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 #110 New Moon of December 23, 2003 Contents copyright 2003 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. ********************* During the recent centennial of the Wright Brothers' first flight I saw articles describing how others had also been experimenting with various kinds of flying machines. That reminded me of the old quote about how people will build steam engines when it comes to be Steam-Engine Time. So it looks like the early 1900's were Airplane Time. It may have also been Time for other technologies as well, as they are not mutually exclusive. So what Time is it now? Possibly some version of Internet Time? Is it also coming up on DNA Time or Bio-technology Time in general? ********************* Many scientists agree: It's later than it's ever been before. ********************* I had occasion to look up a word in the dictionary, and noticed that it was listed as originating before the 14th Century. So that makes it more than 700 years old. That's a long time. But even though 700 years is a long time in terms of human lives, to a geologist or cosmologist it's but an instant, and it's not all that long to an archaeologist. On the other hand a few seconds can be an eternity in certain kinds of chemistry or atomic physics. So whether a given time interval is long or short depends on your perspective. I'm reminded of that short film (there may be more than one) where the camera starts with a shot of a person and then zooms in to the atomic or even subatomic level, and then also zooms out to cosmological scales of distance. Has anyone attempted a similar thing for time instead of space? How would you do it? One thought is that since the film had differently scaled views of space arranged along an axis in time, one might have differently scaled views of time separated in space. Maybe it could take the form of an exhibit with a number of film (video, whatever) loops running simultaneously, each at a different rate of speedup or slow motion. Perhaps the center screen could show a person walking down the street at normal speed, while to one side is another screen showing the sun moving across the sky to make day and night, while in one corner of this second screen there is that same person walking, but speeded up to the time rate of the day-night screen. Then a third screen could show seasonal changes of trees and snow and such, while down in its corner is the scene from the day-night screen, speeded up to show the days and nights flickering by. And so on, down to some final screen showing something like the expanding universe and the birth of galaxies. Then on the other side would be another series of screens, each showing the previous one in slow motion while it shows some phenomenon that some faster time scale applies to, down to subatomic stuff. This might make a good art project for somebody to do. ********************* Speaking of people's attitudes about time, I'm reminded me of an incident at a campout get-together some years back. I was living in Los Angeles, and the event was out on some land near San Diego. So I took the bus (or maybe it was the train) to San Diego, and then got a ride to the actual site with one of the locals who was part of a sort of semi-organized shuttle service they had set up. The whole transportation thing was kind of vague, so I was a little bit concerned about getting a ride back. Some people said not to worry about it until the time comes, while I felt more like getting the arrangements over with now so I wouldn't have any need to worry about it later. That later led me to wonder whether there may be some kind of fundamental philosophical division between "Worry Now" and "Worry Later". In terms of being able to relax and enjoy the present moment, either policy by itself seems to work most of the time. Once the Worry Now people have made their arrangements they're free to quit worrying. And the Worry Later people seem to be able to put the matter out of their minds until it's time to worry about it. What's bad is when the two philosophies are mixed in one group. The Worry Now people keep hassling the Worry Later people and ruining their enjoyment of the present moment, while the Worry Later people keep the Worry Now people in suspense by refusing to tend to the matter immediately. But then it occurs to me that I'm in one camp on some issues but in the other on others. And on further thought it appears that my attitude on a particular item may depend on my estimate of how likely I am to have problems with it. If I think it'll be easy, with little chance of any serious problem, I can wait and worry later. But if I think there's a non-trivial chance I may fail if I wait until the last minute, I'll want to get it over with now. Then if I run into problems I'll have more time in which to try to solve them. For example, if I want to go somewhere and for some reason driving isn't an option, if I know there's a bus or train that runs every few minutes and stops in the right places I can wait I'm almost ready to go to look up the details. But if I need to get a ride from a friend I may or may not be able to reach on short notice, I would feel a need to get everything arranged well in advance. I suspect that some of the friction between Worry Now and Worry Later stems from conflicting estimates of how much trouble and difficulty the thing being worried about will eventually involve. But even so, that may not be the whole story. There may still be some personal differences in how people prefer to handle potential problems and pleasures. ********************* Here's something that might make a good public service announcement for an audience familiar with science fiction: Imagine stumbling into bed after a party, thankful you weren't picked up for drunk driving, and later being awakened by special effects in your bedroom. Two police officers materialize, ask your name, and then explain that they're from an alternate world where you didn't make it home that night. They say you're in the emergency room being prepared for surgery, blood is needed, and they'd like for you to donate since they already know you're the right type. While you're sitting there trying to decide whether to believe any of this, a brief message comes in on one officer's communicator. He acknowledges and says something to his partner, who makes too-bad noises. They then apologize for waking you but it turns out not to be necessary after all. Then they vanish. ********************* Someone brought a copy of "On Beyond Zebra" to a get-together, and read it aloud to a few other people who were there. I sort of tried to listen to part of it, but I was too involved in a different conversation. That prompted me to read it at the library later on. Dr. Seuss wrote that book before ASCII existed, or at least before it was well known. Could he have written it today, were he still alive, or would ASCII and Unicode have been too mentally confining? Today's computer-nerd generation may tend to think of "beyond z" as the ASCII characters that fill up the Hex 50 and Hex 70 rows of numbers: [, \, ], ^, and _, plus {, |, }, ~, and [delete]. That seems rather dull compared to what's in the book, even if you include the other so-called high-bit characters. So have our gains from computer technology been at the cost of a loss of silly things for our imaginations to play with? ********************* Speaking of science fiction, here's a Christmas thing from the viewpoint of a colonist on some distant world: Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra Oh, Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra, Carols 'round a real organic tree. Someone's face aglow Beneath the Mistletoe Because you're someone they had hoped to see. Yes, Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra, Moonlight on the newly fallen snow. Cold December night, Candles burning bright Give the room a warm romantic glow. But Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra, Walking down a busy street alone. Over there's a tree Like you had come to see But somehow it just doesn't seem like home. And Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra, Carols on a jukebox in a bar. All the folks you know Who'd make your season glow Are waiting on some far-off Christmas star. So Let's Imagine Christmas on Terra, That's the song that's really big this year. Sing it if you will, But please remember still, If you go there you will dream of Christmas here. Tom Digby written 1215hr 12-28-86 entered 2200hr 1-30-90 ********************* 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. 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