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 #210 New Moon of January 22, 2012 Contents copyright 2012 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. ********************* This is, in a sense, the darkest time of the year. While it's true that the days are a little longer than they were a month or so ago, the emphasis back then was as much on festive artificial lights as on the short days and long nights. The festive lights had been building even as the days darkened, so we could ignore the gathering gloom. Now the lights are gone, so we see the face of the darkness with nothing to hide it. Yes, there are more holidays. We recently had Martin Luther King Day, with Groundhog Day and Valentine's Day coming up. But these, unlike Yuletide, are not occasions we celebrate by lighting up the night. But even as the world appears to be at its darkest, there's one consolation: The darkness is waning, or at least starting to. The season of light will return. ********************* I've been working on a story idea involving characters who get in trouble exploring the abandoned ruins of a wizard's castle. This led to thoughts of whether there should have been warning signs posted, and if so, what they might look like. My first thought was of something analogous to the "fire diamond" often seen on buildings in the US (see "NFPA 704" in Wikipedia and in your favorite search engine). This is a diamond (tilted square) subdivided into four differently colored quarters, each containing a number or symbol indicating the degree of some particular type of hazard. One possibility might be something like a pentagram to indicate magic, oriented point down to look sinister because it's a hazard warning. Each point would indicate the degree of a particular type of hazard. Since there isn't room inside a point on a pentagram to put a number in any reasonable font size, we might want to go with an analog scale. The degree to which a given point is filled in with its color could indicate the degree of that particular hazard. Although this may not lend itself to the kind of precise language favored by those used to dealing with non-magical hazards, it may still serve to convey the general idea of the degree to which you need to be concerned. The center might contain an additional symbol if needed. So what kinds of magical hazards might emergency responders need to be on the lookout for? Here's a preliminary list: Physical forces held in check by magic: If you break the spell the seemingly petrified lion comes back to life, heavy stuff floating in the air just below the ceiling comes crashing down, and so on. So don't be too quick to throw Dispel Magic, even if that would otherwise be the first thing you would do. Illusions or clouded judgment: Decisions made by those in the midst of the action are likely to be wrong, and should be monitored remotely. You may not want to have people going in at all, but rather some sort of remote-controlled robot or something. Intelligent direction: You may not be just cleaning up a mess. Something may be actively plotting against you. This may require a different way of thinking to deal with successfully. Contamination: Some residual magical forces or entities may be clinging to you or your equipment, and may need to be cleaned off before you leave the area. You may think of others. I don't claim to have the final list. Also, I haven't yet decided which kinds of hazard would get what colors, or which ones go on which points of the pentagram (if that's what we end up with). Also, we may want a general Magical Hazard symbol, analogous to the familiar symbols for Biohazard or Radiation. I would expect this to be administered by some sort of Wizard's Association or Academy of Magic or the like, depending on the universe. Has much of anything been done along these lines? ********************* I've now and then heard statisticians talking about "error bars". Is an error bar a place where they always get your drink order wrong? ********************* I've now and then wondered if some sort of hybrid propulsion system might work for ocean-going ships. Instead of sails, there would be wind turbines powering propellers. This would provide the ability to go any direction relative to the wind, including directly against it. It might be supplemented with solar cells, which could be especially useful when the winds are too calm for sailing. There could also be steam or diesel power in reserve for when neither the wind nor the sun is available. Wind turbines might not fit well where you have stacks of cargo containers all over the deck, but even there it might be possible to use solar cells if they're designed to fit on top of the containers and are easy to remove and replace. Has this been studied lately? ********************* Have you ever wondered about the apparent lack of an adverbial form of the word "silly"? We may say that someone is speaking seriously when that seems to be the case, but we don't say that they are speaking sillily. That would seem to be the logical form of such a word if such a word existed. But does it? A quick Web search indicates that it does, or that at least some online dictionaries believe that it does. This spelling checker, on the other hand, seem not to share that belief. Could the problem be that the word "sillily" just sort of sounds kind of silly, so that people who wish to be taken seriously are hesitant to use it? ********************* Copyright laws have been in the news again recently. Someone on the WELL has noted that as technology has made it easier for ordinary people to share music, the music industry has tried to get new laws passed to prevent it. While the industry may be mostly concerned with people copying recordings instead of buying them on the "official" market, such laws also would make it harder to individual composers and performers to share their own creations. I'm sort of seeing this as another case of the 1% fighting to keep the 99% down as technology starts to liberate them. In this context the 99% ranges from those who create and perform for love, through those who supplement their day jobs, possibly up through those who make a modest but comfortable living from their art. The 1% is the megasuperstars and the big studios. We probably do not want to eliminate that top one percent, if only because many of us have dreams of someday joining their ranks. And there are things, such as feature-length movies full of special effects that look good on a theater-size screen, that only they can do, at least with current technology. But I do feel they're going too far in their attempts to control things. So maybe it's time to organize Occupy Prime Time or Occupy the Stage (or whatever better name someone can come up with)? ********************* Another topic of debate was whether famous artists of centuries past get too much solo credit for their works, since they were usually assisted by apprentices who ground pigments, prepared the blank canvas, and so on. Nowadays artists don't need such assistance. They can just go to the store and buy paint. But that doesn't really mean they're doing it all themselves. Other people (and/or machines) are still doing the grinding and mixing. They're just hidden away in distant factories where you don't see them. I've also heard that in medieval times a master artist's apprentices might do some of the actual painting, mainly backgrounds and details that may not have been the focus of attention but still needed to be filled in. Similar practices supposedly were common in sculpture. But again, what of present-day artists who use computer-generated textures in their drawings, computer-aided machining from CAD files for sculpture, and so on? Is the artist still the main creator of the work? In other words, does whether an artist's assistants are flesh and blood or mechanical make a difference in who should get credit? ********************* I've noticed that when I'm working on creating something, even if it's something I just feel like working on as opposed to having a "real reason", I feel better overall than when I'm just sort of lazing around. That reminds me of this: Problems My friend had been sort of wilting lately, Turning pale and faded and a little blurry around the edges. Regular doctors saw nothing in particular wrong, So I took him to the local guru. "Needs problems," said the guru with only a quick glance. "Of course he has problems," I replied, "That's why I brought him to you." "I didn't say he HAS problems. I said he NEEDS problems. His problem is that he doesn't have problems, And not having problems can be a very serious problem." "Huh?" say I, and he explains again. After a few more rounds it sinks in: Man is a problem-solving creature, Evolved, or created, or whatever, to solve problems, And a problem-solver without problems is nothing. Some instinctively know this, As sales of puzzles show. But others need to have problems thrust upon them. "You mean I should let the air out of his tires, Hide his morning paper in the bushes, Or invent foolish errands for him to run? Or should I get more serious, Hinting of rumors of downsizing at work, And asking his landlord to make noises about eviction?" "Professional opinions among gurus differ, But even if threatening problems are better than none at all, I'd try happy problems first." Happy problems? Those are the ones we face gladly, Like a painter needing to choose colors for a sunset Because she chose to try to capture it on canvas. Or being out on the lake in a boat with your fishing pole, Wondering exactly where they'll be biting And how to sneak up on them without scaring them off. Some, like scientists, get paid to solve happy problems. Others must seek problems elsewhere. But they're easy to find. Was there something my friend could do to help his other friends? Some way he could contribute to making a better world? Or even something as trivial As suggesting a closing line for this poem? The prognosis looks quite good. -- Thomas G. Digby written 19:00 03/15/1995 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU There are two email lists, one that allows reader comments and one that does not. Both are linked from http://www.plergb.com/Mail_Lists/Silicon_Soapware_Zine-Pages.html If you are already receiving Silicon Soapware and want to unsubscribe or otherwise change settings, the relevant URL should be in the footer appended to the end of this section in the copy you received. 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