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 #116 New Moon of June 17, 2004 Contents copyright 2004 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. ********************* A few blocks from a restaurant I eat at fairly often is an orchard, one of the few remaining bits of Silicon Valley's agricultural past. It's part of some kind of park or Historic Site or something, which is why it has never sprouted condominiums. I like to walk around it now and then. One day recently I was noticing how the orchard had been plowed to get rid of the undergrowth between the trees. I can now see farther along the rows, with fewer hidden areas and fewer apparent obstacles, but the view doesn't seem to be as pretty with all the wildflowers gone. I'm also reminded of how I once, many years ago, noticed that a then-new Interstate was less scenic than the narrow road that it replaced, where the trees hung over both sides of the road and it was nice and shady on hot summer days. Yes, the Interstate may be faster and safer and able to handle higher volumes of traffic, but it was less appealing to me emotionally than that narrow winding road. I think other areas of life are like that as well. Clear out the underbrush and you will have, to mix metaphors, smoother sailing. But you won't have that sense of adventure, the vague anticipation of some pleasant surprise lurking just around the next bend. There is much to be said for not seeing too much of the future. ********************* With all the hoopla about the recent Venus transit coming on the heels of the hoopla about the Mars rovers, I got to wondering how often an observer on Mars would see Earth transiting the Sun. A little Google searching found answers at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Earth_from_Mars The last one was in 1984, with the next one due in November of 2084. It also occurred to me to think about what significance, if any, colonists on Mars would give to transits of Earth. It probably depends on how they feel about Earth: Is Earth mainly a symbol of political oppression that they've escaped? Is it a sacred Mother whose womb they have worked their way out of? Is it a lost Eden? Or is it some combination of those, or something in between, or something else entirely? In the first case they may not consider transits of Earth worth noting except for possible scientific value to astronomers, while in the latter cases a transit of Earth could be an occasion for a major religious observance. There has been some science fiction written about this, but there's probably still room for more. ********************* One recent word puzzle gave a list of words, perhaps including "trough" and "twine" and "gas" and "slaughter", and asked what they had in common. The answer was that if you removed the first letter, what remained would be another word: trough -> rough, twine -> wine, and so on. So now the question is, how many words are there for which you can do this twice? For example there's spray -> pray -> ray, that -> hat -> at, and slate -> late -> ate, among the dozen or so I've come up with so far. And are there any from which you can remove three or more letters, with each beheading leaving another word? The best I've come up with so far is there -> here -> ere -> re, in which at least one of the words is sort of rare in modern English. Knowing Murphy's Law, a better one may pop into my head just after I've sent this issue out. But don't count on it. ********************* One panel at a recent science fiction convention was on preserving movies in light of things like colorizing. I didn't go to it because I had something else I wanted to do at the same time, so I don't know what, if anything, they came up with. But be that panel as it may, one thought that has occurred to me is to combine Truth in Advertising with the kind of version control one sees in software. In other words, label movies and novels and songs and such with version and revision numbers, and keep some sort of database of which is what. This could go well with DVD technology, since the differences between versions can be stored and linked to some default version, such that the user would have the choice of which version to watch. It should also go well with the tendency to market DVDs of movie versions that should have been released in theaters but weren't, often (so they say) because the money people had the last word over the artistic people. Who would keep the database and assign the numbers? The Library of Congress, along with its counterparts abroad? Some new nonprofit foundation? Some industry consortium? That remains to be determined, along with details of the numbering format. But be the details as they may, I think the basic idea has merit. ********************* February 13. August 18. April 8. These are dates that match area codes I've lived in: 213, 818, and 408, respectively. Does your area code match a date? If so, are you planning any special observance? ********************* Someone on an email list I'm on brought up the claim that the drug companies don't want to develop cures for diseases they can instead manage as chronic conditions, because the latter course of action gets them more long-term income. So how do we prove or disprove that charge, and if there's truth to it, how do we change the situation? Do we need to pass new laws (or taxes or whatever) to change the present worth of long-term investments to make emphasis on the short term less attractive? Do we need to form advocacy groups that are also mutual funds that buy shares in the companies they're trying to influence, so as to gain standing to apply pressure? Other? ********************* Back at that science fiction convention, a panel on present and future medical technology wandered off onto discussing the evils of American health-care insurance. Is it better in Canada and the UK? Yes and no. People don't have to pay as much for medical care, but on the other hand the system takes some medical decisions out of the hands of the patients. One example sounded sort of like rationing some of the more expensive treatments where the prognosis was poor. Or something like that. That led me to wonder: It has supposedly been proved, in the math and logic sense of theorems and such (Google "Arrow's Theorem" with the quotes), that there can be no perfect system for holding elections. You can address some of the evils of whatever system you happen to have, but only by allowing other evils to become possible. So is it possible that something similar applies to health care systems? Perhaps you can choose which flaws to accept, but you can't have a system without at least some flaws. Has anybody done any real research on this question? ********************* I had the radio on earlier, and it was giving a traffic report about protesters at some big biotech convention. That reminded me that biotech is getting to be rather controversial. There's concern that genetically engineered foods might not really be as safe as we think they are. Even if there's no apparent danger now, there may be some pitfalls we haven't seen yet that could manifest years or decades down the road. And by the time any now-hidden dangers become evident, there may be no going back. For one thing, genetically modified crops may not stay where they're planted. There have been cases of pollen from modified crops finding its way into other nearby fields whose owners didn't want the modifications but got some of them anyway through the stray pollen. There's also concern about traits like herbicide resistance getting into weeds, making them harder to control. So there may well be legitimate grounds for protesting immediate deployment of biotech food crops. The problem with that is that some are beginning to label biotechnology in general as somehow evil. Even if one is willing to forgo biotech as the next big new thing to stimulate the economy, there may be other aspects of it we won't want to give up. For example, it may bring us a whole array of new medicines, or much less expensive ways to make some of the ones we already have. So how do we make sure the baby (biotech in general) is not thrown out with the bath water (engineered food crops)? ********************* I'm kind of worried that biotechnology and nanotechnology may go the way of klaftnoglastics, a technology whose potential for evil was so feared that, despite its almost unlimited potential for good, it was totally banned. All research, use, and even mention of it was suppressed, until today practically no one even remembers its name, let alone its nature. Some may wonder how I can get away with mentioning the forbidden name on the Internet. Don't they have filters and such to catch people like me? Time was, back in Arpanet days, when they did. But back then the Net was largely government-run, and they could put trusted people with the appropriate security clearances in charge of the filtering. But the filters caught so few mentions of the forbidden words that when the less secure Internet came in they decided that the risk of not having filters was less than the risk of letting civilian sysops with no security clearances have access to the filter codes. So that's why I can mention such things on the Internet today. Of course, it doesn't hurt to misspell it slightly just in case there's still a stray robo-spy or two snooping around. ********************* Speaking of things with the potential for both good and evil, and having the wisdom to use them wisely ... Incident Along Fantasy Way The Recycler of Dreams I had often seen him, In expected places and in unlikely ones -- A kindly old man Who by his looks ought to be running the toy shop in some quaint European village, Always with a large sack Filled with things picked up from the ground And an ornate German pipe Whose smoke he would now and then Blow into someone's face, Always without being noticed. Driven by curiosity, I made inquiries And we were eventually introduced. He is the one known, In those mythologies in which he is known at all, As the Recycler of Dreams. Through the ages he has wandered Through the halls of kings' palaces, Along the quiet lanes where lovers linger, Into bars and taverns and the "In Places", Or like a phantom through the walls of prisons Or corporate boardrooms Or research laboratories, And even along glittering Broadway -- All the places where dreams Have been dreamed And broken. There he wanders, Not always in the form I saw, Collecting pieces of broken dreams To make into new dreams To distribute around the world. Humanity needs its dreams, And cannot grow or prosper without them. But reality is hard on dreams And on dreamers. "Take 'Flight'," he says for an example, "I must have picked that one up a thousand times From the bottom of this or that windswept hill And blown it, like smoke, Into the head of another dreamer Until it finally bore fruit. And others, like 'Perpetual Motion' Or 'World Peace' Or 'Immortality' I may be recycling forever, Along with 'True Love' And 'Winning the Sweepstakes' And 'Being a Movie Star'. That one has gotten many of you Through some dark and stormy nights." "Yes, I see the need for the grand dreams And the smaller dreams And even the silly dreams. But what of the darker dreams? The visions of world conquest, The elusive Perfect Crime, The glory of the Master Race? Do you handle these also?" "I'm afraid I must," he sighed, "Regardless of how horrible the possibilities I cannot label a dream as 'evil' And put it away on a shelf. The gods by whose authority I operate Say that that judgment may only be made, Not by themselves, as you might expect, But by you mortals." Thomas G. Digby written 0140 hr 9/29/74 revised 0245 hr 3/17/83 entered 1230 hr 4/09/92 ********************* 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 --