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/~bubbles/ Issue #90 New Moon of May 12, 2002 Contents copyright 2002 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. Details of how to sign up are at the end. ********************* Bruce Pelz, one of the mainstays of Los Angeles area science fiction fandom, died suddenly and unexpectedly on the evening of May 9, 2002. Details can be found at http://www.lasfs.org/lasfs/bruce/ He was known and loved by many, world-wide as well as locally. I wasn't really close to him, perhaps because a club the size of LASFS naturally tends to split into diverse subgroups with different shared interests, and my interests and his were mostly different. I knew he was there, but I didn't pay all that much attention to him most of the time. Now that he's gone, the things being said about him on the memorial Web page are showing me some of what I had never known I was missing. The cliche thing to say here is that if there is a Heaven we'll meet again. But Heaven is even larger than LASFS, and again we'll probably be off doing different things on different clouds or whatever. But we would probably still run into each other now and then, and that would be better than never. ********************* The commuter train I sometime take up to San Francisco stops at Bay Meadows Racetrack. I'd never been to horse races before, so a few weeks ago I decided to do a day at the races: Take the train to the track, hang around and watch the afternoon's races, then take the train back. Here are some random thoughts and observations: Admission tickets were cheap ($3 general admission, not counting senior discounts). Food and drink were overpriced, but not as much so as at the movies. I think a lot of the track's income comes from betting. Much of the space under the stands was devoted to betting, including off-track betting on races run elsewhere. They had quite a few TV monitors showing races at various other tracks. They use the pari-mutuel system, in which customers are technically betting against each other with the track as facilitator. The track keeps a fixed percentage so it doesn't matter to them who wins. Most of the betting windows that used to have people behind them were "manned" by machines. There were also machines set up on tables out in the open. There were a few windows with old-fashioned human operators, but they were few. It's no longer like racetracks in the movies, if it ever was. I didn't bet on anything. That may have caused me to miss some of the feel of the race, since I didn't really care who won. Others were shouting for this or that horse to go faster, but there I was, serene and uncaring, like some kind of Galactic Observer documenting the foibles of Earthlings. Some might turn this into a lesson in Buddhist-type detachment, while others might just say I was apathetic. I did pick up a couple of discarded tickets as souvenirs. They have signs all over the place asking people to put their trash in the trash cans, but people still throw their losing tickets on the floor. Betting tickets aren't pretty any more. When my parents took me to a greyhound race many years ago the tickets were a wonder to behold, with the number of the dog being bet on printed all over the ticket in many different typefaces and different colors of ink, and the ticket itself having several different colors of paper laminated together so the edges looked pretty when you tore it up after your dog lost. Now it's just a dull computer-printed slip of paper like a state lottery ticket. Part of me knows the reason: The old fancy tickets were supposed to be hard to counterfeit. But now what with computerized security codes and such on the tickets, counterfeiting isn't really a problem. Even if the ticket looks authentic to a human, a computer can tell if the codes and checksums are bogus and not in the database. But even though the rational part of me knows about computer security technology, other parts of me miss the fancy printing on pretty rainbow laminated paper. They still play that bugle call before every race, although it's probably a recording these days. I've been told it's supposed to be played at eleven minutes before post time, and that looked about right by the various clocks around the place. There was an ambulance that circled the track during every race, keeping maybe eight or ten lengths back from the horses. The humorist in me saw it as being in every race but always losing. "Never bet on the ambulance. It always comes in last." I checked the track's Web site after I got back home, and the old news stories included stuff about a jockey being badly hurt the week before. Apparently he fell off during a race and may have been hit by other horses. So there's good reason for the ambulance. But does it need to circle the track during the race? Since the track is a one-mile oval, I would think the ambulance could get to any accident reasonably quickly from a fixed location. But maybe those few seconds of difference are critical. One information booth had betting instructions and also had transit schedules. So I jokingly asked the attendant if we could bet on whether the trains would be late. It took her several tries to really hear the question. Then she smiled and said No. Most of the afternoon seemed rather slow-paced. Races were about half an hour apart, and any one race lasted less than two minutes. So there were these short bursts of excitement punctuating a long slow afternoon. Had I wanted more nearly continuous excitement I could have gone under the stands and watched the TV feeds of races at other tracks. Why so long between races? Part of it may be necessary logistics, getting the horses ready and parading them around for people to look at before the race, raking away the hoofprints from the last race, and maybe other stuff that's not as visible. Was there also a need to give people time to make up their minds about what to bet on? There were large areas under the stands that reminded me of study areas in a college library, with seats at individual writing desks. The main difference was that they were facing a bank of TV monitors showing various races. You could study your copy of the Racing Form and various tip sheets there, and mark your betting slip (sort of like a state lottery slip or a miniature of a multiple-choice test) before taking it to a machine to place the actual bet. Is it possible to come up with a winning "system"? Possibly. Since in a pari-mutuel you're betting against the rest of the crowd, if you can spot ways in which the crowd isn't being rational in terms of their bets vs actual chances of winning, you might be able to come out ahead in the long term. Have people actually done that? If not, it's probably not from lack of trying. I refrained from filling the air with soap bubbles. I didn't want to take a chance of scaring the horses, or of getting unwelcome attention from the security people. And it just didn't feel like a bubbly type of place. All in all, I enjoyed it. But I don't plan on doing it again any time soon. ********************* The neighbors have put one of those free-standing basketball hoops in their driveway. That leads me to wonder how come people put basketball hoops on the front of their houses but don't put up football goal posts or hockey goals or bowling alleys or stuff like that for other sports? ********************* The Bean Scene coffee house has a strange double chair. It's two chairs grafted together and sharing an arm, with the one on the occupants' right being large and throne-like while the other is more similar to an ordinary chair. Maybe it was designed for a bigwig and his sidekick? It's not all that comfortable, although it may have once had cushions which could have made a difference. Employees there don't seem to know where it came from. It was there when they moved in. Sort of came with the building. As I was thinking about this it occurred to me that maybe it's the long- lost throne of some secret cult. And now that I've posted about it, they'll get word and go to Bean Scene, desperate to get it back. So maybe they'll offer the coffee house tens of millions of dollars for it, which would mean instant retirement for the owners if they want that. Or maybe they'll send assassins and such to fetch it by whatever combination of stealth and force turns out to work. Could that lead to Indiana-Jones type antics on the streets of downtown Sunnyvale? Probably not, since someone else I mentioned it to said they'd seen similar pieces of furniture used in ceremonies at fraternities and lodges and such. So it may not be unique after all. ********************* By the way, the name of the Bean Scene coffee house refers to coffee beans. The place is not full of pictures of mothers trying to get children to eat their vegetables. ********************* All this fuss about computer copy protection reminds me that different artists have different goals. Some want money, while others want to put out some kind of message to the world, or make new friends, or just have their work seen. Most probably have some mixture of these motives. When one sets up an account with a stock broker, one is asked questions such as the relative priority of safety, steady income, or speculation. This leads to thoughts of different talent agencies handling different artists differently depending on what their personal priorities are. Maybe there is no one agency handling the full spectrum, but different ones (including some non-profits) could specialize in the different goals. This would manifest in different attitudes and practices in areas like copy protection and availability of free samples. I'm reminded of how the Grateful Dead used to encourage taping of their concerts by fans. They may have lost some sales of "product", but I wouldn't be surprised if they more than made it back in goodwill and love, even if such intangibles weren't always visible to their accountants. And depending on your beliefs, there's also the possibility of good karma or treasure in Heaven. ********************* One person who was ranting in some online forum about the scandal over pedophile priests in the Catholic Church used the phrase "morally bankrupt". That started me thinking that since morals are the stock in trade of a church, maybe moral bankruptcy of a religious organization should be some kind of actual official deal, equivalent to a for-profit business going financially bankrupt. But what form should it take? Should a morally bankrupt church continue operating but under some sort of outside supervision, like Chapter 11 for financial bankruptcy? Or should it be disbanded, with various parts of its former mission taken over by others, more like Chapter 7? If the morally bankrupt church is disbanded, what happens to any physical assets it may have? If they go to whoever gets the mission fragments, what's to keep the quest for the assets and any worldly power that goes with the assets or the mission from corrupting those who seek to take them over? This clearly needs more thought. ********************* One night I dreamed that I was watching some kind of military training exercise where the troops had spring-operated practice weapons instead of the real thing. One woman had a mortar that shot something like large marbles or maybe rubber balls an inch or so in diameter. But she was playing with shooting larger balls, up to basketball size. The spring could barely lift them at all, much less propel them any distance. The largest one I saw was the size of a basketball, but with a black-and- white sort-of-camouflage pattern, perhaps sort of like those cow spots one computer company puts on their boxes. And to get that one into the "mortar" she had to take the lampshade off. There was some kind of inner framework under that such that the "basketball" would just fit, and anything larger wouldn't. I don't know what function it served for smaller balls. Why did the mortar have a lampshade? Because it was in a dream, and dreams don't have to make sense. Also, the mortar only shot straight up. I don't think it had any provision for aiming. Maybe that's OK for the kinds of war games where realism isn't the point, but still ... At least it meant you didn't have to run very far to retrieve your "ammunition". Later, as I was partly awake, it occurred to me that a mortar that only shoots straight up might be useful when you're retreating, if it shoots high enough. Last thing before leaving you shoot a few shells off, and by the time they come back down the enemy has taken that spot, so they're the ones who get blown up. That might appeal to commanders who base their strategy on pessimism. The main thing that can go wrong is if the enemy isn't as strong as anticipated, so you end up not retreating after all. Ka-BOOM! ********************* Some of us were sitting around after a poetry reading, and we got to talking about the non-poetic stuff we do. One person was a tech writer, another was in Marketing, and a third was in tech support. Or at least that's what we were unemployed at. So I said "Let's start a company. I can design whatever we'll be making, he can document it, and she can hold customers' hands." And someone filled in that the other woman could go around the country selling it. But then somebody threw a wet blanket on things by mentioning that we would need a CEO and a Board of Directors and all that dull stuff. And the CEO and Board of Directors might start insisting that before we get to any of the fun stuff like exhibiting at trade shows or doing an IPO we should figure out what the product will be. And what with the economy, it's not a good time to be starting new ventures, especially one as vaguely defined as ours. So the dream died. It just goes to show that Silicon Valley isn't what it used to be. If it ever was. ********************* The group I was sitting with also got to discussing those cheap computer cameras they're selling now. Thing is, they're wireless, so others can eavesdrop on whatever you're looking at. One person said he had one on his front door for security, and wouldn't mind the neighbors seeing who was ringing his doorbell. Then I got to wondering if others could not only eavesdrop but also jam the transmissions, and maybe even override the signal with their own content: Your doorbell rings, and in reality it's several guys with machine guns and bad intentions, but when you look at the monitor it appears to be Daffy Duck. So you open the door to let Daffy in and instead here come these guys with the machine guns. Not good. So you probably still need to be careful. ********************* May Day was unseasonably cool, feeling almost like a relapse of winter, after a warm spell in late April. When you get warm weather in the fall it's called "Indian Summer". Is there an analogous name for cold weather in the spring? ********************* Long Shadows Long shadows on a warm afternoon. The slanting rays are a bridge to other days, other seasons, other lives. My head lies clear across the courtyard. Others hurry through my shade, oblivious. Long warm shadows do not concern them now. They will not walk the sun-ray bridge today. My bridge leads back to a magic childhood moment: Friends running across a green lawn, Amazed by the shadows stretching before us. Innocent of geometry and angles and other book-learning, We had never known our shadows could grow like that. How did that magic afternoon end? Dinner? A fairy story lovingly read to me? Bedtime? The bridge to warm afternoons does not extend into the dark of night. Long shadows on a warm afternoon. The slanting rays of a long-ago Christmas Eve, not warm, but still magic. I see the fading sunlight on a wall Glowing with anticipation of the delights to come with the dawn. I can hardly wait for bedtime. Long shadows on a warm afternoon. At last the ray-bridge brings me back to the here and now. As I walk homeward I catch a last glimpse of the sun touching the horizon. Shadows have faded, But I can still imagine mine, Stretching now to the edge of the world. Long shadows on a warm afternoon. -- Thomas G. Digby First Draft 19:50 04/22/2002 Edited 20:33 05/05/2002 Edited 13:34 05/11/2002 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU If you're getting it via email and the Reply-to in the headers is ss_talk@bubbles.best.vwh.net you're getting the list version, and anything you send to that address will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation. There's usually a burst of activity after each issue, often dying down to almost nothing in between. Any post can spark a new flurry at any time. If there's no mention of "bubbles.best.vwh.net" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The zine content is the same for both. To get on the conversation-list version point your browser to http://bubbles.best.vwh.net/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi and select the ss_talk list. Enter your email address in the space provided and hit Signup. 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