Silicon Soapware #215

[bubbleblower]

Silicon Soapware #215 is out. Look in

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0215.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 #215
                        New Moon of June 19, 2012


Contents copyright 2012 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.


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

Summer Solstice always seems to bring a slight bit of melancholy.  The 
days are starting to get shorter, and in maybe six weeks we'll start 
seeing "Back to School" sales in the stores.

I recall a time many years ago when I was at a Fourth of July party, and 
suddenly realized that summer vacation was almost half over.  School had 
let out at the beginning of June, and would start up again at the end of 
August.  The actual midpoint of that interval would be the middle of 
July, but that was less than two weeks away.

It's the other side of the coin from all the festive stuff we get at 
Yule, about how the Sun is starting to return and winter will eventually 
end.


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

The hoopla over the recent transit of Venus is dying down.  The next one 
will be in 2117.  For those who don't want to wait that long there will 
be a transit of Mercury in 2016.  With a transit of Mercury the little 
black dot on the sun will be a lot smaller than for Venus, but the 
experience will be otherwise pretty similar, at least if you're not 
engaged in gathering scientific data or teaching astronomy or something 
like that.

If you really want to see a transit of Venus and you're willing to 
travel, there will be one visible from Mars in 2030.

There will also be a transit of Earth visible from Mars in 2084, as well 
as other events which I don't think I need to list here.

At the start of the recent transit I did the bit of using binoculars to 
project an image onto some convenient surface.  But after a few minutes 
of watching the little black dot crawling across the white circle I 
started to lose interest.  A planetary transit is not as spectacular as a 
near-total solar eclipse.  It might be a useful event for some kinds of 
scientific observations, and it's an excuse for a party, but other than 
that my impression of it was "If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all."


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

I was recently reminded of the traditional Letter of Comment (often 
abbreviated "LoC") that readers of fanzines would send to the publisher.

The first fanzines were modeled on professionally published science 
fiction magazines.  This included Letters to the Editor from readers.  
The technology of the time was such that the editor (or some assistant) 
had to manually retype any letters he or she wanted to publish.  As 
technology advanced some zines began to photocopy incoming letters for 
publication instead of retyping them.  Later, as electronic mail became 
common, text could be pasted in electronic form, even if the zine itself 
was still printed on paper with physical copies being sent to readers.

Most of these fanzines came out monthly or bimonthly or quarterly (four 
issues a year), and many had trouble keeping up with that schedule.  A 
few came out more often, but not many.

In parallel with these traditional "genzines" (from "General Fanzine" or 
some similar phrase) there arose the "apa".  These were groups of people, 
all publishing zines, and all sending copies to one another (see the 
Wikipedia article on "Amateur press association").  In many of these it 
became customary for each member's zine to include comments on zines 
published by other members of the group.  This more or less eliminated 
the middleman on comments, at least in those cases where the writer of 
the comment intended for it to be read by the entire membership.

Some apas ran on a quarterly cycle, although many were more frequent.  I 
don't have statistics, but I suspect on average most apas were 
distributed on a more frequent schedule than most genzines.

The use of the past tense in the above is not intended to imply that such 
zines are no longer being published.  It is just that I'm contrasting the 
traditional paper zines with more recent electronic publishing.

Whether apas or genzines are "better" is a matter of personal preference.

My first real experience with fanzines was in the weekly apa "APA-L".  
Most of the content consisted of ongoing discussions of comments on prior 
comments on still older comments.  And since it ran on a weekly cycle, 
feedback was almost immediate.

Thus when I started Silicon Soapware I set it up as an email list to 
which readers could post comments.  I didn't feel up to trying to 
maintain the weekly pace of APA-L, but at the same time I saw little 
reason not to allow immediate feedback on comments and I felt no real 
need to act as a middleman by copying and pasting text.

Were I starting SS now I might well set it up as a blog (with a comment 
section), but back in 1995 when I first started it I wasn't familiar with 
the concept of the blog, and didn't have easy access to the server-side 
software for managing it.  Email lists, on the other hand, were a 
standard commodity.  So that's what I went with.

The rest is history.


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

As far as I noticed there was no Nobel Prize for magic this year.  
Perhaps too many people were trying too hard to win, and their spells all 
canceled each other out.


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

I recently got an email asking me to support Warren Chisum (whom I had 
never heard of before) for Texas Railroad Commissioner.  Since I had 
never heard of that office I emailed the campaign with questions:


 Although I'm unfamiliar with this "Texas Railroad Commission" you're
 running for, the name seems to imply it has something to do with
 railroads.  What are your positions on the following railroad-related
 issues which are important to me?

  * Electrification of Caltrain.

  * Extending BART around San Francisco Bay.

  * High-speed trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

 I notice the word "Texas" in the name.  If you get elected, will more
 people from Texas be riding trains around the Bay Area?  This could be
 a good thing (more revenue) if they can avoid peak traffic periods
 (congestion, etc.).  How will you deal with this?

 On the other hand, I am concerned that matters in Texas may get a
 disproportionate share of the Commission's attention.  If this is the
 case I as a resident of California can not in good conscience support
 your campaign.  Please reassure me on this.

 [signature, etc.]


Other people I know have also gotten similar emails.  Some seem to 
consider them spam.  My sense of humor seems to want to give them the 
benefit of the doubt: If a campaign isn't doing spam the staff should be 
glad to answer any questions they get from voters world-wide, including 
those asking why their emails may be relevant to people outside their 
home area.  If they are spamming, then they deserve to have to dig 
through piles of silly replies just in case there's something important 
in there somewhere.


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

Maybe just some nonsense?  Non scents?

If people had no noses, the deodorant industry would be in big trouble.  
Maybe they could get some kind of economic stimulus from the government, 
but they might have a problem explaining the concept of what they want to 
do.  "If people had noses they would be able to smell things, and some of 
those smells might be unpleasant.  So we would make stuff to counteract 
those smells so that people wouldn't smell them even if they had noses, 
which they don't."

The perfume industry would have similar problems, from the opposite side.  
Would the two industries try to cooperate toward a common goal of getting 
stimulus funds?

And what other industries might try to benefit from this?

There may be all kinds of things that people could make a living doing if 
only humans were different in some way.  It's no fault of theirs that 
humans are the way they are.  Should we give stimulus funding to all of 
them?

Those opposed to government handouts might claim that this whole concept 
is silly.  How best can we rebut that argument?  Does it make a 
difference if the concept really is silly?  Silly concepts sometimes 
become best-sellers.


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

Something reminded me of those cartoons of a person climbing a mountain 
to ask a question of a guru sitting at the top.

I'm guessing gurus on mountain tops aren't really into that Internet 
thing.  If they were they could post all their sayings on the Web and 
seekers wouldn't need to climb mountains any more.  That means the 
seekers wouldn't get the exercise they need, and would get fat and flabby 
and keel over from heart attacks and die.  That might reflect unfavorably 
on the gurus' karma.  And karma or no, where would the gurus on mountain 
tops be if there were no seekers climbing the mountains to chat with 
them?

They might, among other things, be hungry for pizza, because most pizza 
places won't deliver to the tops of mountains in remote areas.  Perhaps 
they'd been getting by on random pizzas some of the seekers would bring 
along, but with the seekers all dead from lack of exercise because of 
using the Internet instead of climbing mountains that source has dried 
up.  And even if the seekers don't all die, if they're not climbing 
mountains they won't be bringing pizza to the gurus on top.

I know pizza is not part of the standard mountaintop guru image, but that 
doesn't mean they don't like a slice now and then when they think the 
media people aren't looking.

They might be able to invent some way to deliver pizza by satellite.  
Have an automated pizza-making system in orbit, and when you send it an 
order it makes the pizza and drops it to its destination in some kind of 
special space pod.  You might not even need an oven in the satellite if 
the heat of atmospheric entry can be used to cook the pizza.

Problem is, anything involving satellite technology can get expensive.  
And even if the gurus can afford it, they'll be reluctant to use it if 
the delivery pods aren't reusable or recyclable.

So we're not likely to see gurus on mountain tops eating pizza delivered 
by satellite any time soon.  And it's probably just as well that most of 
them don't use the Internet all that much.


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


                               Lost? Child


What did you say, son?
Why did I cut what?  Those flowers?
Because they were there.
We do need to clear this field before fire season.

But you say they weren't a fire hazard like the dry grass
So we didn't really have to cut them?
Maybe not, but it was easier to go cutting straight through
     than to stop and think about it.
If you really want flowers, you can buy flowers somewhere later.
Quit worrying about that kind of stuff.
Just forget all about it.  

Gateways for the Little People?
You say if you relax in a field of wildflowers
And let your eyes unfocus and your mind go blank
You may suddenly hear music and song and laughter,
And if you follow your ears and your heart
They'll lead you through the flowery gate 
Into the land of the Little People, 
Whose cares are different and perhaps more to your taste
Than the cares of this world?
I'd better not catch you telling that to the neighbors.
They'll think there's something strange about you.
Quit worrying about that kind of stuff.
Just forget all about it.  

We're almost half done.  Let's take a break.
Here's a tree we can sit under.

Son, do you hear somebody singing off behind me somewhere?
Are you going to meet them?
What are you laughing about?
Where did you disappear to?
Son?
Son? 
Answer me!
Wherever you are, come back here!
I am your father!

Please come back and tell me 
If I really did just hear a faint voice
Telling me
"Quit worrying about that kind of stuff.
Just forget all about it." 


                                        Thomas G. Digby
                                        entered  1215 hr  4/29/92



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

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