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 #168 New Moon of August 30, 2008 Contents copyright 2008 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. ********************* As I'm starting this (a bit late, for various reasons) the Democrats have finished their convention and the Republicans are about to begin theirs. I could reminisce about the first conventions I watched on TV back in 1952, but I did that already. http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0161.txt Then something else came to my attention. Some people I know in the Minneapolis area started posting reports of cops arresting or otherwise harassing people on various flimsy pretexts. It appears that someone in the hierarchy of power is trying to curtail protest demonstrations. This is something that, while it may have been happening back in 1952, wasn't on my radar. The first convention that I recall having major instances of it was Chicago in 1968. Of course I don't have the complete story, so I can only conjecture. And that thought in turn leads to another difference between now and 1968: The Internet, cell phones, and related technologies. Time was when pretty much all most of the public heard was the official side of things. Yes, some protesters would be quoted on the eleven o'clock news along with the police chief and mayor and such, but their words would have been filtered through the media's editors. If you wanted to hear their side of the matter, uncensored, you had to seek out the so-called "underground" newspapers and magazines. Now the shoe is on the other foot. If you're in any kind of Internet- based community, chances are you're only a few links away from those directly involved in any major incident. They or their friends will post about it, and some of your friends will see the postings and forward them (or links thereto) on to you. And the pendulum may have swung even farther: Many who see themselves as victims of harassment and police brutality and other misconduct on the part of those in power will feel free to tell the world about their experiences. Government officials, on the other hand, will often be much less free to tell their side of the story. They may have potential lawsuits to defend, anonymous informants to protect, and perhaps even classified information to keep under wraps. Or they may just be in the habit of being cautious about commenting on such things in public. So does anyone ever really get the whole story? ********************* If hurricane Gustav had hit New Orleans a few days earlier (during the Democratic shindig), it would have been reasonable for those who believe in such things to see it as God grumping about same-sex marriage and other departures from the old ways. But now it looks like God grumping at the Bush Administration for not doing more about global warming. ********************* Something got me thinking about whether various magical beings and undead creatures and such care about ordinary mortal politics. Are we likely to see, for example, a parade of zombies shuffling along, carrying signs endorsing this or that candidate or issue? It occurs to me that zombies might make ideal protest demonstrators. They may not be able to chant slogans very well, but they could make up for that by being less vulnerable than the living to tear gas and being beaten up and shot full of bullets if things turn violent. There might, however, be legal questions. For example, if zombies are technically legally dead, do they still have constitutional rights? That might make for some interesting court cases. ********************* Speaking of dissent and disagreement, a common way to belittle others who seem more concerned about some issue (such as global warming) than you are is to compare them to Chicken Little, who ran around shouting that the sky was falling. But what if one was making a movie or something and wanted to show the sky actually falling? What would it look like? I may be biased because of the culture I grew up in, but I have always tended to imagine the sky falling the way a plaster ceiling might fall, only on a larger scale. It would break into pieces and fall piece by piece, to the sound of prolonged crashing and rumbling. But I haven't really thought through what the pieces would look like. If the sky fell during the day, would the pieces be mostly blue with some bits of gray or white clouds on them? If it fell at night, would the pieces be covered with stars? Maybe. Like I said, I haven't figured that out. Nor have I figured out what we might see were we to look up at where the sky had fallen from. Would it be machinery? Blank space? Angels flying around? What if you don't want to have to work out that much detail about how that world works? There may be no good way to deal with this other than just never having the camera "look" up. Then I got to thinking that the sky may be more like a tent or awning. You might be able to show a blanket of sky falling and ending up draped over trees and such, with the various characters in the drama being forced to crawl around under it. With modern image manipulation technology you might even be able to show the fallen sky as still being the sky, with clouds and stars and such going through more or less their normal motions. And since it would still be in one piece, you need not show what's beyond. So that could be a good way to do it. But you still need to be careful. If the sun still tries to follow its normal daytime track along the now-fallen sky, and that brings it into contact with trees and houses and such, it could start fires. It could also be very bad for anyone the sun gets too close to. Are your emergency responders ready for this? ********************* In other worrisome news about the sky, a regional airline in Canada is removing life vests from its planes to save weight. They say they don't need flotation devices other than the seat cushions because they don't fly more than fifty miles from shore over water. And I just had a thought of how they could save even more weight: Encourage passengers to carry helium-filled balloons. Each balloon would replace its volume of air with helium. Helium weighs less than air, so replacing some of the air in the passenger cabin with helium would give a net weight saving. Another thought: Replace the air in the cabin with a helium-oxygen mixture. That would save even more weight. It would have the side effect of making people's voices sound funny, but that's a marketing problem, not a technical one, and is thus outside my field of expertise. I might, however, suggest that perhaps this could be marketed to children as a "feature", especially if the airline can create some sort of cartoon character tie-in. ********************* Speaking of the environment, I saw a news item to the effect that balance weights falling off of car tires are a major source of lead pollution. I'd seen an occasional tire balance weight lying in the street here or there, but I was mildly surprised to hear that they were one of the major contributors. One possible solution might be to make tire-balance weights out of gold. Even though some gold compounds may be toxic, metallic gold is not very chemically active. Any you ingest is likely to pass through your system without being absorbed. Thus I would expect it to be less of a dangerous pollutant than lead. And less of it would get into the environment. The price of gold is high enough that any gold weights that do fall off will be collected and recycled as soon as they are found. Since gold is shiny and of a color that contrasts with most pavement materials, any gold weights lying in the road will be noticed. One possible problem: There are those who steal metals for recycling. They've been known to steal electrical wiring for the copper. They would probably be tempted to steal gold tire-balance weights. Security in parking lots and the like might need to be beefed up. This could lead to increased fees for parking. But there may be a silver lining. The costs and security hassles stemming from the use of gold tire-balance weights might encourage more people to leave their cars locked up in their garages at home and take public transit. So that's another way this could help the environment. ********************* For something completely different, consider the word "ucalegon". The word comes from the name of a character in Greek literature and has come to mean "neighbor whose house is on fire." Here's how it might be used in a sentence (actually more like a paragraph): "I was awakened in the night by a loud pounding at my door. It was my ucalegon, wishing to use my phone. Apparently he didn't want to be my ucalegon any more and was seeking aid from others who might help him end the relationship. So his phone call summoned up a bunch of people in a big red truck with flashing lights and noise-makers and water hoses ..." I think one reason this word isn't heard more often is that ucalegonic relationships are relatively uncommon, and by the nature of things tend to be short-term affairs. So it's seldom that one has the opportunity to introduce one's ucalegon to one's other friends and acquaintances. And so a perfectly good word languishes in obscurity. ********************* Another question: Many words for various kinds of relationships come in complementary pairs: Student/teacher, creditor/debtor, doctor/patient, and so on. So what's the complement of "ucalegon"? If two people are living close together and neither's house is on fire, they're just "neighbors". If both their houses are on fire the relationship is presumably mutually ucalegonic. But what if A's house is on fire but B's is not? A is B's "ucalegon". B is A's "________". What's the missing word for "neighbor whose house is not on fire when yours is"? ********************* This seems appropriate in light of all the political goings-on: Incident Along Fantasy Way 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 format 13:52 12/22/2001 ********************* 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. Or you can use the above URL to navigate to the appropriate subscription form, which will also allow you to cancel your subscription or change your settings. -- END --