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 #202 New Moon of June 1, 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. ********************* There's a song called "June is Bustin' Out All Over". This year June hasn't been that assertive. Instead it's been sort of sneaking in, perhaps kind of hoping people will think it's April, complete with showers. At least that's what it's been doing around this part of California. YMMV (Your Month May Vary). Although this kind of weather is unusual for June, it isn't unheard of. It just sort of happens now and then. But even so, I don't think a song with a title like "June is Slinkin' Around like Winter" would sell. NOTE ADDED LATER: On another hand some would say the kind of weather we've been having is more like March. So how about "June is Comin' In Like a Lion"? ********************* As I quickly skim my friends' blog postings before going out to tend to the day's business I see it: Someone resolves not to cast asparagus at his cat. As I go through my day I wonder. Why would anyone want to cast asparagus at a cat? I don't think most cats really care all that much for vegetables, so asparagus is not really a treat. And if you're just casting out the asparagus to get rid of it and the cat happens to be in the way, you'd probably word it differently. Also, if you have an indoor cat, then even after you've cast the asparagus at the cat, you're not really rid of the asparagus. Problem: If it's not a one-time thing, but you're really serious about casting asparagus at the cat on a regular basis, she will soon learn to avoid you when you have that gleam in your eye and asparagus in your hands. Then what? You can extend your range by building an asparagus-casting catapult. It's not something many people are interested in, but you can probably find plans on the Internet. You can find almost anything on the Internet. One big problem is that it's hard to throw individual spears of asparagus for any significant distance with any degree of accuracy, especially if they have been cooked. They twist and bend and flop around too much as they fly through the air. You could freeze the asparagus into a lump and heave the whole thing at once, but that's unacceptable on ethical grounds: A solid piece of ice that large might hurt somebody. Besides, some people like to prolong the fun by casting the asparagus one piece at a time. Canned asparagus has those same problems: Hard to control if loose, too dangerous if it's still in the can. It's otherwise a rather tempting alternative, at least if you have a cannon with the right size bore. One way to eliminate having to deal with air resistance is to eliminate the air. And on the Moon, with its lower gravity, you can cast asparagus six times as far as you can on Earth. Another advantage of lunar-based asparagus-casting is that with no air, the cat won't hear you sneakily setting up the catapult six times as far away as you can do it on Earth. So you're more likely to catch her by surprise. And if any of your asparagus actually does hit the cat, her space suit will protect her, reducing the chances of injury. The only problem with this plan is that it's kind of expensive. Rocket fare to the Moon, space suits for both of you, and baggage fees for the cat carrier and the catapult all add up. You might be able to do it with corporate sponsorship. Let companies pay you to put their logos all over your space suits and catapult and such, and then sell the video of the whole thing on streaming pay-per-view. But there's still a problem: The cat I'm thinking of casting asparagus at on the Moon is not my cat. And the idea may not really be mine either. So maybe instead of doing it myself, I'll just have to be content with investing in my friend's asparagus-casting venture. So I log onto the Internet to check my friend's blog posting in preparation for writing a comment offering to invest. And then I see the deal-breaker: I'd read it wrong. He wasn't talking about casting asparagus at all. He was talking about casting aspersions on the cat. That's a quite different thing, and much less interesting to watch, at least in my opinion. So it looks like I'm out of luck. ********************* Buying a Used Car "You're going to the same high school your father went to, right? If so, this is the car for you. It needs work, but you can probably postpone that for a while." "What kind of work?" "Brakes. But as I recall, when your father was walking to school through the snow it was uphill both ways. You may need brakes after you graduate, but until then, as long as you're only driving uphill ..." "There might be one problem." "What's that?" "If I'm driving uphill all the time, gas mileage is going to be terrible." ********************* A recent online discussion of names of symbols mentioned the one many Americans call the "pound sign" or "number sign": #, ASCII hex 23. There's a lively debate on these and other names for that symbol, including various spellings of "octothorpe", on the Wikipedia discussion pages for the relevant articles. I tend to also think of it as the musical sharp symbol but (at least as of the end of May in 2011) the Wikipedia articles on the number sign and the sharp draw a distinction based on whether or not the horizontal or vertical lines are sloped. The sharp has the horizontal lines sloping upward to the right, while the number sign has the horizontal lines level and the vertical lines leaning toward the right. According to the Discussion pages at least some writers seem to feel that this distinction is important even if many (most?) people won't notice the difference. I know that I hadn't noticed it before reading about it in the Wikipedia articles. As far as I can recall, none of my music teachers in school had ever mentioned it either. These subtle (I might even say nitpicky) distinctions lead to thoughts of someone who is not aware of them copying some music onto a page and giving it to a musician to play. The following dialog might (or might not) ensue: "I can't play that! You've drawn the sharps all wrong." "I don't see anything wrong. There are two horizontal lines and two vertical lines in each sharp. And it's all nice and legible." "In a sharp the horizontal lines are supposed to slope upward slightly. You've drawn them horizontal. And you have the vertical lines tilted. Those are number signs or octothorpes or pound signs, not sharps!" "Can't you play it anyway? Pretend they're sharps?" "If I try I'm likely to start sort of subconsciously leaning over to line up with the vertical lines, and first thing you know I'll lose my balance and fall. "I've never heard of that." "Well, it does happen. Hospitals don't keep statistics, but the carnage is not insignificant." "Well, I have some paper clips and clothespins and clamps and such. What if I use them tilt the whole page so the vertical lines on the sharps are actually vertical?" "Then the music will all be going uphill. That's very tiring. I'm not sure I'll be able to make it all the way through without stopping to rest." "OK, we'll leave the music level, and get you a chair so you can play sitting down. That way you won't lose your balance by leaning over. We might even be able to fit it with a seat belt to make sure you won't fall out." "But then if I defy the rules by playing music with octothorpes instead of sharps without falling over, a great dark bird will swoop down out of the sky, grab me in its claws, and fly me to its nest, where I will no doubt come to a gruesome end." "But we're indoors. There's a roof over us." "They tried building bandstands with roofs, but they weren't sturdy enough to stop the bird. It would just bust right through." "But we're not in a bandstand. We're in a ground-floor hotel ballroom, with more ballrooms on the floor above and several floors of other stuff above that." "Don't underestimate that bird. It'll just turn itself into a human, go up that escalator over there and walk into the room right above this one, then turn back into a bird and bust through the floor, grab me in its claws, and fly me to its nest, where I will no doubt come to a gruesome end. And on top of that, the hotel will sue my estate, and you, and anyone else who had anything to do with all this. for the damage to their building." "I've never heard of that happening." "Well, it does happen. Hospitals don't keep statistics, and neither do the law courts, but the carnage is not insignificant." "I don't know what I'm going to do with you." "Just make sure that whoever writes down your music knows what a sharp is supposed to look like." ********************* Something got me to thinking about cloud-based computing, so I took a quick look in Wikipedia. They have stuff on it that I may read later. And I almost typoed that into "Cloud-based commuting". So what would that be? People living and/or working in castles in the air? Would they use the Rainbow Bridge? And do any of those clouds have silver linings? This may be something to think about later. ********************* There was something in the news recently about some SETI-related project being suspended due to lack of funds. That reminded me of the project that used idle time on people's home computers to do number-intensive computations. SETI At Home The heading on the screen saver says "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at Home" Even though they're really looking at the skies, Not in this apartment. But what if they're wrong? What if, in the dead of night when I'm asleep, My darkened living room is full of a very quiet meeting of The Galactic Federation Security Council? They always put the chairs back when they're finished So I never find anything amiss, But telepathic debates of other-worldly affairs Leaking into my dreams Could explain a lot. And since I don't clean as often as I should, They may be keeping their transporter in the hall closet With the mops and brooms and vacuum cleaner, Secure in the knowledge that I may go weeks without looking there. Or if the little green men are small enough, They may be living under the sink, Getting essential alien nutrients from Earthly insecticides and detergents and such. Should I look harder? Probably not. If they wanted to be found I would have seen them already. But if some morning I find a Galactic Federation Flag next to the US Flag in my window Then I'll know They're ready to make Contact. -- Thomas G. Digby written 11:13 12/09/2001 ********************* 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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