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 #207 New Moon of October 26, 2011 Contents copyright 2011 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. ********************* It's getting close to Halloween, although the weather is still summer-like. We've had a milder than usual summer this year, and although we've had an autumn rainy spell or two it's still mostly warm and sunny, even as the days have gotten short and the noonday sun has taken to riding low in the southern sky. But lingering summer weather or no, I can see signs of change coming: In at least one store red and green Christmas stuff is starting to appear along some of the top shelves in the mostly-orange-and-black Halloween section, like some exotic species of flower that's taken hold in a neighbor's field and is starting to peek through the fence into my place. Part of me might feel tempted to try to hold it back by spraying or something, but other parts of me know that in the long run it's hopeless. All I can do it let it run its course, and in due time it will be gone for another year. ********************* Christmas is a time when you hear what would otherwise be considered church music in stores and restaurants and other random places where you don't normally hear it, and that leads to thoughts of pipe organs. And that in turn leads to thoughts of little-known pipe-organ stops, such as Grakltraxl 17'. With its 17-foot pipe length it sounds roughly a semitone below the more commonly used 16-foot stops, giving an effect that people accustomed to modern Western harmonies are not accustomed to. Most people in our culture don't like it. So why is it there? Organists like to use it as an excuse not to play pieces they'd rather not perform. Since most people who don't play the organ probably haven't given much thought to how an organist decides which stops to use for any given piece, organists have secretly gotten together and concocted a tale of complex astrological calculations involving when the music in question was written, when that particular organ was built, and in some cases the natal horoscopes of the composer and performer. It's actually a load of baloney, but most of the general public doesn't know that. (I don't know how the organists manage to keep astrologers from blowing the whistle.) So all an organist has to do to get out of having to play some particular composition is to claim that it uses Grakltraxl 17' along with a couple of 16' stops. Even if the piece does still need to actually be played every now and then as a demonstration or reminder, people who have heard it tend to remember and not request that piece again. What if that particular organ doesn't have Grakltraxl 17'? Simple. Just apply some cardboard and duct tape to some otherwise unneeded open 16' rank to lengthen it to 17 feet. You usually don't need to be too precise about the lengths of the cardboard pieces, and you may not need to do every pipe in the rank. Most people are easily convinced if you get it anywhere near close on most of the pipes. As I've said, you don't have to do this very often. Once word has spread, all an organist has to do to get out of playing any given request is to say "That piece uses Grakltraxl 17'." So it's very handy, even if it seldom sees actual use. ********************* You may have noticed that some bands like to change keys between verses of some songs, often by going up a half-step. Most competent guitar and keyboard players are sort of OK with that, but bagpipers really hate it. The thought occurred to me that bagpipers could maybe do it by feeding helium into the bag to increase the speed of sound in the pipes, thereby raising their pitch. Conversely, you could also lower the pitch by using a heavy gas such as sulfur hexafluoride. The tricky part may be getting the amount just right. But maybe if you put pairs of ultrasonic transducers inside the bag a known distance apart, along with suitable electronics, you could measure the speed of sound inside the bag in real time, and adjust the gas feeds as appropriate. Some might be worried that a valve might stick open and feed in way too much helium, causing the pipes to float off into the sky as the player stands helplessly below, hoping that whoever eventually finds them will return them. But I think that what with the electronics and valves and batteries and helium tank and such, the assemblage would be too heavy for that to be a problem. This gas-mixture scheme could also be used when a pipe organ is playing along with an orchestra that doesn't want to tune to whatever pitch the organ was tuned to. Some orchestras like to tune their instruments slightly sharp, around 442 Hz, while others prefer the more traditional 440. This would let the organ match whatever tuning the orchestra preferred. Are there any Silicon Valley startups working on this? ********************* Unrelated to anything else, I've been wondering if YouTube is going to eventually have to change its name as various non-CRT video technologies take over and we get a generation of people who may not know what the "Tube" part of the name refers to. ********************* Free association on a spelling mnemonic (with minor editing afterwards): Does the problem have anything to do with the statement that there is "a rat" in "separate"? Should I call the exterminator? That word without a rat in it, or with a dead rat, would not be the same. Would it be "sepe"? Or would it be "sepadeadrate"? In other words, should you leave the rat carcass in place or remove it? If you leave it, will it rot and smell bad and attract flies and ants and such? And would having all that stuff make the word formerly known as "separate" too messy and stinky to use? And then if people stopped using the word, what would the shareholders do? I don't think the financial system in this country is set up to let people own stock in words, so the whole matter may be academic. Does "academic" mean that schools own stock in words, and can lose money if their words don't get used? That might explain a lot. Or it might not. Do other words have bugs and vermin and such living in them? I haven't heard anybody complaining about any, so if there are then whatever the creatures are are probably rather benign, or maybe even beneficial. But no, I don't think it would be practical to keep pets and landscaping and such in words. For one thing, it would make the word harder to spell and read, especially if different people kept different animals and plants in different words. And what if someone put an animal into a word that was the name of some other species? If you're not careful you could trigger an infinite loop. It might even crash the spelling checker. So if a word has a NO PETS clause in its Terms of Use, it would be wise to comply. And be wary of changing a word like "catalog" to something like "dogalog" or maybe "birdalog" just because you're allergic to cats. If, for example, you change it to "lobsteralog" but some members of your audience are allergic to seafood, you may be opening a bigger can of worms than you realize, even if there do not appear to be any worms in the vicinity. ********************* I'm reminded of thoughts I've had of a joke app that randomizes "its"/"it's" (or maybe the presence or absence of an apostrophe in general) in a user's postings. That way they'll be right about half the time, so they won't be thought a snob (for getting it right too often) or an ignoramus (for getting it wrong too often). One problem is that users who want it might be ashamed to be seen buying it. But that hasn't stopped the pornography industry, so it's probably not really a problem. ********************* That reminds me of someone on the radio reading an announcement about some author or story having won the "New Bells" award. He sort of stumbled over the name, like it was hard to read or something. Was it actually the Nebula award, and might he have been unfamiliar with the word "nebula"? Or did someone type it wrong, putting an "s" in place of the final "a"? The letters are next to each other on the keyboard (at least the one most commonly used in the US), for what that's worth. Is it worth anything? The financial pages in the paper don't seem to list any market activity on the fact that the "a" and "s" keys are adjacent on the keyboard. That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't worth anything, but it does mean there may not be any quick and easy way to invest in it (as opposed to investing in keyboards or their maskers) or to cash out once you're in. It may also mean the FTC doesn't keep tabs on it, so you'd best be extra-careful when dealing in such things. ********************* Here's a thought I've had now and then as a way to revamp the welfare system: Put time clocks in public libraries (or community centers or similar places), and pay people minimum wage, no questions asked, to hang out there. While you're there you can read, or knit, or draw pictures, or work on writing a novel, or do your school homework, or whatever, as long as it isn't destructive or disruptive (maybe have separate sections for people with young children) or blatantly illegal. This could take the place of much of the welfare system, with a minimum of bureaucracy. You may need physical security and maybe tax withholding and such, but you wouldn't need anything like the means testing in our present welfare setup. Most of the rich have better things to do than attend what amounts to study hall, and even if a few do come, so what? There's only a few of them. There are probably problems I haven't addressed, but think of them as creative engineering challenges rather than reasons it can't be done. If you like this idea, post about it other places. Spread it around. ********************* [NOTE: This was written for places with dry fallow summers, where the main growing season is a mild wet winter.] Winter Construction We're half the year away From May. The dance of the ribbons and the joyful proclamations Of the season of outdoor frolic Are but dim memories, distant and unreal. This is a time for turning inward, As Nature rebuilds the world. As the cool rains of winter Bring new life to the parched land We gather 'round the hearth By Jack-O-Lantern light To welcome back old friends From the other side of Eternity. Then we defy the deepest darkness With strings of artificial stars And feast on songs of joy Among loved ones in the here and now. Finally, as the sun takes its first baby steps back to us We can begin to look forward To another season of light, When Nature once again takes down Her cold gray Construction signs And the time of outdoor frolic is proclaimed anew. -- Tom Digby First Draft 11:52 Sat October 22 2005 Edited 13:33 Sun October 23 2005 Note added 17:24 Wed October 26 2005 Note edited 14:42 Sun October 30 2005 ********************* 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 --