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 #141 New Moon of June 25, 2006 Contents copyright 2006 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 Pride Weekend in San Francisco. San Jose had theirs a couple of weeks ago. Other cities are also doing observances at various times in this season. I find that my interest in these events has waned over the years since I first marched in a Los Angeles parade around 1970 as part of the Gay Liberation Front contingent. There's no one main reason for this loss of interest. I think part of it is that the novelty has worn off over the last thirty or so years. I don't really care all that much for crowds, and my tolerance for such physical discomforts as hot summer sun has waned. And I feel less need for these events than I used to. Part of this probably stems from society's greater acceptance of non-standard sexualities, at least in the part of the country I'm living in. We're not the social outcasts we used to be. Another part of it is that, at least for me personally, the mainstream gay community has never been a really good place for me to find friends and start relationships. Most of the gay men I've met in bars and similar places have been more interested in transient sexual encounters than in any kind of ongoing emotional intimacy. I've had much better luck in the Radical Faeries, science fiction fandom, and the general Pagan/Wiccan community. I haven't been to a gay bar or similar establishment in years, and may never go to one again unless it's with a group or friends or something. So Pride Weekend just isn't my thing any more. ********************* In recent news, President Bush signed a new law increasing fines for TV stations showing things like that "wardrobe malfunction" that gave us a glimpse of a bare female breast during the Super Bowl broadcast a year or two back. I'm wondering what the lawmakers were thinking. I've been to my share of hot-tub parties and nude beaches, and I've had fun in bed with people of various and sundry genders, so I've seen breasts (as well as other body parts). I've even touched a few. They didn't seem all that dangerous. Neither did the breasts I've seen in movies. I'm pretty sure I could look at them all day with no ill effects other than eventual boredom. If I were more heterosexual it might take longer for the boredom to set in, but I don't think the effects would be qualitatively different. But what of breasts on a TV screen? Are they somehow more dangerous? They don't seem to be, but then the breast images I've seen on TV came in via videotape or DVD or cable. Might breast images via broadcast TV be different? Is it possible that when a broadcast TV signal contains an image of bare female breasts it can cause TV sets to emit mind-control rays that will turn any red-blooded male in the vicinity into a mindless breast-seeking zombie? Did we come close to having millions of men shuffling up and down streets all across America, arms out in front like cartoon sleepwalkers, muttering "Must ... find ... breasts ... Must ... worship ... breasts ... Must ... obey ... breasts ..."? Were we spared that fate only because the nipple on the breast involved in that wardrobe malfunction was pierced, and the metal in the jewelry shorted out the electric fields of the zombie rays? Did that one tiny bit of metal save America? From what I as an engineer know about the technical side of TV, I'd say the answer is No. So why all the fuss? Part of it comes from our ancestors' religious taboos. But that's only part. The rest is because we have a whole culture built around selling stuff to people with more money than brains, and much of that relies on the fact that many people also have more hormones than brains. The media are playing a big game of brinksmanship, to see how close they can come to showing forbidden body parts without actually letting us see them. They're like the mechanical rabbit greyhounds chase at the race track (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_racing). We're trained to run after them as hard as we can, scattering money as we go, but are never allowed to catch them. That's why the gov't is stomping on the people responsible for that "wardrobe malfunction". They let the greyhounds catch the mechanical rabbit. If that happens too many times the dogs will start to realize that that scrap of fur with motors and such inside isn't really worth running themselves to death for, and the game will be over. Thus the real evil is not the sight of bare breasts on TV screens. The real evil is the merchandising colossus that trains people to use up the planet in pursuit of those breasts while sort of glossing over the fact that the breasts people are chasing have a real person attached to them. ********************* "I'm worried about my cousin in Plergbistan. He just won their lottery." "That's usually a good thing, isn't it? How much did he win?" "You don't understand. He didn't win any specific sum of money. He won The Lottery. It's his now. He gets to see to it that tickets get sold, and the winning numbers get drawn, and the prizes get given out. That's why I'm worried about him." "Aren't those lotteries usually pretty profitable? And didn't he say he was looking for a job?" "I'm worried because he's a terrible manager." "Oh." ********************* Will we ever see some brand of dog food advertising "Our dog food is made with real homework"? ********************* "I'm playing a little trick on my roommate." "What kind of trick?" "One of my European girlfriends is coming over, and she might be interested in getting together with my roommate as well as with me." "So ..." "You know how they measure stuff over there?" "Kilograms and meters and all that. So what?" "I just sent my roommate to the store to buy metric condoms." ********************* As I was out walking I saw a squirrel just sort of sitting in the middle of the road. A car came, and the squirrel got out of the way just in time. That led to thoughts of ways to send a squirrel to traffic school. But then I got to thinking that there may be more to this than meets the eye. Maybe the real story is how the CIA or some such is planting dead squirrels (or things that looks like dead squirrels) and other animals along our highways and byways as a way of sending secret messages to those of its agents who are too secret to communicate with any other way. This might be especially good for secret agents who are so secret that not even they know that they are secret government agents. So the next time you see a dead animal in the road, think about this. If you find yourself strangely fascinated by details such as how flat it is, which way it's facing, what part of the lane it's in, significant nearby landmarks, and so on, you may be one of those super-secret government agents about to be given a new assignment. But remember, if you're that kind of secret agent you're probably not cleared to know it, so don't tell yourself. ********************* There was a recent newspaper article on Fred Phelps, that preacher who goes around picketing gay men's funerals and such. My impression was that he and his followers believe that God feels about most of us the way many of us felt about early versions of Microsoft Windows. ********************* I had a rather distressing experience a few weeks ago. I answered a knock on the door to find a young man selling newspaper subscriptions for some kind of charity or something for scholarships for low-income students. After he gave his spiel (which took quite a while to get to the point) and asked if I wanted to subscribe, he wouldn't take No for an answer. He would ask "May I ask why?" and then rebut every answer I came up with, or sometimes ask "Why?" again. Did I think it was a scam? I said I didn't, but even so he offered to give me his home phone number and/or that of his school principal or some such. I already subscribe to a newspaper and don't want any more? He could tell the carrier not to actually deliver the physical paper that I'd be subscribing to. I didn't want to do that? Why? After quite a bit of soul-searching and trying to verbalize feelings I normally don't put into words, all to no avail because none of my reasons for not subscribing to his papers were good enough, I finally gave up trying to be polite and in desperation just closed the door in his face. That worked, in the sense that he went away, but it left me feeling very stressed out and guilty. But there didn't seem to be any other way out, other than either taking the offer or standing there defending my not taking it until his parents declared him missing and the police came and took him home to bed. I used to get the same kind of thing on the phone, which is why I now screen calls with a machine. Now the thought of the answering machine leads to the idea that in the future I might have a robot butler who would deal with door-to-door solicitors by dint of simple endurance. I would give it orders not to take the offer, and then go about my business while the bot kept trying to say No. A human solicitor would have to give up eventually, unless he's willing to die trying. Would the Guinness Book of Records have a category for such things? And what would the record time be? Days? A week or two? I don't think a human solicitor could hold out much longer than that without support people (or bots) bringing in food and water and such. Of course a robot solicitor would be a different story. Then they could debate the matter indefinitely. I might need to keep a number of robot butlers on hand in case new solicitors show up before the old ones leave. Then as the months and years pass and the walkway in front of my apartment gets more and more crowded with paired solicitor-bots and butler-bots debating the merits of various products and charities and such 24/7, the neighbors might start complaining to the landlord. So I'd better have a Plan B ready. I think that by the time I actually get a robot butler I'll have thought of something. ********************* Cartoon idea: A roadside sign at the entrance to a cemetery: "If you were dead, you'd be home now." ********************* Someone on the WELL mentioned a panel or seminar or something on "Editing Things You Don't Understand". I didn't see the presentation, but I suspect there are limits. If, for example, someone were to hand me a bunch of clay tablets in some unknown language and ask me to edit them, I would be pretty much at a loss. Of course if the language has really never been deciphered I might be able to bluff my way through with no one being the wiser, but I don't think that's what the presenters had in mind. I suspect they assume that you at least know the base language the piece you're editing is in, even if you don't know the relevant jargon, and that it's to be edited for readers who will understand it, even if you don't. Then if you know what to do, and especially what not to do, you might actually be able to do some good. Hence the seminar. And since these musings are a bit long for a seminar title, "Editing Things You Don't Understand" may be reasonable. ********************* "Little did she know that she was about to have an experience that would change her life for, oh, maybe three or four weeks." ********************* Bush & Company have a whole bunch of detainees at Guantanamo that they can't release because they haven't been able to prove that they're not potential terrorists. The problem will continue to grow, since there's no real way to prove that any random person is not a threat. There's only one solution. If you draw a line dividing the surface of a sphere into two regions, it's kind of arbitrary which one is which. It's conventional to call the smaller one "inside" and the larger one "outside", but that's just convention. So Bush and his most trusted staff and advisors should go to Guantanamo. They should take down the fence surrounding the innermost top-security compound and put it back up, inside-out, around themselves. They should then declare the patch of ground they're standing on to be "Outside". Since there's no way that they can prove anyone else is not a potential terrorist, the rest of the planet is now declared to be a detention compound. Since they don't have the resources to guard six billion prisoners, most of us will have to fend for ourselves. Have a nice day. Think that would work? ********************* Together Together -- Feeling each other's warmth with only skin for separation. Little tricks with fingers and tongue in strategic spots and private places Or just lying there In each other's arms, Legs entangled -- Intertwining of bodies. Together -- Enjoying sharing whatever thoughts arise -- Intertwining of minds. Together -- Face to face Nose to nose Lips to lips Eye to eye Gazing into each other's depths -- Intertwining of souls. Thomas G. Digby written 0330 hr 11/03/76 typed 0030 hr 11/06/76 entered 1655 hr 4/11/92 ********************* 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. There's usually a burst of activity after each issue, often dying down to almost nothing in between. Any post can spark a new flurry at any time. If there's no mention of "bubbles.best.vwh.net" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The zine content is the same for both. To get on the conversation-list version point your browser to http://bubbles.best.vwh.net/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi and select the ss_talk list. Enter your email address in the space provided and hit Signup. When you receive an email confirmation request go to the URL it will give you. (If you're already on the list and want to get off there will be an Unsubscribe URL at the bottom of each list posting you receive.) To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.com or bubbles@well.sf.ca.us). I currently do that one manually. -- END --