Reclaiming the flip-flop

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lee Felsenstein <lee () nerditude com>
Date: September 9, 2004 4:04:42 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Reclaiming the flip-flop

Dave,
        (Here's some thoughts for the IP list on reclaiming some 
language in this political season.)

Here’s to the Flip-Flop
By Lee Felsenstein and Lena Diethelm

In the current presidential campaign much has been said about 
“flip-flops”, with jeering partisans waving rubber beach sandals to 
curse the challenger for having seemed to change some position or other 
over the years. The incumbent counters with his image of steely, 
unflinching resolve. “FLIP-FLOP! FLIP-FLOP!” shout the accusing 
supporters at the right moments in the speech.

But there’s a serious problem – a “flip-flop” is more than a rubber 
sandal. The original flip-flop is a humble but universally employed 
technological building block whose characteristics illustrate an 
important divide within politics today.

Invented by Eccles and Jordan in 1919, the “bi-stable latch circuit” 
came to be called the “flip-flop” at the very beginning of the computer 
age, in the 1940’s, when beach sandals were just beach sandals. The 
flip-flop circuit has an output that maintains its setting indefinitely 
– until instructed to change it. Pulse it, and it “flips” – pulse it 
again and it “flops”.

Prior to the advent of the flip-flop, electronic decision-making 
circuits could only deal with things as they were at the instant the 
decision was made. Punched-card sorting machines could make decisions 
about only one card at a time, with each card having no effect on 
subsequent ones. Electronic control was a simplistic, dogmatic and 
brute-force matter, with no subtleties and no sense of history.

History, in fact, is what the flip-flop introduced to the technology of 
control. With it, computers became possible to the extent that today 
our lives and livelihoods depend upon them.

One flip-flop can remember two possible conditions, or “states”. Add 
another flip-flop and the number of possible states doubles. String 
sixteen of them nose-to-tail and you create a counter that can assume – 
wait for it – 65,536 states. Smear enough microscopic flip-flops onto a 
bit of silicon and you’ve created a memory chip. Coffee makers, 
ignition systems, music synthesizers and the mysteries of the Web 
emerge as a result. Facts, patterns, shades of meaning can now be held 
for reference and communicated.

“No, no!” cry the incumbent’s partisans, “We need steadfastness, 
strength, determination! All this stuff about shades of meaning will 
weaken us!”

But the stolid flip-flop, implemented over generations in every 
technology used for control, bears witness to the past occurrence of a 
single event, its flag raised or lowered. It stands, ranked with its 
innumerable fellows, holding patterns that express letters or numbers, 
currency or vital statistics, images, sounds, transactions – all the 
things that make our present-day economy move, or exist at all.  Not 
only does the flip-flop deserve respect, it should be held in the 
highest esteem.

Were we to abolish the flip-flop we would revert from an interactive 
age to an age of belief. Machinery could still be created that responds 
to its surroundings, to be sure, but the rules for these transactions 
would be “hard-wired” into them, changeable only by an act of surgery, 
best carried out without witnesses. “That’s the way the system works,” 
the self-satisfied explainers would say, “trust us on this.”

But we have moved beyond that, thanks to the flip-flop – the 
Eccles-Jordan invention which, with its multitudes of offspring, 
bestows upon us a panoply of machines that remember, that adapt, that 
empower our thoughts and ideas with global reach via the Internet.

Those who fear subtlety, nuance, dissent and individualism can continue 
to chant and wave beach sandals. We ask those who value the power of 
the common flip-flop to reclaim its name from those who would, in a 
sense, do away with its benefits.

Sept. 8, 2004


Lee Felsenstein "take the obvious...and simplify it!"
2460 Park Blvd. #1      Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650)814-0427

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