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 #225 New Moon of April 10, 2013 Contents copyright 2013 by Thomas G. Digby, and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See the Creative Commons site at http://creativecommons.org/ for details. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. Details of how to sign up are at the end. ********************* I was thinking about how I'd just gotten my tax stuff done for the year, and was considering using that for a theme for this issue of Silicon Soapware, when I got the news that two notable people had died: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. That of course brings up that old line about the only sure things in life being death and taxes. Since anyone unfamiliar with the quote, or with the concept of death, or the concept of taxes, can look them up in Wikipedia I don't feel any real need to explain them here. All this reminds me of an earlier discussion about how the primary cause of cancer is entropy, in the sense of the universe tending toward a state of maximum disorder. Entropy is probably also the leading cause of death. That leads to thoughts about that other well-known quote about not being able to win, nor break even, nor get out of the game. That in turn leads to thoughts of what if it were different. While we might wish for a world in which one can win, or at least break even, would evolution as we know it work in such a setting (assuming, for the moment, no intelligent Creator)? If eventual death were not inevitable, would the mechanism of natural selection via survival of the fittest actually do any selecting? Would we have evolved? Or would the world still be dominated by some moderately competent form of pond scum that had no reason to ever be anything but pond scum? To take an anthropomorphic view, would whatever primitive life first arose have been content to rest on its laurels? Of course even if that would have been the case, there might have been some other way for intelligence to arise. A world in which random chance does not tend toward disorder might allow for all sorts of things we here would call "magic" or "miracles" or simply not have a name for. ********************* There's also the question of whether there might somewhere be a world in which there is a Musketeer named Annette Unicellular. This spelling checker seems to be pining for such a place. ********************* At a recent restaurant expedition I happened to notice the bouncers. They were large athletic-looking men, wearing black T-shirts with the word "SECURITY" on them. I think part of their job was to look intimidating. The hope would be that anyone who might start an altercation would be deterred by the thought that the security people are likely to win. You seldom see little scrawny guys working security in bars and such, at least not in this world. But the Star Wars universe could be different. A potential troublemaker walks into a bar where the only security staff is this one skinny little guy. So the troublemaker thinks he'll have an easy time of it, and starts making trouble. But then the security person calmly walks up to him and starts making gestures at him, perhaps while calmly saying things like "This is not the bar you want to make trouble in." The troublemaker is a lot bigger and heavier than the security person, but for some reason it does not occur to him to try to engage in physical combat. Then he finds himself out on the street. There's no big fight scene, nobody beaten up, no furniture knocked over, no drinks spilled. The memory is kind of hazy, but apparently he just sort of felt like leaving. So he wanders away, in search of nothing in particular. In a world where that type of thing works most bar owners would probably prefer it, even if it's kind of disappointing from the point of view of a spectator hoping to see a big fight scene. ********************* From a Wikipedia article on formaldehyde: "Foods known to be contaminated include noodles, salted fish, tofu, and rumors of chicken and beer." So how do those rumors get contaminated? ********************* Remember coin-operated scales? When I was a child they were common in drugstores and restaurants and other public places. Stand on the platform, drop a penny in the slot, and it would show your weight. But nowadays they seem to have disappeared. Why? I suspect that even if there are some still around, the price has gone up. I'd guess a coin-operated scale today would take a quarter, or a dime at the very least, what with the cost of maintenance and just the physical work of emptying the coin box every now and then. But that doesn't explain when they aren't around at all. My guess is that bathroom scales have gotten more affordable and thus more common, so that people don't feel the need to weigh themselves at the drugstore or wherever like they used to. Also, if you weigh yourself at home you can do it naked and not have to figure in the weight of clothing (which can vary with weather and such) and whatever may be in your pockets. So that's another point against scales in public places. So is that it? Did they disappear for other reasons? Or are coin-operated scales still around, with me just not noticing them? ********************* A few days ago I found the song "Cry of the Wild Goose" ("My heart knows what the wild goose knows, and I must go where the wild goose goes ...") going through my head. As you may know, it's about a couple whose relationship is doomed because one partner expects to settle down while the other feels a need to wander. Another such song is "The Wayward Wind". Both can probably be found on YouTube, along with others. Nowadays the younger folks might ask why they don't just friend each other on the Internet and continue the relationship that way. ********************* I've now and then wondered, especially when riding an elevator, about the possibility of having a building whose floor numbers were out of order. Say the third floor was labeled "5" and the fifth floor was labeled "4", and so on. How easy would it be to keep people from noticing that the floor numbers weren't in the "normal" order? I think we pretty much have to assume that the stairs are not available to ordinary people for routine use. If you're taking the stairs you're a lot more likely to notice which floor is which, even if your mind is mostly on something else, than on an elevator. Let's also assume that anyone working on building maintenance or security or anything else requiring special access privileges will have to be in on the secret. If it's an office building in which almost everybody starts and ends their work day at about the same time so you routinely get an elevator full of people getting on or off at a bunch of different floors, sooner or later people will notice that the order in which the elevator gets to the various floors doesn't always seem consistent with the feeling of going up or down. Likewise, anyone going from one upper floor to another is likely to notice which one is above or below the other. So the "regulars" will pretty much have to all be in on it. The only people you have much hope of keeping the secret from are those who come in at times when the elevators aren't very busy, and who always go nonstop from the lobby to whatever floor their destination is on. And even then, once they get to wherever they're going you'll need to be careful not to let them get too good a view out the windows. It's probably easier to keep the secret if you keep all the floor numbers in the right order and just skip some numbers. The missing floors would have to have buttons in the elevators, but as long as nobody ever tries to push one the fact that those floors don't exist may escape notice. Even then, if anyone ever tries counting floors from outside they may notice that the building doesn't have as many visible floors as there are buttons in the elevators. We might want to consider the reasons for all this game-playing. I'm assuming that you basically don't want customers or spies or prisoners or the like to know for certain what physical floor of the building they're actually going to. If you're willing to admit that you are keeping this information secret, the simplest strategy might be to just forget about numbers and give the floors names that may relate to whatever functions or services may be found on any given floor ("Executive Level", "Detention Level", and so on) without giving any hint of how high or low any particular one is. ********************* One weekend many years ago a bunch of us drove down from Los Angeles to spend a weekend in Mexico. We left L.A. Friday evening and got to the border fairly late at night, with almost no other traffic. There was very little in the way of border formalities. As far as I could tell there was nobody on the US side checking people leaving. On the Mexican side there was a Spanish-language stop sign with a uniformed man standing next to it. He waved us through and that was It. Things may be different now, but this was before 9/11 and that's how it was back then. It made me think of an attendant inviting cars into a parking lot, except that at the parking lot they often hand you a ticket with your arrival time stamped on it so they'll know how much to charge you for parking when you leave. So this border crossing was even less formal than a parking lot would have been. Crossing back into the US on the return trip was another story, but that's for another time. What I'm thinking about at the moment is the lists kept by those on the US side. Since nobody was checking people going to Mexico, we would have been listed as having arrived in the US but not as previously having left. Most bureaucrats would probably just assume that tourists are, to a first approximation, conserved, so that our arrival was evidence of a previous departure, even if they didn't have the details of that departure in their data files. But what if that assumption was wrong? What if, hidden away somewhere in the wilds of Mexico, there was a mad scientist who for some mad reason was cloning American tourists (including making copies of their travel documents) and sending them into the US, perhaps to madly wreak some sort of mad-scientist-inspired havoc at some time in the future? As long as there weren't too many of them crossing the border in quick succession, and as long as there was no detailed checking of traffic leaving the US for Mexico, any one set of copies would look like the original person had just gone back and forth across the border multiple times. There could be dozens, or even hundred or thousands, of these copies wandering around with no one the wiser. Of course there's a limit to how many copies of any one person would be able to blend into society before they started being noticed, but if they were careful not to concentrate themselves in any one area and no one individual looked or acted too unusual that limit could be fairly large. So has that homeland security loophole been closed? ********************* The Village Dragon If the dragon has a name, it's not one that fits human ears Or human tongues. The people of the nearby village know him as "Our Dragon" And they will gladly tell you How most of the tales told about him are wrong. Yes, he can breathe out fire, And he used to ravage the countryside for miles around. But that was centuries ago, Before he and the people of the village made peace. Now he helps light the village's holiday bonfires. And yes, he does keep a pile of gold and jewels in his cave. But he isn't obsessive about it And he is generous to any villagers in need of aid. Those maidens he supposedly devours? He finds them more useful as servants and messengers and companions, And pays them decent wages. Now and then a knight in shining armor will appear, Asking villagers for directions to the dragon's cave. Most depart in peace Once people assure them That this dragon does not need to be slain. Only the occasional hothead with more bravery than brains Ends up on the dinner menu. Knights are not his favorite food. He prefers the animals of the forest, Especially the wolves that now and then make their way to the meadow Where the shepherds keep their sheep. He also finds bandits and highwaymen to be rather tasty, Especially when weighted down with ill-gotten gold. But the adventurers he most enjoys Are the wandering bards and troubadours. No, he doesn't eat them. He listens to their songs and stories And gives them shelter in his cave, Safe from the elements and the perils of the night. He often sends his maidens To invite the people of the village To join the merriment. The cave rings with song and laughter, sometimes until dawn. Then all go their separate ways, bearing fond memories. Those memories are the dragon's real treasure, Far more precious than silver or gold. -- Tom Digby First Draft 18:21 Fri April 4 2008 Edited 22:11 Sun April 6 2008 ********************* 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. If the headers include a line like this: Silicon Soapware zine with reader comments you are getting it via the list that allows comments (some software may hide part of the line, but there should be enough visible to recognize it). To comment, simply email your comment to ss_talk@lists.plergb.com (which you can often do by hitting "Reply All" or "Reply to List") from the address at which you got the zine. The list will not accept comments from non-member addresses. 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