SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/ Issue #60 New Moon of December 7, 1999 Contents copyright 1999 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. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. If you don't want to read about the mechanics of this, skip down to the row of asterisks (****). If you're getting it via email and the headers show the originating site as "lists.best.com" you're getting the list version, and anything you send to DigbyZine@lists.best.com will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation (although so far traffic has been light). If there's no mention of "lists.best.com" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The content is the same for both. To get on or off the conversation-list version send email to DigbyZine-request@lists.best.com with the word "subscribe" (to get on the list) or "unsubscribe" (to get off) in the body, but nothing else (except maybe your signature if that's automatic). Then when you get a confirmation message edit the REJECT in the subject line to ACCEPT and send it back. To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I do that one manually. ********************* New Year's in Silicon Valley. There's an outdoor celebration in front of some high-tech software outfit. Someone observes that other places seem to be making a bigger deal out of this New Year than usual, although it doesn't seem all that special to the people here. Then the ball drops and a sign lights up: 0111 1101 0000. After the noisemaking and such dies down conversation turns to the future. Eventually someone starts speculating about what the world will be like when it comes time for new grads to retire. Someone else observes that around then will be the really big New Year's celebration: 1000 0000 0000. ********************* According to a Tech Support page on the Web, my laptop "does not support the year 2000", even though it will mostly still work. Since I'm not using it for date-critical stuff, that shouldn't be a catastrophe. But it does bring up the general question of using computers in years that their timekeeping functions don't support, which in turn brings up time travel. Do time travelers reset their computer clocks to whatever time they're visiting, or do they just leave them on home time and keep some kind of log of when and where they've been? The former might not be practical, especially if one is going back to (for example) the time of the dinosaurs. One problem is that since the Earth's rotation is slowing, days were shorter then so there were more of them in a year. That means that if you try to use modern calendars back then you'll have unnumbered days left over after you've run out of dates. Also, things like file backup programs may need to know how old a file is in the computer's timeline. Just because the last modification to a file was in umpty zillion BC outside-world time doesn't necessarily mean it's older than another file that was updated next week. So again, system time seems more practical than outside-world time. One solution might be to extend the concept of time zones beyond the "normal" few hours. If you're visiting dinosaurs a hundred million years ago, just key it in as a time zone that's however many hours ago that was (around 10^12 in this example), and leave the underlying system clock undisturbed. This will require some modifications to the routines that handle time zones, but it should be feasible. ********************* Speaking of computer clocks good only over limited ranges, the 32-bit seconds counter in Unix will run out in about 40 years. It is hoped that everybody will have switched to 64-bit seconds counters by then. But will that be enough? Some religions have time scales that won't fit in a 64-bit seconds counter. For example, I've been told that some Eastern religions have cycles of quadrillions of years wherein the world repeatedly begins and ends. This may take 80 or more bits. Some branches of Christianity, on the other hand, say the universe is only about 6000 years old. That would fit in fewer than 40 bits even if you don't think the Last Judgment is near and want some room for the future. Would they see a 64-bit seconds counter as a denial of their beliefs, or would it be OK because it's "just numbers"? If you took a survey you'd probably get a variety of opinions on the matter. ********************* Science fiction is upon us: There was an item on the radio about somebody developing a voice translator. It's a box with a microphone and speaker, where you say something into it in English and it comes out in a foreign language like Tagalog or Cantonese. Even though it's basically just an electronic phrase book and only works in one direction, it's a start. One of the local police departments is testing it. I don't know the details, but I'm guessing they've programmed it with whatever commands and yes/no questions seem most useful. ********************* Something got me to thinking on the debate on when the century ends. I think part of the reason there's any debate at all is that it hasn't been all that important to the average person up to now. Contracts and laws, for example, generally don't expire or take effect "at the end of the Twentieth Century". They go by specific dates, or by calendar years. Were it otherwise the legal system would long ago have ruled on the matter and everybody would be familiar with the ruling and that would be that. For maybe ninety years out of every hundred about the only time the question "What century is it?" requires thought or calculation is in history classes and related contexts, such as lists of great works of art of some century or other. And fuzziness is often allowed there. For example, if some artist did a whole bunch of stuff from 1470 through 1502, it would most likely all be lumped as "15th Century Art" even though the last few pieces were technically done in the 16th Century. Since this kind of compilation is usually done in a somewhat academic environment, if somebody did want to be technically correct in labeling something done in some 00 year, they would probably use the academic purist model where the century starts in '01. We are experiencing the exceptional case: The approaching end of a century, where "What century is it?" becomes temporarily important to non-academic people because it affects celebrations. ********************* Ever noticed how general winter songs like "Let it Snow" and "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells" sort of become Christmas songs, even though they don't mention anything about Jesus or Santa Claus or Christmas trees? Why is that? Is it because Christmas is one of the few times that old traditional songs get played to the general public in ways that most people notice? Is it because winter songs are more likely to be played around Christmas anyway, so the idea of Christmas sort of rubs off on them? Maybe many people don't make the distinction? And in Australia, is "In the Good Old Summertime" a Christmas song? ********************* If Jesus came back today and did the bit with the loaves and fishes, there would probably be quite a bit of grumbling from bakers and fishermen and other producers of food over possible loss of market share. I wouldn't be surprised if they started asking their priests and mages for ways to copy-protect food. ********************* I'm reminded, through a chain of associations about various programs I've used at work and elsewhere, of how Microsoft's online help is often frustrating. Maybe the thing I'm looking for just isn't there, or maybe it is there but I'm not using their official nomenclature and they don't have cross-references from other names people might be trying to look it up under. One improvement would be cross-references from synonyms. Another would be that if something does exist but Microsoft considers it to be "too technical" for "normal" users, then have the system say something like "You don't need to know that stuff," or "Don't worry your pretty little head about that." I might feel sort of insulted, but at least I wouldn't continue to waste time hunting for something if I knew for certain it wasn't there. ********************* Some astronomer has a Web page (for which I don't have the URL handy) debunking "bad astronomy", mainly mistakes made in movies and such. I partly disagree with him on the definitions of the seasons. He says the conventional American definitions (other places differ) that have the seasons starting at Solstices and Equinoxes are flawed because of when we get the most and least sunlight. According to him, summer should be centered on Summer Solstice, for example, because that's the time of longest days. He explicitly says he's not considering weather. I disagree in that I feel the seasons have more to do with the weather (and the biosphere's responses to it) than they do with astronomy. Since it takes time for things to heat up or cool down, the weather will lag the seasonal cycle of sunlight, and the conventional American definitions are about right for a phase lag of 45 degrees. The actual phase lag varies from place to place, but 45 degrees may not be an unreasonable estimate of the average. I think the optimum solution is not to have an "official" astronomical definition at all. Let those who wish to mark the seasons with their traditional celebrations do so as they see fit, while the rest of us just go "It must be getting into winter because the weather's getting cold." Do we really need "Winter will begin a week from Tuesday at 11:44 pm"? In a sense this whole thing about "official" definitions of the seasons points out a larger problem: There are too many people who think of life as being full of clearly defined Boolean categories. But that's probably a whole other discussion. ********************* I got to wondering about that movie (Being John Malkovich) where much of the action takes place on the 7 1/2 floor of some office building. Does 7 have a similarly low ceiling? We never find out. And we never see elevator inspectors. How would they react to the situation? Maybe there are a few other similar places around that city, just that we never hear about them? If that's the case, the elevator inspectors are probably used to it by now. "Here we are at [address]. It's another alarm-and-crowbar job, between [number] and [number + 1]." I also wonder if some buildings have a 12 that has ceilings twice as high as normal to make up for not having a 13, and if those buildings still have a button for 13. So if you push 13 you end up at this extra door halfway up the wall of 12, at the height 13 would be if there were a 13. They've stuck yellow Caution tape across that doorway, but yellow Caution tape is too flimsy to actually stop people from falling through if they start to exit and can't stop themselves in time, especially when it's just stuck to the wall with duct tape. So every so often someone will fall, landing amid (and on top of) the people waiting for the elevator on 12. I suppose "Watch for Falling People" signs on 12 might help, but probably not all that much. ********************* I was playing around ego-searching, and found that different search engines treat the word Plergb differently. Most of the traditional ones, as well as http://www.northernlight.com/, find the same eight or ten pages. These include the main Plergb page http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/Plergb.html as well as pages that link it. No surprises there. Google (http://www.google.com/), on the other hand, seems to define Plergb as blank, and then comes up empty-handed. If I try "Plergb Commission" it still defines Plergb as blank, then searches for just "Commission" and comes up with some huge number of irrelevant hits such as the FCC page. If I want to find the main Plergb page with Google I have to search for "rancid yak fat" or "renegade status". ********************* Speaking of impending New Year's, it's time to remind people about recycling calendars. The full instructions are in Silicon Soapware #37, available in the archives on the Web page. The short version is that 1999 has the same lineup of dates with days of the week as 2010, so old calendars can be put away and reused if you ignore things like Full Moon dates that don't fit this neat pattern. ********************* Comes now the time for the traditional reprinting of THE CHRISTMAS CAT Once upon a time in a village In a little mountain valley in Borschtenstein Lived a wicked millionaire Whose hobby was foreclosing mortgages And sending people out into the snow. He also took great pride in having The best Christmas decorations in the village. Also in this same village In the little valley in Borschtenstein Lived a poor family Whose mortgage, which came due on Christmas, Was designed to be impossible to pay off. The Christmas weather forecast was for snow And the millionaire's eviction lawyers were waiting. Now this wicked millionaire In the valley village etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, Also had the monopoly on Christmas trees To be sure of having the prettiest Christmas decorations In the whole village. Thus the poor family had nothing at all To put their presents under. Now by chance it so happened In that village in etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, The wicked millionaire had evicted his cat Because its ears and tail were the wrong color And it hadn't paid its mortgage. And the poor family had taken it in And given it a home. So just before Christmas When the Good Fairies asked the animals of the village About people in need and deserving of help The poor family got the highest recommendation. "We will help them!" said the elves and fairies, "They won't have to worry about that mortgage And they'll have the prettiest Christmas decorations in town!" The mortgage was really not much problem: If the millionaire couldn't throw people out into the snow He wouldn't bother throwing them out at all. So the elves spoke to the North Wind and they agreed: No more snow to throw people out into. Some people in the village would have liked snow to play in But agreed the sacrifice was for a good cause. Christmas trees were more of a problem: They had already given them out to other needy families And there were none left at all. They rummaged around in forgotten corners But not a Christmas tree could they find. Then someone had an idea: "Let's decorate their cat!" While one of the elves who spoke Feline Worked out the details with the cat The fairies flew around gathering decorations: Borrowed bits of light from small stars nobody ever notices, Streamers of leftover comet tails, And other assorted trinkets From odd corners of the universe. So the poor family gathered around their Christmas cat And sang songs and opened presents And had the happiest Christmas imaginable While all agreed they had the prettiest decorations The village had ever seen And the millionaire's eviction lawyers Waited in vain for snow. So that is why, to this day, In that valley village in Borschtenstein, It never snows Unless the eviction lawyers are out of town And every year the millionaire tries to decorate a Christmas cat But gets nothing for his pains But bleeding scratches. EPILOGUE: While overnight miracles are rare outside of story books, Even those who learn slowly do learn. So keep checking the weather reports for Borschtenstein. If some Christmas it snows there You will know the millionaire has given up being wicked And has found a truer meaning Of Christmas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May you have the happiest Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Whatever imaginable! Thomas G. Digby ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ first draft written 0115 hr 12/25/74 this version edited 2320 hr 12/14/86 -- END --