The Squares of the City
Posted 27 Feb, 2005 at 16:50 by matt in /Books | Permanent link
John Brunner is a science-fiction author that anyone who's interested in SF should read. He writes social
SF for the most part; what there is in the way of technological gadgetry is mostly subordinate to questions of how people -- large groups of people -- manage to live together under different circumstances. Often the results of his ponderings are dystopic; unlike the classic dystopias, though, Brunner almost always allows for a thread of hope in his broken worlds.
Brunner had a ten-year period, roughly centered around 1970, of banging out one classic novel after another. Probably his best known are the award-winning Stand on Zanzibar (1968), which looks at population pressure, and The Shockwave Rider (1975), which now looks like an immediate precursor to the cyberpunk movement. I've been finding and reading other Brunner books from this period, and a little while ago I picked up The Squares of the City.
Squares deals with mind control: not in the sense of direct thought control or zombification or anything like that, but through more subtle vectors. Advertising and propoganda. Subliminal imagery. Base manipulation. The protagonist's craft is that of "traffic engineer", and he's brought to a Latin American utopia of a city in order to eliminate certain unplanned, undesirable features of the city. Throughout the story one finds chess imagery, echoing both the main character's profession (of subtly manipulating circumstances to desired ends) and the discussions of the role of media in shaping public opinion.
The story works on several levels. At its base, it's a narration of a conflict where neither side seems to be entirely pure or correct, and so it's interesting purely for the reason. At the same time, it's a meditation on freedom and manipulation and responsibility. And above all that, is a beautiful bit of structural play which reveals itself as the book progresses. It's worth reading, but do yourself a favour: if you grab a copy of it, skip over the preface (written by Emmanuel Laskar, a chess-master); it doesn't say much that Brunner himself doesn't say in the afterword, and it gives away something of the game.
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Small Plastic Things And Cats?
Posted 26 Feb, 2005 at 19:21 by blue in /Arts | Permanent link
Ahhh... Now I get it!
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Gaytz parody
Posted 26 Feb, 2005 at 07:39 by wendy in /Arts | Permanent link
Check this out...at first I thought it was just a joke
"Hargo Day was established to also recognize the human capacity for appreciation, wonder, and awe that can be achieved when small plastic things are arranged in a certain order near and around a cat."
But no, Geoff Hargadon's Somerville Gates are getting a rave review.
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Queen of Wands and the marble game
Posted 25 Feb, 2005 at 15:46 by matt in /Arts | Permanent link
There's a game that actors (or at least student actors) sometimes play, one of a number of "closing night" games, that involves a marble. The first person on stage carries a marble, see, and that marble is not permitted to leave the stage within the constraints of the play's direction. The marble is supposed to be passed from actor to actor, on stage, and preferably without the audience ever noticing that there's something strange going on.
Earlier this week, Queen of Wands came to an end. The main character drove off to Boston and a new life. Speculation was rampant that she would join the regular cast of Something Positive, as there had been several past cross-overs between the strips. Well, yesterday that question was answered fairly definitively.
Now, if that was all there was -- random character killed off as a twisted sort of tribute -- then that would be funny enough. But then other cartoonists started to grab for the marble, most notably Straub of Checkerboard Nightmare. (Eric Burns at WebSnark -- an online comics commentator, how cool is that? -- has been tracking appearances, so see his site for more.)
The cool part about this, and the part that reminds me of the marble game, is that most of the sightings so far have been in passing... that is, there's nothing happening that mightn't normally happen in the comic in question. Someone dies in the background; in Something Positive, that's not entirely unexpected. Vaporware kills a random pedestrian; this is entirely in character. The Kestrel references aren't the focus of the strips: they're clever, but not in some sense the point. And so -- if you read one of these "tribute" strips without knowing the background -- it's as though there's nothing strange going on.
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Hey Blue,
Posted 25 Feb, 2005 at 08:10 by wendy in /Home | Permanent link
turns out we're going to be practically neighbours. I don't move until end of April...but I suspect that if I'm standing on my balcony I might just be able to see your place...
Yay, no more 2&1/2 hours of commuting every day!
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Ever stop to think how lucky we are....
Posted 25 Feb, 2005 at 08:08 by wendy in /Social | Permanent link
that we all grew up with computers?
Just think for a minute about all those folks whose first encounter with a computer came when they were all grown up...and had just been sold a fancy system that someone convinced them they needed. And so their first real experience with a computer is happening at home, with a friend or relative who also hasn't got a clue. I mean, obviously they've seen a computer before, probably even used one in an internet cafe where someone else had set everything up and configured it nicely...and now they're sitting there in front of their very own machine...which they just spent more money on than they could really afford...trying to figure out whether hitting 'Ok' on the little dialog is a good thing or if it's going to get them in real trouble...
So unfortunately this is in french...but I know that at least one of you has a passing familiarity with the language. Pov tipe.
Funniest thing for me came from reading the comments after the video...I've just never seen French mangled the same way English gets mangled by people who are spelling phonetically (if at all) and using a ton of slang. And then the other people calling them on their spelling mistakes :)
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3 Minute Pop-Songs (reprise)
Posted 25 Feb, 2005 at 06:20 by blue in /Music | Permanent link
Being a somewhat late comer to this forum, I only recently stumbled across Matt's Post about 3-minute pop songs.
The idea was fascinating enough that I thought I would give it a whirl on my own collection. Oddly enough, while I have many of the same songs, my versions do not measure out at 3-minutes exactly. Those that did though were a surprisingly good mix in my opinion.
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Pooh Bear Security
Posted 25 Feb, 2005 at 05:56 by blue in /Technical | Permanent link
Pooh bear once said, You never can tell with bees.
But it would appear that security experts intend do use the principle of attracting more bees with honey than vinegar as Honeypot methods of security become more prevalent and cost effective.
The truely neat thing (I think) is that it doesn't stop a hacker, but rather lets them think they've succeeded. They get in to a completely ficticious enviroment, all the while being monitored and recorded by you. It's like the computer geek's version of an ant farm. I can see them now bragging to each other about how many hackers they've managed to trap in their own little lost world. Grinning as the hackers merrily devour one false file after another, or spend hours building trojans that will will do nothing.
If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about you should read an article like this one.
I'll leave you with this thought... A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside. - Winnie the Pooh.... hmmm... Oh Bother! I'm all out of honey!
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TV Series Watching List
Posted 24 Feb, 2005 at 07:16 by kael in /MovingPictures | Permanent link
BattleStarGalactica: Lite sci-fi thriller [After seeing full first season] Carnivale: X-files meets the circus? [After seeing first episode] Alias: How long are they going to drag this out for? [After seeing 5 episodes of S4]
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Wireless Security
Posted 24 Feb, 2005 at 06:51 by kael in /Technical | Permanent link
I've been using wireless networking for a while now, mainly because my main machine is a laptop, and I'm sick of wires. I've even gone so far as buying Drew a second hand wireless router so that I don't need to use a freakin' wire at his place (which would have to be about 30 ft long, considering the layout of his place).
The one thing I've come to realize, given all the laptops that I administer (mine, KC's dad's, KC's, and in a few days, the one I'm putting together for my brother) is that wireless "security" seems to be anything but. Using 128-bit WEP (which is the closest thing to a common security protocol amongst the router's the I've obtained) actually borke KC's dad's laptop's wireless connection, so they have an unsecured wireless connection. If it wasn't for the fact that the router's in the basement and I can't connect to it when I'm sitting directly above it on the main floor, I'd be freaking out. It turns out I have to be in the same room to use that router (which was my old router at my place).
Wireless is vaguely convenient, but if you're using it, I really suggest you install some connection management software on your machine. At the very least, something like Zone Alarm.
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Don't you mean turn it up?
Posted 23 Feb, 2005 at 14:17 by blue in /Social | Permanent link
I started to reply to Wendy's post but got carried enough away I decided to start my own. I suppose this is called Dangling Conversations after all so maybe that's not such a bad thing... so...
I like the idea of being a 'star in my own music video'. Could be though because I always have a song going through my head and can tune out the world, iPod or not.
That said, I know what they mean about the iPod zombies. I see them everywhere. Taking out the trash in my apartment building. At the gym running. Sitting on a bench in the mall staring off into space.
But is this really anything new? When you get on a subway the vast majority of people tend to fall quiet. The same sort of effect can be seen in an elevator full of people. Is it a fear of interacting? I don't think so. After all, more often than not you tend to get annoyed with people who carry on loud conversations with others in the elevator. It's an affront to your personal space.
And personal space is important to people. And it's something that humanity continues to give up daily.
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Turn off that iPod
Posted 23 Feb, 2005 at 13:26 by wendy in /Music | Permanent link
There's a neat article over at TimesOnline about how turning on your iPod is pretty much equivalent to tuning out of the world.
There were little white wires hanging down from their ears, or tucked into pockets, purses or jackets. The eyes were a little vacant. Each was in his or her own musical world, walking to their soundtrack, stars in their own music video, almost oblivious to the world around them. These are the iPod people.What do you guys think of this? Personally I don't own an iPod at least in part because they're so expensive...but it's also because I don't like it when I sit down on the subway next to someone with their own personal soundtrack playing. Of course, I feel the same way about cell phones and I have pretty good evidence that no one else around here really agrees with me :)
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Stolen from the SKZB mailing list
Posted 22 Feb, 2005 at 17:00 by matt in /Words | Permanent link
There was a young man of Hanshu
Who tried limericks in haiku
But
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I've gone and fallen in love
Posted 22 Feb, 2005 at 15:18 by wendy in /Arts | Permanent link
I really can't explain it...but I want to take him home with me.
Apparently I fall into category number 2.
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Bunny of the Month
Posted 22 Feb, 2005 at 15:14 by wendy in /Arts | Permanent link
Tell me you don't want one of these...bunny...details here.
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Machines
Posted 22 Feb, 2005 at 13:41 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
If you've never seen one of Arthur Ganson's Machines, you should.
Part sculptor, part engineer... all quirky.
His machines tend to be made from scraps of paper or old wire... they often have an engine of some sort. All that I saw, mimiced life... be it birds, or inscets or a child watching a ball.
Enjoy!
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The real meaning of power
Posted 21 Feb, 2005 at 11:05 by blue in /Enviroment | Permanent link
Sometimes it's easy to forget how small we really are.
Then we see a major force of nature like a volcano, or an earthquake or a tsunami and we think "Wow!".
Then someone tells us about the distance between planets or that the storm on Jupiter is the size of a small planet... or that the sun will one day expand to cover Earth's orbit and our mind can barely grasp the true magnitude of that and we think.. "Holy shoot!".
Then there is this... a magnetar some 50,000 light years away caused an explosion big enough to alter our ionsphere. So what you say? Your mind balks at even thinking of this as cool. The scope of it is just to big to even be impressed by.
So let me put it into perspective. It's not a magnetar... it's the Death Star and the rebels just won.
"Cooool!"
Ya... I thought so too.
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Everybody Love Bunnies
Posted 18 Feb, 2005 at 14:38 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
See your favorite movies reenacted by rabbits in only 30 seconds. (Bunnies do it quicker?)
Hmm.. well, actually... some bunnies don't do it at all.
P.S. Be sure to click on the bunny at the end of 'Jaws'
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Comics - Take 2
Posted 18 Feb, 2005 at 09:02 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
After the last post I made about online comics receiving only moderate attention one would wonder why I would bother again? Well cause the idea of people in a photo lab playing 'Fish' with your photos is bizzarely like something I would do if I worked in a photo lab...
See what I'm talking about.
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Wireless internet as utility
Posted 17 Feb, 2005 at 13:08 by matt in /Technical | Permanent link
So a number of cities (in this country, at least) have been planning and implementing wireless zones, with servers that are maintained by the municipal government and paid for either entirely by taxes (which would make connection free, effectively) or else by a subscription service (which often ends up being cheaper than broadband through cable or DSL).
The most comprehensive such programme that I've seen is being planned in Philadelphia, and it's generated some controversy ("registration" required... username and password "mediajunkie" should work). The argument Verizon is advancing against the plan is essentially self-contradictory, of course. I partcularly like the part when the Verizon spokesman says that government's bad at service; speaking as a Verizon customer, so are they.
So what do y'all think? Should cities and towns set up and maintain a wireless infrastructure for their residents?
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Wireless is Setup
Posted 16 Feb, 2005 at 01:19 by brent in /Technical | Permanent link
Wireless is now setup here in our little cozy abode. I've finally bothered to set it up again now that I have a laptop that has wireless built in. Since setting up a mostly secure wireless network was such a pain in the a$$ before, I've made it pretty much insecure except that it lives on it's own subnet without direct access to the wired network. Firewall scripts have been updated as well to allow communication between the external and the two internals and between the internals. Fun times!
I still have to pop on most of the restrictions I have from external to internal to apply to the wireless subnet to internal as well. I will leave that for tomorrow night however.
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Dumb riddle
Posted 15 Feb, 2005 at 11:24 by matt in /Music | Permanent link
What do Head over heels by Blue Rodeo, No myth by Michael Penn, Super bowl sundae by Ozomatli, and Mr. Jones by the Counting Crows have in common? The answer isn't that they're all in my music collection, as I seem to lack any significant quantity of Blue Rodeo for some reason.
(In case you're wondering, I thought of this while mentally composing a themed mix CD this morning.)
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Firewall update
Posted 15 Feb, 2005 at 09:50 by brent in /Technical | Permanent link
Just a quick note that I did a "quick" hardware update to the firewall--added a 3rd NIC. It took a while to figure out which NIC got assigned to which eth* address since I couldn't find it in the software anywhere what the association was, so I ended up shining my handy dandy mini maglite into the case and looking at the MAC addresses for each of the cards to match them up to the eth* device. Happily everything is green again.
Why am I adding a third NIC? To support wireless. On my network, wireless people are just going to have to be second class. I don't trust them intermingling with my wired network (especially since locking down wireless devices seems to render them unreliable at best). Since the wireless won't be secure it's going to live in it's own little space.
Oh, couple other notes: Firewall settings are now backed up nightly. Web sites are backed up weekly (mostly because it's 8 GB per backup--almost on the verge of exceeding two DVDs). And databases are backed up nightly.
Oh the tool I'm using for web site backup was designed to allow me to backup the directories and preserve the security attributes and user information. If something catastrophic happens and I still have the data, I can use the same tool to restore the directories and remap the user accounts into a new domain. The tool is at: Cross Domain Backup/Restore Tool
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Old Man's War
Posted 14 Feb, 2005 at 15:18 by matt in /Books | Permanent link
I've tried writing this review several times in the past few days, and it just hasn't been gelling. Let's see if this time goes any better.
The first thing you should know about OMW: John Scalzi has clearly done his homework in Heinlein 101. And 102. Probably all the way up to the graduate-level. This novel -- his first to be picked up by a publisher -- has been compared to Starship Troopers by numerous reviewers, for a number of obvious reasons. There's a similar setting, for instance: Earth has colonized space, found that it's not all friendly out there, and so there's a kind of space-marine force. If you (as an Earth-born) want the stars, then you have to join up to fight for some period of time.
Which brings us to the first point of bifurcation: as the title suggests, the Colonial Defence Forces are only interested in the elderly: people who've lived life, survived to a ripe old age, and thus might have some store of wits and wisdom. They can -- and will -- rebuild you.
OMW also touches on some of the same themes as Starship Troopers: the value of a strong military (as well as its drawbacks) and its relations with civilian life, war as a transformative force, comradeship. I've seen some refer to this as an anti-war book, which I don't think is entirely accurate, though I certainly wouldn't characterize it as hawkish.
The writing itself is a joy. The narrative is first-person, matter-of-fact about wonders and absurdities alike. (I can remember laughing out loud at least twice while reading the book.) While the main character isn't a stand-in for the author, certain aspects of the perspective will seem familiar to any readers of Scalzi's blog.
Even the drawbacks of the book are Heinleinesque. One of my principal complaints about Heinlein is that his characterizations tend to be sketchy at best; given a block of dialogue with attributions removed from any of his books, I would probably be unable to tell you which character was saying what. (F'rinstance, can anyone tell Jubal's women apart in Stranger in a Strange Land by their speeches alone?) Scalzi's got some of the same sorts of problems here, I feel; his principal characters have quirks that stand in for personality traits. (By contrast, the "bad guy" characters, the ones that we're not supposed to sympathise with, all stand out in my mind very distinctly. This could be because it's easier to describe what you don't like about a person than it is to describe what you like.)
Still, highly recommended. There's one major head-scratcher in the plot (which, admittedly, I only picked up on after reflection) that'll probably be explained in the sequel, The Ghost Brigades; I, for one, eagerly await.
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Overshare - Definition
Posted 12 Feb, 2005 at 07:42 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
o·ver·share v. Pronunciation Key (
v
r·shâr)
1. The act of continuing to talk beyond the point one should, thus revealing things better left unsaid.
Ex.
Sharing - "I love ice cream!"
Oversharing - "I love ice cream! Especially the way it feels when it squishes around your toes."
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They adopted a rock!!!
Posted 11 Feb, 2005 at 07:42 by wendy in /Chatter | Permanent link
Given that gay marriage is one of the hot topics these days...check out the penguin situation.
Then go read what Dan Blau has to say about it...because he's funny.
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The world's smartest bird
Posted 10 Feb, 2005 at 15:04 by blue in /Enviroment | Permanent link
Okay... well, it might be debatable that performing a series of tricks makes one smart, the bird featured here is one of, what are generally considered, the smartest species of birds on the planet. African Grey Parrots. There is actually one in my basement for sale at the moment. I've thought about buying it, but simply don't have the time or dedication to look after her for the next 60 years... (mostly cause at this point, she's likely to outlive me).
Still... they are impressive birds, don't you agree?
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A high tech screen cleaner
Posted 10 Feb, 2005 at 11:44 by blue in /Technical | Permanent link
This is very cool. Someone has discovered a way to clean your monitor screen via the internet.
If you haven't seen it, you should try it now!
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Colloseum
Posted 10 Feb, 2005 at 09:20 by brent in /Games | Permanent link
"http://www.cityofheroes.com/features_update.html">Issue 4 for City of Heroes is a work in progress; you can see the coming colloseums being built right now in the various locations that will have them.The interesting part from my point of view is the expanded character customization. I don't mind heading to the tailor to adjust clothing, but will there be plastic surgeons now for superheroes to adjust their appearance as drastically as looking more like an anime character?
I guess what concerns me is that in this burgeoning world of heroic deeds, will we have opportunities to spend our influence on something other than the enrichment of our powers and cosmetic manipulations? Will there be apartments to show of my slew of badges? Perhaps pictures of interesting defeats of villains? A view of the skyline?
What about retirement? I can't be a superhero forever. I'll need to develop some skills that will keep me going when I'm ready to hang up the cape. While I understand Paragon City needs its superheroes for assistance, we need opportunities to be more than just the cape.
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Little Golden Book...
Posted 10 Feb, 2005 at 08:19 by wendy in /Books | Permanent link
Do any of you remember those "Little Golden Books" from when you were a kid? I know my parents bought me a bunch of them...but I don't think that My Little Golden Book About ZOGG was quite what they had in mind.
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Network Nazis
Posted 10 Feb, 2005 at 01:04 by brent in /Technical | Permanent link
So it would seem that the network infrastructure at work is guarded pretty heavily.
Before the holidays, I could manage to play City of Heroes from work, even from corpnet let alone my dtap. Well it now appears that the port is shut off. Now not only does City of Heroes not work MSN Messenger doesn't work from work as well. How stupid is that?
Furthermore they sent mail (at least marked important) yesterday indicating that everyone would have to install the security patches released yesterday by 12 pm tonight otherwise it would be FORCE installed and your machine FORCEFULLY rebooted. So if you are running anything, say like, business related, that say, takes a long !@#!@# time, then you will be forced to interrupt this for the sake of accomodating our own personal network nazis.
This extends to remoting into work from home. It took a whole minute just to connect from home to work over my DSL line. Then it runs through a quarantine phase where I can't do crap all network related while it scans my pc for all of the security requirements our network nazis have mandated. This includes company mandated virus scanner, security patches, etc. Now tonight I had the distinct pleasure of one of those checks failing because the @#$@#$ their script that does the test. I had to figure out what it was searching for so that I could install it manually and then connect and then at least put in a workaround to a build break that someone else introduced (but was hidden by my own from earlier). The twist to this whole client connectivity thing (besides requiring a smartcard that also has a password on it along with my domain account with another password) is that I have to run this connectivity software as an administrator. So the network nazis can rape my machine remotely without having any checks involved. Besides the security hole that running as administrator is. I don't run as admin on my box, so I end up doing runas on internet explorer to get a process that is running as administrator (local though, not domain) and then switch to the c:\ drive to get a browser window, go up one directory to the drive list, navigate to Control Panel, Network Settings, then select their machine raping software and then have my machine submit to the will of the almighty corporate network as it has it's way with my computer.
It's some comfort that I'm off of main campus. I don't feel quite so attached to some of the absurdity that occurs (not too mention the incredibly awesome project I'm on, cool people, and actual innovation going on).
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Dodgeball
Posted 07 Feb, 2005 at 15:52 by wendy in /MovingPictures | Permanent link
I wound up watching this entirely by accident the other day. Ordinarily it is the sort of movie I would avoid like the plague. If it had been possible, I would have stopped watching it after about 5 minutes. Fortunately it wasn't possible, I was on a bus with nothing else to do...so I watched it. Now maybe the only reason it was so great was because I had absoltely no expectations...actually that's wrong. I was expecting it to be horrible and cringe inducing. Instead, it was awesome. Terrible, but hilarious. I mean, they throw in Lance Armstrong to give the hero a "you shouldn't quit, look at me, I was diagnosed with several different types of cancer and I didn't quit" speech.
Anyway, next time you have absolutely nothing to do, and want to laugh a whole bunch, go rent this one.
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Library run report -- 2/5/2005
Posted 05 Feb, 2005 at 15:10 by matt in /Books | Permanent link
For all of you out there who're wondering what I'm reading these days...
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The concept of enough
Posted 03 Feb, 2005 at 10:46 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
When is enough, enough?
The thought occured to me the other day as I was paying for my dinner in a restaurant.
I'm the sort who generally tips well. Too well apparently according to the people whom I was out with.
My portion of the bill came to around 15 dollars. I tossed on a 20 and got up to leave. The people I was with insisted that I was overpaying and kept trying to foist off money on me from the change pile. The more I resisted the more they insisted.
Now, here is my dilema. I'm a single white male with a reasonable income (I am by no means rich, but nor am I poor. If pressed, I would say I am happily middle class). I have no family, no car and no mortgage. I have a few hobbies and no ongoing health problems which require steady purchases. I have no addicitions (at least not to anything too costly).
In short, an extra couple of dollars here or there does not mean that much to me. I can live without that extra muffin from Tim Hortons for a day or two (and rightfully should to support my waistline :) )
That same $2 to someone who probably makes about half of what I do, may mean a lot more. Now... that's not to say that your typical waiter views the twoonie as anything more than a coffee and donut either, but even so... it is likely to make a lot greater difference to their take home than mine. And maybe with better purpose.
If I extrapolate that argument out to the have and have-not countries, then the different becomes more meaningful as my $2 may mean significantly more to someone in a developing nation. (Sometimes I hate that term... are they really 'developing'? Are we?)
Hmm... but it wasn't like leaving this $5 at the table was going to combat world hunger, so why then my ire at people insisting I take the change.
Perhaps it is that here in North America we live in a culture of 'maximizing' what you have. More french fries. More pop. More clothes. More stuff. More money.
We seem to feel that you should always squeeze everything you can. In fact, many people take to heart that you should watch the pennies because they will grow into dollars.
Well, they are right and it is good advice to live by... yet, is there not a limit?
Where is the recognition of not what is better... but what is sufficient?
When I say I have enough money and do not need to worry about $5, some people take this as me being arrogant. Trying to show off. But it's not. It's simply a matter of feeling satisfied. I ate a good meal. I paid for it. And if there was a couple of extra dollars because the smallest thing I has was a $20... so what? I don't need the extra money. Let someone who can find a better purpose for it have it.
Is there a concept of enough in our society?
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Is privacy a right?
Posted 02 Feb, 2005 at 13:48 by blue in /Chatter | Permanent link
So, Kael raised an interesting tangent in response to my post about EMR's.
Is privacy an inherent right?
He claimed that is wasn't, and never had been. I find that I would, on the whole, tend to agree with him.
Does that mean that I don't value the ability to hide my deep dark skeletons? Hardly. On the contrary, I'm quite happy to let Boney-man and the boney-clan hang out back there with Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis, away from the prying eyes of even my closest friends.
But I don't take it for granted that I have a right to my privacy should I compromise the social contract I live under.
Yep. Contract. I have innumerable social contracts that I have entered into... and while as a child I may have had little choice, as a fully grown adult I can no longer shirk the responsibilty for my choices in life and must abide by the contracts I have accepted.
So what am I talking about?
Well, let's think about things on a scale that might have been common a couple of hundred years ago.
A settlement, or group of people, might band together collectively and decide that they would each shoulder a portion of the burden of cost for law enforcement, in the form of a Sherrif, or army or Bubba-with-a-club. Similarily they might decide to collectively pay for a new well, or a marketplace or a better road. Maybe something as simple as a town sign. Maybe a fire department (it worked for Marcus Crassus in Rome).
What if you disagreed with this? Well, depending on the circumstances, you could opt out. Decide not to be a part of the collective agreement... the contact... the society.
What did that mean? Well, first up, other people probably didn't care for you quite as much. After all, you would have chosen not to share your lot in life with them. You no longer had a shared interest.
It also meant that good ol' Bubba-with-a-club wasn't as likely to put his neck on the line to save you when someone broke into your place intent on all sorts of nasty goodness. Or that the fire department was as likely to come by and roast mashmallows as lift a finger to help. (again, Marcus Crassus was the richest man in Rome largely due to his fire-department business).
In essence, pay your dues, or be left out of the club.
So how does this tie to Privacy and the concept of "rights"... I'll get to that in a minute.
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Random empty post
Posted 01 Feb, 2005 at 08:25 by matt in /Chatter | Permanent link
Look at me, I'm the first one to post in February. Yeehaw!