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 #115 New Moon of May 18, 2004 Contents copyright 2004 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 was something on the radio about how "They" believe Silicon Valley may be on the verge of a comeback, and how the next big thing will be "biotechnology", whatever that turns out to mean. That reminds me of a posting I made on the WELL several years ago, back in September of 1997 in the Brainstorm conference: I think the analogy of computer languages still holds, even if it's rather loose. Assuming we have all the tools, a top-down designer would specify some desired type of organism: System spec, basically. Some kind of meta- compiler would turn that top-level design into detailed lists of cell types and their locations. Then the next lower level tool would figure out the steps the embryo would have to go through, what cells differentiate, migrate, and/or die off, and when. That information would go to a protein compiler that would design the various proteins the cells would need to make, and would figure out which cells make which ones when. Then the protein list would go to the DNA compiler. Not all of this need be computed anew each time. Some standard libraries might well exist. That output file would then go to a chain of de-compilers that calculates from DNA to proteins to cell types, etc., to predict what kind of organism the DNA would produce. Once human designers have approved the output of this check step the DNA file could be fed to hardware to actually create the organism. Even if the nature of the chemistry at the molecular level is such that some steps have somewhat random outcomes, the check step could give a list of probabilities of various good and bad results. Then humans could judge that. And yes, we do have a long, long way to go. Note that this is not an either-or game. While one group of researchers is creating the tools I've listed above (and others in the set I've sort of glossed over) other researchers could be pursuing more pragmatic approaches aimed more at the short term. And both groups will learn useful things from each other's interim findings. So now I wonder when, if ever, we'll get to that point. I suspect it will be at least another ten or twenty years, but probably less than a century, unless something drastic happens to civilization. And I also wonder what gyrations the economies of Silicon Valley and other parts of the world will have gone through by that time. ********************* It was kind of windy a few nights ago. I could hear it in the trees, some of which may be willows. That leads me to wonder if wind in willows sounds any different from wind in palms or pines or oaks or sycamores or any other kind of trees they might have around here. I suspect they all sound pretty similar to the untrained ear even if scientists can measure some differences. And I'm also wondering if this timeline may be missing out on a whole series of "The Wind in the [species of tree]" books that might have been written in other timelines. ********************* The radio was talking about a Congressional hearing on the Iraq torture scandal. Someone cited a classic study done at Stanford back around 1971. They set up a fake "prison" in the basement of some building, with some of the experimental subjects assigned roles as "prisoners" and others as "guards". They were going to run the experiment for a couple of weeks, but cut it short because the "guards" were getting too brutal toward the "prisoners". This apparently showed that the veneer of civilization can be thin, with monsters that can surface within all of us. So what if that (or something like it) is one of the tests that ET's visiting any new planet do before contacting the inhabitants openly? I don't recall anything similar to that in the stories I've heard from supposed UFO abductees, although since such accounts are much farther removed than second-hand they could have gotten lost. Or could the aliens have tinkered with people's memories, substituting the physical probes you usually hear about in connection with UFO abductions? This all might make sense if they did such tests on some Earthlings when they first found Earth, and we failed. Had we passed, there would have been little or no need for the physical tests. They could have just opened contact and asked us for scientific data on this planet and its people. But if we failed they may be afraid to make themselves known. It's an interesting thought, even if I don't know how likely it is to be true. Another thought: What if the UFO space aliens conducted an experiment similar to the one I was talking about, but with them as the "guards" and us as the "prisoners", and their inner monsters manifested to a degree that they considered unacceptable? What if how they interact with other types of beings varies from species to species, and they concluded that if they were to open contact with us they would not be able to resist the temptation to mistreat us? That could explain the apparently senseless tortures described by many abductees. It was the alien experimental subjects failing the test. And it could explain why they haven't opened contact. They don't trust themselves to deal fairly with us. They might still eventually open contact, if we continue to progress technologically to where we're less powerless relative to them, but that time may still be a long way off. ********************* It's a future where we have colonies on several planets. A ship carrying meteorites from Earth to Mars, perhaps for a museum exhibit or something, gets into trouble and ends up jettisoning (or otherwise losing) its cargo in mid-trajectory. Are the meteorites still meteorites even though they're now floating free in space, or are they back to being meteoroids again? ********************* After I finished with some minor medical stuff I felt a need for some stress reduction. So there I was, on a walkway leading to the Stanford hospital, blowing bubbles. I was getting smiles from many of those who passed by. Then a clump of people came up from behind me. As they were passing, I heard one of them say, presumably to the others, "Welcome to California." I kind of smiled at that, and as some of them turned to look at me I saw they were smiling too. That kind of made my day. ********************* As I was gathering up stuff to take to a lunch get-together the word "plenelhestic" popped into my head. What does it mean? I don't know, and I suspect nobody else does either. Maybe it's sort of homeless, wandering around looking for a definition, maybe butting into sentences here and there seeing if it will fit? Did Humpty Dumpty have that problem with homeless words? ********************* From a creative writing exercise a few weeks ago: And maybe I should just start typing, even if I'm not writing "about" anything. Just see what happens. Artichoke asparagus equivalent in Morrison. Blat Blat Blat! Be that as it may, it will be May in a few more days, after which comes June, with the rest of the year following in due course. At least that's how it's gone in previous years, and there doesn't seem to be much reason to suspect that the pattern will change for this year. Bloomptothrage galactarabus. Glormulong. And other stuff like that. Even if I don't know what that might be, there may well be other stuff like it somewhere in the universe, or maybe elsewhere if not in this one. Again, if you have no idea what something is you have no way of knowing there isn't any of it around. And the spelling checker is probably going to hate me, except that such things aren't supposed to have emotions. It's probably a good thing that spelling checkers and other computer programs don't have emotions. Otherwise they would get too impatient with us imperfect humans. There may be few things worse than a spelling checker that has decided it's had enough of humans who either don't know how to spell or are clumsy typists. And from the following day: And keep those typing fingers moving. Don't stop for too long. Scalamorth galoompaborg camamon. Gleeg? Korphro. And I notice that while I'm quite fluent at speaking such nonsense words, if I try to type them I have to stop and work out the spelling, and then consciously type each letter. They're not like ordinary words where the spelling is already stored somewhere and just sort of flows into the muscles controlling the fingers. How are the rest of you at making up nonsense words? Do they flow easily from your tongue as they do from mine, or is it more difficult? Is it easier for you to type them than it is for me? Or have you tried it? ********************* A WELL posting about children talking while watching a play and later claiming that they could hear the actors OK despite the talking got me to thinking. Maybe new generations are growing up more proficient at auditory multitasking, so that talking at movies and plays doesn't detract from their enjoyment of it like it does for us elders. We got our first TV a little before my eleventh birthday, and the rule, at least for the first few years, was that we talked only during commercials. In other words, we treated the TV almost with the respect we gave a theater. But it appears that as familiarity bred contempt the rule was relaxed, at least in some families, so that the following generation grew up accustomed to talking with the TV going. That may have caused their children to grow up even more accustomed to splitting their auditory attention. So even if the adults were more or less ignoring the TV as they talked, their children were taking in both the programs and the conversations. This might have not made too much noticeable difference at home, but the younger people who could split their attention better would have less of a problem with people talking at the movies and at plays, and might thus be more inclined to talk. So maybe in the future audience conversation in the theater will become as acceptable as conversation around the TV is now? ********************* Something for this area's present and future: Thoughts Inspired by a Vacant Building With plate-glass eyes staring blankly, Silicon Valley sleeps, Awaiting new dreams That will awaken it To another joyfully hectic morning. --- Tom Digby Written 15:50 05/07/2004 Entered 18:04 05/07/2004 Edited 21:02 05/18/2004 ********************* ... take two, they're small ... Incident Along Fantasy Way 0830 hr 7/30/74 Arithmetic Lesson Arithmetic along Fantasy Way is Different. You CAN add apples and oranges. TEACHER: "What do you get when you add coaches and pumpkins?" "Cinderella!" the class shouts back. "But what else?" Everybody talking at once: "You can turn those old junk cars into ..." "But you'll get rotten pumpkins!" "But they're still biodegradable!" "Make costumes for cars at Halloween!" "And string lights on them at Christmas!" "And hide them at Easter!" Arithmetic along Fantasy Way is Different. There are no wrong answers. Thomas G. Digby written 0830 hr 7/30/74 entered 2125 hr 2/08/92 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU If you're getting it via email and the Reply-to in the headers is ss_talk@bubbles.best.vwh.net you're getting the list version, and anything you send to that address will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation. There's usually a burst of activity after each issue, often dying down to almost nothing in between. Any post can spark a new flurry at any time. If there's no mention of "bubbles.best.vwh.net" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The zine content is the same for both. To get on the conversation-list version point your browser to http://bubbles.best.vwh.net/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi and select the ss_talk list. Enter your email address in the space provided and hit Signup. When you receive an email confirmation request go to the URL it will give you. (If you're already on the list and want to get off there will be an Unsubscribe URL at the bottom of each list posting you receive.) To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I currently do that one manually. -- END --