Author Archives: Wayne Horkan

About Wayne Horkan

I’m a technologist and engineer, typically working in enterprise architecture and systems engineering.

Tom Hanks, Oscar winning Actor, Producer, Director and… Aston Villa Fan

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Blimey, to think I actually have something in common with Tom Hanks…

Turns out Tom supports Aston Villa, probably the best football team in the whole wide World.

Whilst he was over in the UK to promote the premiere, and release, of “Charlie Wilson’s War” (a comedy film where Tom plays Texan Congressman Charlie Wilson, secretly assisting rebels in Afghanistan in their war with the Soviets, which contributed to the collapse of Soviet Union, and then led to the rise of the Taliban and Islamic Radicalism), Tom recently said:

“I’m big on Aston Villa because the name is just so sweet. It sounds like a lovely spa”

I’ve always liked Tom, and his films, but now I really like him. :-)

However he obviously wasn’t about during the festivities in nearby Lozells and Handsworth in the 1980’s.

Actually that’s a little harsh as Aston Villa is located by (and named after) the beautiful Aston Hall – I’ve got some photo’s knocking about from when we did our last family visit and I’ll get them up on the site soon – a stunning Jacobean Hall, which even got caught up in the Civil War.

I was born and brought up around Nechells, Aston, Lozells and Handsworth, spending many an hour playing at Aston Hall park, next door to the Villa Ground.

I even ended up going to King Edward VI Aston, which ‘sandwiches’ Aston Hall Park, and Aston Hall at it’s centre, with the Villa Ground, and thus spending even more time by the Villa (Hall, club and park), the Holte Pub (56p for a half a pint of Cider) and the “Chippy” opposite the ground.

The Birmingham evening news had this to say about Tom being a Villa fan:

What he really knows about football may be open to debate, but Tom is in good celebrity company because also following the Villa are the likes of Prince William and Black Sabbath rocker Ozzy Osbourne.

Others include Fast Show comedian Mark Williams, violinist Nigel Kennedy, international hockey player Jane Sixsmith, Bank of England chairman Mervyn King, pop group Ocean Colour Scene, Radio WM presenter Phil Upton and members of Duran Duran.

What the Birmingham post doesn’t go onto say is that that list includes Wayne Horkan esq. too.

Thanks to Tony Harris, Head of Sales for Health at Sun in the UK, and another fellow Villa fan, for alerting me to this story.

Relevant links:

This post is dedicated to James Carlin, the biggest Villa fan I know, Warren Walker, my longest running Villa pal, Wilfred “Wilf” Cashmore, and, of course, to Peter James Horkan, my Dad.

“AVFC 4 ever” as they say.

Excellent article by Glenn Brunette on the Top 5 Solaris 10 Security Features

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Excellent article by Glenn Brunette on the “Top 5 Solaris 10 Security Features You Should Be Using” . …..

Tic, Tag, Toe

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Or rather “tagging, tags, and blog tag policy” or even “what’s the best / most optimal tag nomenclature / syntax”. After redesigning the blog interface I decided to start to rationalise my tags – and to institute a ‘tag policy’.

Tag Policy

  1. Use “-” to delimit multi-word tags
  2. Use all lower case characters

But “Why ?”

For a long time I had been using the “+” symbol to link multi-word tags, but I found that Google Translate (which I use for the language translation capability, up on the top right of the page if you’re reading the blog at https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/) was having problems processing URL’s which contain “+” or “%2B”.

Here’s a little table I whipped up documenting the issues I was coming up against using multi-word tags, after trying out a number of delimiters, not just “+”, against a variety of technology.

Delimiters tested were: “+”, “%2B”, “_”, ” “, “%20” and “-“. Sites / technology tested were: Roller Blogger (4.0-dev, the version we currently run https://blogs.sun.com on), Google Translate, Google Search, Technorati, Del.icio.us and Slynker.

“+” (plus sign) “%2B” (encoded plus sign) “_” (underscore character)
Roller Weblogger 4.0-dev Will save and retrieve posts which use tags with “+” in the editor
Will not resolve tags URL which use “+” (actually the main site will, but individual blogs can’t)		 Will save and retrieve posts which use tags with “%2B” in the editor
Will resolve tags URL which use “%2B”		 Will save and retrieve posts which use tags with “_” in the editor
Will resolve tags URL which use “_”
Google Search Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the “+”, search produces a small number of results because of the infrequency of using “+” to separate written words Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the “%2B”, search produces a small number of results because of the infrequency of using “%2B” to separate written words Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the “_”, search produces a small number of results because of the infrequency of using “_” to separate written words
Google Translate Attempts to resolve tags URL which use “+”, encoding the URL to use “%2B” instead (which Roller can serve, see above), then promptly fails Fails to resolve the correct URL to translate using “%2B” Resolves tags URL which use “_” and continues to translate them successfully
Technorati Resolves tag URLs which use “+” correctly
Replaces the “+” with ” ” and produces good results based upon that		 Resolves tag URLs which use “%2B” correctly
Replaces “%2B” with ” ” and produces good results based upon that		 Resolves tag URLs which use “_” correctly
Produces smaller, but not unreasonable, results, due of the infrequency of using “_” to separate written words
Del.iciou.ois Resolves tag URLs which use “+” correctly
Produces results based upon using “+”		 Resolves tag URLs which use “%2B” correctly
Replaces “%2B” with “+” and produces results based upon using “+”		 Resolves tag URLs which use “+” correctly
Produces results based upon using “+”
Slynker Fails to resolve “+”
Produces no results		 Attempts to resolve tags URL which use “%2B”, encoding the URL to use “%252B” instead
Produces results based upon using “+”		 Resolves tag URLs which use “_” correctly
Produces results based upon using “_”
” ” (space) “%20” (encoded space) “-” (minus sign)
Roller Weblogger 4.0-dev Will save posts which use tags with ” ” in the editor
Will not retrieve posts which use tags with ” ” in the editor, instead it separates the words, retrieving them all in alphabetical order
Will resolve tags URL which use ” “, encoding the URL to use “%20” instead		 Will save and retrieve posts which use tags with “%20” in the editor
Will resolve tags URL which use “%20”		 Will save and retrieve posts which use tags with “-” in the editor
Will resolve tags URL which use “-“
Google Search Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the ” “, search produces a large number of results Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the “%20”, search produces a small number of results because of the infrequency of using “%20” to separate written words Will search and retrieve multi-word tags as they are written, i.e. with the “-“, and will replace the “-” with ” ” as well, thus retrieving the most amount of related information
Google Translate Attempts to resolve tags URL which use ” “, encoding the URL to use “%20” instead (which Roller can serve, see above), then promptly fails Fails to resolve the correct URL to translate using “%20” Resolves tags URL which use “-” and continues to translate them successfully
Technorati Resolves tag URLs which use ” ” correctly, after re-encoding the URL with “%20”
Produces good results based upon using ” “		 Resolves tag URLs which use “%20” correctly, replaces the “%20″ with ” ” and produces good results based upon that Resolves tag URLs which use “-” correctly
Produces smaller, but not unreasonable, results, due of the infrequency of using “-” to separate written words
Del.iciou.ois Resolves tag URLs which use ” ” correctly, after re-encoding the URL with “%20”
Produces results based upon using ” “		 Resolves tag URLs which use “%20” correctly
Replaces “%20″ with ” ” and produces results based upon using ” “		 Resolves tag URLs which use “-” correctly
Produces results based upon using “-“
Slynker Attempts to resolve tags URL which use ” “, encoding the URL to use “%20” instead
Produces results based upon using ” “		 Resolves tag URLs which use “%20” correctly
Replaces “%20″ with ” ” and produces results based upon using ” “		 Resolves tag URLs which use “_” correctly
Produces results based upon using “_”

As you’ve probably surmised by now the issue is actually about the convergence of two technologies, and the incompatibilities they currently have. Principally that of tagging blog posts (and other stuff too) and that of URL encoding. It is not due to the limitations differing web1.0 and web2.0 platforms have around tag syntax, specifically multi-word tags, but of the correct adherence of these platforms in there support of RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL) specification.

The problem is that tagging generally uses a relatively free form syntax (driven mainly by the communities which use and propagate said tag nomenclature, or “Folksonomy”), when and where possible, but that URL encoding has a variety of reserved characters, which conflict with the characters used in tags.

Characters for special use in defining URL syntax include the following “Reserved Characters”, and should be encoded where possible (although as the data in the tables above prove even the encoded URLs fail to produce the expected, or required, results).

Character Hex Dec
 “$” (the dollar sign)
“&” (ampersand symbol)
“+” (plus sign)
“,” (comma symbol)
“/” (forward slash)		 24
26
2B
2C
2F		 36
38
43
44
47
Character Hex Dec
 “:” (the colon)
“;” (the semi-colon)
“=” (equal sign)
“?” (the question mark)
“@” (the ‘at’ symbol)		 3A
3B
3D
3F
40		 58
59
61
63
64

Given that the above are “Reserved Characters” when it comes to URL encoding, and that they include some of the most popular delimiters used by multi-word tags (specifically “+” which is used a great deal, especially on Technorati). And, as I have found in the investigation above, have a number of issues in being used both in multi-word tags and in URL encoding, I have decided to standardise on “-” as the multi-word tag delimiter of choice.

For me it has a number of advantages:

  1. saved and retrieved correctly in tags in the Roller edit post page
  2. the URL is encoded correctly in Roller too
  3. it resolves correctly whilst using Google Translate
  4. it returns all search results for both “-” and ” ” in Google Search – an unexpected bonus, in terms of returning search results (and thus being included in said search results)
  5. it returns reasonable results from Technorati, based upon “-“
  6. it returns reasonable results from Del.icio.us, based upon “-“
  7. it returns reasonable results from Slynker, based upon “-“

As to the issue of upper versus lower case, I have standardised on all lower case, as this has little effect in searches (outside of Technorati, which returns slightly differing results, albeit with a low delta between the results returned).

You may be able to see that I have started to retroactively replace the tags so far created with this new standard – however I have focused on the most popular tags for the time being, and I will continue to use this format from now on.

I found this article on “URL Encoding (or: ‘What are those “%20″ codes in URLs?’)” provided a nice overview of the issues of URL encoding, and of RFC 1738 itself.

Welcome ! Alain Andreoli joins Sun Microsystems as Senior Vice President for Europe

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All the very best to Alain Andreoli in his new role as he joins Sun as Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Services (GSS) for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) . …..

Out with the old, in with the new – blog design that is…

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Given I’ve just redesigned the site, I thought it would be nice to keep a visual comparison of the old 2007 look and feel versus the new 2008 blog interface and design.

Sadly image rendering in IE and Firefox lags behind that of Opera and Safari (the four browsers I review the site with), so these images may be a little ‘out of focus’. If that’s the case for you please get back to me and I’ll see if I can do anymore to improve the issue, prior to the two ‘largest by volume of users’ browsers catching up of course.

Example 1: UK Government G2G Messaging Sub-Systems

2007 version

2008 version

Example 2: Messaging Sub-Systems in the UK Government

2007 version

2008 version

Example 3: Comparison of Major Messaging Sub-Systems in the UK Government

2007 version

2008 version

Example 4: Evolution of UK Government Messaging Systems

2007 version

2008 version

Radical Alex Cox ‘Repo Man’ inspired weblog redesign

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Thanks to Alex Cox I’ve radically redesigned my ‘blog inspired by the product branding used in his seminal 1984 film ‘Repo Man’.

Written and directed by Alex, with the ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith as Executive Producer, Repo Man stars Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton as repossession agents on the trail of missing car with a little extra in the boot (a stolen ‘nuke). It’s a satirical and surreal comedy, widely seen as one of the first truly independent movies (along with it’s stable mate, the excellent ‘Rumble Fish’). It has a great, mainly Punk, soundtrack, including Black Flag’s ‘TV Party’, and songs performed by Iggy Pop, Suicidal Tendencies, The Circle Jerks, The Plugz, Burning Sensations, Fear and Juicy Bananas.

I was really struck by the product branding used in Repo Man – it’s pure and simple function over the aesthetic (with a good dollop of humorous irony thrown in for good measure).

After writing to Alex to ask his permission to use the branding as the basis of the look and feel of the site I was very happy to receive a reply (in quick order too).

Here’s Alex’s response:

You’re welcome to use that look.

It was originally the brainchild of Ralphs Supermarket in Los Angeles, who gave us all their generic stuff. The only labels we had to make said Drink and Food.

John Lydon also used it for his PIL album, ALBUM aka CASSETTE.

So you are in good company!

All best

Alex

—

Permanent US bases in Iraq? Afraid so.

https://www.alexcox.com/ed_current.htm

I was really pleased about getting a reply as I’m a big fan of Alex, and of his work, and not just because he does the best Jimmy Carl Black impression I’ve ever seen.

As Alex rightly points out the look and feel was later used by John Lydon’s post Sex Pistols / Post Punk band Public Image Limited for their generic release, called ‘Compact Disc’ or ‘Album’ or ‘Cassette’ depending on the format (the branding extended to the singles released, the promotional materials, and the merchandising too).

There are other people for me to thank for different elements of the new look and feel, and of especial mention is Dave Johnson.

For those of you who don’t know Dave, he is the creator and driving force behind the Roller Weblogger (now a project in the Apache Software Foundation) used at Sun Microsystems as it’s ‘blogging platform of choice (it powers blogs.sun.com), as well as being a fellow Sun employee.

Whilst recently reading Dave’s blog I had an idea that the colour scheme and basic layout he used would be a near perfect springboard for the ideas I had around using the product branding used in Repo Man as the basis for my sites look and feel redesign.

Thanks to Dave, or rather his blog I’ve rebuilt the basic layout of this site, incorporating the Repo Man inspired look and feel. To properly credit Dave I added “Derived: Dave Johnson’s Rollerblogger blog CSS” to the header of my CSS file.

Additionally theres a few more people to thank including www.khmerang.com, who’s post on ‘Real World Bar Graphs (with some CSS)’ helped my develop the Tag Pareto / Bar Graph, which I’m using as a page leader rather than the ubiquitous Tag Cloud (although there is an obligatory Tag Cloud on my archives page).

Then there’s blogs.sun.com/junkfood, who’s multiple posts on Roller Hacking, specifically ‘Roller: Re-ordering the Category Bar’ helped me develop the code for sorting the Tag’s by frequency.

That then led my to develop two other new pieces of functionality using Roller’s in built template scripting language ‘velocity’.

Firstly a new menu which incorporates both the page menu functionality and the category menu functionality – it’s included in the banner at the top of the page.

Secondly a new recent posts menu which both adapts to the currently chosen category and instead of linking to the individual page for an entry it instead links to an anchor on the page of the main blog (also current category dependent). The advantage here is that the reader still has the choice of reading posts around the target post – if they attract the eye

I also have to thank the friends and colleagues who read reviewed my blog. A constant theme that came out in the comments made by them that the nature of the site was too diverse. Amusingly Walter Milner had this to say, which I thought was the most succinct (and most humorous):

So relating to blogging – we have multiple aspects of our personalities, and I suspect that if you mix them on the same ‘channel’ you construct a confused message. One aspect is working at Sun/programming in C/PRINCE, another is a bizarre experience of a walk-on role in ‘The Birds’. I think you should separate them.

And why have you got some 5 channel paper tape as your banner? ;-)

However many of the reviewers wanted different things from my blog. Family (and some friends) generally wanted light fluffy stuff, like what’s going on at home, and what music am I listening to. Work friends generally wanted Sun Microsystems specific content. Whilst friends I had made in the IT Industry generally wanted generic technology information and opinion. Personally I also wanted to be able to blog about contemporary issues and news, in fact to use my blog as a diary of the significant events occurring around me.

In an attempt to reach a compromise I ratiionalised my blog categories, ‘boiling’ them down to only four categories (not including root, or ‘All’, which makes five). The four are: (1) Home – personal stuff, what record I’m listening too, etc., (2) Life – contemporary news, etc., (3) Tech – from micro IT to macro IT, technology and the technology industry, and (4) Work – stuff about Sun Microsystems, etc.

I’m hoping that by simplifying the categories down to four core areas, and by providing category specific functionality (now and more in the future), it will be easier for readers of this blog to navigate and find the stories and information pertinent to them.

And for those of you who haven’t seen Repo Man, obviously I recommend seeing it, and here’s a link to the theatrical trailer (hosted over at YouTube) for you to either get a ‘taster’ of the film, or remind yourself of it. In one scene in the trailer you can briefly see Emilio Estevez, as ‘Otto’, eating out of a can simply labeled ‘food’ – wonderful.

Link to above clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554AX4l1tmw

Relevant links:

Ted Chippington, back at last, and an interview with Stewart Lee

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The best thing about YouTube for me has been it’s ability to remind me of some great memories I thought I had forgotten. ….. 1 Trackback

Weblog language translator – blog translation on the fly with Roller specific functionality

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Finally got round to upgrading my ‘Weblog language translator‘ from beta.

Key to improving it was removing the roll over based banner I had implemented (the Google translation service, which I piggy-back off of, only translates circa 3k characters, so the banner header, full of links was using up the majority of the translation).

Obviously this points out a few of the flaws of the implementation, namely reliance on Google to provide the service (and of course a dependency on the call syntax not changing), and all of the weaknesses that follow on from relying on the Google service, not least the translatable character limit.

This time round I’m much happier with the implementation – and I’ve done a fair bit of testing to ensure it’s fit for purpose.

Unlike the other implementations out on the web I’ve added Roller specific functionality, implemented in JavaScript, creating a ‘main’ (or rather ‘weblog’) page for each language.

I did this because I wanted to tailor the service to be language specific, and because the major search engines outside of the English speaking, Google dominated, Internet, often verify that there is actual language specific content (and I want these search engines to be able to index my site, even if that’s only a couple of pages).

The code uses Roller Weblogger specific URL notations to provide the matching ‘weblog_xx’ (where xx stands for the two character country code – five characters when looking at Traditional and Simplified Chinese) to the target language to be translated to.

Currently it works for the generic weblog URL, all ‘entry’ variants, all ‘date’ variants, and all ‘page’ variants. It doesn’t work for ‘tags’ or ‘category’ variants (mainly because I haven’t had time to research the URL notation), but I hope to get this done soon. I’ll research and code up the other, alternative Roller URL formations when I next revisit the code. I find this acceptable, as it still provides a translation, however without accessing the language specific ‘weblog’ page.

The JavaScript is available via the page source – and you’re welcome to have a look and re-use if you wish (it’s nowhere near the nicest bit of JavaScript available – if you’d like to tidy it up at all you’re more than welcome).

I’ve also added Dutch and Greek to the list of languages that can be translated to, as these have been recently added to Google’s translation service (still no Hindi or Bengali though). That makes a total of fourteen languages, including the already implemented Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese (Taiwanese), English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, Korean, French and Italian. Plus I’ve replaced the language text with flag icons – which improves the look and feel too.

The icons are “available for free use for any purpose with no requirement for attribution” (although I thought it would be nice to credit the originating site) from FamFamFam, by fellow ‘Brummie‘ Mark James, available at https://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/flags/

Previously, after the initial implementation in beta, I found a variety of resources in a similar vein, none of which are Roller specific though, here’s a few examples for you to have a look at if you’re interested:

Have to admit I’m really glad I’ve tidied this up as I was starting to feel as though it was in danger of genuinely being in ‘permanent beta’, and however fashionable that is, in the apocryphal words of Steve Jobbs: “real artists ship”.

The Mighty Boosh, New Rave, Aluminium Potasium Sulphate and Monoammonium Phosphate

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The Mighty Boosh have returned for a third series – and all I can say is thank you Aunty Beeb for bringing it back ready to blow away the Winter blues. …..

Remembrance Day, 2007

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So Remembrance Day, 2007, it always seems to roll around so quickly – and how quickly we all seem to forget the debt we owe those who have fought and died for us to live comfortable and peaceful lives at home in the UK. …..

Sun Microsystems Executive Bios: Wayne Horkan

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Wayne Horkan, Chief Technology Officer, United Kingdom and Ireland, Sun Microsystems

Wayne works at the most strategic and senior levels with Sun’s customers and provides technology leadership across Sun’s Global Sales & Services Organisation. He has significant delivery experience in Enterprise SOA and integration implementations, Datacentre build-outs, major Internet, B2B and G2G systems, and national and international Identity Management systems.

Passionate about technology and innovation, Wayne champions a number of major initiatives in the field of large-scale and complex computing at Sun; including cloud computing, enterprise architecture, data centre economics and web science. He holds positions on the CBI’s Innovation, Science and Technology (IST) working group, as well as with PITCOM and EURIM, and is a Chartered Fellow of the BCS, a Fellow of the IoD and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Wayne writes one of the most popular Sun blogs at https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/

Links for this article:

Wayne Does Blur

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Thanks to Terry Jones, partner Systems Engineer extraordinaire, who filmed this debacle. …..

Welcome to the ‘blogosphere Peter…

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Really glad to see Peter Alsop join the blogging community at Sun. It’s great to see a new blog appear from the UK and Ireland technical team – especially when it’s someone I admire as much as Peter. His ‘blog is over at https://blogs.sun.com/psa/.

Peter’s a very talented fellow and a great orator – he’s immensely passionate about technology and it’s application in the real world and is one of the most enthusiastic speakers I know.

I first met Peter five or so years ago, when he was the team leader of the System Engineers in what we at Sun call the ‘Commercial’ industry. But I really remember him for his excitement over Java and the possibilities it brought to the UK development community.

Here’s a photo from a couple of years ago, when Peter had roped me into an event at his local university, Hertfordshire – the event was a J2EE (Sun) versus .Net (Microsoft) discussion – and was a friendly and convivial affair, despite the strongly worded title (not just because we had just signed our first interoperability agreement). A PDF formatted ‘flyer’ for the event is available: University hosts key web services debate.

From left to right – for Microsoft – Gavin King, Anthony Saxby and Mike Quirk; for Hertfordshire University – Jill Hewitt, Head of Computer Science, Dr Roger Oliver, Associate
Head of Computer Science and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Tim Wilson; and
for Sun Microsystems, Peter Alsop, Simon Cook and Wayne Horkan.

As I recall Peter did an overview both of Java and of the Java runtime environment model. Simon did details of the programming language (including syntax), available integrated development environment (IDE), J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) capabilities and the Web and Bean containers it offered. I was dragged along to discuss J2EE implementation models, application ‘stripping’, and real-world case studies – mainly of the J2EE runtime environments (and supporting infrastructure) I had had a part in building.

I’m pleased to say that Peter has acted as a mentor and as a friend to me at Sun, especially over the last couple of years – lately he’s helped me to understand my sphere of influence, it’s limitations, and how it needs to grow to be as effective as I need it to be.

If you get the opportunity to see Peter present and speak at an event then do so – I recommend it wholeheartedly.

As to Peter’s ‘blog – well “Congratulations Peter !” – here’s to a long and fruitful ‘blogging career !

Sun Customer Engineering Conference 2007

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Just two weeks until Sun’s major Field Technologist get together – the Customer Engineering Conference (CEC) 2007.

This is a yearly event – being held in Las Vagas this year – and virtually in Second Life.

Over 3,600 Sun Customer Engineers and around 300 Sun Partners from around the world will meet in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The event always feature keynotes from Sun executives but this year will also include Industry leaders too.

There will be a ton of things going on during the event – all around field focused, customer engineering.

Apparently it will “deliver critical training with focused technical tracks and breakout sessions”, plus there will be “a demo pavilion, and abundant networking opportunities for all participants”.

The real highlight for me will be seeing Andy Bechtolsheim:

The Value of Design: Sun’s Systems Launch

Join John Fowler and Andy Bechtolsheim on Tuesday, October 9th, at the launch of the next-generation CoolThreads servers and blade designed for virtualization. You will also hear about the latest Sun systems based on the Intel and AMD quad-core processors, and innovations in storage and software that more easily enable virtualization and web-scale computing.

And to all my friends going to the conference – see you there !

Who are the Pirates when the record industry resorts to entrapment ?

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Here’s the indomitable Trent Reznor extolling his Australian fans to “steal” his latest album (Year Zero) – in fact to “steal, steal, steal away”. …..

Wikipedia – Historical Revisionism, Negationism and Dystopian Fiction

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Wikipedia reminds me ever so much of Winston Smith’s job in 1984 by George Orwell (or Eric Blair), as I recall Winston constantly rewrites the past to suit the needs of the present.

Surprisingly however (or not) Wikipedia’s entry for ‘Historical Revisionism (Negationism)’ doesn’t include any references to itself.

The chap in ‘Brazil’, the 1985 film by Terry Gilliam, has the same, or very similar, job to Winston, as I further recall.

My favourite ‘traditional’ dystopian story is Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451‘, although I enjoyed Alan Moore’s ‘V for Vendetta‘ when it came out in 18 years ago, when I was 18, in 1988.

However I suspect that I’ll enjoy Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World‘, when I eventually get around to reading it (although I didn’t get on with his ‘The Doors of Perception (1954)‘ which I read half-heartedly at 14).

I appear to have read, and own, an unhealthy amount of the material on Wikipedia’s list of dystopian literature – strangely my favourite author of ‘unsettling’ dystopian fiction, J. G. Ballard, doesn’t make the list at all – perhaps because Ballard focuses on the dysfunctional present and our dystopian modernity rather than a far flung fiction.

So is Wikipedia the symbol and reminder of our current dystopian situation or a of the good that can be derived from the “Hive Mind” and it’s approach to collectively working together to break down social, intelectual and technical problems ?

Of course the real truth is that for all the good that Wikipedia does it is still the great ‘Lowest Common Denominator‘ in many cases – and perhaps this isn’t such as bad thing as long as people are aware of it’s limitations, using it accordingly – long may it (and it descendants) reign.