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Last post Author Topic: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content  (Read 21472 times)

IainB

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Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« on: June 23, 2012, 06:22 AM »
Superb suggestion:
Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
Ed Krayewski | June 22, 2012
There is currently no HTTP status code to indicate you can’t access content because it’s been prohibited by a government agency. Tim Bray, a Google engineer, has proposed the status code “451,” in honor of the recently deceased author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, for use when an ISP is ordered by the government to deny access to a certain website. From Bray’s proposal:
...

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2012, 09:31 AM »
I like that. :) Clever. And it does add transparency, which is a sorely lacking thing.
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2012, 12:10 PM »

This was kicking around a few weeks ago on Slashdot too before this article. Last I recall sometimes it's not so easy for the servers to know which is just a permissions "access forbidden" and which is censorship. Also this is sorta a joke, more social commentary, because for 50% of the censorship you can bet the govt won't even allow this error code.

There was a story a few days ago "telling people we are spying on them violates their privacy". (??!)

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2012, 12:36 PM »
This was kicking around a few weeks ago on Slashdot too before this article. Last I recall sometimes it's not so easy for the servers to know which is just a permissions "access forbidden" and which is censorship. Also this is sorta a joke, more social commentary, because for 50% of the censorship you can bet the govt won't even allow this error code.

There was a story a few days ago "telling people we are spying on them violates their privacy". (??!)


Was that the one where the NSA is whining about being asked how they are cooperating with Google to spy on people?
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2012, 04:02 PM »
One point that I want to bring up... F451 wasn't about censorship, and Bradbury himself would get wroth when confronted with the fact that people thought it was about the same.


TaoPhoenix

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2012, 04:15 PM »
One point that I want to bring up... F451 wasn't about censorship, and Bradbury himself would get wroth when confronted with the fact that people thought it was about the same.

It's been a while, though I might have it in my library - so what was it about? What else were the Firemen doing burning books if it wasn't censorship?

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2012, 04:50 PM »
http://www.laweekly....-451-misinterpreted/

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.

His fear in 1953 that television would kill books has, he says, been partially confirmed by television’s effect on substance in the news. The front page of that day’s L.A. Times reported on the weekend box-office receipts for the third in the Spider-Man series of movies, seeming to prove his point.

“Useless,” Bradbury says. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” He bristles when others tell him what his stories mean, and once walked out of a class at UCLA where students insisted his book was about government censorship. He’s now bucking the widespread conventional wisdom with a video clip on his Web site (http://www.raybradbu...m/at_home_clips.html), titled “Bradbury on censorship/television.”

rgdot

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2012, 07:19 PM »
I confess I had no idea, if indeed that's how he felt. Because to me that changes a lot, makes him look a lot like one of those who automatically assumes something new is bad. For example Kindle -and the like - have made book reading more accessible, hipper and one can argue easier. Another example, if you just complain about TV being filled with Jersey Shore type material instead of doing your part in making sure the ratings for better stuff doesn't increase you have achieved little.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2012, 07:23 PM by rgdot, Reason: clarifications »

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2012, 09:18 PM »
If indeed?  That was from an interview with the man himself, with direct quotes at times.  And, he had a point, truthfully.  And he did his part- he wasn't a Luddite.  He just had valid concerns that I think have materialized.  We live in a world obsessed with instant gratification at no cost in critical thinking or focus of purpose and thought.  Technology has undeniable benefits.  But with that benefit comes drawbacks and a deeper long term cost that I don't think is adequately addressed or readily apparent.

HE SAYS THE CULPRIT in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate. In the book, Bradbury refers to televisions as “walls” and its actors as “family,” a truth evident to anyone who has heard a recap of network shows in which a fan refers to the characters by first name, as if they were relatives or friends.

Bread and circuses.

IainB

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2012, 10:50 PM »
I confess I had no idea, if indeed that's how he felt.
Well, why doesn't someone ask him? Oh, wait...bugger.

EDIT 2012-06-25 1855hrs NZT:  ;D    :)    8)    ;)    :D    :P      
« Last Edit: June 25, 2012, 02:21 AM by IainB »

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2012, 12:21 AM »
I confess I had no idea, if indeed that's how he felt.
Well, why doesn't someone ask him? Oh, wait...bugger.

Say hello to Aldous Huxley for us~! :P
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2012, 11:27 AM »
I confess I had no idea, if indeed that's how he felt.
Well, why doesn't someone ask him? Oh, wait...bugger.

Umm... that was the point of the article?  As in it had direct quotes?  And you can find other direct references to it if you search for it...

IainB

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2012, 02:15 AM »
Umm... that was the point of the article?  As in it had direct quotes?  And you can find other direct references to it if you search for it...
Sorry! Yes, of course it had direct quotes - I could see that. What I wrote was intended as a joke.
Maybe I should have put a smiley or two with it. Hmm... I shall go and edit it now....Done.
Sorry for any confusing ambiguity.

Mind you, on a more serious note, there are those as reckon they can speak with the dead - or that the dead can speak through them (e.g., mediums). "Is anybody there?" - You know, that sort of thing.
When I was a child, I knew of one such person who reckoned that he spoke with his spirit guide who was the spirit of Chief Sitting Bull, or something like that, and I read of another whose spirit guide was apparently the spirit of one of the Egyptian Pharaohs - I forget which one. I'm not sure how they overcame the language barrier in either case.
Oddly enough, though I did look, I never read of anyone who claimed that his spirit guide was someone ordinary - like the spirit of a deceased bus-conductor off a Clapham omnibus, for example. And it made me think "Now why is that?". Very mysterious.     :D

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2012, 09:55 AM »
^ Ah I understand. :)  I said that because admittedly the interview I linked to was pretty hard to follow at times, with direct quotes and paraphrasing.

TaoPhoenix

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #15 on: June 25, 2012, 10:56 AM »

Mind you, on a more serious note, there are those as reckon they can speak with the dead - or that the dead can speak through them (e.g., mediums). "Is anybody there?" - You know, that sort of thing.
When I was a child, I knew of one such person who reckoned that he spoke with his spirit guide who was the spirit of Chief Sitting Bull, or something like that, and I read of another whose spirit guide was apparently the spirit of one of the Egyptian Pharaohs - I forget which one. I'm not sure how they overcame the language barrier in either case.
Oddly enough, though I did look, I never read of anyone who claimed that his spirit guide was someone ordinary - like the spirit of a deceased bus-conductor off a Clapham omnibus, for example. And it made me think "Now why is that?". Very mysterious.     :D

(Takes it right back to a less serious note)
Actually, while it's "boring" that there isn't very much paranormal stuff in the world, you're remarking on a rather important proof that the supernatural stuff (mostly?) doesn't exist: "Speak to my dead mother, hmm? And all you got is 'I love you'? I would have believed you if you had said 'eat your veggies, you miserable ungrateful sack of lard!' "
(The argument gets even funnier on the religious side, but that risks the Soap Box).

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #16 on: June 26, 2012, 12:27 PM »
One point that I want to bring up... F451 wasn't about censorship, and Bradbury himself would get wroth when confronted with the fact that people thought it was about the same.

It's been a while, though I might have it in my library - so what was it about? What else were the Firemen doing burning books if it wasn't censorship?

Well, unfortunately for Ray, he may be just a little bit wrong...

<art_criticism_theory>
Good art transcends the artist and the artists intentions, taking a life of its own and revealing meaning in different ways to different people.
</art_criticism_theory>

While artists may not like that sometimes, it's a deep compliment for them.

So while Ray may not have intended it to be about censorship, that's not what a lot of people got from his book. Call it an unintended gift. :P
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2012, 01:06 PM »
So while Ray may not have intended it to be about censorship, that's not what a lot of people got from his book. Call it an unintended gift.

Well, IMO Ray wasn't wrong.  He wrote what he wrote, and meant what he meant.  If I write that I am blue, and you take it to mean that I'm sad, but I actually meant, I dressed up like a smurf, you are entitled to your interpretation.  However, by the same rights as the writer, my intent is not changed by your interpretation.

So people can get out of it whatever they want.  However, the writer's intent of the novel remains unchanged.  And when such classes as mentioned are formed, they are usually about the writer's intent, not your interpretation (though there are classes about that also).  And telling the author what his intent was in the face of his denial and correction is just rude in my opinion.

tomos

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #18 on: June 26, 2012, 03:29 PM »
^ could it not be both (intentional content/message and other intrepertations)
Tom

daddydave

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #19 on: June 26, 2012, 04:52 PM »

<art_criticism_theory>
Good art transcends the artist and the artists intentions, taking a life of its own and revealing meaning in different ways to different people.
</art_criticism_theory>


I am far from an art critic, but this makes perfect sense to me.

IainB

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #20 on: June 26, 2012, 05:32 PM »
...He wrote what he wrote, and meant what he meant...
Hear, hear.
This is a digression, but an interesting one (for me).
Spoiler
Some historians engage in historicism (a sort of search for laws of historical evolution that are taken to explain or even predict historical phenomena) that can sometimes end up in reconstructing and re-construing the meaning and perception of the history itself - as if you could! ("It was what it was.")
This is sometimes used by Totalitarian regimes to deny responsibility for something - a historical act - that was usually a horror and morally reprehensible and as such is politically incorrect and which must therefore be denied under the prevailing regime's ideology or official position. For example, the Turkish objection to the US declaring the Turkish oppression and massacre in Armenia as being "genocide". The same applies for the Japanese "Rape of Nanking", or the Japanese "Comfort Women".
The rule for such atrocities is thus:
You must not name a horrific crime against humanity for what it was.

This sort of wish to rewrite history is a deliberate bending of historical knowledge to fit a current paradigm - you could call it a form of crime against knowledge per se - and it is generally reprehensible. But across the planet in schools, colleges and in our own minds, we seem to daily do a similar sort of thing to our knowledge of literature with nary a qualm, with the sort of phrase. "I think that what the author really meant when he wrote this was [insert your opinion here]."
That is presumably what annoyed Ray Bradbury, per the quotes above.

We do this to fictional writing and factual writing. I have watched an academic read Deming's 14-point philosophy and then declare of points 10 and 11, "I think that what Deming probably meant by these was [insert opinion here]."
However, the language for the 14 points is clear, simple, unequivocal and unambiguous, though difficult for many (myself included) to understand and accept because it runs contrary to our training and beliefs about management theory.
(Points 10 and 11 kill two sacred cows of Western management thinking - targets/quotas, and MBO.)
To educate and grow ourselves, we need "habits of mind" that enable us to make the intellectual effort to understand what has been written in its own context, rather than forcing it to fit our paradigms.

« Last Edit: June 26, 2012, 05:39 PM by IainB, Reason: Minor corrections. »

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2012, 08:36 PM »
^ could it not be both (intentional content/message and other intrepertations)

Exactly. He meant what he meant, but people got other things out of it that he didn't.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

wraith808

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2012, 09:31 PM »
^ could it not be both (intentional content/message and other intrepertations)

Exactly. He meant what he meant, but people got other things out of it that he didn't.

I'm not denying that.  What I'm saying is that people say that *he* meant the story to be about censorship, not that *I interpret the content of his writing to have themes of censorship* or something similar.  The two are *very* different- one being quite logical, and the other being quite abhorrent to me.

Renegade

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2012, 01:10 AM »
I'm not denying that.  What I'm saying is that people say that *he* meant the story to be about censorship, not that *I interpret the content of his writing to have themes of censorship* or something similar.  The two are *very* different- one being quite logical, and the other being quite abhorrent to me.

Absolutely. It's quite insane for people to claim that someone else meant something that they cannot possibly know. Intentions simply aren't accessible unless stated explicitly. I can see how that would really piss Ray off! :)
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

40hz

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Re: Error 451: The Government Has Censored This Content
« Reply #24 on: June 27, 2012, 07:06 AM »
If indeed?  That was from an interview with the man himself, with direct quotes at times.  And, he had a point, truthfully.  And he did his part- he wasn't a Luddite.  He just had valid concerns that I think have materialized.  We live in a world obsessed with instant gratification at no cost in critical thinking or focus of purpose and thought.  Technology has undeniable benefits.  But with that benefit comes drawbacks and a deeper long term cost that I don't think is adequately addressed or readily apparent.

HE SAYS THE CULPRIT in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate. In the book, Bradbury refers to televisions as “walls” and its actors as “family,” a truth evident to anyone who has heard a recap of network shows in which a fan refers to the characters by first name, as if they were relatives or friends.

Bread and circuses.

Definitely not a Luddite. Bradbury, like more than a few sci-fi authors on his generation, worried that a world similar to the one described in E.M. Foster's 1909 short story The Machine Stops was being brought into existence. Foster's story was one of Bradbury's favorites. Elements of it can be found in Fahrenheit 451 and most dystopian fiction of the 50s and 60s. (see: Logan's Run.) It was also "borrowed" wholesale by George Lucas (as is his wont) for the setting and most of the plot for his movie THX1138. At a little over 12k words, The Machine Stops is worth a read and available for download here.

excerpt here
For a moment Vashti felt lonely.

Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric
buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere--buttons to call for food for music, for
clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the
floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button
that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends.
The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.

Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the accumulations of the last three minutes
burst upon her. The room was filled with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like?
Could she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own ideas? Would she make
an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early date?--say this day month.

To most of these questions she replied with irritation--a growing quality in that accelerated age. She said that
the new food was horrible. That she could not visit the public nurseries through press of engagements. That
she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one--that four stars and three in the middle were like a man:
she doubted there was much in it. Then she switched off her correspondents, for it was time to deliver her
lecture on Australian music.

The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience
stirred from their rooms. Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well,
and saw her, fairly well. She opened with a humorous account of music in the pre Mongolian epoch, and went
on to describe the great outburst of song that followed the Chinese conquest. Remote and prim¾val as were
the methods of I-San-So and the Brisbane school, she yet felt (she said) that study of them might repay the
musicians of today: they had freshness; they had, above all, ideas. Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was
well received, and at its conclusion she and many of her audience listened to a lecture on the sea; there were
ideas to be got from the sea; the speaker had donned a respirator and visited it lately. Then she fed, talked to
many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.

The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling for a small bed. Complaint was useless,
for beds were of the same dimension all over the world, and to have had an alternative size would have
involved vast alterations in the Machine. Vashti isolated herself--it was necessary, for neither day nor night
existed under the ground--and reviewed all that had happened since she had summoned the bed last. Ideas?
Scarcely any. Events--was Kuno's invitation an event?

By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of litter--one book. This was the Book of
the Machine. In it were instructions against every possible contingency. If she was hot or cold or dyspeptic or
at a loss for a word, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press. The Central Committee
published it. In accordance with a growing habit, it was richly bound.

Sitting up in the bed, she took it reverently in her hands. She glanced round the glowing room as if some one
might be watching her. Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine!" and raised the volume to
her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual
performed, she turned to page 1367, which gave the times of the departure of the air-ships from the island in
the southern hemisphere, under whose soil she lived, to the island in the northern hemisphere, whereunder
lived her son.

She thought, "I have not the time


Not too far off from what we have right now. Foster even anticipated the emergence of platform fanbois. 8)



« Last Edit: June 27, 2012, 07:15 AM by 40hz »