SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us = tgdigby@netcom.com http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #36 New Moon of November 29, 1997 Contents copyright 1997 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. For more background info, details of how the mailing list works, etc., ask for a copy of issue #Zero. If you email me a reply or comment, please make clear whether or not it's for publication. ********************* This issue is a couple of days late due to my being out of town over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. But if you're reading this, it probably did make it out eventually. Better late than never. ********************* One ad I responded to in my job search was from the MBARI. They didn't spell it quite the same as that alien race in the TV series, but it seemed close enough. And the type of job also seemed close. It seems they have a collection of creatures they keep in various life- support environments because they can't breathe our air, and they're looking for engineers to work on the various control systems and such that this entails. So I sent them a resume and got back a probably- standard letter about how they're considering my application. Even if that job lead doesn't pan out, I had fun showing a real honest-to-goodness letter from the MBARI around at the science fiction convention I was at last weekend. And no, I haven't flipped my lid. And as far as I know this isn't really contact with beings from other planets. In this case MBARI = Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. And yes, I would consider a fish tank to be a life-support environment for its inhabitants. ********************* In other news, someone has come out with a song against homosexuality: "It's Not Natural". It was performed at the recent Million Woman March amid some controversy. This morning it occurred to me that it needs an alternative set of words: Same title, but about how what's not natural is pollution and wanton destruction of the environment, along with making a zillion-dollar industry out of spirituality and religion. Since immediate inspiration hasn't struck, I'll mention the thought online in the appropriate places and see what happens. If someone else does it before I do, OK. If more than one of us ends up doing it, that's OK too. There should be room in the world for more than one version. ********************* I was walking past some kind of "Not Responsible ..." sign in the dim evening twilight and for a moment I thought it said "Not Responsible for Lost or Damaged Dreams". On second look that wasn't what it really said, but even so, it might lead to a poem or something. Sometimes the Muses work in devious ways. ********************* I recently saw an article about how Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) pulled a prank on some corporate bigwigs. He put on a wig and a false mustache and, with some inside help, passed himself off as a management consultant. The article and/or the hoaxers sort of took the position that many such consultants are charlatans, and that may indeed be true. But even if they aren't, it is the nature of experts that ordinary people don't know much about whatever the expert is expert in and thus aren't in a position to evaluate it. You pretty much have to take experts on faith, or on the word of others you trust. That reminds me of a corollary of Clarke's Law that I came up with. The original is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." My thing is "Any sufficiently advanced knowledge is indistinguishable from nonsense." For example, what would the people working on ENIAC in 1947 have thought of various pieces of software documentation or source code from the 1990's? Or what would a 1930's biologist have thought of DNA sequences, which are mostly just strings of the letters G,C,A,and T with a few numbers and other reference marks thrown in? If you mixed that kind of actual data in with some deliberate nonsense cooked up by science fiction writers, would they have been able to tell which was what? I suspect not. ********************* During several visits to San Francisco I've noticed how traffic there is much less formal than traffic in Los Angeles. Drivers change lanes more often and with less use of their turn signals, pedestrians pay less attention to the lights, and so on. I've seen this in other places such as Manhattan, so it looks to me like every place has its own unwritten Rules Of The Road that often only faintly resemble the "official" traffic laws. And these informal rules vary from place to place, even where the formal laws are the same. It isn't even uniform over the whole Bay Area: Traffic in this part of Silicon Valley follows something more like Los Angeles rules than San Francisco rules. That leads me to wonder where and how suddenly the unwritten rules change. Is it a gradual gradient all the way up the peninsula (about 50 miles), or is there a sharp change at the San Francisco city limits, or does it depend on how congested an area is, or what? And how well has this been studied? Perhaps it would be a good topic for some anthropology thesis or something. ********************* One conversation at a party got into government corruption, and I came up with the thought that one measure of corruption is the degree to which the real rules disagree with the stated rules. For example, suppose some country had signs posted at its border: "Our customs agents have wide discretionary powers. Gratuities are very much appreciated." And further suppose that their legal codes contained no prohibition against doing business that way. Would that constitute corruption, or just a different set of rules? I'd say it's not what I normally think of as "corrupt", even if it's alien to the way I think it should be done. Now there is a minor problem in that perhaps not all cases of "real rules" that disagree with the official rules count as "corruption". One example is the rather chaotic and informal San Francisco traffic mentioned above. The difference may be that in the traffic case there is less attempt on the part of the participants to maintain the fiction that the official rules are actually being followed. ********************* Comes now the time for the traditional reprinting of THE CHRISTMAS CAT Once upon a time in a village In a little mountain valley in Borschtenstein Lived a wicked millionaire Whose hobby was foreclosing mortgages And sending people out into the snow. He also took great pride in having The best Christmas decorations in the village. Also in this same village In the little valley in Borschtenstein Lived a poor family Whose mortgage, which came due on Christmas, Was designed to be impossible to pay off. The Christmas weather forecast was for snow And the millionaire's eviction lawyers were waiting. Now this wicked millionaire In the valley village etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, Also had the monopoly on Christmas trees To be sure of having the prettiest Christmas decorations In the whole village. Thus the poor family had nothing at all To put their presents under. Now by chance it so happened In that village in etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, The wicked millionaire had evicted his cat Because its ears and tail were the wrong color And it hadn't paid its mortgage. And the poor family had taken it in And given it a home. So just before Christmas When the Good Fairies asked the animals of the village About people in need and deserving of help The poor family got the highest recommendation. "We will help them!" said the elves and fairies, "They won't have to worry about that mortgage And they'll have the prettiest Christmas decorations in town!" The mortgage was really not much problem: If the millionaire couldn't throw people out into the snow He wouldn't bother throwing them out at all. So the elves spoke to the North Wind and they agreed: No more snow to throw people out into. Some people in the village would have liked snow to play in But agreed the sacrifice was for a good cause. Christmas trees were more of a problem: They had already given them out to other needy families And there were none left at all. They rummaged around in forgotten corners But not a Christmas tree could they find. Then someone had an idea: "Let's decorate their cat!" While one of the elves who spoke Feline Worked out the details with the cat The fairies flew around gathering decorations: Borrowed bits of light from small stars nobody ever notices, Streamers of leftover comet tails, And other assorted trinkets From odd corners of the universe. So the poor family gathered around their Christmas cat And sang songs and opened presents And had the happiest Christmas imaginable While all agreed they had the prettiest decorations The village had ever seen And the millionaire's eviction lawyers Waited in vain for snow. So that is why, to this day, In that valley village in Borschtenstein, It never snows Unless the eviction lawyers are out of town And every year the millionaire tries to decorate a Christmas cat But gets nothing for his pains But bleeding scratches. EPILOGUE: While overnight miracles are rare outside of story books, Even those who learn slowly do learn. So keep checking the weather reports for Borschtenstein. If some Christmas it snows there You will know the millionaire has given up being wicked And has found a truer meaning Of Christmas. first draft written 0115 hr 12/25/74 this version edited 2320 hr 12/14/86 signature & greeting reformatted for Silicon Soapware 0850 hr 11/22/95 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May you have the happiest holiday season imaginable! Thomas G. Digby --END--