Brooklyn, 2/16/03: Yesterday, New York City was a hall of mirrors.
Brooklyn, 2/16/03: Yesterday, New York City was a hall of mirrors. Riding the subway was like navigating bumper cars--trains going in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to be headed, the N train running on the V line for no apparent reason, the east bound Brooklyn L train headed west, skipping stops, stopping all together and with no warning telling people to get off and transfer to the train across the platform, which when it finally arrived was headed in the opposite direction of where it was supposed to be going, proceeding three stops, stopping again and instructing people to either walk across the platform and transfer, or stay on the same train if they wanted to get back to where they started from (with no instructions as to how they were supposed to get where they were actually going).
The first stop in Brooklyn was a sea of confusion--most of the people there did not know how or why they had spontaneously manifest in Brooklyn when they thought they were headed for the West Village. This chaos apparently started around 11:30 am--exactly at the time when people were attempting to gather for the anti-war protest. Why the MTA (Mass Transit Authority) would purposely scramble their trains to prevent people from getting to the protest is baffling. Perhaps it was just a coincidence--"construction" as the drivers said--but since when does construction in an otherwise efficient city effect every single train simultaneously?
And the mass confusion caused by the MTA was mirrored by the police—as if it was all a part of some bizarre master plan orchestrated by some conniving jack-in-the-box politicians and police commissioners. They blocked the streets for (as I understand) 30 blocks, preventing anyone from walking East along the side-streets to get to the main rally on First Avenue. If you were lucky enough to be on First Avenue already, you could walk West. But once you crossed Second Avenue, there was no turning back. People who crossed the line and then wanted to turn around were forbidden from entering. It was like walking through liquid mirrors that solidified back into glass once you passed through them.
These bizarre East-block barricades extended up to 5th Avenue. "Why are the streets blocked," we asked the officers as we crossed the avenues, headed west. Sternly: "Because there has been vandalism and complaints from residents." With a humble smile: "Honestly I don’t know." Snootily: "Because all these people wandering around are a disaster waiting to happen."
All the people wandering around was truly a remarkable sight. A "disaster waiting to happen" that was caused explicitly by the police. Because they were forbidden from walking to the rally, large groups of people with their anti-war signs paraded up and down 2nd Ave, 3rd Ave, Lexington Avenue, even 5th Avenue, forming their own marches. It was beautiful. Passers-by trying to shop were confused, befuddled, annoyed. The police were barraged by a litany of questions: "You mean I can’t even get to the park?" "You mean I can’t even get to a restaurant on 3rd Avenue where I am supposed to meet a friend?" "You mean I can’t get to Bloomingdales!!?" "You mean I can’t get to a rally which is legal!!!?"
It was inevitable that this would lead to dramatic action. According to this morning’s Daily News, "It grew especially heated several times between 1 and 3 p.m. on Second and Third avenues, when officers prevented arriving protesters from walking east to join the majority of the crowd. Police officials later said demonstrators refused to walk north where they were allowing protesters to enter First Avenue." To walk north in order to walk east, they would have had to have walked over 15 blocks. It was 10 degrees outside. Right, ok. No problem. Finally the agitated protestors broke through the barrier. The police used their horses to shove people on the sidewalk. A couple horses suffered injuries. MTA busses were used to escort people who had been arrested. A friend who witnessed this said they put people on one bus at a time, in order to separate them from other protestors.
How did this connection between the MTA and the Police come into effect? Since when is it public transportation’s business to work with the police to curb people’s rights to assemble? It was clear that the police were making up their own rules. It was clear to anyone roaming the streets yesterday, trying to walk east to attend a legal protest, trying to ride the subway in any logical direction, trying to manoeuvre the streets--that our "freedom to assemble" is, like other constitutional rights, vanishing before our eyes. Pooof. When directions are scrambled, streets blocked off, our own internal maps of our city are distorted. The message they were trying to get across was clear—you people have no power.
Of course, although they may have succeeded in confusing people, they failed miserably to contain us. Walking the streets yesterday it was clear how many people came out to oppose to the war--no matter how the officials try and fudge the actual number of protestors, people were out in droves. The police underestimated the crowds (I guess they were baffled that Code Orange didn’t succeed in terrifying us to make the trek to Home Depot for duct tape, like those people in the very-susceptible-to-be-attacked suburbs). At 1:45, two hours after the rally started, Chief of Department Joseph Esposito declared a Level 4 mobilisation, the force's largest emergency deployment. This cost the department $5 million in overtime—a cost that easily could have been curtailed had simply allowed a marching permit.
Most significantly, the protest here was happening simultaneously 100 times over around the globe. We could see ourselves reflected in Rome, London, Copenhagen, San Francisco. We were numerous, and today breath a sigh of relief. The papers report this morning that the U.S. and Britain are re-drafting their UN resolutions against Iraq. Of course, this sigh (a moment of hope) will inevitably turn back to anger and disbelief in the coming weeks as our hawk administration proceeds war-head strong in their illogical and asinine plans to inflict chaos and mayhem in the Middle East. And no doubt, we’ll be back on the streets again--this time a little bit more knowledgeable about what tricks the city is capable of.
This variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.
Posted by: Joan on January 18, 2004 10:40 PMThis will allow us to use a few functions we didn't have access to before. These lines are still a mystery for now, but we'll explain them soon. Now we'll start working within the main function, where favoriteNumber is declared and used. The first thing we need to do is change how we declare the variable. Instead of
Posted by: Cesar on January 18, 2004 10:41 PMA variable leads a simple life, full of activity but quite short (measured in nanoseconds, usually). It all begins when the program finds a variable declaration, and a variable is born into the world of the executing program. There are two possible places where the variable might live, but we will venture into that a little later.
Posted by: Warham on January 18, 2004 10:41 PMThe rest of our conversion follows a similar vein. Instead of going through line by line, let's just compare end results: when the transition is complete, the code that used to read:
Posted by: Rook on January 18, 2004 10:41 PMWhen compared to the Stack, the Heap is a simple thing to understand. All the memory that's left over is "in the Heap" (excepting some special cases and some reserve). There is little structure, but in return for this freedom of movement you must create and destroy any boundaries you need. And it is always possible that the heap might simply not have enough space for you.
Posted by: Ursula on January 18, 2004 10:42 PM