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 #137 New Moon of February 27, 2006 Contents copyright 2006 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. ********************* As I put this issue of Silicon Soapware together I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend of quiet downtime between two conventions. I enjoyed the first one immensely, and I expect to enjoy the second one as well, but even pleasure can have its tiring side. Although the two conventions focus on different things, there's quite a bit of overlap between the attendees. Both attract people who are into diverse alternate lifestyles, and both have a loving "chosen family" feel about them. I feel at home at both. One is on various Pagan and Earth-based religions, while the other deals with science fiction and fantasy-related music. For more details see http://www.ancientways.Com/pantheacon/ http://www.consonance.org/ ********************* I'm reminded of the time someone did a survey of members of another group I hung out with some years back. One of the questions was something like, "On a scale of one to ten, how does your present life measure up against your childhood expectations?" I answered "6 + 8i", meaning that it had gone well but in an unexpected direction. I still feel pretty much that same way. ********************* Thinking of what a long strange trip my life has been reminds me of the February 17 episode of the comic strip "Monty". The protagonist, who may not be the world's smartest comics character, is on an ocean cruise. As he wanders around the ship he comes upon someone in a crew uniform turning a handwheel mounted on a pole. He assumes the person is the captain and the wheel is the ship's steering wheel. So he starts telling the "captain" how much he admires his navigational skills. He also brags about having years of experience with nautical stuff (insert mangled nautical lingo here). So the "captain" offers to let him take the helm for a while, then apparently walks away. Later, on the bridge, we see that the supposed "captain" is actually just a janitor or something, and the real captain is asking why that man on the fo'c'sle is raising and lowering the flag. I not only found it funny, but I saw metaphors for life in it. How much say do we really have in the directions our lives take? How many times have we thought we were steering the ship when we were really only raising and lowering the flag? And did we notice that nobody ever said anything about where we were supposed to be going? Just "Left for port, right for starboard," and that was It. So if I'm not steering my ship, who is? Whatever God[s] may exist? Somebody or something else? Nobody? Questions abound. Answers do not. ********************* "What's with this ad for a 'Bodied Seaperson'?" "It was originally supposed to be for an 'Able-bodied Seaman', but that was ruled out as being too discriminatory." ********************* Speaking of long strange trips, a recent Straight Dope email explored the history of Route 66: http://www.straightdope.Com/mailbag/mroute66.html What surprised me about it was how recent some of that history was. I do remember a time before the Interstates, but for me the older two-lane highways had "always been there". That wasn't the case for my parents. For example, Route 66 wasn't declared "continuously paved" until the late 1930's. That was before my time, but not by much. And when my parents were children (roughly the World War One era) there wasn't much of a highway system in this country at all. There were lots of railroads, but few paved highways traversing rural areas. So that cross country car trip I have dim childhood memories of, when we moved from California to South Carolina right after the end of World War Two, may have actually been a pretty big deal for its time. ********************* Back in the days when shredded wood shavings were commonly used as packing material, people, at least in comic strips and such, would shout "Excelsior!" when atarting something they perceived as grand and glorious. Nowadays do they shout "Bubble wrap!" or "Styrofoam peanuts!"? If they do I haven't noticed them doing it. ********************* "What's that document you're working on?" "It's a Micromanagement Complaint Form." "Huh?" "My friends say I tend to micromanage things, and I've resolved to do something about it. But I'm going to need feedback. So when someone thinks I'm micromanaging something, I'll have them fill out this form and give me a copy. It'll give me all the information I'll need, such as the place and time (and time zone) where the incident occurred, the type(s) of behavior involved, any mitigating or aggravating circumstances, a list of witnesses, and so on. I'll review them periodically and try to make appropriate changes in my behavior." "Well ... I guess all I can say is 'Good Luck'." ********************* Some of my thoughts about doings on various magical fantasy worlds have had certain characters giving others chocolate. But would they be likely to have chocolate on those worlds? Do cacao trees grow there? Or do traders slip quietly into this world bearing gold and gems, and slip quietly back to their world bearing chocolate? Yet another thought: Might the people of some of those worlds where they don't have chocolate be enjoying something most of us would like the taste of even better if we were to ever experience it? What unknown delights would await us on those worlds of wonder if such worlds existed? ********************* I also did some thinking about why magical fantasy worlds generally don't have modern technology. I think it's because the key discoveries don't get made. In a world where magic is strong, basic experiments in things like electricity and magnetism and chemistry tend to come out the way the experimenter wishes or expects them to rather than the way non-magical physical laws would otherwise dictate. Thus the experimenter never really learns anything how those aspects of the world work. And there's little incentive to try to learn. You can light your castle and prepare your meals and send messages halfway around the world by casting spells or commanding a genie or whatever. So why mess around with wires and electrodes in jars full of nasty chemicals and all that stuff when there appears to be little short-term practical use for it? If you take a something like a laptop computer from our world to theirs it'll work just fine, provided you have enough batteries and/or a solar- powered charger, and you aren't planning to connect to the Internet. If you're trying to analyze data, you may need to be careful not to wish too strongly for any particular outcome while you're near the machine, lest your wishes override the normal logic of the computations and cause the system to give a false answer. But your computer will otherwise work normally. And once people there have seen what a portable computer can do you may be tempted to try to sell some. The problem will be teaching the locals how to use them. Some of the necessary concepts and thought processes will be quite alien to inhabitants of a world where what we think of as magic is an everyday thing. ********************* Software I don't feel any need to write: The Yes-Man Spelling Checker. It scans a document the way a traditional spelling checker does, except that any word-like string of letters it doesn't recognize is automatically added to its dictionary. Then when it's done it congratulates the user for not misspelling any words. ********************* Someone at a dinner get-together ordered some exotic drink like coconut juice, didn't like it, and offered it to someone else. That started a discussion of germs and sharing drinks with straws vs drinking directly from the glass. Was there a possibility of someone's germs getting into the drink via backflow through the straw? I suggested straws with check valves. People seemed to think that was a good idea, but nobody really wanted to do anything with it. ********************* Convention Report For a time I thought my Muse had deserted me. But no, she had only gone to their convention And she gave me a partial report. The days were taken up with the official program: Panels and seminars and papers On "Estimating the Connectivity of Disparate Ideas" And "New Techniques for the Management of Fertile Minds" And "The Topology of the Subconscious in Spaces of N Dimensions" And so on, on and on and on, Until at last, The late evening social sessions. Here were the constant arguments between the Muses Of Crime And of Punishment, Juicy tidbits from the Muse of Gossip, Rumors of parties hosted by the Muses of Sex (Gay and straight and what-have-you), The Muse of Animated Cartooning crying about hard times And Saturday morning TV And being promised help by the Muses Of Electronic Design And of Computer Programming. Crowds held spellbound by the Muse of Witty Conversation, And the bright child-fantasies of Muses Of arts not yet invented. And, over and through all, The Eternal Question, About which even the gods can only speculate: "Who inspires the Muses?" -- Thomas G. Digby written 0055 hr 9/09/74 entered 2200 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.com or bubbles@well.sf.ca.us). I currently do that one manually. -- END --