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 #229 New Moon of August 6, 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. ********************* Among other things around this time of year, August 6 was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. This year wasn't a major anniversary like the 50th or 75th, and most people alive today weren't born yet when it happened back in 1945, so it didn't get much media attention. But I am reminded that I've long thought that part of why we didn't have a major atomic war in the 1950's or 60's is that atomic weapons got used just enough to demonstrate how unacceptable large-scale use would be, even for the nominal "winner" of the conflict. In other words, they got developed just in time to end a war and that discouraged people from using them in subsequent conflicts. Had the A-bomb appeared earlier in the war it might well have seen much more use, leading to even more environmental damage than we saw from atmospheric testing. But had the war ended without it being used at all, it could have been more likely to have seen large-scale use around the Cuban missile crisis or some other high-tension situation. Either way, we would have been much worse off. Now that more and more nations are getting into the act, and the generation that has seen the horrors of atomic warfare firsthand is dying off, it may get used again. Let's hope that if and when that happens, it doesn't lead to large-scale escalation. Instead let it serve as a lesson for another generation, and that the lesson will not need even more repetition. ********************* Over the last month or so there was a high-profile murder trial. The person who seems (according to popular opinion among people I know) to have been the Bad Guy admitted shooting the victim but claimed self-defense. He got off when the other side couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he wasn't really defending himself. Along about this same time there was a plane crash. Various people connected with the case made statements about what caused it, while others said they would prefer to wait until the data from the "black box" became available before giving too much credence to any one theory. Likewise with a train wreck around that same time: They think they know what may have caused it, but won't know for sure until they've analyzed the "black box". All this leads to the thought of what if we had "black boxes" for people? I'm thinking that when a person dies or is found unconscious or something the last few minutes or hours leading up to their death or whatever other fate had befallen them would be on record and could be examined to determine whether foul play was involved. In addition, if a person goes missing the last few hours of available data might contain some useful clues. The biggest problem is probably not the technology, but how to set up the system so it doesn't become a tool for some Orwellian Big Brother regime to go after people they just happen not to like. Ideally the data should not be stored on the subject's body where an evil-doer could alter or destroy it. It would need to be transmitted, in pretty much real time, to some other location for storage. But that location shouldn't be too easy for the government to get access to without proper legal process. Perhaps the key would be to distribute the data across an international network of encrypted storage sites, with no one nation's authorities having the power to delete or alter data. And perhaps no one government should be able to look at the data except under strict privacy protection rules. There are of course problems and unanswered questions. But if we think of them as engineering challenges rather than reasons it can't be done we may end up with something workable and useful. ********************* If a resume lists jobs you've had in the past, would a presume list jobs you'll have in the future? ********************* Someone talking about kinky sex practices posted something about buying and selling used panties. That's apparently not really that unusual a thing, but for a moment I misread it as "used parties". So I got to wondering what that might entail. When you buy a used party do you get a rather messy room littered with paper plates full of half-eaten munchies and plastic glasses with the dregs of half-drunk drinks? Are there tattered remnants of crepe paper streamers hanging from the ceiling, perhaps at one time festive but now just looking sad and forlorn? Perhaps one wall holds a paper donkey with tails pinned all over it? Much will depend on what kind of party it was: A birthday, a holiday, a celebration of a job promotion or some such, or just friends getting together. Perhaps a grandchild won a contest at school. Or maybe some kinky friend was house-warming their new basement dungeon. Those would look quite different, even if some of the after-party feelings of letdown and dreading the chore of cleaning up the mess are similar. Often the physical trappings of the party will matter less than the overall mood. For example, two election-night campaign parties might look similar but feel quite different if the candidate or cause being celebrated by one won while the other lost. The matter of mood is not always that simple. Since the feel of a party includes the sum total of all the people attending, something like a New Year's Eve party may end up with a complex mixture of individual triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats, joys and sorrows. These are the parties most prized by connoisseurs, provided they have not been melted into a gooey sludge by too much alcohol. And no, I don't really have any advice for people in the market for a good used party. Just try to think through what you really want and why you want it before start looking, and think again before plunking down your money. ********************* I'm reminded of another instance of confusion over word meanings. Many years ago, back when I was a child, some political upheaval somewhere far away sent large numbers of refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, with news stories describing them as asking for "asylum". Problem was, the only context in which I had previously encountered the word "asylum" had to do with locking up crazy people. So were these people fleeing to some neighboring country's funny farm? That seemed unlikely. Eventually I looked it up or asked or maybe just figured it out from context or something, and found the more general meaning of the word. Similarly, in Sunday School they kept referring to Jesus Christ as "Lord and Savior" at a time when I hadn't been hearing the word "savior" in any non-religious contexts. It was just an otherwise meaningless word that people used when referring to Jesus. It took some time for me to encounter enough other uses of the word to get its more general meaning. So has anything like this happened as you were learning words? ********************* I recall a dream fragment from a few days ago: I was at the barber shop in the town I grew up in, looking at the men hanging out there. Several of them had glass (or maybe transparent plastic) windows set into their skin so you could see their internal organs working. One had fish swimming around inside his head. It occurred to me later that the windows could have been fake, perhaps some sort of 3D video screen. But in the dream I just assumed they were real. ********************* Another thing that had once been science fiction is now showing up in real life: Scientists have grown meat in the laboratory using cells taken from a cow. So far they don't have the fat cells that make for juiciness and much of the flavor, but they expect to get there sooner or later. Some might argue that even the process of getting a cell sample is painful and thus something a cow (or other non-consenting animal) should not be subjected to. Will these people start offering their own cells for truly conflict-free meat? I'm reminded that back when I was living in Los Angeles some restaurants featured sandwiches named for movie actors and other celebrities. If the right people can be persuaded to give cell samples those places may sooner or later be doing more with famous people than just naming sandwiches after them. Now I'm thinking of all those hot dogs that get sold at big-league ball parks. Will this be a lucrative new line of merchandise for big-name athletes? And how long will it be until your home-town team starts showing up in your supermarket's frozen-food section? The future is on its way here. ********************* Incident Along Fantasy Way The Recycler of Dreams I had often seen him, In expected places and in unlikely ones -- A kindly old man Who by his looks ought to be running the toy shop in some quaint European village, Always with a large sack Filled with things picked up from the ground And an ornate German pipe Whose smoke he would now and then Blow into someone's face, Always without being noticed. Driven by curiosity, I made inquiries And we were eventually introduced. He is the one known, In those mythologies in which he is known at all, As the Recycler of Dreams. Through the ages he has wandered Through the halls of kings' palaces, Along the quiet lanes where lovers linger, Into bars and taverns and the "In Places", Or like a phantom through the walls of prisons Or corporate boardrooms Or research laboratories, And even along glittering Broadway -- All the places where dreams Have been dreamed And broken. There he wanders, Not always in the form I saw, Collecting pieces of broken dreams To make into new dreams To distribute around the world. Humanity needs its dreams, And cannot grow or prosper without them. But reality is hard on dreams And on dreamers. "Take 'Flight'," he says for an example, "I must have picked that one up a thousand times From the bottom of this or that windswept hill And blown it, like smoke, Into the head of another dreamer Until it finally bore fruit. And others, like 'Perpetual Motion' Or 'World Peace' Or 'Immortality' I may be recycling forever, Along with 'True Love' And 'Winning the Sweepstakes' And 'Being a Movie Star'. That one has gotten many of you Through some dark and stormy nights." "Yes, I see the need for the grand dreams And the smaller dreams And even the silly dreams. But what of the darker dreams? The visions of world conquest, The elusive Perfect Crime, The glory of the Master Race? Do you handle these also?" "I'm afraid I must," he sighed, "Regardless of how horrible the possibilities I cannot label a dream as 'evil' And put it away on a shelf. The gods by whose authority I operate Say that that judgment may only be made, Not by themselves, as you might expect, But by you mortals." -- Thomas G. Digby written 0140 hr 9/29/74 revised 0245 hr 3/17/83 entered 1230 hr 4/09/92 format 13:52 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. 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). 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