It pains me deeply to say this, but I think that part of the problem may be the Internet.
A lot of what's wrong may be the very sort of thing you're reading right now.
The Internet, has, as expected, provided a global podium to everyone with an opinion. Cyberspace has become an infinite set of street corners, each with its lonely pamphleteer, howling his rage to a multitude all too busy howling their own to listen.
All of our energy goes into things like this BarlowSpam, energies that might be better spent in creating traditional blocs like the NRA, or the AARP, or some large group capable of either buying Congress or scaring the shit out of them. This screed won't scare an elected official anywhere. And it wouldn't generate enough money to elect or defeat a dogcatcher.
As much as I loathe organizations, we need to organize.
Bingo. I couldn't have said it better myself. As any professional writer knows, and as millions of bloggers are now finding out, words aren't really that powerful. At best, they're catalytic -- inspiring people to action. But it's the action that matters, when it comes to politics. We can scribble all our brilliant ideas all we want, but the world is truly changed by people in grey suits faxing documents for like 17 hours on end. Hell, that's how the Christian Coalition does it. And that's how the progressive, left-wing groups I've been supporting for years do it.
But you know, I can't resist a big, juicy "I told you so". Because though it's great for Barlow to come to this realization ... remember his fierce dismissal of government back in 1996, when Barlow wrote the "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"? Remember how ludicrous and naive it was? How he went on and on about how government was slow, government was weak, nuthin' ever gets done in Washington, how all the kewl stuff was happening online and nobody should bother paying attention to this boring old industrial-age government stuff? And how everyone, including otherwise smart people like Declan McCullagh lapped it up?
Oops.
Posted by Clive Thompson at October 18, 2002 12:50 AM
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I met Barlow last year at the POP! Tech conference last year, which is where I'm writing this form now. You can adtually stream the seminars live. Has some awesome speakers which cover some amazing social and human technology issues and themes.
His talk last year was brilliant, rational, and down to earth, just like he is in real life. Just like these essays he wrote. Good reads.
btw I hate the Grateful Dead,
Posted by: Rob T. at October 18, 2002 4:16 PM
Yes, when I was at POPtech in 1999, I heard him speak too -- he was also excellent then, also. It was the middle of the dot-com hysteria and he did a really funny job of skewering the crazed investment environment.
And yes, I agree -- the Dead's never done much for me either! Though maybe that's because I've never seen the live show.
(Damn, though, Jerry Garcia's controller-guitar tech is beyond cool. He practically had ethernet running to guitar.)
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This back and forth is an important concept to understand in C programming, especially on the Mac's RISC architecture. Almost every variable you work with can be represented in 32 bits of memory: thirty-two 1s and 0s define the data that a simple variable can hold. There are exceptions, like on the new 64-bit G5s and in the 128-bit world of AltiVec
Posted by: Goughe at January 20, 2004 10:51 AM
Earlier I mentioned that variables can live in two different places. We're going to examine these two places one at a time, and we're going to start on the more familiar ground, which is called the Stack. Understanding the stack helps us understand the way programs run, and also helps us understand scope a little better.
Posted by: Blaise at January 20, 2004 10:51 AM
Let's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line:
Posted by: Lancelot at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
We can see an example of this in our code we've written so far. In each function's block, we declare variables that hold our data. When each function ends, the variables within are disposed of, and the space they were using is given back to the computer to use. The variables live in the blocks of conditionals and loops we write, but they don't cascade into functions we call, because those aren't sub-blocks, but different sections of code entirely. Every variable we've written has a well-defined lifetime of one function.
Posted by: Effemia at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
When a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.
Posted by: Bertram at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
The most basic duality that exists with variables is how the programmer sees them in a totally different way than the computer does. When you're typing away in Project Builder, your variables are normal words smashed together, like software titles from the 80s. You deal with them on this level, moving them around and passing them back and forth.
Posted by: Augustus at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
Our next line looks familiar, except it starts with an asterisk. Again, we're using the star operator, and noting that this variable we're working with is a pointer. If we didn't, the computer would try to put the results of the right hand side of this statement (which evaluates to 6) into the pointer, overriding the value we need in the pointer, which is an address. This way, the computer knows to put the data not in the pointer, but into the place the pointer points to, which is in the Heap. So after this line, our int is living happily in the Heap, storing a value of 6, and our pointer tells us where that data is living.
Posted by: Sarah at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
This code should compile and run just fine, and you should see no changes in how the program works. So why did we do all of that?
Posted by: Petronella at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
To address this issue, we turn to the second place to put variables, which is called the Heap. If you think of the Stack as a high-rise apartment building somewhere, variables as tenets and each level building atop the one before it, then the Heap is the suburban sprawl, every citizen finding a space for herself, each lot a different size and locations that can't be readily predictable. For all the simplicity offered by the Stack, the Heap seems positively chaotic, but the reality is that each just obeys its own rules.
Posted by: Prospero at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
This is another function provided for dealing with the heap. After you've created some space in the Heap, it's yours until you let go of it. When your program is done using it, you have to explicitly tell the computer that you don't need it anymore or the computer will save it for your future use (or until your program quits, when it knows you won't be needing the memory anymore). The call to simply tells the computer that you had this space, but you're done and the memory can be freed for use by something else later on.
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I met Barlow last year at the POP! Tech conference last year, which is where I'm writing this form now. You can adtually stream the seminars live. Has some awesome speakers which cover some amazing social and human technology issues and themes.
His talk last year was brilliant, rational, and down to earth, just like he is in real life. Just like these essays he wrote. Good reads.
btw I hate the Grateful Dead,
Posted by: Rob T. at October 18, 2002 4:16 PM
Yes, when I was at POPtech in 1999, I heard him speak too -- he was also excellent then, also. It was the middle of the dot-com hysteria and he did a really funny job of skewering the crazed investment environment.
And yes, I agree -- the Dead's never done much for me either! Though maybe that's because I've never seen the live show.
(Damn, though, Jerry Garcia's controller-guitar tech is beyond cool. He practically had ethernet running to guitar.)
Posted by: clive at October 19, 2002 3:21 PM
Thank you for your information.
Posted by: sonnerie at January 8, 2004 9:32 AM
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Posted by: Online Casino at January 16, 2004 12:20 PM
This back and forth is an important concept to understand in C programming, especially on the Mac's RISC architecture. Almost every variable you work with can be represented in 32 bits of memory: thirty-two 1s and 0s define the data that a simple variable can hold. There are exceptions, like on the new 64-bit G5s and in the 128-bit world of AltiVec
Posted by: Goughe at January 20, 2004 10:51 AM
Earlier I mentioned that variables can live in two different places. We're going to examine these two places one at a time, and we're going to start on the more familiar ground, which is called the Stack. Understanding the stack helps us understand the way programs run, and also helps us understand scope a little better.
Posted by: Blaise at January 20, 2004 10:51 AM
Let's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line:
Posted by: Lancelot at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
We can see an example of this in our code we've written so far. In each function's block, we declare variables that hold our data. When each function ends, the variables within are disposed of, and the space they were using is given back to the computer to use. The variables live in the blocks of conditionals and loops we write, but they don't cascade into functions we call, because those aren't sub-blocks, but different sections of code entirely. Every variable we've written has a well-defined lifetime of one function.
Posted by: Effemia at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
When a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.
Posted by: Bertram at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
The most basic duality that exists with variables is how the programmer sees them in a totally different way than the computer does. When you're typing away in Project Builder, your variables are normal words smashed together, like software titles from the 80s. You deal with them on this level, moving them around and passing them back and forth.
Posted by: Augustus at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
Our next line looks familiar, except it starts with an asterisk. Again, we're using the star operator, and noting that this variable we're working with is a pointer. If we didn't, the computer would try to put the results of the right hand side of this statement (which evaluates to 6) into the pointer, overriding the value we need in the pointer, which is an address. This way, the computer knows to put the data not in the pointer, but into the place the pointer points to, which is in the Heap. So after this line, our int is living happily in the Heap, storing a value of 6, and our pointer tells us where that data is living.
Posted by: Sarah at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
This code should compile and run just fine, and you should see no changes in how the program works. So why did we do all of that?
Posted by: Petronella at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
To address this issue, we turn to the second place to put variables, which is called the Heap. If you think of the Stack as a high-rise apartment building somewhere, variables as tenets and each level building atop the one before it, then the Heap is the suburban sprawl, every citizen finding a space for herself, each lot a different size and locations that can't be readily predictable. For all the simplicity offered by the Stack, the Heap seems positively chaotic, but the reality is that each just obeys its own rules.
Posted by: Prospero at January 20, 2004 10:52 AM
This is another function provided for dealing with the heap. After you've created some space in the Heap, it's yours until you let go of it. When your program is done using it, you have to explicitly tell the computer that you don't need it anymore or the computer will save it for your future use (or until your program quits, when it knows you won't be needing the memory anymore). The call to simply tells the computer that you had this space, but you're done and the memory can be freed for use by something else later on.
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