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 #70 New Moon of September 27, 2000 Contents copyright 2000 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 a bit of trivia I once read about the Empire State Building: They supposedly have someone whose full-time job is to wander through the building flushing toilets. The article didn't say why, but I'd guess it's to keep the sewer lines from drying out or stagnating or something like that. Keep things moving. Even though I didn't think about it at the time, in retrospect I have many unanswered questions: Does he do ALL the toilets, or just those in men's rooms, with a woman doing the ones in women's rooms? Does he start at the bottom and work his way up and then take the elevator back down, or does he take the elevator up and work his way down, or start at the bottom and work his way up and then work back down until he's at the ground floor again at quitting time, or skip around to different floors at random, or what? Is there a set plan, drawn up by the engineers who designed the system, or is he free to do it his own way? Does it matter, from a hydraulic standpoint of flow volume or whatever, which way he does it? Does he take pride in his work? When people ask him what he does for a living and he says "I wander through the Empire State Building flushing toilets" does he say it proudly, or is he sort of ashamed of not doing something more glamorous? Or is he thankful he's not Dilbert? No pointless meetings, no office politics, no corporate worries. Just calmly wander around flushing toilets. Does he ever get bored? Or does he like having all that time to think about the Meaning of Life or whatever, without having to worry about anything else to speak of? It could be a good job for a philosophy student, or a would-be guru, or anyone else into whatever kinds of meditation can be done while wandering around flushing toilets. I would expect the pay not to be too good, and the Empire State Building may not give stock options, but then you can't have everything. ********************* I often think through ideas while in the shower, and then write them up (more like typing them into the computer) when I come out. So there I am, all nice and clean, as usual after a shower, busily writing up something or other. All nice and clean? But what if there were a world where people came out of the shower dirtier than they went in, and considered that normal? Maybe on some other world mud serves some kind of protective function, perhaps as a sunscreen? During the day it dries up and flakes off, so they have to put more of it on every so often. So if they get too clean they shower with mud. Could happen, although I suspect anybody with the technology to make pipes and shower heads would have some sunscreen better than mud. But you never know. Maybe there's a religious taboo against synthetic chemicals, so mud is what they have and mud is what they use, perhaps for some kind of mystical connection with the earth. ********************* While waking up one morning I got to thinking of rolling up pieces of paper, putting them into short lengths of copper tubing, and putting them on the railroad track to be flattened by a train. Maybe it's a sort of religious thing, the paper being some sort of pact with or request to some god(s), and when the tubing is flattened the deal is sealed. In this world I would expect the railroads to do all they could to put a stop to such a practice. It's dangerous to hang around railroad tracks, and if someone used iron pipe or something else too sturdy it could damage the rail or the wheel, perhaps even derailing the train. But what of a world where something like this had been a tradition, perhaps using horse-drawn or human-drawn chariots or something, since long before railroads existed? Then once railroad cars got big and heavy and fast enough to do a better and more dramatic job of sealing the bargain than the chariots of old, people insisted on using them for that purpose. The railroads might grumble, but they'd have to give in. Then they might well publish technical specs on acceptable types of tubing and what could and could not be put in it, along with proper ways of securing it to the rail so you can be standing a safe distance away when the train comes. They might also train the priests of those sects in applicable safety procedures, and set up designated areas for the rite, with signals and safety markings and such. But that's not in this world. Here they'd probably just keep arresting and suing people until the practice died out. ********************* There's a TV series called "Cleopatra 2525" about some woman, perhaps a stereotype blonde, who ends up five hundred years in our future. In one episode someone used some kind of "molecular deterioration detector" to see which of two instances of her was real and which was a clone by reading the age of their molecules, or something like that. The real one registered 20-something years, while the clone registered closer to three weeks. That led to thoughts of aging and mortality, and eventually to another science fictional thought: What if there were a practical treatment to give immortality, but a taboo against using it on humans? Maybe it would be thought to deprive them of the joys of the Hereafter, or something like that. But whatever the reason for not using it on people, suppose it's OK to use it on other animals. So there might be someone's pet mouse or something, perhaps an office mascot, that's been there for centuries, seeing many generations of humans arrive, grow old, and die. ********************* At a recent party we got to talking about the Olympics, and what events we could have in Silicon Valley. The suggestions included house-hunting, commuting, job interviews (both sides of the desk), and day trading in the stock market. Maybe also buzzword generation. I suppose there could also be events where you try to capture venture capital, and another on doing an IPO. But it probably won't happen. By the time we could get a bid in and approved and a stadium built and all that, it would have to be for maybe 2016 or 2020 or later, and by then there might not even be a Silicon Valley any more. But there'll probably still be people running and jumping and swimming. Score one for tradition. ********************* At work we have a weekly lunch meeting. All employees are expected to attend, although nobody calls the roll or does anything to you if you skip it. I think they think the "free" lunch is inducement enough. Anyway, a few weeks ago somebody was telling us about how well we did at a recent trade show compared to the competition, and how we'll hammer them in the market place. That's probably not unusual for pep talks at that kind of office meeting. But it got me to thinking. Somewhere else there might well be another company in the same line of business we're in, and at the very moment we were getting the upbeat pep talk people there might have been hearing a doom-and-gloom speech about how we've beaten them to the punch. It could mean the end of that other company, lots of grief and sadness all around. Part of me felt sorry for those hypothetical other people, and kind of hoped that they'd find a slightly different market niche where we wouldn't be in direct competition. That in turn reminded me of the saying that there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway. People come to New York's Great White Way of theaters with dreams of stardom, and most leave empty-handed. Tin Pan Alley is like that too, as is Hollywood. Silicon Valley may be another such, only with the details different. In Silicon Valley your role is your "day job", so you don't have to choose between them. And you don't have to be The Star. If the "play" you're in strikes it rich, even the spear carriers may get a big chunk of their retirement worries taken care of. But what's similar is that many Silicon Valley startups do turn into shutdowns. Game over, thanks for playing, please try again. Last one out turn off the lights, and you can leave your dreams of success in the handy recycling bins by the exits. ********************* The Recycler of Dreams I had often seen him, In expected places and in unlikely ones -- A kindly old man Who by his looks ought to be running the toy shop in some quaint European village, Always with a large sack Filled with things picked up from the ground And an ornate German pipe Whose smoke he would now and then Blow into someone's face, Always without being noticed. Driven by curiosity, I made inquiries And we were eventually introduced. He is the one known, In those mythologies in which he is known at all, As the Recycler of Dreams. Through the ages he has wandered Through the halls of kings' palaces, Along the quiet lanes where lovers linger, Into bars and taverns and the "In Places", Or like a phantom through the walls of prisons Or corporate boardrooms Or research laboratories, And even along glittering Broadway -- All the places where dreams Have been dreamed And broken. There he wanders, Not always in the form I saw, Collecting pieces of broken dreams To make into new dreams To distribute around the world. Humanity needs its dreams, And cannot grow or prosper without them. But reality is hard on dreams And on dreamers. "Take 'Flight'," he says for an example, "I must have picked that one up a thousand times From the bottom of this or that windswept hill And blown it, like smoke, Into the head of another dreamer Until it finally bore fruit. And others, like 'Perpetual Motion' Or 'World Peace' Or 'Immortality' I may be recycling forever, Along with 'True Love' And 'Winning the Sweepstakes' And 'Being a Movie Star'. That one has gotten many of you Through some dark and stormy nights." "Yes, I see the need for the grand dreams And the smaller dreams And even the silly dreams. But what of the darker dreams? The visions of world conquest, The elusive Perfect Crime, The glory of the Master Race? Do you handle these also?" "I'm afraid I must," he sighed, "Regardless of how horrible the possibilities I cannot label a dream as 'evil' And put it away on a shelf. The gods by whose authority I operate Say that that judgment may only be made, Not by themselves, as you might expect, But by you mortals." Thomas G. Digby written 0140 hr 9/29/74 revised 0245 hr 3/17/83 entered 1230 hr 4/09/92 ********************* 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. 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). 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