Silicon Soapware #207

[bubbleblower]

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                            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 #207
                       New Moon of October 26, 2011


Contents copyright 2011 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.


                          *********************

It's getting close to Halloween, although the weather is still 
summer-like.  We've had a milder than usual summer this year, and 
although we've had an autumn rainy spell or two it's still mostly warm 
and sunny, even as the days have gotten short and the noonday sun has 
taken to riding low in the southern sky.

But lingering summer weather or no, I can see signs of change coming: In 
at least one store red and green Christmas stuff is starting to appear 
along some of the top shelves in the mostly-orange-and-black Halloween 
section, like some exotic species of flower that's taken hold in a 
neighbor's field and is starting to peek through the fence into my 
place.

Part of me might feel tempted to try to hold it back by spraying or 
something, but other parts of me know that in the long run it's 
hopeless.  All I can do it let it run its course, and in due time it 
will be gone for another year.


                          *********************

Christmas is a time when you hear what would otherwise be considered 
church music in stores and restaurants and other random places where you 
don't normally hear it, and that leads to thoughts of pipe organs.  And 
that in turn leads to thoughts of little-known pipe-organ stops, such as 
Grakltraxl 17'.

With its 17-foot pipe length it sounds roughly a semitone below the more 
commonly used 16-foot stops, giving an effect that people accustomed to 
modern Western harmonies are not accustomed to.  Most people in our 
culture don't like it.

So why is it there?  Organists like to use it as an excuse not to play 
pieces they'd rather not perform.

Since most people who don't play the organ probably haven't given much 
thought to how an organist decides which stops to use for any given 
piece, organists have secretly gotten together and concocted a tale of 
complex astrological calculations involving when the music in question 
was written, when that particular organ was built, and in some cases the 
natal horoscopes of the composer and performer.  It's actually a load of 
baloney, but most of the general public doesn't know that.  (I don't 
know how the organists manage to keep astrologers from blowing the 
whistle.)

So all an organist has to do to get out of having to play some 
particular composition is to claim that it uses Grakltraxl 17' along 
with a couple of 16' stops.  Even if the piece does still need to 
actually be played every now and then as a demonstration or reminder, 
people who have heard it tend to remember and not request that piece 
again.

What if that particular organ doesn't have Grakltraxl 17'?  Simple.  
Just apply some cardboard and duct tape to some otherwise unneeded open 
16' rank to lengthen it to 17 feet.  You usually don't need to be too 
precise about the lengths of the cardboard pieces, and you may not need 
to do every pipe in the rank.  Most people are easily convinced if you 
get it anywhere near close on most of the pipes.

As I've said, you don't have to do this very often.  Once word has 
spread, all an organist has to do to get out of playing any given 
request is to say "That piece uses Grakltraxl 17'."

So it's very handy, even if it seldom sees actual use.


                          *********************

You may have noticed that some bands like to change keys between verses 
of some songs, often by going up a half-step.  Most competent guitar and 
keyboard players are sort of OK with that, but bagpipers really hate it.

The thought occurred to me that bagpipers could maybe do it by feeding 
helium into the bag to increase the speed of sound in the pipes, thereby 
raising their pitch.  Conversely, you could also lower the pitch by 
using a heavy gas such as sulfur hexafluoride.

The tricky part may be getting the amount just right.

But maybe if you put pairs of ultrasonic transducers inside the bag a 
known distance apart, along with suitable electronics, you could measure 
the speed of sound inside the bag in real time, and adjust the gas feeds 
as appropriate.

Some might be worried that a valve might stick open and feed in way too 
much helium, causing the pipes to float off into the sky as the player 
stands helplessly below, hoping that whoever eventually finds them will 
return them.  But I think that what with the electronics and valves and 
batteries and helium tank and such, the assemblage would be too heavy 
for that to be a problem.

This gas-mixture scheme could also be used when a pipe organ is playing 
along with an orchestra that doesn't want to tune to whatever pitch the 
organ was tuned to.  Some orchestras like to tune their instruments 
slightly sharp, around 442 Hz, while others prefer the more traditional 
440.  This would let the organ match whatever tuning the orchestra 
preferred.

Are there any Silicon Valley startups working on this?


                          *********************

Unrelated to anything else, I've been wondering if YouTube is going to 
eventually have to change its name as various non-CRT video technologies 
take over and we get a generation of people who may not know what the 
"Tube" part of the name refers to.


                          *********************

Free association on a spelling mnemonic (with minor editing afterwards):

Does the problem have anything to do with the statement that there is "a 
rat" in "separate"?  Should I call the exterminator?

That word without a rat in it, or with a dead rat, would not be the 
same.  Would it be "sepe"?  Or would it be "sepadeadrate"?  In other 
words, should you leave the rat carcass in place or remove it?  If you 
leave it, will it rot and smell bad and attract flies and ants and such?  
And would having all that stuff make the word formerly known as 
"separate" too messy and stinky to use?

And then if people stopped using the word, what would the shareholders 
do?  I don't think the financial system in this country is set up to let 
people own stock in words, so the whole matter may be academic.  Does 
"academic" mean that schools own stock in words, and can lose money if 
their words don't get used?  That might explain a lot.  Or it might not.

Do other words have bugs and vermin and such living in them?  I haven't 
heard anybody complaining about any, so if there are then whatever the 
creatures are are probably rather benign, or maybe even beneficial.

But no, I don't think it would be practical to keep pets and landscaping 
and such in words.  For one thing, it would make the word harder to 
spell and read, especially if different people kept different animals 
and plants in different words.  And what if someone put an animal into a 
word that was the name of some other species?  If you're not careful you 
could trigger an infinite loop.  It might even crash the spelling 
checker.  So if a word has a NO PETS clause in its Terms of Use, it 
would be wise to comply.

And be wary of changing a word like "catalog" to something like 
"dogalog" or maybe "birdalog" just because you're allergic to cats.  If, 
for example, you change it to "lobsteralog" but some members of your 
audience are allergic to seafood, you may be opening a bigger can of 
worms than you realize, even if there do not appear to be any worms in 
the vicinity.


                          *********************

I'm reminded of thoughts I've had of a joke app that randomizes 
"its"/"it's" (or maybe the presence or absence of an apostrophe in 
general) in a user's postings. That way they'll be right about half the 
time, so they won't be thought a snob (for getting it right too often) 
or an ignoramus (for getting it wrong too often).

One problem is that users who want it might be ashamed to be seen buying 
it.  But that hasn't stopped the pornography industry, so it's probably 
not really a problem.


                          *********************

That reminds me of someone on the radio reading an announcement about 
some author or story having won the "New Bells" award.  He sort of 
stumbled over the name, like it was hard to read or something.  Was it 
actually the Nebula award, and might he have been unfamiliar with the 
word "nebula"?  Or did someone type it wrong, putting an "s" in place of 
the final "a"?  The letters are next to each other on the keyboard (at 
least the one most commonly used in the US), for what that's worth.

Is it worth anything?  The financial pages in the paper don't seem to 
list any market activity on the fact that the "a" and "s" keys are 
adjacent on the keyboard.  That doesn't necessarily mean it isn't worth 
anything, but it does mean there may not be any quick and easy way to 
invest in it (as opposed to investing in keyboards or their maskers) or 
to cash out once you're in.  It may also mean the FTC doesn't keep tabs 
on it, so you'd best be extra-careful when dealing in such things.


                          *********************

Here's a thought I've had now and then as a way to revamp the welfare 
system: Put time clocks in public libraries (or community centers or 
similar places), and pay people minimum wage, no questions asked, to 
hang out there.

While you're there you can read, or knit, or draw pictures, or work on 
writing a novel, or do your school homework, or whatever, as long as it 
isn't destructive or disruptive (maybe have separate sections for people 
with young children) or blatantly illegal.

This could take the place of much of the welfare system, with a minimum 
of bureaucracy. You may need physical security and maybe tax withholding 
and such, but you wouldn't need anything like the means testing in our 
present welfare setup.  Most of the rich have better things to do than 
attend what amounts to study hall, and even if a few do come, so what? 
There's only a few of them.

There are probably problems I haven't addressed, but think of them as 
creative engineering challenges rather than reasons it can't be done.

If you like this idea, post about it other places. Spread it around.


                          *********************

[NOTE:  This was written for places with dry fallow summers, 
 where the main growing season is a mild wet winter.]


                           Winter Construction


We're half the year away
From May.  

The dance of the ribbons and the joyful proclamations 
Of the season of outdoor frolic
Are but dim memories, distant and unreal.  

This is a time for turning inward,
As Nature rebuilds the world.  

As the cool rains of winter 
Bring new life to the parched land
We gather 'round the hearth 
By Jack-O-Lantern light
To welcome back old friends 
From the other side of Eternity.  

Then we defy the deepest darkness 
With strings of artificial stars
And feast on songs of joy 
Among loved ones in the here and now.  

Finally, as the sun takes its first baby steps back to us
We can begin to look forward 
To another season of light, 
When Nature once again takes down 
Her cold gray Construction signs 
And the time of outdoor frolic is proclaimed anew.  



                             -- Tom Digby
                             First Draft  11:52 Sat October 22 2005
                             Edited       13:33 Sun October 23 2005
                             Note added   17:24 Wed October 26 2005
                             Note edited  14:42 Sun October 30 2005



                          *********************

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