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 #174 New Moon of February 24, 2009 Contents copyright 2009 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. ********************* Some people I know get together about once a month to watch videos. This past time, as usual, someone brought microwave popcorn. And as usual, it didn't seem nearly as good as my memories of the popcorn I ate as a child. Is this difference real, or am I just looking back through rose-colored nostalgia glasses? To the degree that it may be real, I have a theory as to what's causing it. The problem seems to be that the present-day popcorn is cold, or at best lukewarm. I recall it being hotter back in the old days. I haven't actually done any experiments, but I suspect it has to do with the popping method: Microwave ovens, now used for most home-popped popcorn, were not common when I was a child. In traditional popping the kernels are heated in a pot or kettle or the like with a thin layer of oil on the bottom. Everything inside the pot, including the air between and above the kernels, gets hot. And everyting inside stays hot until the popping is done and the popped popcorn is poured out and served. In contrast to this, microwave radiation heats the fats and water inside the corn kernel directly, with relatively little heating of the air between the kernels. Likewise, once a kernel is popped much of its water escapes as steam, so it isn't heated as strongly as before (if at all). So a bag of microwave popcorn is on its way to getting cold even before it's opened. At this point this is all just conjecture. Might it be worthwhile for someone to do some experimenting and measuring as a high-school science project or the like? ********************* Since popcorn is associated with movies, I'm reminded of a time when attitudes about movies were different. Things may have been different other places, but in the area I grew up in most (or at least many) people didn't really care if they found out the ending to a movie before they saw it. In fact, a common way of going to the movies was to arrive at the theater at some random time, with the movie already in progress. You'd sit through the end of that showing and the beginning of the following showing, and then when you got to parts of the movie you'd seen before, you would leave. This was more or less the norm when I was growing up. Then came Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and the custom changed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)#Promotion More recently it occurred to me that this change in attitude may have contributed to the rise of the multiplex theater. In olden days, with people straggling in all through the show, you never had really long lines, either at the box office or the concession stand. There might still be a line of people wanting to see the show from the beginning, but it would be shorter than similar lines today. One ticket-seller, one ticket-taker, and one or two food and drink servers could handle the crowd at a typical show. But if everybody wants to see the show from the start, that's no longer the case. You need several people at the box office and several more at the refreshment stand, and then once the crowd for a given show is seated that sales staff has essentially nothing to do until the crowd starts arriving for the next show. So having multiple auditoriums in one complex lets them spread out the workload by staggering the show times. It's a more efficient use of staff. ********************* They handed out the Oscars a few days ago. That got me to thinking: The categories for acting are defined in terms of Male and Female, as if that were all these is. But here in the Bay Area, especially around San Francisco, we're seeing increasing numbers of people identifying themselves as Other. I would also expect to see them around Hollywood (and West Hollywood) as well, even if they're not a significant presence in the mainstream movie industry yet. So what happens when one of those people does something potentially worthy of an Oscar? That may still be a long time away, but I don't think we can say with confidence that it will never happen (although I suspect it will happen in popular music before it happens in mainstream cinema). So when it does, what category will the judges put the person in? Will they figure out some way to shoehorn them into one of the traditional Male and Female categories? They'll probably do that at first, but then if more gender-variant people start popping up they'll eventually have to rethink the categories. The Academy Awards may be headed for Interesting Times. ********************* Speaking of time ... A mad scientist gets a sudden flash of inspiration. He starts a recorder running, then stands in a clear area in the middle of his laboratory and raises his hand. Suddenly another of him appears a few steps away, identical except that this "new" one is wearing a Temporal Displacement Belt: In other words, a time machine. The new arrival walks over to the original, raises the same hand, and gives a High Five. The hands meet: CLAP! The original then dons his Temporal Displacement Belt, walks over to where the new one of him had appeared, sets the controls to take him back the minute or so this exercise has taken, and vanishes. At last a scientist has captured the sound of one hand clapping. ********************* As I put this issue of Silicon Soapware together I'm reminded of a couple of features I would like to see in spelling checkers. One is the ability to recognize "words" containing spaces. For example, I would like the checker to accept "Los Angeles" but not "Los" or "Angeles" by itself. That way if I accidentally leave the final T off of "Lost", or add an extra E when trying to type "Angles" or "Angels", the checker will catch it. Also, since I tend to invoke the spelling checker many times during a session, mainly to check for typos, I would like to be able to accept a non-standard word for this document only, as opposed to permanently adding it to the dictionary or ignoring it for just this one scan. If the document format doesn't allow storing such data, then remember it for the duration of this editing session. Does any existing software offer either of these? If not, do you think there would be a demand for it? ********************* Now and then I get to a point in the preparation of an issue of Silicon Soapware where I feel the need for some additional ideas to fill out the issue or tie things together. The ideas usually come eventually, but sometimes I worry a bit. Ideas are not the kind of thing I can just go around begging on street corners for. Or are they? What if I were to imagine some imaginary street corner and then imagine myself begging for ideas from whatever beings I happen to imagine happening by? It's unlikely to hurt, even if begging turns out to be illegal there and I imagine myself being arrested and hauled off to the hoosegow. If that does happen, I ought to be able to imagine escaping or the charges being dropped or something, unless there's some reason I decide I want to imagine myself ending up on the chain gang or whatever, perhaps being forced to write Internet chain letters or the like. Of course that depends on which jail they put me in. Maybe they'll put me in that jail nobody talks about, the one where they wanted to use an Eichler design in hopes that the light airy feel would put the inmates in a better mood and make them more cooperative and less likely to riot or escape or whatever. The reason they don't like to talk about that jail is that there was a typo in the contract specifications, so instead of an Eichler design they got Escher, and for some reason the bigwigs who approve construction contracts tend to get embarrassed about that kind of mistake. But it sort of worked out. What with all the mazes and twisty passages and rooftop walkways that go round and round uphill or downhill forever without getting anywhere, inmates trying to escape tend to get lost and never make it to freedom. There is, on the other hand, the problem of guards and other staff people also getting lost. But that too has its bright side. If employees can't find their way to the bank, they can't cash their paychecks. That's turning out to be the only thing keeping the government afloat in these perilous economic times. So in addition to the embarrassment factor, they don't want to talk about that jail lest employees about to be transferred there find out what they're about to get into and start refusing to go. So will the employees stationed at that Escher jail start rioting, demanding that they be shown the way out? Or if that isn't feasible, might they ask that they at least set up a branch bank, or even just an ATM, in the jail so they can cash their paychecks? The head honchos wouldn't like that. They'd have to actually have money available to pay people, rather than just quietly sliding by on uncashed paychecks. And then when the public hears about it, perhaps from families of employees who never made it home from work, there'll be a big fuss and lots of grumping, which can be especially bad if it happens around election time. They've considered having Salvador Dali redesign the outside of the jail, so that when people do get out and start describing the place, the public won't believe them. But last I heard, Dali was dead and presumably not available for new projects. So scratch that scheme. All things considered, perhaps I'd best not go begging for ideas, or anything else for that matter, on street corners. ********************* I recently found the following message on my answering machine: "Due to a technical problem on our end we are unable to speak with you personally. Please accept our sincere apology. Goodbye." That was It. Nothing about who they were or why they were calling. So was someone who had nothing to say calling and apologizing to everyone they had nothing to say to? That seems rather pointless, unless they think I'm expecting to hear from them. And on further thought, that wouldn't really be a technical problem. It would be more personal or organizational. So there must be some other explanation. Upon checking the calendar, I see that April Fool's is only five weeks away. So maybe that was it. Get it over with early and avoid the rush. That's the only explanation that makes sense. ********************* 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 ********************* 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 --