SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #53 New Moon of May 15, 1999 Contents copyright 1999 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. If you don't want to read about the mechanics of this, skip down to the row of asterisks (****). If you're getting it via email and the headers show the originating site as "lists.best.com" you're getting the list version, and anything you send to DigbyZine@lists.best.com will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation (although so far traffic has been light). If there's no mention of "lists.best.com" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The content is the same for both. To get on or off the conversation-list version send email to DigbyZine-request@lists.best.com with the word "subscribe" (to get on the list) or "unsubscribe" (to get off) in the body, but nothing else (except maybe your signature if that's automatic). Then when you get a confirmation message edit the REJECT in the subject line to ACCEPT and send it back. To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I do that one manually. ********************* There's a bird nesting nearby. She spends much of her time just sitting there. Doesn't it get boring, just sitting on eggs hour after hour? Then when they hatch there's all that running around getting food, and more sitting around keeping them warm between feedings. More boredom. Maybe we should put a portable TV or something out there for her? But that brings up the question of which channel to tune it to. Birds don't have human-type hands and thus might have trouble changing the channel. Maybe they could peck buttons on a remote, but what if they can't read the numbers? It looks like whatever channel we leave it on is what they get, so we need to choose programming they'll like. Would a bird enjoy, for example, X-Files, or would the concept of a vast government conspiracy be beyond them? Would the Cartoon Network be better than Fox, or would the cats in cartoons like Tom & Jerry and Tweety & Sylvester be too scary? Cartoon cats seldom succeed in catching birds, at least when the bird is a major character, but new hatchlings might not know that. And too much violence, even if it isn't realistic, might end up turning our doves into hawks or something. So we probably don't want to give them Cartoon Network. Maybe 1950's sitcoms? That's a pretty safe bet, what with Family Values and all that. Just the thing for nesting birds. Another point is that if this catches on, there should probably be one channel that's Standard Bird Fare in any given area. This could be one of the normal human channels, or it could be a special Bird Channel. But whatever it is, it needs to be something everybody agrees on. Otherwise what we now enjoy as quiet time in the woods would become a chaotic jumble of sound, what with every bird nest having its TV on a different channel. And no, I don't think earphones are the answer. Even if you could design earphones to fit a bird, what if the bird refuses to wear them? Or worse yet, forgets to take them off and gets tangled up in the cord when trying to fly off somewhere? That could be a bonanza for bird-eating predators, but that's not what we're after. And then there's the question of money. Without financing, the project will never get off the ground. If we do set up a Bird Channel, who would sponsor it? Birds don't buy much, so it may be difficult to line up advertisers. And birds are not in a position to pay cable fees either. So it looks like our feathered friends are going to have to endure boredom a while longer. ********************* At work they greet new employees with helium-filled Welcome balloons. If you're tall enough to see over the tops of cubicles you can look around and see where there's somebody new. But what of companies that are less fortunate, where downsizing is necessary? Would the cubicles of those about to be eliminated have anvils hanging over them? Perhaps a whole cluster of anvils, some with "SCRAM" or "GOODBYE" printed on them? Just hope the ropes hold until you get your desk cleaned out. ********************* The term "software piracy" comes up in the news now and then, especially around Silicon Valley. Somehow that led me to "software privateers". I could see someone in Country A developing a piece of software, and then the gov't of Country B puts out what amounts to a letter of marque for its developers to reverse-engineer it or crack copy protection or whatever, but has this kind of thing ever actually happened? Whether it has or not, the phrase "Software Privateers" sounds like it would go well in a song. ********************* Congress is making noise about that flag-burning amendment again. I wrote a letter to one of the local papers (SJ Merc), and it got printed. Here's my original (the printed version was edited a little) in case you want to use the idea: We often hear it said that the Flag is a symbol of all that's great and good about our country. I agree with that statement as far as it goes, but it isn't the whole story. The Flag has two sides, and the side we don't usually see is a symbol of all that's not so good here: Corporate greed, poverty, environmental damage, violence. The list goes on and on. Yes, those problems are worse other places than they are here. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be aware that there are problems here and it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to solve them here. A burning Flag should be a reminder to look at our country's ills so that we may work toward curing them. This proposed amendment is like a Band- Aid that neatly hides a festering sore without first cleaning out the germs that are causing the infection. It may look good in the short term, but in the long run it makes the patient sicker. ********************* Another point I didn't make, but had thought of and had also heard from others independently, is the question what would legally constitute a "U.S. Flag"? For example, if it had 11 stripes instead of 13 and the words "Not A U.S. Flag" instead of stars, would it still be illegal to defile it? Wherever you draw the line, somebody will dream up some way to straddle it. ********************* And at one point while first-drafting the letter I typoed "Flag" to "Flab". Burn your excess body fat? How? And what would you be protesting? Greedy fast-food merchants pushing unhealthy high-fat diets on an impressionable public? Mindless TV that turns people into couch potatoes? The decline of pedestrian-friendly cities? ********************* Something reminded me of some science fiction movie from the Fifties or Sixties that had cordless phones, sort of. Instead of a wire between the handset and the base, they had an antenna on the handset: A loop on the end of a short rod. Other than the antenna it looked like a normal Fifties or Sixties phone. I'm guessing somebody in the Prop Department just ripped out the cord and stuck in this antenna thing because it was a futuristic science fiction movie. And it had the added advantage of letting the actors move around while talking without worrying about the wires. I don't think it had dial buttons on the handset. But for its time it was a good guess. I remember thinking at the time "Why would anybody bother putting radio stuff in a telephone like that?" But that was when radio stuff was an order of magnitude bulkier and more expensive than it is today. And there is something to be said for being able to take your phone into the bathroom or out into the back yard and otherwise not having to worry about how long the cord is. So does anybody know what this movie was? ********************* I saw "The Mummy" last week, and mostly enjoyed it. But afterward I got to thinking: Did he really deserve all the stuff that happened to him? I think it was one of those things that sort of escalated into tragedy all around. It started with an illicit love affair, then went from there into torture and a curse, and then into something that was partly revenge but mostly an attempt to recoup losses. If he could have rebuilt himself and his girlfriend some way other than by killing others there might have been no reason for all the bloodshed. Get them the various transplants and such they needed, and then teach them English and give them some kind of consultant positions in the Egyptology department of some university or something. Of course that would probably have made a less interesting movie, but you can't have everything. ********************* In that movie there was a secret society dedicated to keeping the tomb from being discovered. Apparently they'd been at it for 3000 years. Assuming such a thing could hold together that long, generation after generation, was its day nearing an end anyway? They were less than a century away from high-tech stuff like satellite mapping. Could they have kept the secret much longer, or was discovery inevitable? But suppose they had managed to delay it. How would the drama have unfolded had it happened now? Or maybe sometime around the 23rd Century? I know of one movie where some ancient curse-type thing survives a couple of hundred years into our future, and is finally(?) dealt with out in Earth orbit. There's also that book of stories about Carmen Miranda's ghost haunting space stations. But those seem to be exceptions to some general rule about not mixing science fiction and the supernatural. Why is that type of plot so uncommon? ********************* Remember when movie theaters had double features with intermissions where you were expected to go buy refreshments and come back to your seat? Many (especially drive-ins) even had little Intermission Countdown films: Intermission INTERMISSION: Light, not-much-is-happening-go-get-something-to- eat music plays As the countdown film begins. TEN MINUTES: The camera pans slowly around an aerial panorama of a city, Coming to rest on a movie house In the foreground. NINE MINUTES: The camera shifts, zooms in on a point on the horizon. There, in the distance, is a Monster. Coming closer. EIGHT MINUTES: Big enough to use flatcars as skateboards, The Monster advances through the city. The Army is powerless to stop it. SEVEN MINUTES: Step by step the Monster moves on As crowds flee in terror before it. The ground trembles with its tread. SIX MINUTES: Again the camera shows the theater, The last of the mob fleeing past. Then all is quiet until the Monster arrives. FIVE MINUTES: With one motion of the Monster's mighty claws The theater is unroofed. Sound effect: A tab-top being pulled. FOUR MINUTES: The monster looks down into the ruins, Reaches in, and lifts out The refreshment stand. THREE MINUTES: The popcorn machine vanishes down the Monster's cavernous maw, Followed by the Coke machine, several racks of candy bars, And a freezer labeled "Ice Cream". TWO MINUTES: Satisfied, the Monster pauses a moment, Wipes its mouth on a ripped-off store awning, And turns to leave. ONE MINUTE: The camera follows the Monster away through the city Until it finally vanishes Over the horizon. ZERO MINUTES: And the show goes on. Thomas G. Digby written 0200 hr 11/23/75 typed 0230 hr 11/25/75 entered 1705 hr 2/27/92 -- END --