SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us = tgdigby@netcom.com http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #37 New Moon of December 29, 1997 Contents copyright 1997 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. For more background info, details of how the mailing list works, etc., ask for a copy of issue #Zero. If you email me a reply or comment, please make clear whether or not it's for publication. ********************* Someone mentioned movies where bombs have big digital readouts that count down to detonation. They're usually set for a few minutes or maybe an hour or so, and there's a whole big suspense thing as the countdown nears zero. It has become a movie cliche. But what if someone were to set such a bomb for a thousand years? Assuming the people in charge of dealing with bombs knew they could trust the display and the mechanism in general, would they still try to disarm or otherwise get rid of it as soon as they found out about it, or would they dismiss it as a problem for their children's children, not to be worried about by anyone now living? I suspect it would be one extreme or the other. If they didn't take action immediately on general principles, they would probably never get around to it. And if they did decide to just leave it be and go on with their lives, when would people start getting concerned about it? People might notice when the countdown passed into its final century, down to double digit years, but wouldn't that still be too soon to really worry about it? Would those who began to raise the question of disarming it be dismissed as crackpots? How many people would need to ask about it before it became a matter of serious public concern? What about ten years? At that point real estate values in the immediate vicinity would be affected, because people wouldn't want to be living or working next to the bomb when it finally did go off. And nobody would be sure what condition the neighborhood would be in afterward. Would this be enough to cause something to be done? Would it be allowed to get down to one year? At this point people would start planning to move out of the area temporarily if nobody showed signs of dealing with the problem any other way. Then what? Would the authorities finally try to disarm it, or would they decide to just evacuate the area and let matters run their course? Would the tradition of having lived with it for generation after generation make a difference? Might disarming it be seen as sacrilege? Would those who had followed the countdown all their lives resist being deprived of the event they'd looked forward to for so long? Would the long-awaited special occasion be considered worth the property damage? As Zero Hour approached the mood might be more festive than anything else. People in the midst of the danger zone would be evacuated, although a few suicide cultists might make the pilgrimage to ground zero in hopes of being blown straight into Heaven. Farther away, where the danger is less but the view still reasonably good, people would be hosting bomb-watching parties. Others in good viewing zones would be selling tickets. Bookies might take bets: Will the detonator and the explosive compound still be good after all these years, or will it fizzle? And how much damage will there be? And if that is a media-conscious age like ours is, there would almost certainly be a TV camera set up to let the world watch the display count down the final seconds. It would be like New Year's Eve at Times Square. Then what? Some will no doubt clean up the wreckage and get on with their lives. But others may feel they have nothing more in life to look forward to. Will there be an epidemic of depression and suicides? And will some clamor for another thousand-year bomb? ********************* I just saw "An American Werewolf in Paris". One question came to my mind afterward: How does the transformation preserve the state of men's facial hair? One of the werewolves was clean-shaven in human form, another had a couple of days' worth of stubble (just enough to look sexy if you think that look is sexy) and maybe a mustache, and yet another had a goatee. But in wolf form they didn't appear to have had any of the fur around their faces clipped. Or if they did, I didn't notice it, and nobody in the film mentioned it. I also didn't notice any female wolves with shaved legs. But then the film was set in Europe, and many women there don't shave their legs. Or at least they didn't at one time. One thing that was clear was that the transformation didn't include clothing. If you tore your clothes off when you changed into wolf form, you later turned back into a naked human. At least that makes sense. ********************* It's getting close to New Year's, and people will of course have lots of 1997 calendars that would seem to be of little use once 1997 is over. But they can be recycled: How to Recycle your 1997 Calendars 1. Cross out all mention of Easter, Jewish holidays, Full Moons, and other astronomical and astrological items. 2. Cross out other stuff that can vary randomly, such as convention listings and other special events. 3. Cross out "1997" wherever it occurs and write in "2003" instead. 4. Put your new 2003 calendar (formerly a 1997 calendar) away until you need it. Since there are only 14 different calendars, you can eventually collect the complete set. For future years these instructions should be modified as follows: 1995 = 2006 = 2017 = 2023 = 2034 = 2045 = 2051 = 2062, etc. 1996 = 2024 = 2052 = 2080 1997 = 2003 = 2014 = 2025 = 2031 = 2042, etc. 1998 = 2009 = 2015 = 2026 = 2037 = 2043, etc. 1999 = 2010 = 2021 = 2027 = 2038 = 2049, etc. 2000 = 2028 = 2056 = 2084 2001 = 2007 = 2018 = 2029 = 2035 = 2046, etc. 2002 = 2013 = 2019 = 2030 = 2041 = 2047, etc. In general, to get the next year with the same days of the month on the same days of the week divide the starting year by 4. If it comes out even, add 28. If it doesn't come out even and the remainder is 1, add 6. Otherwise (remainder of 2 or 3) add 11. This will work for old years 1901 and later, and new years 2099 and earlier. (In other words, it won't work for intervals spanning 1900 and 2100, or any other year divisible by 100 but not by 400). But that's not likely to be much of a problem any time soon. ********************* Another question on the werewolf movie: Hair color. I don't recall the various characters' hair colors, but I don't think they were all the same. But the wolves all had the same coat color. Why wouldn't you have wolves with different colored fur, roughly corresponding to the person's hair color in human form? Even if wolves of a given species in the wild are pretty much all the same color, it wouldn't necessarily hold for werewolves. Werewolfery is passed by biting, not by normal inheritance. If the human genes are still active you should get different colors. One "outside the plot" reason for all the wolves to be the same color is so that nobody can tell who is which. The writers may want various characters to be confused. But that answer doesn't really satisfy. Perhaps if the condition is passed by biting then all werewolves are, in their wolf state, clones of one primal wolf? Then they would all be the same no matter what genes their human forms carried. ********************* A friend (http://www.plaidworks.com/ctein/) has a book out. It's rather technical, and not for the masses: Essentially a textbook on what to do after you've shot the picture if your goal is to make art-collector- quality prints. (Title: Post Exposure. Author: Ctein.) Other books cover composing the shot and taking the picture, as well as various preliminaries. But one area is, as far as I know, not covered: If you believe taking a picture captures the subject's soul, what do you do with those souls after you've caught them? Were such a book to exist it might have several chapters. Once past the general background and introductory material, one chapter could deal with the ethics of capturing souls in the first place. How do you go about getting the permission of the person whose soul you're about to take a piece of? How much of a soul do you take? What commitments should or can you make regarding souls (or parts of souls) in your care? Do you keep them permanently, or do they eventually find their way back to their original owners? And so on. Then there's the matter of caring for souls. Does the condition of the physical print matter, and if so, how? Should you hang the print near a window so the soul therein can watch the world outside, even if daylight makes the print fade faster? Does the soul suffer as the print fades, or does that set it free? And what happens when multiple prints are made? Is the soul of the subject spread out over all of them, or does it reside in one at a time, perhaps moving between them by some process akin to quantum tunneling? And if it does move around, how do you know which print(s) the soul is presently in? Then there's the related question of discarding prints. This happens often in the serious print-maker's darkroom, as there are many variables and experimentation is often required. The first attempt is seldom the final product. What is your responsibility, if any, toward souls in prints you sell or give away? If they can jump around between different copies of the print they'll take much of the responsibility of choosing the best home for themselves. But what if they can't, or if all the choices are bad? This entire area of ethics is, as far as I know, unexplored. ********************* Another thing I noticed at the movies today was the slides they show while people are waiting for the movie to start. They're mostly ads with a few trivia questions and such thrown in, pretty much like at theaters in the Los Angeles area. But I did notice one difference: There were several ads from companies hiring engineers and computer programmers. Any kind of Help Wanted ad is almost unheard of in movie theaters in L.A., but ads for tech people seem quite common in Silicon Valley. At least showings around here don't start with an ad for the L.A. Times. ********************* The God of Pain Deep in the gloomy forest is a house, Plain and simple inside and out, Built of dark stones: The Temple of Pain. The only furniture is an altar, And behind that a gray stone statue watching over all. Behold the God of Pain. The God has two faces. One reminds us of everyone's Mother Kissing the skinned knee to make it better. The other is a stern Teacher Frowning beneath his academic headgear. The Mother's hand holds a cuddly stuffed toy. The Teacher's hand holds a whip. The toga-like garment leaves the Mother's full breast bare, Ready to give sustenance at a moment's notice. The Teacher's chest is flat and muscular. The rest of the body is wrapped in mystery. Behold the God of Pain: Taker of pain, giver of pain, recycler of pain. From those in need of comfort The Mother takes their pain, Their grief, their fears, their suffering, Their bitter memories, For the Teacher to pass on To those who need painful lessons. Behold the God of Pain. On the altar are many offerings: "Please, Mother, take my pain." Mortals do not address the Teacher. If you know you need a lesson You are halfway to having learned it Without the Teacher's attentions. And the needs of others Are not for us to decide. Justice? That is for other gods to mete out. The God of Pain teaches but does not condemn. Revenge? Vengeance can look like a lesson But is in truth only a human failing That the gods would have us outgrow. Behold the God of Pain. Thomas G. Digby Written 12:40 p.m. November 23, 1997 Edited 12:50 a.m. December 8, 1997 -- END --