SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us = tgdigby@netcom.com http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #33 New Moon of September 1, 1997 Contents copyright 1997 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. For more background info, details of how the mailing list works, etc., ask for a copy of issue #Zero. If you email me a reply or comment, please make clear whether or not it's for publication. ********************* I often wear a neck pendant that consists of a container of bubble stuff and a wand. It's handy for such things as passing the time while standing on a street corner waiting for the light. I was at the Auto Club getting maps and the map lady asked what it was. So I demonstrated it. She was kind of startled, but ended up laughing. One landed on a corner of the computer keyboard, but didn't go into the actual workings as far as I could tell. But what if it had? And what if it had been in a world like you see in some of the darker science fiction movies? I was blowing bubbles while waiting for my case to be processed, and one landed on the clerk's keyboard. By chance it shorted out just the right keys to start the system destruct sequence. Then during all the confusion of fireballs and explosions and smoke and the lights going out and people screaming and so on I just sort of sneaked out of there. And even if somebody does figure out who and what started it, they have no record of me now, so I'm still safe. ********************* Earlier when I was writing something about the gardeners I started to typo "mowing the grass" into "meowing the grass". What would that have entailed? Some kind of magic spell or something? ********************* Sometimes I get into a situation, such as waiting for an important phone call, where I'm more or less just sitting around helplessly waiting for something to happen at some unpredictable time. That kind of waiting is one of the things I do least well. There are some things I can do to pass the time, but I have a great reluctance to start anything I wouldn't want to be interrupted in the middle of. So I don't think I'd do very well as a fireman, for example. I might, with training, get to be OK at putting out fires and rescuing people and stuff like that. But the part in between, where you just sit around waiting for the alarm, would get to me. Why can't people schedule things like fires so the Fire Department can plan ahead? Some people do pre-plan fires, but the cops call that "arson" and tend to frown on it. So people who do pre-plan their fires generally don't notify the Fire Department of their plans. In some other world there might be psychics working for the Fire Department. Each day the psychics would do up a list of upcoming fires, so the firemen could schedule putting them out. Then they could be at the scene in advance of the actual problem, without having to hurry or disrupt traffic with their sirens or any of that stuff. Would that take too much of the glamour out of the job of firefighting? ********************* You may have heard about "Server Push Technology". It's the new thing some companies are working on to make browsing the Web more like watching TV. Instead of you having to seek out stuff, it shows up on your screen automatically, so even computer nerds can be couch potatoes. And I was reading something on the Net where someone was talking about one of the virus legends like "Good Times". That one supposedly will get you if you so much as read certain pieces of email. But it's just a legend that people repeatedly circulate warnings about. That caused me to wonder if there might be such a thing as a "Server Push Virus" that comes to you even if you don't consciously download anything. Even if it's not possible to actually do, it's an interesting concept to annoy server-push advocates with questions about rumors of. All this is another reason to oppose automatic upgrades of programs, or at least to require strong cryptographic signatures so the software will know the "upgrade" is authentic. ********************* Something about the Server Push Virus reminds me of the nomenclature of "active" and "passive" safety systems in cars, where the adjective modifies the user instead of the device. Might we eventually speak of "active" and "passive" viruses in that same sense, where an "active virus" does nothing until the user triggers it but a "passive virus" takes the initiative (perhaps with the help of the operating system)? ********************* The PutriDos people may be coming out with their own online newspaper. To receive it, you'll have to install a computer terminal on your porch roof because the delivery people's aim isn't too good. ********************* One of the cats was nosing around in here but was startled by some sound coming from another room. It was probably the other cat. But you never know. It could have been space aliens using the kitchen as a depot to teleport stuff into and out of while nobody is looking. Look, and they're gone. They can see you coming in time to hide all the evidence. So nothing ever seems out of the ordinary, even though your kitchen is a major intergalactic transport hub between meals. But why my kitchen? There are lots of other places that would seem to be better for this sort of thing. But they say aliens tend to have alien reasons for doing things. So I guess we'll never know. ********************* "Shirts shall be long-sleeved, with sleeves that can be easily rolled up. Sleeves shall normally be worn unrolled, but shall be rolled up as a signal when the wearer is commencing work on something, regardless of the nature of the task." -- from the Cliche Compilation Corporation dress code ********************* After seeing yet another science fiction movie featuring hyperspace wormholes, I got to thinking. Movies show them looking like a tunnel or something, often with glittery stuff on the walls. But would they look like that in real life? I seriously doubt it. Just as the surface of a garden hose is a two-dimensional area in a larger three-dimensional space, a wormhole would be a three-dimensional region in a larger four-dimensional space. Think of an ant crawling round and round the outside of the hose while other ants are walking along its length and actually getting somewhere. The ant going round and round would see no boundaries, even though the size of the hose would be limited. But it would repeatedly pass the same spot. The wormhole "tunnel" would be similar. There would be no visible "walls". But like the ant on the garden hose, light going crosswise would go round and round. You would see endlessly repeated images of yourself if you looked sideways to the direction of travel. They might be too distorted to recognize, but they would be there. But I don't think the movie makers are going to jump on an accuracy bandwagon about this. It's too hard to explain to the audience, unless it's a major plot point. There was one story (by David Gerrold?) of a military ship chasing an "enemy" that turned out to be such a hyperspace phantom. But the idea doesn't seem to have entered the science fiction mainstream. ********************* Proposed new deal for the tobacco companies: They get to advertise all they want, including cartoon characters on Saturday morning TV. They get to target teenagers, sponsor sports teams, the whole bit. Optimize nicotine content for maximum addictive potential. No warning labels. No restrictions. The only catch is that they have to put birth-control stuff in their cigarettes. Cut down population growth, especially among those least educated and most susceptible to peer pressure. ********************* There's an actual scientific theory ("True Polar Wander") that about 500 million years ago the weight of the continents got so unbalanced the entire crust of the Earth slid around until things became more stable. Land masses that were once equatorial ended up near one of the poles, and vice versa. But unlike the cataclysm the tabloids have been predicting for years, this process took a million years or so. Had there been people then they would hardly have noticed any change during any one person's lifetime. But this event (if it did indeed happen) may have had a major effect on evolution. Proponents place it at about the time the number of species in the fossil record suddenly increased by some large ratio (the so- called "Cambrian Explosion"). And they say the resulting climate changes, even if gradual by human standards, may have forced many species to adapt into new forms. I've long had a different view. By analogy with the history of computers over the last fifty years, I'd say that early life was limited to what we would think of as primitive forms until some critical parts of the toolbox got invented. Then new species that could take advantage of the new developments could evolve, perhaps much more rapidly than species had evolved before, and could spread into new environments. What might these evolutionary tools be? Sexual reproduction. More efficient ways of managing DNA. Apoptosis. Chemical signals that tell a cell what part of the organism it's in and what kind of special function to devote itself to. And so on. Since these involve changes at the level of basic cellular function, they wouldn't happen often. So early life might have gone on without much change for hundreds of millions of years until one of these new inventions appeared. There may have been opportunities galore, but no way to evolve to exploit them until the tools became available. That would account for the seemingly highly nonlinear pace of evolution. Now one of the diagrams cited by proponents of the True Polar Wander theory showed the number of species increasing suddenly right about the time the event was supposed to have happened. But one thing I noticed was a smaller increase some time before that. So what if the species that had just learned how to take some next step of evolution had been unable to do much because they still weren't very efficient at it yet and there was too much competition from the more primitive species? And then the continents shifted around, which changed climates all over the world, and suddenly there were new opportunities for those that were best at adapting to new conditions. The tool gets invented, and then some catastrophe paves the way for its use. Inventing the toolkit isn't enough. Maybe you need to clear away some of what exists to make room for new construction. If your religious beliefs lean toward Paganism, this could make Kali one of the oldest gods, right after the initial Creators. ********************* According to the paper, some online service had been sending out random strangers' credit reports to people who had signed up to have theirs sent out. The company didn't intend it that way, but that's what happened. Some kind of computer bug or something. They soon quit sending out the reports, on the assumption that most people would want their own credit report as opposed to one on somebody they didn't even know. But I could see soap opera fans preferring it the way they'd been doing it before they decided to stop. ********************* Something got me to thinking of people who can't seem to mention a movie without listing the principal actors. Why? It's not like you have a choice in the matter. If you want to see a particular movie, you're pretty much stuck with whatever actors the studio put in it. In some computerized future it may be feasible to change the actors in a movie. If you don't like Clark Gable, have the computer substitute Marilyn Monroe. Or Donald Duck, or even Donald Trump. Then proposals like "Let's watch 'Gone with the Wind' with Fritz the Cat and Hillary Rodham Clinton" will make sense. There was one science fiction story many years back where one character had a hobby of dubbing different actors into old movies. But nothing much seems to have been done with the idea since then. ********************* Incident Along Fantasy Way Into the Movies "Theodore" is a strange name for a restaurant, Like the owners had wanted a child instead. But there it is, midway between the dance place And the all-night magazine stand. Late at night clouds of conversation Drift between the tables: A heaping serving of ideas With noodles and gravy Like the film maker borrowing a pencil To figure out a deal And then telling all about it. "I'm making a movie about the Real World -- Not this world, But the REAL world." You know the old fairy tales About people walking into pictures? Well, he somehow Could actually do it. "The hard part is getting up the nerve To walk down the aisle And up on the stage In front of a whole movie theater Full of people. "But nobody really notices that much And the ones that do Tend to think you work there. The rest is easy: Just slip into the edge of the screen And there you are. "But there's a danger -- Once you're in, it's not a movie any more: It's the whole world, And to get out again You have to get past whatever action Is on camera. "Go into a spy movie in Paris And you may only be able to get out By way of London Or Hong Kong Or Istanbul. And when you do finally emerge There's no way of knowing What theater you'll be in." But his problem was more ultimate -- The movie had ended And it didn't seem likely There would be a sequel. Stuck forever? Well, maybe. But maybe not. There were no scenes of Hollywood But in the writer's mind it had been there Along with the idea That "getting into movies" should be easy Even if it wasn't. So of course it was. He had spent years at it, Making movie after movie, Working his way up Until he could write, produce, and direct The exact movie he wanted. In another year it would be done. Then, any time he decided, He could walk up to the edge of the screen And be home. Thomas G. Digby written 0240 hr 1/25/75 entered 1145 hr 3/05/92 -- END --