Silicon Soapware #208

[bubbleblower]

Silicon Soapware #208 is out. Look in

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0208.txt

or check out my main page at

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/

                            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 #208
                      New Moon of November 24, 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.


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

As this issue falls right around Thanksgiving, I'm reminded that one of 
my earliest childhood memories was related to that holiday.

This may have been when I was four years old, almost five, although it 
could have been the following year.  One of my household duties was to 
set the table for family meals.

As I was starting to set the table for breakfast Dad said that it was 
Thanksgiving, which was a day when we would be eating a lot.  So I just 
sort of assumed that if we were going to be eating a lot we would need 
lots of silverware, and started putting extra forks and spoons and maybe 
knives at each place.  Then Dad said that wouldn't be necessary, because 
the extra eating would come later in the day, not at breakfast.

I have other memories that may be of the actual dinner.  They're only 
fragments, and could be from some other occasion.  I think I remember 
turkey and gravy, but I'm not positive of that.  Again, I could be 
mixing memories of other feasts.

And I don't recall if we did any sort of ritual such as saying what we 
were thankful for.  If I'm correct about what year it was there was a 
war on, and we would probably have been thankful that Dad was stationed 
locally and not halfway around the world getting shot at.  But I don't 
remember either way.

Although some say they don't recall any memories from when they were 
that young, I have some I can put fairly definite dates on.  My sister 
was born a week before my fifth birthday, and I remember Mom being 
brought home from the hospital.  I also recall seeing Mom knitting 
little socks and such.  When I asked why, I was told we were expecting 
another child soon.  Since our birthdays were right around the end of 
the year it seems plausible that I could also remember that 
Thanksgiving.


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

Mention of Thanksgiving also reminds me of how when I was a child my 
parents did the thing of pulling the wishbone (aka "pulley bone") 
whenever we had turkey for dinner.  We also did it for chicken.

If you're not familiar with this, Wikipedia calls it a "Furcula".

As you may know, this is a Y-shaped bone found in the breast area of 
birds.  The custom is for two people to take hold of the two ends of the 
bone, make a wish, and pull the bone apart.  Because of its shape it 
will break into two unequal pieces.  Supposedly the person who ends up 
with the larger piece will get their wish.

But nowadays much pre-cut chicken comes with the wishbone already cut in 
two, with part of it in each breast piece.  So if you're at some place 
like KFC you won't be able to do the make-a-wish thing.

Is this another American folk tradition being wiped out by commercialism 
and processed foods?


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

Is it cheating to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a theremin where you 
can do simple glissandos instead of all that fast chromatic-scale stuff 
you have to do on a piano?


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

Someone mentioned the Snow White story during a break in a discussion of 
technological stuff.  That led me to thoughts that maybe the Magic 
Mirror the Wicked Witch kept asking "Who is the fairest of them all?" 
might have been some kind of wall-mounted flat-screen computer thing.  
After all, we're getting close to being able to do it.  We may already 
be there.

Start with one of those large flat TV screens, but mounted with the long 
axis vertical ("portrait mode").  Put a bunch of cameras along the 
edges, or maybe put one behind a teeny tiny hole somewhere in the middle 
so it can get a view closely approximating what you get with a real 
mirror.  Flip the image horizontally and orient it so it's upright with 
the screen in portrait mode.  Feed that to the screen and you have 
something like the traditional full-length mirror.

But you can do lots of other stuff with it.

For example, if you don't like the way traditional mirrors reverse 
everything left-to-right, you can have it flip the image about some 
other axis, or not flip it at all.

If you have additional cameras mounted elsewhere nearby you can get a 
back or side view without having to mess around with multiple mirrors.

If you're on your way out somewhere and you're uncertain as to whether 
you need a sweater or jacket or something, you can have the "mirror" 
give you a weather report.  Future versions might even be able to do 
pattern recognition on what you're wearing and suggest alternatives if 
you don't seem to be suitably dressed for conditions outside.  This is 
in addition to other computer-type stuff like news and traffic reports 
and maps of how to get there.

With speech recognition technology you could ask it questions.  These 
could range from the mundane, such as keeping track of what cosmetics 
you have in stock and whether you need to have it order more, to 
potentially delicate subjective matters such as whether a given garment 
makes you look fat.  Given a good enough data base setup and 
face-recognition technology, you might even try to ask it who's the most 
beautiful person in the land.

Then if the mirror says that someone other than you is the fairest of 
them all, you can have it show you recipes for poison apples or 
whatever.

This started out as idle speculation, but it might actually have 
potential.  The only parts we may not be close to being able to do are 
the judgement calls about the user's looks.


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

"That store has had a big problem with people stealing invisibility 
cloaks.  A thief would try one on, and then just walk out without 
paying.  Since they're invisible the staff can't see them, and they 
don't show up in the security camera footage ..."


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

Various news items about Black Friday shopping madness have led to 
thoughts of a game.  You start out in front of a giant multi-level 
shopping mall with an empty cart, a shopping list, and a credit card.  
Your mission is to buy everything on the list with the money available 
on the card.  The main complication is that the mall is jam-packed with 
other holiday shoppers, not all of whom are well-mannered and not all of 
whom are sane.

The first level is easy.  It is possible to complete it without using 
any weapons, although pepper spray can make it easier.  Then as you 
ascend the escalators to the higher levels things get more difficult and 
more chaotic.  And you may start running into monsters and magic-users.

In addition to stores selling the items on your list, there are places 
selling weapons, armor, camping supplies, and other stuff, including 
useless junk.  You'll need some of this for the higher levels.  But 
don't be too tempted to splurge.

There's enough money in your card for everything you'll need, perhaps 
with some margin for error.  But there's not enough to go hog-wild with.  
And even if your cart is a magical Cart of Holding, too much useless 
dead weight may slow you down at a critical moment.  So you have to make 
wise decisions.  HINT: Some merchants will ship large items to your 
home, so you don't have to carry them around as you continue shopping.  
That also reduces the risk of people stealing stuff out of your cart.

I don't know if there's anything on the market like that now.  But I 
suspect there will be by the time next year's holiday shopping season 
rolls around.


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

Back on that pepper-spray incident at the UC Davis "Occupy" thing, a 
newspaper columnist said the officer's body language was like he was 
"spraying for weeds."  In other words, the supposedly "official" 
criteria about "self-defense" or "protection of self or others" didn't 
seem to enter into it.

But on second thought, if modern humans originated in Africa, then they 
are an exotic invasive species in California, and spraying to get rid of 
them is legitimate.  I think many would agree that most California 
ecosystems would be better off without humans, at least if you define 
the absence of human influence as "good".  So in that sense Officer Pike 
was doing the right thing.  The only problem is that he wasn't doing 
enough.

What they really need to do is scatter radioactive dust for miles all 
around, as happened by accident at Chernobyl.  That will run those pesky 
humans out.  Then the area can be left to gradually return to its 
natural state.

So do we need an UnOccupy the Environment movement?


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

As I'm starting to write this, we just had one sunny day after a couple 
of days of rain.  And as I was out walking in the sunshine I was 
noticing that even though it was nearing the middle of the day, the sun 
was low in the sky, casting the kinds of long shadows I tend to 
associate with late afternoons.  This all-day late-afternoon feeling 
will be here for the next couple of months, until sometime around 
Groundhog Day.  There's no definite ending date, like a Solstice or 
Equinox or anything.  I'll just sort of start to notice that the shadowy 
feeling is ending, perhaps on the first sunny day after a few days of 
clouds.  Or maybe it will be when Daylight Saving comes back, although I 
doubt it'll be that late in the season.  It seems to vary from year to 
year.


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


                              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

There are two email lists, one that allows reader comments and one that 
does not.  Both are linked from

  http://www.plergb.com/Mail_Lists/Silicon_Soapware_Zine-Pages.html

If you are already receiving Silicon Soapware and want to unsubscribe or 
otherwise change settings, the relevant URL should be in the footer 
appended to the end of this section in the copy you received.

Or you can use the above URL to navigate to the appropriate subscription 
form, which will also allow you to cancel your subscription or change 
your settings.

                                -- END --