Bureaucracy

In Douglas Adam's book 'The Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy' the Earth was in fact a vast supercomputer designed to answer the 'ultimate question' (you know, of life, the universe and everything) but 5 minutes before it was to complete it's program it was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. 'Ah well' sighs Slartibartfast, the planet engineer, 'That's bureaucracy for you..'

I mention this because we now have in Australia a real-life example of bureaucratic stupidity in action.

The ACMA has established a list of so-called blacklisted web-sites, and if your web page links to one you're up for heavy fines and possibly imprisonment. Now neglecting the facts concerning internet censorship and stifling of freedom of speech and so-on, the really stupid thing about it is that the list itself is secret. So you're not allowed to link to a blacklisted site even if you don't know that site has been blacklisted. That's bureaucracy for you.

I appreciate some sites may be deplorable and it can be argued we're better off without them. But how far will it go ? Will dissenting political comment be banned ? Criticism of our 'leaders'? Dr Kevorkians page ? The fact the list is kept secret means we'll never know. The whole thing smells like big brother to me. This sort of thing may be common in China (as in their 'Great Firewall') but in a country like Australia where freedom of speech is held paramount it just goes against the grain.

The great liberator is knowledge. There are too many secrets. No single state can control the entirety of the internet, but they sure as hell seem to be trying. If they succeed it will be a step backwards. Oh well, that's bureaucracy for you.

Fallout 3

Set in the year 2277, 200 years after nuclear armeggedon

I've been playing this game for a few weeks now, and I must say that it's probably the best game I've ever played. For it's depth, scope, references, and execution it gets 10 out of 10 from me.

Now considering what's been happening in the middle east recently, and as recorded history has demonstrated, warfare appears sadly to be a recurrent aspect of the human condition, and when coupled with advanced nuclear weapons technology, and those with a will to unleash them .. well, extinction becomes a real possibility. One thing I came across in this game I find bitingly poignant, (and apparently a nod to Ray Bradbury's sci-fi novel 'There will come soft rains') -

In a house in the ruins of washington DC, there is a still functioning 'servant robot'. This robot may be activated from a computer terminal nearby, and when the option to 'Read junior a bed-time story' is selected, the robot activates, goes upstairs to a child's bedroom, where a small skeleton lies on the bed, and recites this poem -


There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.