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 #198 New Moon of February 2, 2011 Contents copyright 2011 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. ********************* It's time for another Issue of Silicon Soapware, and as I write this Groundhog Day is upon us. You all probably know at least as much about this tradition as I so, so there's little I really need to say about it here. I was having lunch with a bunch of assorted Witches and other Pagans when the the subject of Australia came up. I asked if they would be celebrating Lammas (a Pagan festival about six months away from Groundhog Day) there. The reply, from one person who has frequent contact with Pagans and Witches there, was that most, but not all, of them would. Some still cling to the traditional Northern Hemisphere dates, even if they're totally out of sync with the physical seasons. This makes some sense if you think in terms of the ties to your ancestors being stronger than the ties to the local land. If that's your reality, you'll want to, for example, deck your halls and light your Yule log in December when the stores are full of Christmas stuff and the radio is singing about Santa Claus, even if it's the height of summer outside your window. I would expect this attitude to be most prevalent in the cities, with people in rural areas being more likely to follow the physical seasons. You might also see more of it among recent immigrants, as opposed to those whose parents had grown up there. But the subject got changed before I got a chance to ask if this was actually the case. It's also worth noting that the climate in this part of California is different from that of most of Europe and the British Isles. The differences are not as extreme as they are for places like Australia, but there still are differences. But there are enough similarities that following the traditional dates for the seasons still makes at least some sense. ********************* This also leads to some science-fictional thoughts. Suppose we do establish some sort of human habitation on Mars. And suppose it includes people from various cultural backgrounds. The question of what holidays to celebrate when will sooner or later come up. If you ignore the possibility of terraforming (a process which is likely to take many years at best) the colonists won't be going outside without fairly heavy protective gear. So "summer" and "winter" may not make all that much difference in how things feel. Yes, there will be more sunlight at some times of year, and yes, there may be more frost or snow on the ground at other times, and yes, this may influence the kinds of work that can be done and how they do it, but it's unclear whether it will give as much of a feeling of changing seasons as we get on Earth. So there may be a tendency to celebrate whatever the people on their video screens are celebrating, rather than what they see when they look out through their viewports. Have the researchers working on preparations for possible eventual Mars missions done much in this area? ********************* I was looking at a Wikipedia article on the Qasr al-Nil Bridge in Cairo, when I noticed the latitude and longitude were given to six decimal places ("30.043747°N 31.229464°E"). Some articles on other landmarks such as the Pentagon and the Golden Gate Bridge gave the coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds, with a precision of two decimal places in the seconds. A millionth of a degree of arc on the Earth's surface is about 111 millimeters, while a hundredth of a second is about 3.6 times that (remember the original definition of the meter in terms of distance along the Earth's surface). I'm wondering about the implications of stating locations to that degree of precision. First, when referring to the location of something as big as the Golden Gate Bridge or the Pentagon with a precision of a few inches, what part of the thing do the coordinates refer to? The center? One entrance? Something else? Also, how often are those coordinates rechecked? In some cases, depending on locations relative to tectonic plate boundaries and such, the ground under the landmark may, over a period of a few years, move enough to make a difference in the last digit. So even if the original measurements were correct, they may be out of date. Are the Wikipedia people keeping tabs on all this? ********************* There's something in the news about some city in the area considering a ban on keeping roosters, even though they will still allow keeping hens. Several cities already have such bans. The stated reason is noise. Many people don't like to hear roosters crowing, especially earlier in the morning than they'd been planning on getting up. But what of the cliche of the various mystical creatures of the night going back to their crypts or graves or caves or whatever when the cock crows to signal dawn? If there are no cocks around, how will they know that the night is over? I suppose they'll eventually notice that the sky is getting lighter, but will that give them enough time to get home before actual full sunrise? Will this ban lead to unintended consequences? ********************* A few days ago someone around the Miami area set out to make a video which was to include images of him playing a burning piano on a sandbar out in the surf, or something like that. I don't know how successful he was in this, but he left a partly-burned baby grand piano on the sandbar where people would notice it the next morning and wonder where it came from. At about the same time the Dugway Proving Ground had an emergency lockdown, and initially didn't say why. It later turned out that a vial of chemical-warfare stuff was thought to have been missing. It was found and the lockdown was lifted, but not before people around me started making zombie-plague jokes. So I kind of put those together and got "Flaming Zombie Pianos of Doom". It's a horde of pianos, mostly grands and baby grands, all marching down the road playing "March of the Flaming Zombie Pianos in E-Flat Minor" over and over incessantly. And they're all on fire. It's a fearsome spectacle indeed, at least at night. But further observation and analysis reveals their weaknesses. First, they can't really do much. Yes, they can bump into things and set stuff on fire, and if they really want to they can crush someone by essentially falling down on top of them, but that's pretty much It. If you stay out of their way you're fairly safe, and most people can outrun them easily, so staying out of their way should not be difficult. The main danger is to property. And yes, that tune they play over and over all the time can get pretty annoying, especially when the individual pianos can't keep the beat together. Also, they can get horribly out of tune because of the way the heat from the flames affects the strings. But again, the main effect of that is annoyance and sleep deprivation. Then when you watch them hobbling slowly down the road, you'll notice that with only three legs, none anywhere close to being under the center of gravity, they can't really march. They can only creep along taking little hippity-hoppity baby steps, where no leg ever leaves the ground for more than a split second. A galloping gait might theoretically be possible, but they don't seem to have the strength and agility for it. That's the reason they stay on more or less even pavement: They can't climb stairs, or even curbs, although they can sometimes make their way up those little wheelchair ramps they have in the sidewalk at intersections. But ramps don't always help. If the slope they're trying to go up is too steep those little casters on the ends of their legs will roll them right back down, unless they're lucky enough to have had their casters break off or jam. And if they get onto unpaved dirt those thin piano legs sink into the soil and then they're pretty much helpless. In a way they're kind of pitiful, especially in the daytime. But even with those weaknesses, they're pretty hard to kill and can be a major nuisance. So how do you kill them? Random small-arms fire doesn't seem to do much to them. If you're an extremely good shot or you get lucky you can break the little stick thingie that holds the lid open. Then the lid will close and smother the fire. When the fire dies, so does the zombie piano. But that's about the only good bullets will do, unless you pretty much shred your target with heavy machine guns or some such. Uprights are somewhat more vulnerable to this kind of brute-force attack because of the placement of the working parts, but it still takes a lot of bullets to kill one. Yanking that lid support out with something like a shepherd's crook, or chopping it with a long-handled ax, can also be effective. However you do it, closing the lid will stop them, although they do take quite a while to die. Putting out their fire by other means, such as with a fire extinguisher, will also kill them. Another way to stop them, if you can get to the keyboard, is to confuse them by playing something other than "March of the Flaming Zombie Pianos in E-Flat Minor". "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" works, as do any of a number of other sweet innocent major-key children's tunes. Whatever you play, you should be prepared to play it in any of a number of keys, since any given zombie piano is likely to have at least a couple of keys that don't work, especially if people have been shooting at it. That's why their march is in E-flat minor. Many zombie pianos believe, rightly or wrongly, that when a piano in subjected to such abuse as to cause keys to become non-functional, the white keys are the first to go. Putting their march in E-flat minor puts it almost entirely on the black keys. Anyway, killing a zombie piano that way is a daunting task. Not only can you get a burst of flame in your face, but the keyboard cover can slam shut on your hands without warning. That can hurt! Fortunately, we have help. A number of 1950's sci-fi robots from the Sci-Fi Robot Retirement Home have volunteered to help. Their hands may not be suitable for playing the piano, but since they're built mainly of metal they're pretty close to being fireproof, at least for brief superficial exposure. And they're pretty strong. It comes down to teamwork: You play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on a zombie piano while your 1950's sci-fi robot partner holds the keyboard cover open with one hand and the other hand holds an asbestos umbrella to shield you from the flames. You don't have to do this to every piano. Once you immobilize the ones on the fringes of a herd, the others will be sort of hemmed in. The Fire Department can then finish them off easily. The reason the Fire Department can't do the job right from the start is that when you call 9-1-1 to report a herd of burning pianos marching up the street, nobody is going to believe you. But once they're immobilized you can just describe them as a pile of burning furniture, and let the dispatcher assume it's some kind of unauthorized bonfire or something. Then they'll send someone right out, no problem. As an alternative, if it's late at night you can just call the cops and complain that someone is keeping you awake by playing "March of the Flaming Zombie Pianos in E-Flat Minor" over and over out in the middle of the street. Then when the cops arrive and see the situation for themselves they can call the Fire Department and deal with dispatchers who don't believe in stuff like zombie pianos marching around playing themselves while on fire. Once that's done everybody (except the zombie pianos) can live happily ever after. ********************* After all that, I still kind of like the image of someone playing a piano with flames coming out of it. With the right music it could symbolize passion or something. So I thought of a way to have a flaming piano be playable: Use gas burners, like you have in fake fireplaces, just above the strings. Heat rises, so the strings would need only minimal shielding. You'd need to make the lid out of something heat-resistant, but that's probably not a major problem. There would be some limitations on where you could place the camera so it wouldn't see the burner pipes and such, but a good cinematographer could probably work around that. For added effect, you could vary the gas feed to suit the music, so the flames flare up on crescendos and die down during quiet passages. Technical details will be left as an exercise for the reader. ********************* Incident Along Fantasy Way 2245 hr 4/8/75 The Edge Near the highway's end is a motel-- Small, quiet, half-empty. There is no flow of travelers to points beyond pausing for the night As there are no points beyond To pause on the way to. This is the edge of the world. People do come, but not many: There are rumors that looking too closely or too long Can drive you mad, Or worse, that people may think you mad When you are not. So the tourist families that come to snap pictures of their children Standing next to the big sign near the edge ("But not too close!") And buy picture postcards showing the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria Falling through endless sky Are few. Most of the trade is "regulars" returning again and again-- Some in groups, Some meeting friends here, Some alone. The Edge somehow goes with aloneness And one's own thoughts. Indeed, no two see it alike, And like one's thoughts, It is never the same twice. For the motel this is a problem. Everyone who goes to the edge extends it: An inch here, a foot there, two feet somewhere else. So in a few years The motel will have to move Or lose its claim to fame And be just another motel. -- Thomas G. Digby written 2245 hr 4/08/75 entered 2345 hr 2/08/92 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU There are two email lists, one that allows reader comments and one that does not. 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