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 #41 New Moon of April 26, 1998 Contents copyright 1998 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. ********************* Voice on radio: Christmas! Christmas! Halloween! Rescue Station: What do you want? Voice on radio: My boat is sinking, and I can't remember the name of the holiday I'm supposed to say as a distress call. Rescue Station: Well, Christmas certainly isn't it, and Halloween is about as far away as you can get from it. Voice on radio: Fourth of July? Easter? Rescue Station: You're getting warmer. But it's not a Christian holiday, and not a patriotic one either. Voice on radio: How about Beltane or Walpurgis? Rescue Station: That's close enough. The correct word is "Mayday", but since Beltane and Walpurgis are on that same date I'll give it to you. Now what's your position ... ********************* "We are rejecting your paper on time travel because it failed to cite subsequent work by others in the field." ********************* The Shroud of Turin is in the news again. Some believe it to have been Jesus's burial shroud, but recent carbon 14 dating tests had shown it to not be nearly old enough. Now doubt is being cast on those findings. Contamination, they say, may have made the tests show an invalid date. So back and forth it goes, to no definite conclusion. During a discussion of this on The WELL, someone mentioned what might be blood stains on the cloth, and the possibility of DNA testing. My reply to that was that the real fun comes if they can retrieve enough DNA to reconstruct the figure's Y chromosome. The Y chromosome is passed down through the male line. If you have one, you're male. If you don't, you're female. There are some rare freakish exceptions, but that's the general rule, at least for humans. So if Jesus was a normal male, he would've had a Y chromosome, but he couldn't have gotten it from Mary. If he was really born of a virgin, God would have had to provide a Y chromosome somehow. If God made Jesus's Y chromosome similar to some existing line, skeptics could cite that as evidence of an ordinary non-virgin birth. If it was somehow different from anything known, believers could cite that, but skeptics could probably just say that it doesn't prove anything because it may have been from a line that since died out. If there is no Y chromosome, then Jesus would had to have been some kind of medical freak. Such have been known to happen, but calling Jesus "abnormal" in this sense could stir up all kinds of emotional cans of worms among the populace. God could have made Jesus's DNA wildly unlike anything known, but still such as to produce a creature that could pass as human, at least in the absence of modern testing technology. Then some would no doubt claim that Jesus was some kind of extraterrestrial, others would proclaim it a miracle, while still others would dismiss the whole thing as experimental error. In any event, the Y is unique among chromosomes. And finding or not finding one for Jesus could be a big deal. But no matter what is or isn't found, the debate will doubtless continue. It is the nature of faith to not lend itself to scientific analysis. ********************* May 1 - 20 is National Bloated Software Week. ********************* Speaking of software, there's a brochure from Microsoft about a new hard- to-counterfeit label for their products. It's printed with heat- sensitive ink that changes when you hold it between your fingers for a few seconds. Combine that with a friend's daughter doing card tricks, and there's the thought of using it to print cards that change with temperature. Pick a card, look at it (three of hearts) press it against your forehead for a while, look at it again (six of clubs). This opens up all kinds of possibilities. Or what if you could make inks that show one thing when first printed, and then change after being exposed to air. Open a new deck. Pick a card, look at it, stick it in your pocket. Do other stuff for a few minutes, then look at the card in your pocket. Is it your card? No. Of course purists will shun all this newfangled stuff and stick with old- fashioned sleight of hand. But it's still interesting to think about. ********************* I'm starting to build a fantasy world in my Web area. It's centered around a mysterious city called "The Ancient City" on the planet DaughterWorld. It's still in the early stages of construction, but if you want to see what's there so far go into my Scenic Route and look for mention of a portal to The Ancient City. Or go straight to http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/AnCityIntro.html ********************* "It's named Reading Railroad because the scenery along the route is very boring, so you'd better bring a book or something." ********************* Recently one of the local radio stations has been running a commercial for some new brand of absorbent undergarment for adults who have bladder control problems. They talked about how people with such problems are now free to go out and enjoy a social life when the previous technology in this area was too cumbersome or embarrassing. That got me to wondering why the benefits of this technology should be limited to people with medical problems. Why doesn't everybody wear these things to events like concerts and ball games and three-hour movies? Then if there's a long line at the restroom and intermission is short, or there's no intermission at all, No Problem. I can see it being a difficult concept to sell at first because of various taboos in this society. But once those are overcome it would mean a much larger market for that type of product, and it would make concerts and sports events and movies and such more comfortable and convenient for everybody. There is precedent for this kind of thing: Space missions. The Apollo astronauts used something like this on their Moon flights, instead of having toilet facilities on board their ship. So if it's good enough for astronauts, why not the rest of us? ********************* "So what if the Emperor has no clothes on. He's a nudist." ********************* Incident Along Fantasy Way 0055 hr 9/09/74 Convention Report For a time I thought my Muse had deserted me. But no, she had only gone to their convention And she gave me a partial report. The days were taken up with the official program: Panels and seminars and papers On "Estimating the Connectivity of Disparate Ideas" And "New Techniques for the Management of Fertile Minds" And "The Topology of the Subconscious in Spaces of N Dimensions" And so on, on and on and on, Until at last, The late evening social sessions. Here were the constant arguments between the Muses Of Crime And of Punishment, Juicy tidbits from the Muse of Gossip, Rumors of parties hosted by the Muses of Sex (Gay and straight and what-have-you), The Muse of Animated Cartooning crying about hard times And Saturday morning TV And being promised help by the Muses Of Electronic Design And of Computer Programming. Crowds held spellbound by the Muse of Witty Conversation, And the bright child-fantasies of Muses Of arts not yet invented. And, over and through all, The Eternal Question, About which even the gods can only speculate: "Who inspires the Muses?" Thomas G. Digby written 0055 hr 9/09/74 entered 2200 hr 2/08/92 -- END --