-Caveat Lector-
Electronic Telegraph
In My
Opinion:
Clinton OS
never
crashes
No matter how much
politicians threw at
him, the American
President performed
like a well-oiled
machine. He is a role
model for computers,
never mind
politicians, says
Charles Shaar Murray
zzzzz . . . That's the
unmistakable sonic signature of
a new buzzword drilling its way
into the language. One aspect of
President Clinton's recent
travails that seems to have
intrigued certain commentators
is his capacity for what's
currently dubbed
"compartmentalisation".
In plain English, this means that
if Mr Bill has a problem in any
specific area of his life, he can
muster the mental, emotional
and spiritual discipline necessary
to prevent trauma and turmoil
from spilling over into any other
sector of his being. In other
words, it's detachment developed
to the nth degree.
Now this is a damn good trick if
you're able to pull it off - and,
frankly, I'm jealous. I envy Slick
Willie very little else, but his gift
for concentrating on the matter
in hand (stop it!) while shutting
out static from the rest of the
universe is an asset indeed.
I could do with a piece of that.
I'm the Man With the Hypertext
Head, and in what passes for my
brain, everything is linked to
everything else. A disturbance in
any given area instantaneously
spreads everywhere else.
Pretty much like what happens
to my Mac when some
recalcitrant application crashes
- when it attempts to access a
chunk of memory already in use
by something else. Worst-case
scenario: the whole system
freezes - it stands there going,
"D'oh!", trying to decide which
way to jump while the oncoming
train zooms remorselessly
closer.
There's a quick-and-dirty way
of dealing with freezes - you
throw a metaphorical bucket of
water over the computer by
giving it a hard restart. Result:
you free up trapped memory and
detraumatise the computer. The
downside is that a violent
shutdown with lots of files and
applications open can generate a
whole bunch of new headaches
even as it dispels the old one.
The solutions to this
problemware feature of Windows
NT, as well as various flavours
of Unix, and a variation thereof
will also be incorporated into
Apple's forthcoming OS X, the
successor to the standard Mac
OS (now 8.5). One is
"pre-emptive multitasking" which
enables applications to grab
more memory than previously
assigned should it be necessary.
The other is called "protected
memory". What protected
memory will do for your
computer is fence off chunks of
memory and dedicate them to
specific tasks and applications. If
some demented app decides to
start freaking out, you can force
it to quit without bringing down
other open applications or the
operating system itself.
Now, this is traditionally the way
human beings other than myself
cope with Bad Craziness. Bill
Clinton just happens to be
better at it than most. It's a
classic example of the way
computer designers use the
human brain as a model for how
to equip their creations to deal
more effectively with general
Unpleasant Stuff. You know how
it works; you say, "That's
happening there, but I'm over
here. Therefore it doesn't apply
to me right now." Which is why
Mr Bill was able to face his 57
varieties of brouhaha with such
aplomb, not to mention bomb
Iraq with such equanimity. As an
example of pre-emptive
multitasking and protected
memory in action, it's pretty
damned impressive.
So roll on OS X. It should make
crashes, freezes and hangs
things of the past. Or maybe it'll
just turn my Mac into Bill
Clinton.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
"From the rage of today's downtrodden comes the revenge of tomorrow's
revolutionary force." Edward Britton ><>
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5285/connector1.html
Talk to the planet: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Reality_Pump2
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
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