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/user/bubbles/ Issue #47 New Moon of November 18, 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. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. If you don't want to read about the mechanics of this, skip down to the row of asterisks (****). 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 (although so far traffic has been light). If there's no mention of "lists.best.com" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The content is the same for both. To get on or off the conversation-list version send email to DigbyZine-request@lists.best.com with the word "subscribe" (to get on the list) or "unsubscribe" (to get off) in the body, but nothing else (except maybe your signature if that's automatic). Then when you get a confirmation message edit the REJECT in the subject line to ACCEPT and send it back. To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I do that one manually. ********************* Late again. Should I print up a Tardy Slip and forge my mother's signature on it? The excuse this time is work. Right around the time this was due, there was a work project approaching a major milestone. This resulted in several days in a row of burning midnight oil (Not literally -- We, like most other Silicon Valley startups, do have electric lights). Now the spotlight is moving to other departments and I've been de-stressing for a few days, although still keeping pretty busy (including some work over Thanksgiving weekend). So I'm finally getting to Silicon Soapware. Better late than never. ********************* This is issue #47, a number which is one of the "standard values" for electronic components that have a tolerance of plus or minus 10% of their value. Such things as resistors and capacitors will have values from this roughly logarithmic "standard values" series, times some power of ten. And that reminds me of the Electronics Hardware Mantra: Ohms, fifteen hundred ohms ... Ohms, eighteen hundred ohms ... Ohms, twenty-two hundred ohms ... Ohms, thirty-three hundred ohms ... Ohms, thirty-nine hundred ohms ... Ohms, forty-seven hundred ohms ... Ohms, fifty-six hundred ohms ... Ohms, sixty-eight hundred ohms ... Ohms, eighty-two hundred ohms ... Ohms, ten thousand ohms ... Ohms, twelve thousand ohms ... Ohms, fifteen thousand ohms ... Ohms, eighteen thousand ohms ... Ohms, twenty-two thousand ohms ... and so on. It can be chanted to sound like a Real Mantra even though it's rather silly, which is what I like about it. There are other series for things with tighter or looser tolerances, but enough on that for now. ********************* I just saw the movie "Pleasantville". One question that just now occurred to me: How would a TV repairman in that kind of monochrome world be able to read resistor values, since the most common way to mark them in our world was by a color code, with each color standing for a different number? I suppose one way would be to allow only those values that can be expressed with the digits 0 (black), 8 (gray), and 9 (white). But that puts severe constraints on the design. So how do they handle this problem? It never got mentioned in the movie. And wouldn't that high school's chemistry classes have a similar problem with litmus paper? And what other problems might not having colors cause? Does the town have any traffic lights? I can see them not mentioning this kind of thing in the movie because it would be too much trouble to explain it to non-tech viewers. But the questions still linger ... ********************* Speaking of movies, I saw "Small Soldiers" a few weeks back. I liked it, for the most part. Afterward I got to wondering about the ethics involved. The movie had a bunch of toy robots with essentially human intelligence. One group turned out to be sympathetic characters, while others with the same kind of computer chip (but different programming) were Enemy, to be defeated or destroyed. So were they really "people", or "just machines"? If they're just machines, why should we care what happens to the "good" ones? If they're "people", then why should we not mourn the necessity to massacre the "bad guys"? And why, in and after real-world wars, do we not see more mourning and respect for fallen enemies? There is much to think about here, even if it was "just a movie". ********************* And still on the subject of movies is "What Dreams May Come". They had scenes of what might be called Heaven and Hell, although the underlying concepts weren't that simple. And again, it got me thinking. There seems to be a stereotype of Heaven being orderly while Hell is chaotic. There was one area of what might be joyful chaos in Heaven in this movie, but it wasn't actually all that chaotic. So why is this? Is it because of a Christian bias toward the "kingdom" model with one overall ruler? Hell is for the rule-breakers, so it can be chaotic, even though it too has one overall ruler? On Earth we get joyful chaos in celebrations like Mardi Gras. So why not in Heaven, at least for those who like things that way? ********************* Yet another movie, "Antz", had insects heavily anthropomorphized, to the extent of not even seeming really exoskeletal. And it had a love interest. This leads to questions about what love among exoskeletal beings would be like. I suspect they might be much less sensitive to touch, with large areas essentially devoid of nerve endings. Or might they have evolved something analogous to highly sensitive strain gauges, so nerves on the inside of the shell could sense slight pressures on the outside, sort of the way our teeth sense the different forces as we bite into different kinds of food? Even with that, their sense of touch might be unlike ours. What effect would that have on what we think of as physical affection? And they might have a more limited set of facial expressions. Would they have some other non-verbal way of expressing emotions? I'm also wondering about the degree to which humans being warm-blooded has contributed to the way mothers hold and cuddle children. Babies have a larger surface-to-volume ratio than adults, and a less-developed ability to regulate their body temperature. So for human babies, being held may have had survival value, at least before blankets were invented. Reptiles and such do regulate their temperature somewhat, but do it by seeking out shadows or sunlit places rather than by some inner mechanism. So how would not being warm-blooded change child-rearing? ********************* This seems to be Movie Month at Silicon Soapware. So let's end with this: Incident Along Fantasy Way Into the Movies "Theodore" is a strange name for a restaurant, Like the owners had wanted a child instead. But there it is, midway between the dance place And the all-night magazine stand. Late at night clouds of conversation Drift between the tables: A heaping serving of ideas With noodles and gravy Like the film maker borrowing a pencil To figure out a deal And then telling all about it. "I'm making a movie about the Real World -- Not this world, But the REAL world." You know the old fairy tales About people walking into pictures? Well, he somehow Could actually do it. "The hard part is getting up the nerve To walk down the aisle And up on the stage In front of a whole movie theater Full of people. "But nobody really notices that much And the ones that do Tend to think you work there. The rest is easy: Just slip into the edge of the screen And there you are. "But there's a danger -- Once you're in, it's not a movie any more: It's the whole world, And to get out again You have to get past whatever action Is on camera. "Go into a spy movie in Paris And you may only be able to get out By way of London Or Hong Kong Or Istanbul. And when you do finally emerge There's no way of knowing What theater you'll be in." But his problem was more ultimate -- The movie had ended And it didn't seem likely There would be a sequel. Stuck forever? Well, maybe. But maybe not. There were no scenes of Hollywood But in the writer's mind it had been there Along with the idea That "getting into movies" should be easy Even if it wasn't. So of course it was. He had spent years at it, Making movie after movie, Working his way up Until he could write, produce, and direct The exact movie he wanted. In another year it would be done. Then, any time he decided, He could walk up to the edge of the screen And be home. Thomas G. Digby written 0240 hr 1/25/75 entered 1145 hr 3/05/92 -- END --