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 #135 New Moon of December 30, 2005 Contents copyright 2005 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. ********************* Christmas is over. The holiday season is winding down. We are entering the true Dark Time. For weeks we have denied the Dark, holding it at bay, binding it fast with cords of twinkly lights. But now, as we put the lights aside, the Dark begins to show its true face. In the early evening gloom we can begin to imagine what this season must have been like for our ancestors who did not have our modern technology. But as we look into the face of the Dark we can take consolation in this: The time of deepest darkness has passed. The Dark is on the wane, beginning to give way as the light of a new year takes its first baby steps into our world. May your new year be a joyous and happy one! ********************* I once posted on the WELL (an online conferencing system: see http://www.well.com/ ) about how I had always found even the thought of December 26 depressing. When I was a child I would look through the coming year's calendar around then. Next Christmas seemed so far away, with a whole year of other stuff to get through first. After a couple of weeks I would more or less forget about Christmas and start to enjoy the year as it came, but that didn't stop me from pining for it during that final week of December. After I posted that it got a reply from a professional musician who enjoyed the 26th because it was the first day he could relax after weeks of Christmas gigs. Others had other non-depressing thoughts about that date. It just goes to show how, as one popular cliche on that system puts it, "mileage varies". ********************* Speaking of time, I once wrote a poem that touched on how things had changed since the Sixties. (See http://bubbles.best.vwh.net/poetry/HalloweenHippie.txt ) Some young people at one reading were under the impression that things hadn't really changed much at all since that time. Pretty much everybody else I've talked to has agreed that there had indeed been major changes. Thinking of ways to convey to people how much things have changed led to thoughts of something that might be good as a program item at a science fiction convention: A Time Patrol briefing. Imagine that time travel is possible and you're about to go back several decades on some kind of mission. You don't want to be caught, which means you need to blend in and not upset people. This is the briefing where they're telling you what you need to know for this trip. The general technical stuff like how to use your equipment has been covered elsewhere. This is strictly sociological. There are of course matters of physical appearance, such as clothing and hair styles. The wardrobe people will help you on that. But even if you look the part, you'll need to sound and act right. First, you'll have to be careful not to use words or expressions that didn't exist back then. For example, a casual remark about "nuking" a sandwich is likely to raise eyebrows among people who have never seen a microwave oven and live in constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Another pitfall is "bad" words. You seldom heard anything stronger than "heck" or "darn" in mixed company. There's the whole area of attitudes about sex, and what is or isn't appropriate for men or women to do. Gender roles in general were much more rigidly defined back then, even if you aren't thinking in terms of sexual activity as such. There were similar attitudes about race, although that varied somewhat in different parts of the country. I could go on about things like politics, and attitudes about anybody who was "different", but I think you get the general idea. Come of think of it, I suspect that even those of us who lived through those times would need to be reminded of what things were like back then. ********************* There's been lots of talk in some quarters about "traffic calming". It generally means configuring streets so as to slow down and reduce through traffic in residential areas and around schools and such. But when I see the phrase I sometimes get a different mental image: White-robed maharishis or gurus or the like seated along the side of the road, playing soothing ragas on sitars, perhaps while also delivering little homilies on the folly of undue haste. I doubt if that would have any real effect on most drivers, but it's still amusing to contemplate. ********************* Someone on well.com was talking about graduating from school, and concluded his description of his feelings with the word "breathrough". I suspect that was just a typo for "breakthrough", but I got to thinking about what it would mean as a word in its own right. I thought of it as "breath-through". Perhaps it's that moment when you can again breathe freely after a long-dreaded (or otherwise long-anticipated) event? You've probably had events coming up in your life that carried so much emotional weight that any thought of a time after the event would be tinged with "but first I have to get through [whatever]". So the long-hoped-for or long-dreaded moment comes, and you somehow survive the peril or pass the test or whatever it was, and you can again breathe easily and look freely to the future. That's a "breath-through", spelled that way so as to distinguish the last part from the word "rough". So is this a word the world needs? ********************* As I was passing the police station on one of my regular walks I noticed a car with "Police Dog" markings on it. That got me to wondering about dyslexia and Police Gods. So now I have a punch line, but I don't have a good buildup to it yet. Maybe that will come later? ********************* It has occurred to me to wonder what non-alcoholic beverages are normally served at room temperature as opposed to hot or chilled. I don't think there are very many, at least not in this culture. On the other hand, there are a fair number of wines and other alcoholic drinks that are served that way. This may be why, at some parties I've been to, there was alcohol out on the main table while the Coke and juice and such were in the refrigerator in the kitchen. This has a rational basis in technological logistics, but it also has the effect of encouraging hosts to put alcohol on more prominent display than the alternatives. So does our society need more room-temperature non-alcoholic beverages? ********************* The local paper's "Year in Review" page included an incident where a small child ran onto some railroad tracks and was killed by a train. Part of me can't help thinking about how things would have been different had the child been the young Clark Kent. ********************* There's a flap going on about whether President Bush has exceeded his authority by ordering certain spy agencies to monitor domestic phone or email communications. They're only supposed to spy on people in other countries, not here. He says that making the matter public hurts us because now the terrorists will know more about what we're doing. So it should have been kept quiet, even if it was illegal. That leads to the thought that maybe the entire Constitution should be classified Top Secret. That way the terrorists won't know what, if any, limits there are on what measures we may take against them. Problem is, there are too many copies in unrestricted circulation, so the terrorists may already know what's in it. ********************* Scissors dream of being rocks, while rocks dream of being paper and paper dreams of being scissors. But seldom do any of them dream that the things they dream of being might themselves be dreaming of being something else. ********************* And now I need something else to write about. It's a never-ending thing. Such is life, or at least the life of someone who has aspirations of being a creative-type person. Someone whose only dream is to work at some routine job every day to earn money to pay for a TV to watch in the evenings may not have that problem. But I'm not that person. And I don't think I want to be that person, although if I were I probably wouldn't want to be the person I am now. It's the other side of the thing I wrote up earlier: The Scissors don't want to be Paper, the Paper doesn't want to be a Rock, and the Rocks don't want to be Scissors. And it probably doesn't even occur to Scissors, Rock, or Paper to dream of being cats or clouds or the ocean. There's a whole world of possibilities that they totally miss. So what possibilities are I totally missing out on? ********************* Once Around Discontent Like a bird that's taken wing On a morning in the spring When the dew is on the grass and on the flowers, On the road he's runnin' free -- People, places, things to see, With the sunshine only sometimes mixed with showers. Showers? Bein' homeless is a pain By a roadside in the rain When a family's only something to remember. Pass another lonely town -- Thinks he should've settled down With a girl he met in Nashville last December. December? Family gathered round the tree, What a happy sight to see, With the children knowin' Santa comes tomorrow. Father thanks the Lord above For the cheerful warmth and love And protection from the rain and pain and sorrow. Sorrow? Only yesterday it seems He had bright and shining dreams Of a future filled with wealth and fame and power. But he somehow missed his chance, Didn't even get a glance At the view from some Manhattan penthouse tower. Tower? On the fifty-seventh floor With a title on the door He's the leader of a mighty corporation. Lunch at Antoine's French Cuisine Via chauffeured limousine While he dreams about an overdue vacation. Vacation? Not a chance to get away From the pressures ev'ry day, From the voices crying "Throw some money my way!" But he thinks he might rebel, Tell them all to go to Hell, And go looking for his life along the highway. Highway? Like a bird that's taken wing On a morning in the spring When the dew is on the grass and on the flowers, On the road he's runnin' free -- People, places, things to see, With the sunshine only sometimes mixed with showers. Thomas G. Digby written 1425 hr 12/18/76 entered 2025 hr 3/29/92 format 13:29 12/22/2001 ********************* 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 --