LilBambi’s Blog – BambisMusings

Frail, cowardly Winston saved us by Robert Harris, Times Online

Clearly much of Nineteen Eighty-Four is a satire on Stalinism, from the physical description of Big Brother’s face (“black-haired, black-mous-tachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm”) to the split in the party led by the Trotsky figure, Emmanuel Goldstein. And if that were the limit of Orwell’s ambition – to describe England as a Stalinist state – the novel would be regarded today as a brilliant period piece about the horrors of communism, comparable perhaps to his friend Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon: an important work, still read but confined to a limited audience.

However, what sets Nineteen Eighty-Four apart – the difference in ambition which means that millions of people who have never read a word of Orwell nevertheless know what “Orwellian” means – is that it parodies the totalitarian impulse in general. The original ideology behind this impulse may be communist or fascist, or nationalist or corporate or institutional, but the methods by which it proceeds are in each case the same: the stamping out of the capacity for individual thought and freedom, not merely by physical force but by a complete denial of privacy and by the control of all information, even to the extent of policing the language in which thoughts are expressed.

(BOLD emphasis mine)

Yes, I think at least to date, Winston did in a way save us, but whether Winston’s testament will continue to do so for another generation remains to be seen. Although, I see wonderful stirrings among the younger generations in the areas of privacy, liberty, freedom and individuality. It gives me hope to see this as we mark the 60 year milestone since the book 1984 (Nineteen Eighty Four) by George Orwell was published. Orwell’s last and greatest work — that took the last of everything out of him to bring to fruition. Thank you George Orwell.

Footnote: To Robert Harris: Maybe George Orwell didn’t get it wrong. Maybe, by publishing this book, and so many people taking the possibilities to heart is what in part helped to prevent this type of horrific society in 1984 from actually coming to pass? Just a thought…

Pandora for BlackBerry

This sounds like fun! If you have a BlackBerry, you can enjoy the free personalized Internet radio on Pandora.

Talk about being able to broaden your musical horizons without having to buy additional satellite equipment or costly subscriptions.

Downside? Speakers in the Blackberry? FM Transmitter might fix that, eh?

I remember reading about Joe Louis, the boxing champ from Detroit back in the 30s and 40s.

And what I remember reading most was that he had a heart as big as all outdoors, and the IRS basically destroyed his life.

If you are not familiar with Joe Louis’ story, you might want to read the DetNews.com article.

…Joe Louis died on April 12, 1981. He was 66.

Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981.

The whole country mourned his passing. President Reagan praised his instinctive patriotism and extraordinary accomplishments.

Thomas Sowell praised his dignity, his gentlemanliness, sportsmanship and humor, the ‘unbought grace of life’ that was his gift.

“He was our Sampson; he was our David. With toughness he destroyed our enemy, with kindness he soothed our wounds and revived our psyche.” — Jesse Jackson

“Joe never lost his common touch, his love of Detroit. He stood for everything that was good about Detroit.” — Coleman Young

“Our loss is Heaven’s gain; he was a great fighter, and a great champion in and out of the ring. He was symbolic to all people, young and old, black and white.”– Jersey Joe Walcott

With the deficit and spending and bailouts, BONUS CHECKS FOR THE BANKING CARTELS out of our taxes, etc… who’s next in line to be destroyed?

Don’t think it will be the banks and corporations that mishandled things, but are supposedly ‘too big to fail’ ….. no, I think one will need to look MUCH closer to home.

RIAA NAZIS DETERMINED TO DESTROY NEW AND FRINGE MUSIC:

I just got this new directive from the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) in the USA that applies to all public radio stations. Here’s an excerpt:

“In any three (3) hour period you can transmit up to three (3) different selections of sound recordings from any one CD, but you can transmit no more than two (2) consecutively. Additionally, in any three (3) hour period you can transmit up to four (4) different selections by the same featured artist, or up to four (4) different selections of sound recordings from any set or compilation of CD’s, but you can transmit no more than three (3) consecutively.”

As the Just As We Thought Blog noted — so much for dedicating programs to artists when they die or to honor birthdays.

Sad. They have to feel in total control! That is such an alien concept … controlling music. Music is all about freedom and speaking out, revolution, love, deep thoughts. That is so contrary to control!

I will be so happy when artists finally say, “That’s it! I have had enough of this!”

That will be a truly great day for all music lovers the world over.

I watched the video of the Macworld 2009 Keynote last night by Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing.

Several things stood out for me. First once I got past Philip Schiller’s initial nervousness, he really did a great job. I am sure it weighted heavily on him when he first got up on stage.

Oh, yes, I did miss Steve Jobs being there but Philip did bring you in after the first few minutes with a similar type of excitement as Steve Jobs.

I am sure many will say he was no Steve Jobs, but Steve couldn’t be there – so that’s irrelevant. Philip did a great job and kept my interest and excitement on the products he was talking about. Which would have been hard ordinarily since hardware wise, there was only one new – upgraded thing.

I have to say I really did like the awesome features of the new iLife and iWork a lot, and the pricing was where it should be and I was very happy to see it! Thanks Apple! Oh, and the iPhone Remote app for Keynote presentations is really kewl too.

And who could be unhappy with iTunes Music Store going totally DRM-free by March and some songs going to 69 cents a song! That part was really good news.

However, in this economy, it’s sad that people will have to pay 30 cents PER SONG to remove the DRM (which sounds like extortion to me) … as TechCrunch pointed out here, that is quite a ‘music tax’ – $1.8 BILLION DOLLARS if everyone (over 6 BILLION songs) who has DRM’d music from the iTunes Store were to use the 1-click to remove the DRM from their entire library of songs. I hope the process is not too difficult to do on a onsey-twosey basis for folks. Cuz I have a feeling many will be having to do it by album or tracks over time, rather than the entire library like they were saying. Unless you had a small library.

Me? I never bought any DRM’d music so no sweat for me.

But will others who might have a BIG library be able to afford it in one fell swoop? Hard to say.

Also, I doubt if, for that money, the file will move from being a lower bit rate 128kbps DRM’s file to a 256kbps DRM-Free file like the iTunes Plus store has been selling.

The 17″ MacBook Pro sounds great as well with many new features. The 7-8 Hour/5 year Battery life sounds great, but I worry about the “being able to charge it 1,000 times.” The Anti-Glare Screen was greatly needed and I am sure will go over very big.

Philip did get me to want all of that … but then … I remembered I needed food on the table, fuel in the heater, and normal utilities to be paid, as well as gas in the car to get to appointments — maybe someday I might be able to consider buying something like that. It’s not your fault Philip, you did great! It’s the economy that sucks.

But then this from someone who hasn’t gotten the iPod Touch she wants yet either! LOL!

They apparently both have sold out to the entertainment cartels (movies, games, music, etc.) to prevent you from even making legitimate use of what you buy….meaning on the very computers and display hardware that you pay your hard earned money for!

The funny thing is, MacWorld is playing this up like it’s a good thing:

Apple didn’t just introduce new laptops Tuesday; it also introduced a new term to the vocabulary of Mac users—DisplayPort. The Mini DisplayPort found on new MacBooks, the refreshed Macbook Air and 15-inch MacBook Pros replaces the DVI and mini-DVI interfaces found on older models. But is this another proprietary debacle like Apple’s failed Apple Display Connector (ADC) interface? No.

DisplayPort is, in fact, an open industry standard promoted by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), the same group that determines standard sizes for flat panel display mounts, for example. And Apple isn’t the only company supporting DisplayPort. HP, Philips, Samsung, Lenovo, AMD, Nvidia, Intel and many other companies have thrown their weight behind the standard, so we’ll be seeing a lot more DisplayPort-compatible devices in the coming years.

But at least MacWorld does at least try to list some of the downsides:

Unless you’re content with the infinitesimal selection of displays that work with DisplayPort right now, you’ll have to buy more gadgets to get your new Mac to work with a DVI or VGA display. You’re going to pay $29 for the privilege of getting such an adapter through the Apple Store. Unless you need a Dual-Link DVI adapter to hook up a Cinema HD Display or another 30-inch LCD panel, that is—that’ll set you back a full c-note, and you’ll be waiting four to five weeks for it, according to the online Apple Store.

What’s more, regardless of whether you buy Apple’s DisplayPort adapter or a third party’s (if you’re lucky enough to find one, that is), you’re going to mess up your desk with more boxes and wires getting that DVI or VGA display to work.

First Microsoft caved under the entertainment cartel’s unreasonable demands and turned Vista OS/hardware into Vista The Enabler. Now Apple’s newest hardware and OS on the new Aluminum laptop computers has turned into Leopard the Enabler … NOT enabling you as the owner of the harware, but enabling the entertainment cartels to say what you can and can’t do on your hardware with movies, music that you buy. And so many hardware companies have also caved!

All so Apple can make a few bucks in the iTunes Store??

Read it and weep:

Apple brings HDCP to a new aluminum MacBook near you

High Definition Content Protection (HDCP)—you can’t live with it, but you practically can’t buy an HD-capable device anymore without it. While HDCP is typically used in devices like Blu-ray players, HDTVs, HDMI-enabled notebooks, and even the Apple TV in order to keep DRMed content encrypted between points A and B, it appears that Apple’s new aluminum MacBook (and presumably the MacBook Pro) are using it to protect iTunes Store media as well.

So what you say? AppleTV already had this, did you know that? Maybe you want to educate yourself a bit, eh? HDCP, DPCP, DisplayPort Content Protection.

Arstechnica continues a little later in the article AFTER explaining one way in which a teacher has already been frustrated by unreasonable unintended consequences of not being able to play a movie on a Mini DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter, plugged into a Sanyo projector that is part of his room’s Promethean system:

The technology in Apple’s MacBooks that prevents a seemingly arbitrary collection of iTunes Store files from being played on HDCP non-compliant devices is perhaps more accurately called DPCP, or DisplayPort Content Protection. As we’ve covered in the past, DisplayPort was designed as an open, extensible standard for computers that offers lower power consumption over DVI (especially in the Mini DisplayPort format that Apple uses on the new MacBooks). But more importantly, DisplayPort also beats DVI in the studios’ books by offering the option of 128-bit AES encrypted copy protection.

And folks at the Apple Support Forums are also complaining about this iTunes movie purchases will not play on external display – HDCP auth error:

Well, I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of a storm over this one already but I expect there will be.

Just got a new MacBook last week and finally found a mini Display Port -> VGA adapter so i could use my 19″ external display. I rented a movie from the iTunes store yesterday and when I tried to play it on my external display, it gave me a warning/error that the display was ‘not an authorized HDCP display’ and it would not play. Plays fine on the small MacBook screen, just nothing external. To make it even worse, i tried all the movies that I have purchased from the iTunes store with the same result… NONE of them will play on anything but the MacBook’s small 13″ screen. This is crazy unacceptable.

Has anyone else run into this yet or have any ideas of something I may be overlooking in order to get purchased movies to play on an external display?

Yep…and I am sure there are many more that will find things they can’t do with what they bought.

Gawd, I hate it when I am right. I knew Apple would sell out to the entertainment cartels like Microsoft did.

Companies that are adopting or plan to adopt DisplayPort Content Protection in their hardware.

And as Wikipedia notes DisplayPort is basically just another standard — more of the same but different — like HDMI, it’s direct competitor:

DisplayPort is a competitor to the HDMI connector (with HDCP copy-protection), the de facto digital connection for high-definition consumer electronics devices. Another competitor is Unified Display Interface,[2] a low cost compatible alternative to HDMI and DVI. However, the main supporter of UDI, Intel Corporation, has stopped the development of the technology and now supports DisplayPort.

Yeah, that should help the new TVs, electronics devices and computers work together, eh?

Well, it looks like we add another set hardware that are never gonna be part of this ladies’ electronics gizmos … unfortunately.

Thanks for nothing Apple.

Sad.

High speed Internet brings entertainment home (speedmatters.org)

With the likes of NetFlix, Apple and others making movies available for download for rent and/or purchase, the digital divide seems to just be widening. I hope SpeedMatters is right … I hope this does expand what is considered true broadband … but more than that, I hope it wakes up telecoms and other broadband providers because as someone who doesn’t have a true broadband option, it’s really sad to see those of us who are still stuck in dialup and/or limited broadband abilities will not be able to take advantage of these new broadband to the computer or the TV offers.

In order to truly take advantage of these online entertainment options, consumers must be able to connect to truly high speed Internet. For many Americans, though, that’s is still not an option — yet another consequence of the digital divide.

One side benefit of this new flood of downloadable movie services is that it reemphasizes what true high speed Internet really is. As these movie services gain popularity, they may increase demand for high speed Internet and spur more extensive buildout. That way, entertainment uses of high speed Internet may mean that other important services — such as telemedicine, distance learning programs, and emergency communications — become available to more Americans.

One can only hope. I can’t even think about this option at home! I still have trouble bringing in many webpages!

Why these books? I personally believe there is an element of truth in all science fiction. Maybe not as written, but the concepts upon which they are written.

1984. For those who have not read this rather sick and twisted version of a future no one wants to be a part of. It is a cult classic, science fiction tale of extrapolation of the worst possible scenario that could happen. At least in my humble opinion. I enjoyed reading it as I have many other great piece of literature. It was masterfully written, enveloping, and although I don’t believe we will live to see this happen, I do see some inklings of things that niggle.

Regardless of how folks feel about the book itself, there are some amazing quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 that we all should be aware of.

The mantra of INGSOC presented by the “Ministry of Truth”:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Two particularly interesting paragraphs at the beginning of the book speak about the signs everywhere with the black-mustachio’d face gazing right into your eyes from everywhere, with the words, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” as a caption. He also indicated the police patroled in helicopters peering in homes, but they didn’t matter, it was only the “Thought Police” that mattered.

Winston, the main character, was trying to remain, what he considered to be sane in the midst of insanity around him where truth was lies, and lies were truth, and truth was only what they were told it was.

He began to write his thoughts down in a hidden book, hidden, at least he thought it was hidden, from the “Thought Police.”

There were televisions in each home, but these televisions were two way -receivers and transmitters of both audio and video – and you never knew when they would be ‘tuned’ into your particular television. Something that would be unnerving to anyone.

His first words in his journal was the date April 4th, 1984 and after some thoughts, he began to madly write thoughts down. Then after some ‘normal’ everyday things happened, including strange mind control rallies where everyone was ‘encouraged’ to take part. Winston sat in his little ‘apartment’ and after realizing that “only the “Thought Police” would read what he wrote before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. He wondered how you could appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive.” He began writing again,

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone–to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink–greetings!

After some rather morbid contemplation, he wrote again:

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime was death.

He knew first hand how someone could be wiped out; his job was part of the process of rewriting history to reflect the current needs of ‘the Party.’

It is really a very sad story of a man, driven quite mad by the insane life forced upon him and the insane thinking forced upon him by the ‘Party.’

There was no freedom, no true living, no hope.

One final thought from the book, toward the end of the book in one interview with O’Brien, who apparently is trying to convince Winston of the ‘Party’ truth’…

O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.

‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’

‘”Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,”‘ repeated Winston obediently.

‘”Who controls the present controls the past,”‘ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’

Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one.

O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’

‘No.’

‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’

‘In records. It is written down.’

‘In records. And—-?’

‘In the mind. In human memories.’

‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’

In our current world of ‘political correctness’, and the wishing to do away with a past that might bother some folks, where wonderful technologies are being created, and used by, or made use of by, massive companies who in turn make use of agencies to control them, and by association, those who make use of them – Well, that could make something ‘like’ these scifi scenarios, like 1984 and others, or the equally unacceptable future in the Max Headroom scifi television series, actually come to pass some day in the future…

This book along with so many other great scifi books really do have some (hopefully) twisted elements of truth in them, but they are still very interesting. Science Fiction is the mind out to play, searching for a combination of possible future science and social responses…and maybe to in some small way, foresee or forewarn.

I genuinely hope we never live to see anything like this come to pass. But it’s great fiction, and thought provoking, none the less.

NOTE: Originally posted: March 2005 (recreated from my original mangled blogspot.com blog)