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 #35 New Moon of October 31, 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. ********************* One night a few weeks back I dreamed of a video arcade. Some of the machines were infested with cockroaches. One such roach crawled out onto the screen, which meant the person playing that game won a prize. I don't think they had signs up explaining how one could win prizes by having cockroaches crawl out onto the screen while one was playing. I just sort of knew. That's the way dreams often work. I strongly doubt that real-life arcades do this. For one thing, there are the technical problems of detecting the cockroach, and discouraging cheaters from bringing their own roaches in. And the Board of Health might have something to say about it, especially if they had any kind of food concession or vending machines there. In addition, were I in charge of maintaining the machines I'd be leery of letting cockroaches live in them. They might contaminate circuit boards, or short out the CRT high voltage supply, or eat the insulation off the wires, or something like that. But you never know. Somebody somewhere might be doing it. Some people will try almost anything for a new gimmick. ********************* I just had a thought: Suppose some credit-card issuer or loan company based its decisions on divination rather than this-world things like credit reports. Then when someone got behind in payments they would do some scrying to find out why, and also start working Success spells on behalf of the delinquent debtor. Of course they wouldn't tell the world that they're doing this because they'd get laughed out of the industry, no matter how well it worked. They probably wouldn't even tell the debtor. As far as anybody outside the company would know they're just lucky, or maybe they have an especially good set of user profiles that they're keeping as a trade secret, or something like that. But then what if some of the debtors for whom the Success spell worked started talking about their financial "miracles"? Maybe nobody would think much about the first few, but eventually somebody would notice that a disproportionate number of such "lucky" people have had accounts with that one particular company. Then what? ********************* Are you familiar with the type of animation known as "claymation"? Instead of drawings it uses figures made of modeling clay, some of which tend to change shape a lot and metamorphose into other things. Here's a short I'd like to see made in that style: A half-dozen or so friends get together at someone's home. Each figure is made from a different color of clay: Red, Green, Orange, etc. My personal preference is to have the figures nude, but genderless with no visible genitals or breasts. After preliminary social stuff they all end up together on either the floor or a large bed. They start kissing and hugging and such-like, gradually letting themselves be distorted when necessary (If a leg is in the way, bend it. If an arm won't reach far enough, stretch it.). They're clay-people, and this is normal for them. As things get more convoluted and the action harder to follow, turn out the lights or fade to black. Dawn finds not a bunch of separate clay-people, but a blob with heads sticking out. (If it's sort of bowl-shaped the necks can join the bottom of the bowl, with the heads resting on the sides like a ring-shaped pillow.) All are sleeping, but one by one they awake. One head asks another "Did you sleep well?" and someone replies by describing a dream, perhaps involving the others. Someone is thirsty, so a pseudopod snakes out toward a wet-bar that happens to be nearby. Another pseudopod fetches food from a table and feeds it to various heads while still another wends its way to the adjacent bathroom. There's the sound of a toilet flushing, after which the bathroom pseudopod withdraws back into the main mass. There's more conversation and maybe stuff like another pseudopod fetching the morning paper, but eventually people have to leave. There is considerable writhing around while all rebuild their individual bodies. Eventually they're separate clay figures again, but they're no longer the pure colors they started out as. Each is mostly its own original color, but each color is streaked with all the others. To that degree these people are now all part of one another. The point? Even though people in the real world can't merge bodies the way clay figures can, our souls do end up intertwining with those we become intimate with, even if physical sexual activity isn't involved. ********************* Short Meta-Poem This line it has four metric feet And therefore needs four metric shoes. Four metric socks will then complete The footwear that the line will use. ********************* Recently a bunch of us went to see a movie ("Waco") about that Branch Davidian thing. It made the authorities look really bad. Did they really act the way the movie seemed to indicate, breaking their own rules and covering up evidence? I can't really say how culpable the various agencies involved were. But it did occur to me that perhaps we need a separate evidence-handling bureau. As it stands the same outfit that conducted the raid was in charge of gathering evidence, and there's a conflict of interest between seeing that justice is done and making themselves look good. So on the way back from the theater we discussed the possibility of something like an Inspector General, perhaps administered by the Judicial Branch while reporting its findings to all three. Since the people who have the guns are in the Executive Branch, this would go along with the idea of separation of powers. How do we get there from here? I don't know, but I'm optimistic enough to assume that it may be possible if enough people are interested enough in making it happen. So if it sounds like a good idea to you, think about it and tell your friends. ********************* I was talking with a few people after a poetry reading, and the subject of space alien chakras, and how they might differ from human chakras, came up. One person said she didn't want to even think about space alien chakras, wasn't curious about such things, no, no, no. But then she said that she'd had mental problems in the past and would prefer to be less "crazy". So she may have a valid reason for wanting to avoid thinking about things that are too far from what passes for normal thought in this society. But what's your excuse? ********************* In the course of conversation a friend said something about lawyers being about as useful as leeches in medicine. I mentioned that they're using leeches again in certain special cases, and he replied that it took a hundred years to find their real use. So I said that maybe lawyers will also eventually turn out to be useful. "Perhaps as landfill," said he. But I kind of doubt it. Lawyers are too expensive to produce. There are other kinds of landfill that are much cheaper. I wonder if all the stuff about the evils of lawyers means the legal system has gone too long without rebooting? Maybe we should start over fresh, with simpler laws. There will of course be situations where the law leads to an injustice, so fine tuning will be done. And it'll slowly get complicated again, and start generating more lawyers. But if there is an optimum middle level of complication, it'll pass through it on the way to needing another restart. But that's probably not going to be done any time soon, barring a major collapse of civilization. What will be done? Maybe nothing. Or maybe there'll be small improvements. Or will it just continue to get more and more complicated, until it's completely beyond human understanding and we're forced to resort to computer courts? Will there eventually be a computer to rule on the law, with humans limited to adding a measure of mercy? That might work. Maybe. ********************* Vignette The ship was a spaceborne Science Fair. Literally. All those bumps and bulges and blinking lights scattered higgledy-piggledy all over the hull were individual projects, bound by no common rule or order save a few safety regulations and rules of fair play. For the duration of the voyage they would be exposed to whatever conditions the ship encountered, and would eventually be returned to their owners for analysis. ********************* A few months ago I developed a Java applet that would show an image and allow odd-shaped regions of it to be active links to other pages. There are other ways to do this, but my thing is easy for any user proficient in the use of graphical image editors to set up without having to do any fancy stuff on the server. I created a number of demonstration pages to go with it. One of these is a map of a fictional place known only as "The Ancient City". Clicking on different regions of the map shows you text pertaining to the selected region. It's up in my Web area, in the Java applets page linked from my resume summary and also from the Computer Club: http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/JavaRoot.html But then I got to thinking that maybe this will turn into a universe that I can put other stories and poems and things into as well. I have a few ideas for things like a religion some of the inhabitants might have, and at least one seasonal rite. So maybe I'll write these up and expand that area into more than just a demonstration of a Java applet, and link it closer to the main page. Keep watching my page (and Silicon Soapware) for developments. ********************* Since it's Halloween, let's end with this: I ENJOY SCARING THE WORLD TUNE: "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from "Flower Drum Song" I'm a Thing and by me that's only great! I am proud that I set you all a-quiver; I can be all the things you fear and hate As the night closes in to make you shiver. I adore taking form as something frightening When the day fades away into the night. Out I go in the moonlight or the lightning Like a dragon who is ready for the flight! When I was a savage werewolf, with the Moon shining like a pearl, I think I was quite a fair wolf. I enjoy scaring the world. When men see me as a vampire, with my cape flapping all unfurled, Approaching their lonely campfire, I enjoy scaring the world. I flip when some fellow fleeing showers Takes shelter in some old haunted place; I float through the corridors for hours With nothing but a skull upon my face! I snicker and smile and chortle, as I think of the fear there'll be In the mind of some helpless mortal Who will dread being a guy Meeting a Thing like me. Tom Digby written 0415 3/ 4/79 entered 1350 10/24/87 -- END --