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 #224
                        New Moon of March 11, 2013


Contents copyright 2013 by Thomas G. Digby, and licensed under a Creative 
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.  See the Creative 
Commons site at http://creativecommons.org/ for details. 

Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback.  
Details of how to sign up are at the end.  


                          *********************

This year's Spring Equinox hasn't happened yet, but there are definite 
signs of Spring.  The days are getting longer, the weather is a bit 
warmer and sunnier (although more chilly wet weather is possible), and 
just a few nights ago this area set its clocks ahead for the summer.

Nowadays, unlike in days of yore, we don't have to actually set all those 
clocks.  Some, such as the ones in our computers and cell phones, are 
smart enough to set themselves.  Others, mostly hidden away in the 
equivalent of an engine room, are on Universal (aka "Greenwich") time 
which doesn't get reset for summer or winter.  From their point of view 
people (and the clocks most people are looking at) just sort of shift one 
time zone in whichever direction is appropriate for the season.

But there are still a few clocks that aren't hooked into any such 
automated system, and thus need to be reset manually.  I can think of 
five that I'll need to set, including the one in the car.  So some 
semblance of the tradition remains to mark the changing seasons.

Maybe in some year to come we won't really pay attention to the change at 
all.  One fine spring morning we'll just feel a bit less rested than 
usual when the alarm goes off, and we may notice that it's darker outside 
when we set out for the office and that it stays light later in the 
evening, but we won't have to pay conscious attention to setting clocks 
at all.  There will be mention of the change in the news, but that's just 
for people with old-fashioned clocks and most of us will more or less 
ignore it.

And some gray-haired granddad will tell the kids about how when he was a 
boy he had to set all his clocks by hand twice a year, back and forth 
depending on the season, and if someone forgot to do that they had the 
embarrassment of showing up at church or work or whatever an hour late or 
early, depending on how they should have set their clocks.

He might also tell them he had to walk barefoot three miles through snow 
to get there, but that will probably be an exaggeration, and even if it 
happens to be true the kids may not believe him.


                          *********************

A discussion in another forum got me to thinking about the song, "Twinkle 
Twinkle Little Star".  According to the Wikipedia article it was first 
published, as a nursery rhyme, in 1806.  That makes the second line, the 
one about wondering what the star is, more appropriate than it may seem 
to us at first glance, because astronomers back then knew much less about 
the nature of stars than they know now.

Of course there's still a fair amount we don't know about stars, so the 
song isn't obsolete yet.


                          *********************

In some worlds parallel to ours where magic is stronger than it is here, 
computers usually still work but tend to become rather cartoon-like.  
That can be useful in that it is sometimes possible to persuade the 
machine to do what you want it do to without all the nitpicking about 
exact programming that we have to put up with here.

But there are dangers.  For example, if some Web site seems to be loading 
too slowly, resist the urge to speed it up by dragging that progress bar 
that shows you how much has been accomplished so far.  While that 
sometimes seems to work (in contrast to this world, where it generally 
has no effect), if you aren't careful you can create a data suckage 
condition in which all the data from every other computer in the vicinity 
ends up in your machine, leaving all the others empty.

Even if that doesn't cause widespread crashes, other users will be 
unhappy at your computer having sucked up all their data.  Worse, your 
machine can destabilize into something like a supernova explosion or even 
an information black hole into which specially trained and equipped 
adventurers must venture, at great peril, to retrieve what bits and 
pieces they can.

While some have returned from such explorations bearing great treasures 
from realms never before conceived of by humans, others have been less 
fortunate.  Many never return.

So the standard advice for when something is loading slowly is to avoid 
the temptation to drag the progress bar.


                          *********************

Prediction: A majority of children born today in the US will never learn 
to drive or apply for a driver's license.

The reason?  By the time today's kids reach driving age, self-driving 
cars will be so common that driving will no longer be considered a 
necessary skill for the general population.  It will be looked on much as 
horseback riding is today.

Since young drivers are statistically a high-risk group, there may be 
considerable pressure, possibly in the form of higher insurance rates and 
more restrictive licensing criteria, for them to let the car do the 
driving.  So even among those who apply for licenses, fewer may succeed 
in getting them.  And if one's chances of getting a license are smaller, 
and there is not as much real need for it as there is now, many simply 
won't bother applying.


                          *********************

Will self-driving cars offer a choice of driving style settings?

For example, it seems reasonable to offer a choice between optimizing for 
fuel economy or for getting to your destination sooner, assuming both can 
be done without significantly affecting safety.

I suspect the degree of allowable flexibility will depend on traffic 
conditions at any given moment.  If there's nobody else around you can 
choose to go at the vehicle's most economical speed without worrying 
about impatient people behind you.  Or if you're in a hurry, you may 
choose to go faster, assuming it's safe.  On the other hand, when traffic 
is heavy going with the flow and not gumming things up will take 
priority.

Some people might prefer other options, such as having people notice 
their expensive status-symbol vehicle.  This is less likely to be 
officially sanctioned, but some brands might have a subtle bias toward 
that policy hidden in their programming, even if their ads only hint at 
it.

Other options, such as expressing one's competitive macho manhood, are 
unlikely to be legally available.  But you might be able to find them on 
some sort of underground hacker market.

Whatever happens will probably include a bunch of alternatives nobody 
today has thought of yet.


                          *********************

More thoughts on the eventual transition from manually driven cars to 
robots, especially as it may affect stunt drivers and automobile racing.

Will the sport of auto racing fade away, or will it remain as a specialty 
thing, sort of like horse racing is today?

And what of stunt drivers in movies?  Will they continue to be in demand, 
or will advances in animation technology make them unnecessary?  Or will 
stunt-driving robots be developed?

Will live actors in general remain as important to movies as they are 
today?


                          *********************

Thoughts of robots, along with other things in the news, reminded me of a 
story titled "Good News from the Vatican" by Robert Silverberg.  It's 
about a robot being elected Pope.  I'm pretty sure that won't happen 
until long after robot cars become common, if ever, although you never 
know.

A robot cleric would seem to have an advantage in that it would be immune 
to human failings, although that may be balanced by other failings that 
afflict robots but not humans.  It could also be argued that to be 
effective as a spiritual leader, one must share some of the nature of 
those one is setting out to lead.  That could be a point against robot 
clergy serving humans.

But then again, who knows what new gods may show up tomorrow?


                          *********************

Recently I was having dinner with a bunch of people (mostly neither fan 
nor Pagan).  The dish I ordered came with a slice of garlic toast that I 
didn't want.  I asked if anyone else at the table wanted it.  Nobody did.  
So it sat there for an hour or two until the waitress eventually picked 
it up and threw it away.

That led to thoughts of a new superhero.  This person would come up to 
anyone who looked like they were done eating but still had food on their 
plate.  He(?) would give the standard lecture about children starving in 
some other country or wherever.  If the person gave the standard rebuttal 
about sending it to them, our hero would do just that.  He would gather 
up the uneaten food and fly, like Superman, to deliver it to whatever 
children were most in need.

Details aren't fully set yet.  Does he take plates of half-eaten food 
away and come back a few minutes later with the plates all nice and 
clean?  Or does he avoid carrying those often-heavy china plates all over 
the world and back by scraping everything into a sack which he carries 
like some kind of reverse Santa Claus?  Does he carry insulated Hot and 
Cold containers, along with food safety guidelines?  Questions are many, 
while answers are few.

And no, he probably doesn't want kids to put uneaten food under their 
pillow at night, like with teeth for the Tooth Fairy.  That would get 
real messy real fast.  And, also unlike the Tooth Fairy, he doesn't hand 
out money.  That would just encourage people to leave more leftovers, 
which is not what he wants to do.  Also, he probably would just as soon 
not get involved with the banking system and the credit card companies 
and PayPal and all that.  Keep it pure, and keep it simple.


                          *********************

One thought from a conversation at Pantheacon: There's a whole industry 
based on making people ashamed of their bodies.  They sell stuff to 
"repair" or hide or otherwise deal with whatever it is about their bodies 
people are ashamed of.  And if people ever quit being ashamed, those 
industries would be in deep trouble.

There are other industries based on the idea that people's bodies are 
beautiful and can be made even more so.

These two categories, augmenting beauty and hiding defects, are fuzzy and 
they overlap, but you can see the differences between them if you look 
closely.

My personal preference is to support the beauty-enhancers but not the 
shame-based stuff.  Your preferences may vary.


                          *********************


                                THE SPEECH


With a dignified tap of his polished mahogany gavel
The chairman calls to order the annual meeting of
The Association of Distinguished Professors,
And introduces the man who will give
The keynote address:

Doctor So-and-So, Distinguished Professor
And author of a number of books,
With a Doctor of Dignity degree
From some prestige college.

Amid polite applause
This distinguished professor approaches the lectern,
Reaches into a hidden compartment,
And brings out a small plastic bottle.
Using the wand that came with the bottle,
He blows out over the audience
A cloud of bubbles.
"Speech" concluded, he returns to his seat.

The toastmaster feels impelled to summarize:

     "The point Doctor So-and-So was making
     Was that no matter how grown-up we appear on the outside,
     There is still that child inside us all
     Who must now and then be let out to play."

He drones on for a while about repression, and stress,
And life expectancies, and percentages of heart attacks,
And stuff like that until finally,

     "While it is often important for us
     As distinguished professors
     To project a certain image to the world,
     It is also important for us
     As human beings
     To now and then allow ourselves to play."

     "That was indeed my point," replies the professor,
     "And you have summarized it quite well.
     However, just for the record,
     I must remind you
     That what I actually said was:"

And blows another cloud of bubbles.


                                 written Oct 01 83 0415hr
                                 entered Oct 24 83 0015hr
                                 Thomas G. Digby


                          *********************

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