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 #221 New Moon of December 13, 2012 Contents copyright 2012 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. ********************* This is the time of year when the sunlight seems to have a sort of late-afternoon quality to it, even around the middle of the day. Were I out and about more in the early mornings, and were mornings in this area less likely to be cloudy than they are, I might think of it as more of an early-morning quality. But as things are, I tend to associate that kind of light with late afternoons. Either way, it's because the sun is staying low in the sky all day this time of year, instead of climbing high during the middle of the day like it does in the summer months. Based on past experience this feeling will gradually go away during February. ********************* It's not really noticeable yet, but sunset is getting later now. No, we haven't reached the shortest day of the year, but we've passed the date of earliest sunset. That was about a week ago, at least for these latitudes. Now sunrise and sunset are both getting later. The amount by which sunset gets later each day is less than the amount by which sunrise gets later, so the days are still getting shorter. The difference in sunset times from day to day is growing, while the difference in sunrise times is getting smaller. After a few more days they will both be getting later at the same rate. That is the time of Solstice, when the days are shortest. After that the days will start getting longer, although the time of latest sunrise won't be until around the end of the first week of January. A similar thing happens in June, when the dates of the earliest sunrise, the longest day, and the latest sunset are all different. Just another bit of seasonal trivia that not everybody is aware of. ********************* We're also just a few days away from the Mayan calendar rollover. Lots of stuff has been written about how the world will or won't end then. Lots of other stuff has been written about how lots of the earlier stuff that had been written about how the world will or won't end then is baloney. And more is being written even now, much of it baloney. I don't think I have much to add directly to that. I could in theory come up with more baloney to toss onto the pile, but does the world need it? I kind of doubt it, although there's always the chance that I'll come up with some new flavor of baloney. That might be worthwhile. Maybe. Then again, the publication date for this issue is getting close, and it doesn't look like I'm likely to come up with any wonderful new flavors of end-of-the-world baloney within the next few days. So don't hold your breath waiting. ********************* The subject of Spike Jones and his City Slickers came up at a lunch get-together. One of his pieces that I recall from my childhood was "Happy New Year," released as the B side of the single "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth." The song consists of a number of verses, each being a different band member's New Year's resolution, and each being a distinct joke (If you want to hear it, it's on YouTube). When someone played it on their phone one woman said her preteen kid would love it. I can see where that type of humor would appeal to a child that age, but I also wonder if he'll get all of the jokes. Two in particular come to mind. In one a child who had not been obeying his parents sings "I resolve to come more quickly when I'm called / Because my dad just bought a hair brush and he's bald." Just about everybody got the joke back in the late 1940's when the song came out, but nowadays, what with corporal punishment of children having pretty much gone out of style, how many of those too young to remember that era will know that it was once common to spank children with a hair brush? Another person's resolution ended with "I resolve not to tell a corny joke. [phone rings] Hello, what's that? The church burned down? Holy smoke!" Is the expression "Holy Smoke!" still in common use nowadays? Or would someone doing a modern version of the song prefer to change the lead-in rhyme from "joke" to something like "wit", change the conflagration to a plumbing problem, and then bleep the final word because you're not supposed to say that on the radio? Another verse deals with women wearing large hats in movie theaters, thereby annoying those sitting behind them whose view of the screen is blocked. That seems to be much less of a problem nowadays, mainly because women's hats are smaller than they were back then. Newer styles of theater construction may also have helped. But even though this is not a major problem now, the gag is still pretty much self-explanatory. I think the kid will get it OK. So what jokes from your childhood would a child of today be likely not to get? ********************* At a recent party the TV happened to be on. I was sort of partially paying attention when I noticed a commercial for some kind of cold medicine. They said it was guaranteed to cut the duration of your cold in half. But then I got to wondering how you judge that. Some colds last longer than others, due to random environmental factors as well as differences between virus strains. So if you take the medicine and the cold does or doesn't get better, how do you know if the medicine had anything to do with it? Then it came to me. They have access to time travel technology, so when someone comes in complaining that the medicine didn't help they go back and look at timelines in which the person didn't take it. Did the cold last longer in those timelines than in this one? If so, how much longer? Once they have that information, they can decide whether or not to give the refund. ********************* Plenty of people have written about how if Santa Claus were to try to do all the stuff the story books have him doing, his sleigh and reindeer would have to be supersonic, he would have problems getting into places without chimneys, and so on, on and on. But there's been less written about the economic aspects. According to the legends, at least as I've heard them, Santa goes around giving out toys and such made by elves at a secret workshop at the North Pole. There's no mention of where the raw materials come from. They're apparently just sort of There when they're needed. Likewise Santa, or whoever is running day-to-day operations at the shop, doesn't seem to need to buy food or other supplies to keep things running. To all appearances it's a self-contained economy. But it isn't a strictly closed system. Even if there are no inputs in the form of raw materials and food and such, there is output: The gifts Santa distributes at Christmas. Either there's a hidden source somewhere or whatever Santa uses for sustenance and raw materials is not conserved. The question I'm wondering about right now is what this would do to the economy. I'm concentrating on the US, mainly because the Yuletide folklore of other countries varies so much. According to census data the US population is a little over three hundred million. If Santa gives each American, on average, a thousand dollars' worth of stuff, that's about three hundred billion dollars. That's a rough figure, and you can probably argue it up or down by at least a factor of two or three, but let's go with it for now. So what effect would this have? It's of a similar order of magnitude to things like the bank bailouts or the stimulus payments that the Feds have handed out in past years, but it doesn't directly stimulate the economy. It's not money that people can go out and spend. In fact it's sort of the opposite, in that people who had been thinking of going out and buying stuff won't have to now that Santa Claus has brought it to them for free. Likewise, retailers won't be selling as much stuff because Santa is giving stuff away so people won't need to buy it. There will be some second-order purchases, as when giving someone a computer printer leads them to buy more paper and ink. Many toys nowadays use batteries, which people will therefore be buying more of. Also, some people will have been holding off on buying certain things because they felt they couldn't afford it. But now that Santa has brought them a bunch of other stuff they'd been expecting to have to buy, they can afford things further down their priority list. Thus Santa's gift-giving will lead to some economic activity, much of it after Christmas. But there will be many people who won't rush out and buy more stuff. If Santa brings something they'd been planning to buy, they'll put the money they would have spent into savings. Or if they're too poor to have any savings, they won't go as deeply into debt as they otherwise would have. So for these people gifts from Santa will reduce their total spending. I don't know for certain, but I suspect the net result would be a slowing of the economy. With people buying less stuff, factories won't need to produce as much. And so on. But we're getting into areas I'm not expert in. So what do you think? ********************* Comes now the time for the traditional reprinting of THE CHRISTMAS CAT Once upon a time in a village In a little mountain valley in Borschtenstein Lived a wicked millionaire Whose hobby was foreclosing mortgages And sending people out into the snow. He also took great pride in having The best Christmas decorations in the village. Also in this same village In the little valley in Borschtenstein Lived a poor family Whose mortgage, which came due on Christmas, Was designed to be impossible to pay off. The Christmas weather forecast was for snow And the millionaire's eviction lawyers were waiting. Now this wicked millionaire In the valley village etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, Also had the monopoly on Christmas trees To be sure of having the prettiest Christmas decorations In the whole village. Thus the poor family had nothing at all To put their presents under. Now by chance it so happened In that village in etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, The wicked millionaire had evicted his cat Because its ears and tail were the wrong color And it hadn't paid its mortgage. And the poor family had taken it in And given it a home. So just before Christmas When the Good Fairies asked the animals of the village About people in need and deserving of help The poor family got the highest recommendation. "We will help them!" said the elves and fairies, "They won't have to worry about that mortgage And they'll have the prettiest Christmas decorations in town!" The mortgage was really not much problem: If the millionaire couldn't throw people out into the snow He wouldn't bother throwing them out at all. So the elves spoke to the North Wind and they agreed: No more snow to throw people out into. Some people in the village would have liked snow to play in But agreed the sacrifice was for a good cause. Christmas trees were more of a problem: They had already given them out to other needy families And there were none left at all. They rummaged around in forgotten corners But not a Christmas tree could they find. Then someone had an idea: "Let's decorate their cat!" While one of the elves who spoke Feline Worked out the details with the cat The fairies flew around gathering decorations: Borrowed bits of light from small stars nobody ever notices, Streamers of leftover comet tails, And other assorted trinkets From odd corners of the universe. So the poor family gathered around their Christmas cat And sang songs and opened presents And had the happiest Christmas imaginable While all agreed they had the prettiest decorations The village had ever seen And the millionaire's eviction lawyers Waited in vain for snow. So that is why, to this day, In that valley village in Borschtenstein, It never snows Unless the eviction lawyers are out of town And every year the millionaire tries to decorate a Christmas cat But gets nothing for his pains But bleeding scratches. EPILOGUE: While overnight miracles are rare outside of story books, Even those who learn slowly do learn. So keep checking the weather reports for Borschtenstein. If some Christmas it snows there You will know the millionaire has given up being wicked And has found a truer meaning Of Christmas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May you have the happiest Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Whatever imaginable! Thomas G. Digby ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ first draft written 0115 hr 12/25/74 this version edited 2320 hr 12/14/86 format cleaned up 14:19 12/22/2001 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU There are two email lists, one that allows reader comments and one that does not. Both are linked from http://www.plergb.com/Mail_Lists/Silicon_Soapware_Zine-Pages.html If you are already receiving Silicon Soapware you can tell which list you are on by looking at the email headers. 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