SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #75 New Moon of February 23, 2001 Contents copyright 2001 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. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. Details of how to sign up are at the end. ********************* Something got me to thinking about what if I were to become unable to drive when I get to be maybe 80 or 90 years old. Could I just put up a BUS STOP sign some place that's convenient to wherever I'm living at the time, and then just sit there and wait? Do BUS STOP signs attract buses, and/or cause those that happen by to stop and pick people up? Maybe in some cartoon world they do, even if not here. Or will they have self-driving cars by then? That's an old science fiction cliche that's been "just around the corner" since the Sixties or maybe even earlier. I think the reason the predictions were so optimistic compared to what has (or hasn't) happened since is that nobody realized how big a job it would be. In its ideal form a self-driving car would require computer vision, which requires huge amounts of computing power. They're developing some such applications in industrial contexts now, but nowhere near the robot vision of science fiction. I'm reminded of Calvin (of the comic strip) trying to build a robot to make up his bed. He built the outer shell first, apparently without ever thinking of what kind of works it would have inside. Of course it didn't work. It also reminds me that one of my childhood fantasies, maybe around age five or six, was to build a thousand-story building. This, like most fantasies in that age range, wasn't thought through too thoroughly. For example, I had no concept of real estate ownership beyond "this is so-and-so's house," so I thought all vacant lots were up for grabs. I just assumed that when I got ready to build I could just wander around and find an empty lot before somebody else got to it first. Also, I hadn't really drawn any plans: I would just somehow get a bunch of bricks and girders and stuff and start building. I would keep building until I got a thousand stories, and then stop. And no, I hadn't decided what to do with the building after I got it built either. I did, however, have a name picked out: "The Thousand Story Building". ********************* And the subject of impractical childhood dreams leads to thoughts of a situation where some child has an idea something like Calvin's bed-making robot, and the adults use that as an educational opportunity. So the kid goes through school learning computer programming and mechanical engineering and such, and finally gets the robot (or whatever) working about the time he (or she) graduates from college. Of course the kid has outgrown the need for it by then, but there are lots of other kids out there whose parents are willing to pay money for whatever it is, so the kid ends up wealthy. ********************* They're putting microprocessors in more and more home appliances nowadays. So if some new piece of software sucks, you can take it off your computer and install it on your vacuum cleaner instead. ********************* There's a story in the March 2001 Fortean Times to the effect that someone in Nigeria supposedly had a motorcycle helmet with a spell on it such that the wearer would turn into a zombie and vomit money. He tried to trick a woman into putting it on but she placed it on his head instead, so there he was in a zombie-like condition, vomiting money. The story didn't say what happened when the helmet was removed. I sort of tend to assume the victim would stop vomiting money, but would he stay a zombie or return to normal? And would the money continue to exist? In the best case the subject would stop vomiting money and return to normal, none the worse for the ordeal, and the money would still be there. So what if that's the case and a bunch of your friends happen to get hold of the helmet? Someone proposes that you all take turns being the money-spewing zombie, and then split the take. Would you join in? I think for me it depends on a number of factors: How desperate I am for money at that particular time, how much I trust my friends, and how much I trust the reports that there are no long-term harmful effects, physical or otherwise. And of course whether they invite me in may also depend on how much they trust me. I think in my case one likely sticking point would be whether I really believed the whole thing to be safe. Even assuming the government didn't step in and outlaw money-vomiting zombies, I would be worried about side- effects that nobody else had noticed yet or had otherwise failed to tell my friends about. There are also questions about the ethics of creating money out of nothing. In a way it's like counterfeiting, even if the money is physically real enough to pass all tests. Another thought: Since I saw the story in a magazine, I suspect a number of dungeon masters will have run across it as well. So how many helmets of money-vomiting zombiness will be showing up in various gaming sessions over the next few months? ********************* Someone on the WELL is having friends or relatives coming to visit from overseas. While they're here they want to see Silicon Valley's famous places: Netscape, HP, and so on. That reminds me of people coming to Los Angeles and wanting to see things like the Chinese Theater and the Hollywood sign and the studios. The more things change, the more they stay the same. ********************* Some columnist said the worst case for the power situation this summer would be rolling blackouts as a routine thing. Although that may be a plausible worst case, it isn't the worst case that I can think of. The real (implausible) worst case might be the utilities going into Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. Suppose some judge (someone who has it in for California?) puts PG&E into Chapter 7, and orders the plug pulled until the assets can be auctioned off. Thus large portions of the state face the prospect of weeks or months without electricity. Since no electricity means that some neighborhoods would have no water and possibly no working sewage system, the Health Dep't starts making noises about evacuating the whole area. But how do you evacuate several million people? Where do you put them? And what happens when you start to set up refugee camps but the conspiracy theorists start claiming they're really concentration camps for hippies and such? And what happens to the economy? How many mortgages will go into foreclosure? This is the kind of thing somebody might want to make a quickie exploitation movie out of before the worst is over. ********************* Some newspaper columnist is against snooze alarms. I got the impression that he tends to wake up more or less all at once, and doesn't find it pleasurable to lie there half-awake. Thus he's not one of the people snooze alarms are for. They're more for people who wake up gradually, a bit at a time. I'm in this latter category, and I usually find the half-awake state somewhat pleasurable as I gradually work my way up to being fully awake. Do others experience the same thing? I suspect there may be actual physical differences between people here. ********************* Some people are concerned about possible monopolistic effects of mergers of Net-related companies like AOL and Time-Warner, and about the trend toward Web search sites selling prime placement in their results listings for certain searches. One possible countermeasure might be a grass-roots nonprofit search setup based on a distributed model. I haven't thought out the details, but each subscriber would be given a subset of the Web to index, and would somehow make their findings available to other users. It would be something like the SETI model in that the work would be divided up and run on a large number of machines when they would otherwise be idle, and something like the Napster model in the sense of having a sort of central top-level index of the findings with the actual detailed information decentralized. It would, however, be unlike Napster in that it would not involve wholesale copyright violations. Pages might be copied to people's machines for the purpose of making indexes, but then only the index information would be shared, not the original pages. That should be OK under the Fair Use provisions of the copyright laws. I don't know who would finance development of such a thing, but there are plenty of people who are unhappy with the growth of corporate power and who may be willing and able to set something like this up. ********************* Incident Along Fantasy Way The Invention The wind moans across the gray plains Like a thing in pain And will not be comforted. This stretch of road is little more than a trail Not scheduled for paving For another ten thousand years. Behind a crude wagon Four men labor patiently -- Heaving it up onto the corners of its square wheels To fall to the next side with a resounding crash. Over and over the process is repeated As they move slowly along. Sometimes they talk among themselves: "Have you seen the wagon the North Tribe is using?" Heave ... CRASH! "You mean the one with the wheels set at angles to each other?" Heave ... CRASH! "Yes. When one wheel is resting flat, the opposite one is up on a corner." Heave ... CRASH! "That makes it easier to push, right?" Heave ... CRASH! "A lot easier, but it has other problems." Heave ... CRASH! "The Hill People say it isn't safe on a slope." Heave ... CRASH! "That's no concern on the plains ... " Heave ... CRASH! "... but the axle does have to turn with the wheels ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... so the fastening to the frame is complicated ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... and the wheels have to be rigidly fastened to the axle ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... but they keep breaking off." Heave ... CRASH! "Well, maybe they'll get that fixed some day." Heave ... CRASH! "Maybe." Heave ... CRASH! Heave ... CRASH! Another speaks up: "I'm worried about my oldest son." Heave ... CRASH! "You mean about that wagon he's building?" Heave ... CRASH! "Yes. He's only seen a wagon once, from a distance ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... and won't take time to study the lore of wagon-building." Heave ... CRASH! "Thinks he can think it all out for himself?" Heave ... CRASH! "As usual. But it's a waste of talent ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... like inventing fire all over again." Heave ... CRASH! Heave ... CRASH! "But I have heard it said that if you keep reinventing fire ..." Heave ... CRASH! "... you may find a way to make it hotter." Heave ... CRASH! "Maybe." Heave ... CRASH! Heave ... CRASH! Heave ... CRASH! And the wind moans like a thing in pain And will not be comforted. Thomas G. Digby written 0215 hr 11/03/74 entered 1200 hr 3/05/92 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU If you're getting it via email and the headers show the originating site as "lists.best.com" you're getting the list version, and anything you send to DigbyZine@lists.best.com will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation. There's usually a burst of activity after each issue, dying down to almost nothing in between. But any post can spark a new flurry. If there's no mention of "lists.best.com" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. 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