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 #185 New Moon of January 14, 2010 Contents copyright 2010 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. ********************* I recently had another one of those round-number no-longer-young birthdays: 70. For some reason this didn't have the emotional impact that my 60th birthday had. I think part of the difference was that when I was growing up 2010 wasn't The Future the way 2000 was (see http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0061.txt for more musings on The Future). ********************* One of the things that comes with birthdays in any of various overlapping countercultural communities I'm in is the so-called "Mongolian Birthday Song" (also known by other names). If you're not familiar with it, a Web search on the title as a phrase (with the quotes) will turn up numerous versions of it. It claims to be to the tune of the "Volga Boatmen" song. If you're not familiar with the original, YouTube has many renditions of it, including at least one by the Red Army Choir. The point I'm getting to is that while the lines usually quoted as the chorus ("Happy Birthday (Uggh)") do fit the corresponding lines of the original, the verses don't, or at best fit only very loosely. They sort of resemble one phrase from the original repeated twice, but with the syllables in different places. So while it may be correct to say that the "Mongolian Birthday Song" was inspired by the "Volga Boatmen" piece, it's stretching it to say that it's to the same tune. ********************* A few days ago I awoke to a very foggy morning. Evidently the fog had crept in on its little cat feet, even though I don't currently have a cat. But then the fog doesn't really need a cat in order to creep in on little cat feet. It's just a poetic metaphor. But it does lead to questions of what kinds of weather might come in on other types of feet, or maybe wearing shoes or something. For example, it first occurred to me that thunderstorms might come in in tap-dancing shoes, but then those may be more suited to hail. So let the thunderstorms fight it out with tornadoes and such for combat boots? Or would really big hail prefer to stomp around on elephant feet? Are there enough kinds of hooves and claws and shoes and skates and skis and such to go around? Or can types of weather that often go together, such as thunder and hail, share? Or do they have to walk at all? Maybe thunderstorms could ride in on a Harley. The folks at the Weather Bureau (or whatever it's called nowadays) probably don't have an official table of such things. Should they? ********************* Unclear on the Concept: One by-product of some fossil-fuel power plants is a sort of synthetic gypsum, produced by the systems that remove sulfur from the combustion gases. According to a recent news item, the relevant government agencies are encouraging farmers to use this synthetic gypsum in place of natural gypsum. The gypsum (natural or otherwise) functions as a nutrient source and soil amendment. Some people are concerned about toxic metals and such, but the government says the levels are low enough to not be a problem. The news story I saw on this quoted one farmer as saying that the synthetic stuff must be safe because it doesn't have a skull and crossbones on the label. WHEW! That's a relief. Now we can all quit worrying. ********************* Another news item: There have been protests in Malaysia over a court decision overturning a law prohibiting Christians from referring to their deity as "Allah". Does this mean that if the law has been upheld, any mention of Allah by that name would have had to include the Trademark symbol? And if religious groups are going to try to regulate the use of names, perhaps Islamic moderates should get laws passed to prohibit terrorists from using names like "Muslim" and "Islam"? ********************* I recently saw the movie AVATAR in 3D. It was quite spectacular. That reminds me of a news story I didn't see: Unnamed sources say that an unnamed studio is planning to convert the classic film PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE to 3D. This will not, in the strict sense of the word, be a remake, since they'll be using all the existing footage. What they plan to do for the 3D conversion is to duplicate the sets, actors, actions, etc., of the original as closely as possible while filming with a camera positioned a few inches to one side of where the camera was located for the original. "We already have a perfectly good view from one eye, so all we need is the corresponding view from the other eye," says an unnamed studio executive. Since this will require only one camera instead of the two normally used for 3D work, and will likewise require only half the film stock that would otherwise be used, the unnamed backers of the project anticipate considerable cost savings. And since color film is much less expensive compared to black-and-white film than it was when the original was made, they can make a color version without having to shoot the new footage in black-and-white and then colorize it, as was done with the original. They'll just shoot the new view in color to begin with. They admit that this is a rather ambitious project, using never-before- tried techniques, and the results may not be perfect from a technical standpoint. "That's why we chose PLAN NINE for our first film. Audience expectations are likely to be lower than they would be for a classic like GONE WITH THE WIND or METROPOLIS. Once we've worked the bugs out and have gained credibility within the industry we can go on to more highly-regarded titles." Producers of other 3D films declined to comment. ********************* Speaking of news items, someone on LiveJournal mentioned one about controlling "drones" from a cell phone. But it was unclear what the "drones" in question might be. One person suggested bagpipes. "Maybe they're using the cell phone to control just the drones because the chanter and the bag are too complicated." But I have doubts about this. Someone else mentioned bees in a hive. But the drones don't do any work other than mating with the queen. So that wouldn't seem too useful either. Then there's the possibility of using it as a TV remote. They weren't sure how to do it, though. My thought was to put cell-phone circuitry in the TV and give it its own number. When you want to change the channel or whatever, call it from your cell phone and tell it what to do. Since your cell phone is now your TV remote, there's one less thing to misplace. What's more, you don't have to be in front of the TV. If, for example, you're at work and you know your kids are just getting home from school and are likely to disobey your orders not to watch TV until they've done their homework, you can phone your TV and tell it to turn itself off. It has the additional advantage that you can control other people's TV sets as well as your own. Say someone in a neighboring apartment is playing their TV too loud, and you've managed to find out the set's phone number. Just call it and tell it to turn its volume down. Likewise, if someone you know is watching trashy stuff while there's something educational or morally uplifting or otherwise more worthwhile on another channel, you can change the channel for them. Fun for the entire family, at least as long as spammers and telemarketers don't get your TV set's number. ********************* At a recent party the hosts had put out a stack of stuff they were giving away. I ended up taking home a couple of books. Then once I'd read them I decided I didn't really want to keep one of them. So now what do I want to do with it? If I had one of those cliche mansions like you read about in old murder mysteries, I could put it on one of those shelves of books with good-looking covers but uninteresting content that nobody ever reads. Since I'm thinking in cliche murder mystery terms, it might also be a good book for hollowing out the pages to hide stuff, except that it's too thin to hide much in. There's room for maybe a dozen of those USB computer memory sticks, perhaps along with some H1N1 virus samples, but that's about It. You couldn't use it to hide a gun, to pick a cliche example. Maybe a small knife, or some jewelry, or perhaps incriminating papers, but not much else. That leads to thoughts of writing a murder mystery titled "Hollowed-Out Book with a Gun Inside". Have it published and sell lots of copies to people who live in cliche mansions with libraries and butlers who get involved in cliche murder plots. So when the butler shoots somebody the detective will search the place, and in due course will be glancing over the spines of books on various shelves and will see, there amidst titles like "Special Relativity Viewed as a Squirrel in a Henhouse" and "Great Railroad Timetables of the 1950's" and "The Moon without Ketchup", the title "Hollowed-Out Book with a Gun Inside". So he thinks to himself "Aha! I have found the smoking gun!" and gleefully calls all the suspects together for the cliche grand finale scene where he explains to them how he figured out which one did it. Imagine his chagrin when he triumphantly pulls the book down from the shelf and opens it, only to find, not the smoking gun, nor even a cold gun that had quit smoking hours or days ago, but pages full of print. Of course since he's a cliche detective-fiction detective there may be some hope that the book he grabbed from the shelf is the one he's in so that all he has to do is read the last few pages aloud to the assembled multitude, but odds are that it isn't. So all he can do is stand there looking stupid. Maybe he'll get some kind of revenge in a sequel? ********************* Another party I went to ran pretty late, and it was going to be a long drive home, and I had another event the following day, so I was a bit concerned about getting enough sleep. So I left around 2 am, even though the party was still going. A day or so after that I was reading various people's blog postings about the party, and at least one person mentioned watching the sun rise. That, and mention of recent vampire movies, reminded me of this: Incident Along Fantasy Way Rush Hour The party was fun, But it lasted longer than usual. By the time my bus arrives The sky is beginning to lighten. It is standing room only, and hardly any of that -- A sea of pallid faces. I resist the urge to draw my coat collar tighter: In these days of hemoglobin pie in the supermarkets And bars serving real Bloody Marys I need not fear vampires -- And besides, someone might be offended. Three stops later is the cemetery. Then I have the bus Almost to myself. Thomas G. Digby written 2325 hr 12/14/74 entered 1240 hr 4/09/92 ********************* 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. 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