SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.com http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #121 New Moon of November 12, 2004 Contents copyright 2004 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. ********************* A recent issue of Newsweek had a cover story on Bob Dylan. The thing that struck me was that after a certain point in his career he found fame to be a burden, with fans in effect stalking him and prowling around his home, seldom giving him or his family a moment's peace. It turns out that some of his less comprehensible songs were in effect an attempt at self-sabotage. If he could somehow become less famous, he wouldn't get all that unwanted attention. But it didn't work. He had attained some critical degree of fame where a sort of "Emperor's New Clothes" effect came into play. If one of his songs seemed to make no sense, it must be because its meaning was too profound for the listener to understand, which meant it must be really good. The idea that the song inherently made no sense was no longer allowed. So his fame continued to grow. At least that's how I interpreted that part of the article. That all makes me thankful that I didn't become a famous pop music star back in the Sixties. For a while it seemed possible that it might happen, and it looked like a grand dream at the time, but with what I've since seen and heard about greedy and manipulative business people, as well as some of the effects of major public attention, it's probably for the best that it never came to fruition, especially when I was as young as I was back then. ********************* The bit about Bob Dylan finding fame to be a burden, combined with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, leads to the thought that many of the things I have to be thankful for didn't look at all good at the time. Is it like that for other people as well? ********************* [sound of radio being turned on] ... the victim has been transferred from Central Emergency to Forest Lawn, where his condition is reported as Extremely Stable. This is Radio Pollyanna, where the news always sounds good even when it's bad. [sound of radio being turned off] ********************* As many of you may know, there's been a big murder trial going on a few miles up the road. The big news a few days ago was that a couple of jurors got kicked off the jury. Of course the part about kicking is just a figure of speech, at least in our world. But what about the courts in Cartoonland? The courts where most small-to-medium trials are held have a couple of bailiffs who used to be professional football players. When a juror needs to be kicked off the jury, a football bailiff drop-kicks them through one of the courthouse windows. Then the court bills the ex-juror for the cost of replacing the broken glass. There have been a couple of discrimination lawsuits because some kickers kick harder than others, so they're thinking of going to some sort of steam-powered mechanical arm with a giant boot on it to deliver a precisely standardized kick. It will be taken around to the various courtrooms as needed. But that project is on hold because a maker of trebuchets is suing over alleged irregularities in the contract-awarding process. Even though the action of the trebuchet is more like throwing than kicking, they argue that they should have been allowed to bid. On the other hand, the courts that do the big sensational trials have a different system. There the chairs in the jury box are all ejection seats. If the judge doesn't like a particular juror, he (or she) just presses a button and SPROING!!! Next candidate, please? These ejectors are generally aimed toward a nearby industrial area, where the ejectee can land in any of several interesting vats or junk piles or bits of humorously traumatic machinery. But there's a problem: The trapdoor in the ceiling that's supposed to open to let the juror through doesn't always synchronize properly with the ejection seat. This is especially bad with downstairs courtrooms where trapdoors in several upper floors have to open in sequence. Engineers had been working on it, but the work is on hold because of pending litigation about the contract, or rejected jurors' hospital bills, or something like that. And that litigation is on hold because they can't do juror selection as long as the juror ejection system isn't working right. It's kind of an impasse. There's talk of getting a change of venue to some outdoor location, but it's getting into Rainy Season so that may not be too good an idea either. Stay tuned for further developments, but don't hold your breath. ********************* "It turns out that that part of the spaceport had been built over an old Twentieth Century cemetery." How come you practically never hear that line in the movies? ********************* Here's a possible consequence if this Administration has its way on the use of stem cells. Imagine a future where researchers abroad, using stem cells, have found a cure for some major degenerative disease, possibly MS or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. But the US has outlawed the use of fetal stem cells. So the standard description of the disease ends with "... although it is curable in many countries, in the US there is no lawful cure." Then what? ********************* If you're not into computer geekery, you might want to skip to the next row of asterisks. The flap about electronic voting machines and the difficulty of verifying their programming got me wondering whether anybody has ever tried writing a compilation auditor. It would check a binary file against the source code that was supposed to have produced it, and give an indication of how consistent or inconsistent they are. This would need to have some aspects of a compiler along with aspects of a reverse compiler. Both of those tools exist, but I don't know if anyone has ever tried to combine them like that. Or would it be better to compare two binary files for functional equivalence? That way you wouldn't be limited to programs written in a particular language, as long as you had a trusted compiler for the language in question. You could also compile the same source code with two different compilers, to catch compiler problems. Either way, this would be a rather complex piece of software, especially when you consider things like optimized code. But it might be possible. Or it might not. Perhaps this is one of those tasks that turns out to have no limit on how complex the calculations can turn out to be. But even if that's the case, if it could handle the easy parts and flag the rest, it might make the job of verifying executable code easier. Uses for this wouldn't necessarily be limited to voting machine software. Some spacecraft and aircraft have redundant computer systems controlling critical aspects of flight. Each of these was written by a different party, in hopes that they won't all make the same mistakes. A cross-checker could verify that the different versions of the code are indeed functionally equivalent. A difference would indicate that at least one version may be wrong, and thus point out places that need further scrutiny. So has anybody tried to write something like this? ********************* Do cat fights follow Meowquis of Queensbury rules? ********************* That big murder trial I mentioned earlier has just returned a verdict: Guilty. Now comes a second phase in which they determine whether or not the defendant gets the death penalty. That reminds me of an article I read some time back with a description, by one of the official witnesses, of an execution by lethal injection. It reminded me less of a traditional execution than of a sick pet being "put to sleep". That leads me to more thoughts on the death penalty. What function(s), if any, should it be serving in a civilized society? If it's mainly to rid the world of people who are too dangerous to be allowed to live, should it still be treated as a sentence for the criminal courts to hand down for a specific act, or should it become more of a civil matter, analogous to commitment to an asylum? And should it perhaps be based not on any single act but rather on the subject's entire record, along with expert evaluation as to the likelihood of eventual rehabilitation? If it is still to be thought of a punishment for crime, has it gotten too sanitized? Might some ancient reptilian part of our brain still need the barbaric images of the gallows, the axe, or the electric chair? The same medical technology that now gives us lethal injection should be able to render a more traditional-looking execution painless, while keeping the savage imagery. Or maybe it's time to stop actually killing people, but still keep the symbolism of the condemned's life being forfeit. Sentence them to death, then send them off to Death Row where they are never heard from again. There they would live out their lives out of the public eye, perhaps already legally dead for such purposes as inheritance. The state would issue no news releases as to their condition or eventual demise. They would be allowed few visitors, mostly close relatives, and those visitors would be discouraged from discussing the matter with the media. As far as the outside world is concerned, the condemned would just vanish, possibly after some sort of ceremony designed to give closure to victims and others. They could be brought back from this "death" if new evidence turns up that results in overturning their conviction, but short of something of that sort they would be gone forever. Of course we may still have to allow monitoring of prison conditions by anti-cruelty groups such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International, but if we treat our "dead and gone" prisoners reasonably well that shouldn't make much of a media splash. Could such a "living death" plan be made to work? Would it be something we as a society would want to do? ********************* Shining Around In the beginning was the Light, And the Light brought forth life and love Upon the earth. But then came those whose thirst for power Was stronger than their love of the Light. They began to do evil in the name of the Light, And so doomed many to darkness, Their view of the Light blocked by the evil done in its name. But the Light would not long be blocked. It sprang forth from a new direction, In glorious new colors, Again bringing life and love to the world. But again came those whose thirst for power Was stronger than their love of the Light. And again their evil blinded many To the glory of the Light. Yet again the light would not long be blocked. It began to shine from yet another direction In ever more glorious colors, To bring more life and love to the world. And so goes the eternal cycle: Evil ones find new ways to block the Light, But the Light always springs forth anew, In new colors, From new directions. So if for you the Light Does not seem to come from the same source As it does for your neighbor, It is the Light's way of making sure That it will never be completely blocked. -- Tom Digby Written 12:20 November 6, 2004 Edited 00:20 November 9, 2004 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU If you're getting it via email and the Reply-to in the headers is ss_talk@bubbles.best.vwh.net you're getting the list version, and anything you send to that address will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation. 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