SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.com http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #132 New Moon of October 3, 2005 Contents copyright 2005 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. ********************* As this issue comes due the anniversary of the launching of Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite, approaches. It went up on October 4, 1957. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1 At the time it was a major blow to the American national psyche: The Cold War was in full swing, and with this feat the Soviets scored major technological achievement points. We reacted by, among other things, stepping up science education in the schools, until we eventually regained the Space Race lead. For years afterward when that anniversary rolled around people would ask one another where they were when they heard the news (I was on my way to a high-school dance and heard it on the car radio). But gradually more and more of the answers were of the form "I was in elementary school" and then those started giving way to "I wasn't born yet" and then people stopped asking. I did a longer piece on this back in Silicon Soapware #22. Go to http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0022.txt and scroll down to "Left Behind at the Starting Gate". ********************* Something brought up the matter of phrases that remain in use after some of the words in them have changed meaning. One that comes to mind, especially in light of the Sputnik anniversary, is "Galvanized into action". The original meaning of the verb "to galvanize" meant to apply electricity to something. It comes from an early researcher named "Galvani" who worked with batteries and frogs and such. When he shocked a just-killed frog or perhaps a severed frog leg that was fresh enough, it would twitch. Thus it could be said to be galvanized into action. For more, try a Google search on the words Galvani frog twitch Today, however, the word "galvanize" is applied pretty much exclusively to metal items, and it means that the item has been dipped into molten zinc to give it a rust-resistant coating. The phrase doesn't really apply. So although the prospect of being dipped into molten zinc might prompt some people to become more active, that's not the real meaning of the phrase. I suspect this kind of thing has happened to other cliche phrases as well. Can you think of any? ********************* I was writing something about a business-related situation where somebody was going to have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, commonly known around Silicon Valley as an "NDA". But I made a typo. Instead of "sign an NDA" my fingers typed "sing an NDA". That sounds less like Silicon Valley than Tin Pan Alley. And it leads to thoughts of setting all sorts of business documents to music. What might some of them sound like? ********************* In past years news and science commentators have routinely spoken of the impossibility of steering or stopping hurricanes, based on the magnitude of the energies involved. But nowadays people are speculating about various solar-power systems and light-sail starships and such using orbiting reflectors on the order of hundreds of kilometers across, possibly manufactured in space by self-replicating robots. That could lead to control and manipulation of energies on the order of those in a hurricane. So might we eventually be able to control hurricanes, at least to some degree? Then what? What if we can't stop a hurricane, but can steer it to some degree? Then as it nears the coast we could direct it away from major cities into less densely populated countryside. The technology for that may be fairly straightforward once its time has come. But what about the ethics? Who decides where to send the hurricane, and on what basis? In one possible scenario we might get the residents of some less densely populated area to agree to being a dumping ground for hurricanes. In effect hurricanes become one of their local industries. The surrounding areas subsidize them on things like extra-good roads for evacuation of low-lying areas and making buildings more resistant to severe damage, and also make up for profits they might have otherwise earned from summer tourism and more development in general. So during hurricane season the residents of that area "work" at being ready to have any number of hurricanes go through their localities, while during the rest of the year they're more or less free to enjoy themselves and set up whatever kinds of industries are not incompatible with their hurricane-dump status. How workable might such a setup be? ********************* Do people who can see into the future suffer from pre-traumatic stress disorder? ********************* One thread on the SS email list had the words "silicon soupware" in the subject line. Was that a typo, or was it deliberate? It doesn't seem to fit the thread contents, so it was probably just a typo. I originally chose the title "Silicon Soapware" because computers are associated with silicon and the "--ware" suffix, and bubbles are associated with soap. Now I'm wondering about other variations. Would "Silicon Sapware", for example, be right for a group of tree-huggers getting together online? And what other possibilities are there? Be the possibilities as they may, Google searches on the phrases "silicon soupware" and "silicon sapware" come up empty, with a pointer to "Silicon Soapware". So unfilled niches do remain. ********************* Recently I went to a concert of Heather Alexander's folk-rock band Uffington Horse. See http://www.heatherlands.com/ Toward the end of the evening she broke two guitar strings in fairly quick succession. When the second one broke I realized that the phrase "String Replacing Time" could be made to scan to an old pop song called "Finger Poppin' Time". But none of the people I told about it afterward, including Heather and her band members, had ever heard of the song. A Google search on the title as a phrase gets a couple of sites listing the song's date as 1960. Even if most of the people at the concert were born after that, shouldn't at least some of them have heard of it? Was it less of a hit than I recall, or did it just somehow miss getting onto the oldies stations' playlists, or what? So anyway, does anyone (preferably a guitar player) want to do anything with It's string re -- placing time. Guitar strin-n-ng replacing time ... ********************* If computer software had feelings, the spelling checker would probably hate me for this issue of Silicon Soapware. I'm reminded of an option I think I'd like to see added to spelling checkers: Accept a word for this editing session or this document. At present the choices seem to be to accept it just this once, accept it for this scan of the document, or accept it permanently by adding it to the dictionary. An option to accept it for this document or this session would be sort of in between the latter two. Of course it may depend on how often you check spelling when editing a document. If you wait until you're pretty much done working on the document and then check spelling just once as one of the final steps at the end, you won't need this feature. But I rely on the spelling checker to catch typos, and I check spelling often, sometimes every few lines (along with saving), almost as a sort of tic when I get restless. Since this editor doesn't have an option to check spelling starting from the cursor, something like an unusual proper name or foreign word or a deliberate misspelling (perhaps to illustrate a point or for humor) will get flagged every time. That can get annoying. And no, I don't want to save these to the dictionary permanently. So how do the rest of you use spelling checkers? ********************* There was one interesting bit of spam in my email recently: The subject line was something about cheap prescription drugs, but the body was about watches. That led me to thoughts of prescription watches. Might there be wrist watches with special medical functions that would require a prescription? It seems kind of unlikely, but perhaps such a watch would monitor some bodily function or other. But even so, why not allow it to be sold on the open market? Are there things that people could get into trouble just by measuring? I could see where a measurement might get someone into trouble if they acted on it without proper medical advice. But is that reason enough to not allow them to make the measurement in the first place? Thoughts in other directions include watches specially adjusted to run fast or slow for people who are chronically late or early to appointments and such. That's practically a comic-book cliche. But again, would there be any real need to require a prescription for them? Questions abound. Answers do not. ********************* In a world of fire-breathing dragons who start developing technology, how do they keep from setting whatever they're working with on fire? Consider, for example, a dragon working in a chemistry lab. What happens if there are flammable vapors around? Humans can just put up lots of No Smoking signs and maybe wear gas masks if the fumes are toxic, but what can dragons do? Do they have enough voluntary control of their flaming breath to not burn up their gas masks? And if the fumes aren't toxic enough to require a mask, is whatever they use to ignite their flaming breath capable of being turned off or shielded so as not to ignite the fumes? In a similar vein, if they drive cars, gas stations could be Interesting. Likewise, would a telephone for use by dragons need to be able to withstand flamage without melting or otherwise conking out? And what of dragon dentists? There you are, poking around in what you think might be a cavity, when suddenly ... Another caveat: If you ever get sexually involved with a dragon, think carefully about oral sex. On the other hand, it might be fun to be a fire-breathing dragon when eating popcorn: Instead of popping it on the kitchen stove or in a microwave oven, you just grab a handful of the raw kernels and let them pop right in your mouth. Buttering them might be tricky, however. So how else would a world of fire-breathing dragons differ from our world? ********************* As I work on this issue the local weather is sort of an Indian Summer, with some quite warm days even as shadows get longer earlier in the afternoon than in months past. That reminds me of this issue's poem: 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. I do not recall how that magic afternoon ended: 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 Edited 15:39 06/19/2002 ********************* 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. When you receive an email confirmation request go to the URL it will give you. (If you're already on the list and want to get off there will be an Unsubscribe URL at the bottom of each list posting you receive.) To get on or off the BCC list email me (bubbles@well.sf.ca.us or bubbles@well.com). I currently do that one manually. -- END --