SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #84 New Moon of November 14, 2001 Contents copyright 2001 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 INFO HAS RECENTLY CHANGED, SO DON'T RELY ON OLD ISSUES! ********************* I saw the movie "Monsters, Inc.", and it got me to thinking. In that world no two beings are alike: They're different shapes and sizes, with different numbers of eyes and legs and arms and tentacles or whatever, with or without hair or scales or feathers. Apparently most of them can eat the same food and breathe the same air, so there's some underlying similarity of metabolism, but above that level anything goes. So what would their economy be like? They seem to have mass production of some things (like cars and appliances), although other things (like clothing, for those who use it) would pretty much have to be custom-made. We don't see all that much of their technology. What is it like? They evidently have computers, but what else? Some of their stuff (like the interfaces into our world) looks to us like magic. Is it? We don't see how it's done. The ending (which I'm not revealing here) got me to thinking about a possible sequel where they go openly into the world of humans and try to set up some kind of trade where both sides benefit. I would think it should be possible. The biggest obstacle might be human xenophobia. That could make big problems with any kind of open traffic between the worlds. Has anybody heard of plans for any kind of sequel? ********************* One newspaper columnist was grumping about Microsoft acting like a monopoly again. So why not let it be a monopoly, but regulate it the way we regulate other monopolies such as the local water company? While the Public Utilities Commission may not currently have the expertise to evaluate things like proposed new browser features, there is plenty of unemployed techno-talent out there. It's just a matter of budgeting for it. And in the long run it may save consumers more than it costs. In a world where Microsoft was the water company the Linux crowd would still be free to dig their own wells or carry buckets of water from a nearby stream. It's just that the majority who prefer their water piped in without having to think about it would be better served with this kind of governmental oversight. ********************* Someone on the WELL posted an account of the time a mysterious stranger came to their family's door, asking for some kind of hospitality. They refused, with some doubts and feelings of guilt, because they were afraid of him. Was he some random homeless person? If so, why was he dressed Middle Eastern? Was he a terrorist? Seems doubtful that a terrorist would operate that way, but you never know. So they just said No and locked the door. When they looked again later he was gone, leaving them wondering. They had considered calling the police. I think they should have. If the person really needed help, the police could have arranged for it. If, on the other hand, he was some kind of terrorist or criminal, the police could have handled that as well. So I think it would have been appropriate to call them either way. Hospitality to strangers used to be an accepted thing. Now it's pretty much dead, killed off by fear. Fear is putting up walls between us, drying up the milk of human kindness. I'm also reminded of some religious tradition that says that the stranger who comes to your door could be the prophet Elijah. Elijah was sort of Middle Eastern. And cleanliness standards of Elijah's time may not have been what they are today, especially when traveling, so when Elijah was alive and in the midst of a long journey he might have looked as messy as a homeless bum would look today. If he had been Elijah and the people had turned him away and/or called the police, how would Elijah have interpreted their actions? ********************* People talk of "bulleted lists". If I'm making one, what kinds of bullets should I use? Maybe mark the major points with something powerful like 30-06 or 357 magnum, then subsidiary points with some common handgun round like 9mm, and minor items under that with .22 Long Rifle, and so on all the way down to bb's? ********************* One of the presentations at the SiliCon science fiction convention was a model-maker. He spoke of his job making props for science fiction TV shows and movies. Most of the items he showed were weapons, although a few were communicators and similar items. Later on, through a long chain of thought, I got to thinking about what alien computer displays might look like. Thing is, if they start from any kind of raster-scanned video screen they're likely to end up with something looking more or less like Windows translated into an alien language, simply because that's an easy way to do it. Parallel evolution, in effect. If you're making a movie and you want a computer display that looks really alien, you'll need to assume some other early history of their display technology. One thought that came to me was what if they didn't use TV-type raster scanning, but based their displays on radar PPI (Plan Position Indicator) scopes. That's the old radar you see in the movies with the radial line sweeping round and round the center of the CRT, leaving blips in its wake. That could lead to a GUI set up like a pie chart, with each item getting a slice or maybe an inner or outer part of a slice. If you had any kind of physical pointing device, it would be based on polar coordinates (direction and distance from the center). If you keep the long-persistence phosphor and the slow sweep that takes several seconds to go around, and their reflexes are maybe a little better than the average human's, you might not need to maneuver a cursor around with a mouse. Just hit a button as the beam is passing over the area you're interested in. Some of the old radars had the ability to stop and reverse the sweep to home in on a particular area of interest. That plus a pushbutton may be enough. On the other hand, you could speed the scan up from one per several seconds to something like our scanning rates. Then you would have what looks like a steady image, but scanned in polar coordinates. This would lend itself to some sort of two-dimensional pointing device in polar coordinates, with dialog boxes and such shaped like chunks of pie slices. Once established, such a format might remain even after the technology has changed so that it's no longer technically necessary. Tradition can be a powerful thing. ********************* This terrorist situation is changing things. Nowadays I'm constantly checking the news (radio or Web) to see if the world has blown up. So far it hasn't, at least not to the degree it did on September 11. But you never know. The latest thing is a vague threat against some bridges. They've beefed up security, mostly in the form of guards of various sorts patrolling. But I'm not sure how much good that does. They can't very well do airport-type security, X-raying everybody who wants to cross, searching their luggage, etc. Might as well not have a bridge if it comes to that. "Has your car been out of your sight since you last crossed a major bridge? You say you left it parked in your driveway overnight, with nobody guarding it? Since you don't know that nobody put any bombs or anything in it during that time, we'll need to do a complete search." I suppose one workaround would be to make all road vehicles amphibious. That way they wouldn't need bridges (just ramps down into the water), so there would be nothing to destroy. But even if you solve the bridge problem, there are other things to be afraid of. Closed-casket funerals. Someone at the funeral home could quietly dispose of a body and put a couple of hundred pounds of explosives in the coffin instead, and no one would be the wiser until it went off. So if you go to any funerals, insist that they be open-casket. The amount of explosives you can hide inside a body is a lot smaller than what you can put in an otherwise empty coffin. So at an open-casket funeral if you sit in the back row you have a chance of surviving if and when the deceased explodes. Santa Claus. Good girls and boys will still get toys, but will bad ones get blown up? What of impostors who have somehow managed to get a similar magic sleigh and flying reindeer, but bring only death and destruction down everybody's chimney on Christmas Eve? And since they say this will be a long war, we should ask similar questions about the Easter Bunny. Do rabbits carry anthrax? Between Christmas and Easter is Valentine's Day. Is someone plotting to poison Cupid's arrows? The only way to really feel safe is in bed with the covers pulled over your head, but that has its own problems, such as eventual starvation. Although some might prefer to starve in bed under the covers, most will probably just take their chances out of bed. ********************* In recent years we may have taken the idea that every culture is as good as every other too far. Self-defense is becoming a paradox: If we resist others imposing their beliefs on us we thereby impose on them the belief that they shouldn't be imposing their beliefs on us. On the other hand, unfettered missionary zeal pushing the idea that "Our culture is Best" has led to many past evils. We need some kind of happy (or at least workable) medium. Perhaps each culture should be free to do its own thing within the limits of some kind of Bill of Rights and Obligations (BoRaO). The main features of this might be (1) No society should impose its beliefs on others by force (except to defend itself or enforce the BoRaO), and (2) every individual should be free to opt out of their society and go elsewhere. The opt-out provision may imply certain minimum standards of education so that people would be aware of their options and have at least minimal job skills. For example, if a country wanted to veil its women that would be OK as long as women who didn't want to wear the veil were free to go elsewhere. Many probably would leave, although I suspect many would stay and take the veil. The US (for example) has its share of religious communities where people choose to live under conditions most of the rest of us would consider oppressive. To take the idea further, perhaps the idea of "citizen by birth" should be done away with. Each individual would, probably around college age when people are making other life choices such as career path, choose a society to live in. This choice need not be irrevocable, but would need to be an explicit choice, not just a default to wherever they happened to be at the time. This may have other ramifications. For example, if someone grows up speaking only some obscure dialect their options may be severely limited. So should we require that everyone be taught one of some small number of "world languages" (English, Chinese, etc.) in addition to whatever local language a given society favors? And what of "unspoiled tribes"? Should we leave them alone, or should we drag them into the modern world whether they want to come or not? I'm also concerned about the pendulum swinging too far from cultural relativism into the realm of cultural imperialism. Is some happy, or at least workable, medium possible? ********************* A thought occurred to me at a recent Pagan Bardic when people started joking around about vampires and undead and such: A planet (maybe Earth?) whose sun was burning out. Life there was pretty much extinct, and the intelligent beings who had lived there had gone to other worlds. But some of their ghosts remain. Those undead who are killed by fire perished when the sun started to go into its red giant phase, but others survive. They wander across desolate plains and dry sea bottoms and through the canyons of half-melted mountains, with only their own kind for company. The more scientifically aware of them wonder what will happen when the red giant grows to engulf the planet. If they survive, will they end up haunting what's left of the sun, or will they be cast out into interstellar space? Do their kinfolk still live, somewhere out there among the stars? Do they still remember? Will they ever be reunited? And what when the whole universe grows cold and dim? Will the ghosts of civilizations past form new empires amid the ghosts of dead stars? ********************* Take Us to Your Poets I came upon them by a lonely road Deep in the wilderness With something strange hovering overhead. They'd learned my language, not important how: "Standard procedures, like hundreds before; no big deal." But they did have a favor to ask. "A favor? Like taking you to our leader?" "Your leader? Eventually. We should exchange assurances of good faith, Agree on ground rules, mark the traffic lanes, Stuff like that. All quite necessary. But there's plenty of time for attending to that, And we have more urgent needs. So take us to your poets, Your dreamers, Your dancers in the moonlight. Those your leaders cannot speak for Because they make their own worlds No others can invade or conquer." (awkward pause) "Uh, ... that's all well and good, But not quite what I was expecting. Maybe first I should take you to our scientists?" "Your scientists? Eventually. We should cross-check our knowledge against yours, Finding where each can fill the other's gaps And what each can learn from the other. But there's plenty of time for attending to that, And we have more urgent needs. So take us to your poets, Your dreamers, Your dancers in the moonlight. Those the physical cannot limit Because they see beyond beyond And do not stop at 'That can't be'." (awkward pause) "Uh, ... that's all well and good, But not quite what I was expecting. Maybe your ship needs something? Our ship? Eventually. We are a little low on fuel And before we leave your world Certain items will want minor repairs. But there's plenty of time for attending to that, And we have more urgent needs. So take us to your poets, Your dreamers, Your dancers in the moonlight. For we are dangerously low on dreams And need to relight our inner fires Without which all worlds are dark and empty." Thomas G. Digby entered 1635 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.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I currently do that one manually. -- END --