change "Winston Smith from England" to "John Doe from Idaho" or "Ivan Ivanovitch from Russia" and the message would be the same.
It's 20 years since I read the book, so my memory might be playing tricks. But I have actually bothered to read the book.
Portable.NET has a Windows forms implementation - I wonder if that would be a better bet? It strikes me as a little unfair that Mono (fine though it is) gets more publicity and kudos than the dotGNU project. Anyone know why that is?
Vic Reeves, I believe
The article dismisses NetBSD as a server platform because it's more suitable for a heterogeous hardware enviroment (i.e. because it's portable). That seems like a huge non-sequitur to me. It may be true that Open/Free is a better plaform for servers for all I know, but that can't be the reason, can it?
Sorry
No one should be using ODBC to access Oracle with .NET. There's a "managed code" provider now, and there's an OleDb wrapper too. And, if memory serves, a choice between Microsoft's provider and Oracle's. I've not had an issues with the MS one, but your mileage may vary.
The article implies that CLR code is interpreted. All .NET runs compiled code, either JIT or AOT compiled. And there's an unsubstantiated remark about efficiency and "Long code paths". That looks like FUD to me, and without something substantial it seems suspicious.
...You insensitive clod!
It's an interesting point of view expressed in the article. But although it mentions Miguel de Icaza, there's no mention of Mono. Not that there necessarily has to be a mention of Mono, of course, but it struck me as a strange omission. I'm very interested in the mono project and I got the impression that it was regarded as quite significant to Novell alongside the other Linux-type offerings.
And, oddly enough, this museum is on the Swindon campus. So don't turn up in Bath looking for it. You have to drive 25 miles east and get lost in Swindon first.
"CREATE INDEX"
It's amazing what you can do to optimise a query or two...
Advice to the sarcasm-impared: do not take this posting literally.
www.icannwatch.org is recommended reading, especially for anyone who is concerned about the way ICANN is heading. But I wouldn't claim that it is always even-handed.
A fair point. However, there still seems to be an unwarranted jump between "requirement to keep records" and "changing the burden of proof". I just can't see that one necessitates the other.
As an aside, I presume in the US that businesses have to keep records of financial transactions going back a number of years. It's not an exact analogy, but no one complains that it's shifting the burden of proof if you have a complaint against your company. It's just requiring you to keep evidence. I'm not completely au fait with the fifth amendement, so I don't know how this pans out in the USA.
Criminal court = beyond reasonable doubt. Civil = balance of evidence.
But it's EXPENSIVE to defend a case. In either case, just keeping a simple record (even crappy VHS) of the broadcast allows you to easily defend matters of fact.
But how long will the court case be? How much bad publicity is generated for your little station? How much does your legal representation cost? How many misinformed viewers assume you are guilty and watch another station? All because you didn't bother to record a little tape.
Yes, burden of proof should be on the accuser, but you have actual evidence in your defence you can get rid of the court case so much more quickly.
I think the point still stands that keeping records of what you do is responsible broadcasting.
Say you broadcast a live interview criticising the president. And someone comes up to you the next day and says you accused the president of imbezzlement. And you say "no, I said he was an imbecile, not am imbezzler, but unfortunately I can't prove it because I don't have the tapes..." then what?
It's merely a tool that can be used to prove that a broadcast was offensive/libellous/indecent/whatever, or not. It just records the fact of transmission.
Why is it censorship if you require the broadcaster to keep a record of what was transmitted?
And if a broadcaster has something to say, whether contentious or not, why would you not want to keep a record of it?
According to TFA which you might possibly have bothered to R, "earlier this year".
Thanks
I'm not overly impressed by FC2, if only because I tried to install it as a VMWare 3.2 client operating system, and WMWare completely died. So naturally I'm blaming FC2 :)
However if anyone has a fix for this....?
Folks in the UK might like to take a look at the museum of computing in Swindon, UK. http://www.digitalhistory.org.uk. It's a small-scale operation that needs your support too. I couldn't compare the this one with the Australian one, but we do need to preserve our history.
Bad start to an article when the first line contains a blunder like that...