Silicon Soapware #205

[bubbleblower]

Silicon Soapware #205 is out. Look in

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0205.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 #205
                       New Moon of August 28, 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.


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

Something slightly weird happened a few days ago.

First, some background: I'm known among people I hang out with for 
blowing soap bubbles.  People in most of the various subcultures I'm 
part of seem to enjoy them, as do at least a few of the more or less 
ordinary people I meet.

As a result, people who know me tend to give me bubble-related gifts.  
This is relevant to what follows.

I'd been running low on chocolate, so I decided to walk down to the 
store for more.  As I was passing the building's dumpster I got the urge 
to look inside.  Sometimes someone throws away something interesting.

At first glance the situation didn't look too promising.  There were the 
usual bags of garbage, which I never bother opening.  There were also a 
couple of cardboard boxes, possibly useful for organizing stuff.  And 
almost hidden by one of the boxes was something that looked like either 
a machine or a container, made of purple plastic.  That looked 
interesting.

Moving the other stuff aside revealed a box-like thing about the size of 
a small toaster with a large rectangular opening in one end, and just 
inside the opening were two rows of little plastic wands, each wand 
ending in a distinctive loop shape.  It took me a few seconds to realize 
that someone was throwing away a bubble-blowing machine!

It turned out to not be quite in working order.  The battery terminals 
were covered with what could have been either dead-battery leakage or 
dried-up spilled bubble solution.  And the batteries (eight AA cells) 
were dead.  But the rest of it looked to be in good shape.  And sure 
enough, once I cleaned up the terminals and replaced the batteries it 
worked.

I probably won't have much use for it.  I suppose I could take it to 
parties and such, but it's too big for regular use around the house when 
I'm home alone.  Besides, I usually prefer to blow bubbles manually.  
But it might be useful for some special occasion.

But be that as it may, it's the thought that counts.  And clearly 
Someone somewhere was thinking of me.


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

Another issue of Silicon Soapware is due.  Should I go fishing for 
ideas?

Since it will be winter in a few months I should probably go ice 
fishing.  But it never gets cold enough around here for ice fishing, and 
even if it was I've never done it before and don't think I would want to 
sit out in all that cold while I figured out how to do it.  So maybe 
instead of trying to mess around with ice I should just get a cartoon 
saw and cut a hole in the middle of the street, or maybe the floor in 
the living room, or possibly even the next airplane I fly in.

If it's the right cartoon saw it won't damage the plane.  Instead of 
cutting wires or hydraulic cables or whatever, the hole will open into 
the plane's idea tank, even if the people who built the plane didn't 
know it had an idea tank.  Then I'll be able to siphon out all the ideas 
I want.

Things like that often get left out of official blueprints.  You just 
have to sort of know they're there, and have the right kind of saw to 
cut the hole with to get to them.


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

I recently saw a video of a flash mob of musicians playing Ravel's 
"Bolero" in some public place where people don't usually expect a 
symphony orchestra to appear.  This is one of those pieces that starts 
small and builds to a climax.

As I recall it started with just a flute and snare drum, plus the 
conductor.  Then more musicians wandered in, playing their parts as 
appropriate.  At the end there was pretty much a full-fledged symphony 
orchestra.  Then it ended and the musicians quickly scattered.

I've heard other pieces of music that start off with some small number 
of musicians playing softly, with more joining in at gradually 
increasing volume until at the climax the entire orchestra is going full 
blast.  It's a fairly common thing.  But how common is the opposite?

Are there any well known pieces that start off with a full orchestra and 
gradually dwindle down to one solitary survivor?  And have any been done 
as a performance in which musicians literally walk out, one by one, 
until only one is left?

I can imagine a piece structured that way, with the end coming when that 
final performer suddenly notices that he is alone and just sort of 
silently slinks off the stage.

Perhaps that could be an allegory for some tribe or movement or 
philosophy or something.  In that case I might expect it to start small, 
grow into something big and loud, and then gradually fade and die, 
perhaps with the final survivor not being the same as the one who 
started it.

Has this been done?


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

If the lifetime of this universe is finite, but there is a Hereafter 
that lasts forever, will people in that Hereafter outlive the physical 
universe?  Christian authorities seem to say they will.  I'm less 
familiar with other faiths.

If Heaven (or whatever) does last forever, when we get there will we 
find beings from universes that existed before the one we're in now?


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

I was looking up something to do with chairs in Wikipedia, and noticed a 
link labeled "list of chairs".

So I looked.  It wasn't really a list of individual chairs, with entries 
like "Swivel chair at Tom Digby's place in front of computer", "Beach 
chair folded up in Tom Digby's car trunk", and so on for all the 
zillions of chairs in the world.  It was just a list of types of chairs, 
and it didn't even cover all possible sub-types.

Part of me wanted to complain about false advertising.

I suppose eventually when furniture routinely comes with built-in 
locater electronics it may be possible for some entity like Wikipedia to 
compile a complete list of all the chairs in the world, as well as other 
types of furniture.  But it will take a major effort, especially when it 
comes to antiques, which will have to be either retrofitted or tracked 
manually.

And there's another obstacle: Will people really want details about 
their furniture listed in Wikipedia for all to see?  I can see where it 
might be useful to the Fire Department to know in advance of entry how 
flammable the furniture in a burning building is and how it's arranged, 
and if you have something unique or impressive having it listed in 
Wikipedia may be something of a status symbol, but I can also see people 
being afraid that burglars and such may look it up when planning future 
crimes.  Thus many people are likely to vote against this kind of thing, 
especially if it's going to cost money to implement.

So it looks like Wikipedia is going to have to be content with lists of 
types of chairs, as opposed to lists of the actual chairs themselves, at 
least for the foreseeable future.


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


                         Keeping the Dragons Away


He remembers how when he was little the family would now and then visit 
Grandma's house.  And he remembers how at bedtime Grandma would sing him 
a little song, in the language of her Old Country.  There were hand 
gestures that went with it, and it was supposed to keep dragons away.

As he grew older, he would tell Grandma that there was no such thing as 
dragons.  She would just smile and say sweetly, "See, it works!"

Eventually he grew up and got married and had children of his own.  
Grandma translated the little song into English for him, but he refused 
to sing it to his kids.  It's all superstitious nonsense, and he's not 
going to put any of that Old-Country junk into his children's heads.

So life goes goes on, until it doesn't.  Eventually Grandma dies.

Nothing out of the ordinary seems to happen afterward, at least not at 
first.

But then a few months later there's a fire in a dumpster behind their 
apartment building.  One of the neighbor's cats disappears around that 
same time.  He doesn't think much about either the fire or the cat once 
the immediate excitement dies down.

Then there's another trash fire a block or so away.  He still sort of 
ignores it, but can't help noticing that there seem to be more "Lost 
Cat" signs here and there around the neighborhood.

There's a saying that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and 
three times is enemy action.  When the third mysterious back-alley trash 
fire happens and the Fire Department investigators start talking about 
some kind of serial arsonist with a flamethrower or something, he starts 
to pay attention.

Is it more than coincidence that lost-cat posters are more numerous than 
ever?  Is it more than coincidence that the neighbors are starting to 
catch glimpses of what might be some kind of UFO or maybe a giant bird 
or something?  And is it more than coincidence that his kids are 
complaining about "monsters" coming in the night to get them?

He starts to worry, even though he's not sure what he should be worrying 
about.

Then one day while he's sorting through old papers he finds Grandma's 
English translation of the anti-dragon spell.  That brings back memories 
of how safe and secure it made him feel when Grandma sang it to him and 
they did the hand gestures together.

He also recalls some expert on child-raising talking about how you can 
often calm a child's fears by giving the child a feeling of being in 
control of the situation, even if you haven't really done anything 
substantive.

Other families he knows have little rituals that look like nonsense, and 
those kids seem to be doing OK.

So he teaches his children the little song and the hand gestures that go 
with it.  And it does calm their fears.

They tell it to the other kids at school.  Some of them laugh, but 
others had been not-quite-seeing something scary, and they start using 
the spell to banish it.  And again, it calms their fears.

There may be one or two more fires after that, but since they're in more 
distant parts of the city and don't seem to be affecting his children he 
doesn't pay them as much attention as he would otherwise have.  And then 
the mysterious flame-throwing arsonist is just sort of gone, as 
mysteriously as he or she had come.

And yes, the occasional cat will disappear now and again, but there are 
no more such cases than is normal.

So the anti-dragon spell seems to be working.


                              -- Thomas G. Digby
                              Preliminary draft 2011-06-02 08:11
                              Near-final        2011-08-29 02:03
                              Latest            2011-08-31 17:41



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


                            September Dreaming


September. 
The party's over.  
Although my school days are long past,
Thoughts of school and studying and homework
Seep into my head
Like smoke from burning piles 
Of old summer dreams.  

In a sudden burst of movement
A squirrel grabs one of the many acorns
That lie scattered all around.

Is each acorn a future dream?  

In years to come  
When the new seedlings start to tower over my head
I will see that some of them were 
Even if there is no way to know beforehand
Which ones those will be.  



                            -- Thomas G. Digby
                            -- Written  2011-09-01 14:51:51


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


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