SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us = tgdigby@netcom.com http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #43 New Moon of June 23, 1998 Contents copyright 1998 by Thomas G. Digby, with a liberal definition of "fair use". In other words, feel free to quote excerpts elsewhere (with proper attribution), post the entire zine (verbatim, including this notice) on other boards that don't charge specifically for reading the zine, link my Web page, and so on, but if something from here forms a substantial part of something you make money from, it's only fair that I get a cut of the profits. For more background info, details of how the mailing list works, etc., ask for a copy of issue #Zero. If you email me a reply or comment, please make clear whether or not it's for publication. ********************* Imagine a neonatal intensive care unit on some alien planet. There are two patients, probably in basket-like bassinets so you don't really see them. There is machinery in the background, with wires and tubes and such leading into the baskets. One basket has a tentacle or two sticking up out of it and waving around happily. There may be an adult, looking like something out of a horror comic, standing there looking pleased. Is the adult a doctor? A parent? Something we don't have an equivalent for? Does it matter? There are no happy tentacles waving around out of the other basket. The indicators on that baby's machines, to the extent we can decipher them, tell a tale of woe. The adult on that side, to the extent that we can read its body language, looks depressed and defeated. So here's the question for any science-fiction artists who may be reading this: Can we somehow work around such details as alien written language, alien machinery designs, and non-humanoid body language, to capture the essential idea of one baby doing very well while the other is faring very poorly? ********************* If Dr. Kevorkian were mayor of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge would have a bus stop in the middle. ********************* There's a monastery somewhere on some world. The general populace doesn't have the technology to make guns, but the monks do. Thing is, they don't think of them as weapons. They're bell-ringers. There are these huge bells high up on a cliff or on the other side of a canyon or something, and access is difficult or maybe forbidden except on Maintenance Days, so they ring the bells by shooting at them. We see and hear the monks describing the details to a visitor, and it's clear to us from the description that it's a muzzle-loading firearm of some sort, probably a matchlock. They have lots of them, and they have a daily ceremony where they fire off quite a number of shots (one per gun) at the bells. The guns and ammo (which they call something else, like "projectors" for the guns and "messengers" for the pellets), are all sacred. They're not to be used for anything else. There are a whole bunch of commandments about keeping their guns holy, with some safety rules mixed in. There are, however, rumors and tales of some of them being put to other uses. There are stories of how some hunter got hold of one, took it into the wilderness, and brought down some large beast, perhaps one that had been terrorizing the village. And it is said that once, long ago, some other monastery of this order was invaded by barbarians. The monks happened to have some new bell- ringing equipment that hadn't yet been consecrated, and they used it to "ring" the invaders. They've had no trouble since. Occasionally some warlord hears these tales and has thoughts of getting bell-ringers for warlord-type uses, but so far the monks have kept the secrets safe. So far. ********************* Ever noticed how the steps on escalators stay level even as the slope they are on changes? That's because each step is on wheels or rollers or some such, with the front wheels and rear wheels running on separate tracks. (Yes, they do tip over for the return trip once they're out of sight.) Now imagine applying something like that to cars on a roller coaster. You're going along level track and come to a sudden drop, but instead of nosing down like a normal vehicle, the car stays level and drops more like an elevator. Or maybe, just to add to the confusion, it noses up a little as it starts to drop. Or conversely, you're on level track but the car is pitching up and down like a boat in rough water. Does any roller coaster you know of have anything like this now? ********************* At a Bardic Circle recently someone read an excerpt from "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" about magic-working. In that story the hour centered on midnight was magic time, with 11:30 to 12:00 being the time for doing good and 12:00 to 12:30 for doing evil. And there was a scene of magic being worked during this hour, with the doing-good time ending when they heard the town clock striking twelve. That leads to the question of how such "witching hour" things work, and whether it's civil time (including Daylight Saving) or actual Sun time. I can think of mechanisms for it being either way. An astronomer or astrologer might say it depends on where the Sun is relative to the scene of operations. Perhaps the magic is most potent when the sun is at its lowest (below the horizon, unless you're near the poles). That would be local solar midnight, which you'd have to calculate for your locality relative to clock time. On the other hand, if what you wanted was the general community consciousness believing that it's midnight, you'd probably go by local clock time. And you might even honor Daylight Saving, although that's artificial enough that opinions could well differ. So in these days of high technology and world-wide communications even something as seemingly simple as the traditional "witching hour" has gotten complicated. ********************* After the sky falls, what will we see when we look up? ********************* You've probably heard of what computer people call "Y2K", when many computers will misbehave because their software can't handle years past 1999. Some experts say it will be little more than an inconvenience, while others are almost saying the sky will fall. Many organizations are hard at work trying to fix their systems now, amid fears that they may already be too late. Others have barely started. In the latter category, there are reports that the head of the Russian atomic energy agency was quoted as saying, "we'll deal with Year 2000 when it comes..." That inspired this: We Will Deal With Year 2000 To the tune of "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain": We will deal with Year Two Thousand when it comes (when it comes), We will deal with Year Two Thousand when it comes. We will deal with Year Two Thousand, We will deal with Year Two Thousand, We will deal with Year Two Thousand when it comes. It will come in on a weekend when it comes (when it comes), It will come in on a weekend when it comes. It will come in on a weekend, It will come in on a weekend, It will come in on a weekend when it comes. We will start the work on Friday when it comes (when it comes), We will start the work on Friday when it comes. We will start the work on Friday, We will start the work on Friday, We will start the work on Friday when it comes. Will we be all done by Monday when it comes (when it comes)? Will we be all done by Monday when it comes? Will we be all done by Monday, Will we be all done by Monday? Will we be all done by Monday when it comes? [pause] [shouted] HELL, NO! -- Tom Digby 10:16 p.m. June 20, 1998