Silicon Soapware #219

[bubbleblower]

Silicon Soapware #219 is out. Look in

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0219.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 #219
                      New Moon of October 15, 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.


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

Halloween is getting closer, with more and more decorations appearing 
more and more places.  I suppose this means people are putting up 
Halloween decorations.

What I mean by that is that it's not like the version of the Christmas 
tradition where Santa brings the tree, so that when people wake up on 
Christmas morning there's a Christmas tree in their living room.  No, if 
you want Halloween decorations you have to set them up yourself.

Actually, isn't that pretty much the norm for holiday decorations in 
general?  Even for Christmas, those who leave the decorating to Santa are 
in the minority.  Most of the people who want Christmas decorations put 
them up themselves, or maybe if they have money to throw around they hire 
somebody else to do it, but either way it's up to them.

You don't have tales of, for example, Uncle Sam going around surprising 
people by filling their front yards with patriotic Fourth of July 
decorations.  Nor does Cupid go around putting up Valentine's Day stuff.  
The Easter Bunny leaves baskets of candy and such, but that's more like 
gifts than decorations.

The Tooth Fairy?  She doesn't even have a specific holiday.  I suppose 
you could decorate a bedroom with dental-themed stuff whenever the 
occupant loses a tooth, but practically nobody does that.  Should they?

Back on Halloween, even though there may be a few who believe in the 
Great Pumpkin, he (Does the Great Pumpkin have a gender?) doesn't seem to 
have actually shown up very often.

Since Halloween is sort of associated with the kinds of things you see in 
horror movies, I suppose some kind of mutant lifeform that looks like 
Halloween decorations could be spreading across the land, but that 
doesn't seem very likely.  For one thing, I would almost certainly have 
seen mention of it in the scientific literature I follow, if not the 
mainstream news media.  There's been no mention of such a thing.  So 
either some super-secret agency is very good at keeping secrets or that's 
not what's going on.

So it looks like the fact that there are Halloween decorations in 
people's yards means that people have been putting them up.


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

Unrelated to Halloween and the elections (or Columbus for that matter) 
other than by a coincidence of timing, I just did a major system upgrade 
on this computer.  The new version is Kubuntu 12.04 LTS, where the "LTS" 
stands for "Long Term Support".  It's supposed to be good until 2017.

As always with new software, there's some stuff that's changed from the 
way it used to be.  That always brings a certain amount of frustration, 
because habits change slowly even when I find I prefer the new way.  It's 
even more annoying when I continue to find myself wishing for the ability 
to do something the old way.

But it's getting there.


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

Are you what the securities lawyers call an "accredited investor"?  Do 
you have more money than brains?  Would you like to get in on the next 
big high-tech thing?  If so, you might want to check out the Antimatter 
Cheeseburger.

The theory is that since the particles that make up antimatter are the 
opposite of those in ordinary matter, eating antimatter cheeseburgers 
will cancel the calories and fat and other not-good-for-you stuff in 
regular cheeseburgers.  So the more you eat the healthier you'll get.

The technology is not ready for market yet.  But we at the Antimatter 
Cheeseburger Group have some idea of some of the steps we'll need to 
take.

First we'll need antimatter.  Small quantities have been produced in the 
laboratory, but since we're going to be making cheeseburgers we'll need 
enough to make cattle.  All that meat and cheese will take a lot of 
cattle, which means we'll need a lot of antimatter.  So we're going to 
have to figure out how to mass-produce the stuff.

Before we can make antimatter cattle we'll need to figure out how to 
manipulate the antimatter to build living cells.  The first ones will 
probably be plant cells, mainly wheat for the buns and also to feed the 
cattle we'll eventually be raising.

We may also want corn, both for cattle feed and for High Fructose Corn 
Syrup, along with other sources of sugar for the sugary soft drinks 
people will want along with their burgers.

This will make the antimatter cheeseburger meal even healthier because 
the sugars in the antimatter drinks most people will want along with 
their burger will cancel even more calories.  And since the drink 
ingredients come from plants, we may be able to bring the antimatter soft 
drinks to market while research on the cattle is still in progress, 
giving us some much-needed early cash flow.

Some officials are talking about a tax on sugary soft drinks.  That will 
be even better for us, since with such a tax in place antimatter sugar 
should qualify for a government rebate.

Be the tax situation as it may, once we have antimatter grains and 
grasses we can then start on the antimatter cattle.

It is obvious from the above that there are fairly major technical 
challenges ahead, but we are confident we will be able to meet them.

For reasons having to do with attitudes of various self-proclaimed 
"experts" toward this type of innovative undertaking we expect most of 
the investors to be from places other than Silicon Valley, with 
backgrounds other than science or engineering.  We welcome this 
diversity.

There are those in high places who, for various conspiracy-type reasons, 
want the American public to be overweight and generally unhealthy.  
Therefore we cannot publicize this opportunity to the public at large.  
Discretion will be necessarily until the product is ready for market.  We 
trust you will understand and just quietly send us money.


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

While editing this issue I did a spell check.  It wanted to replace 
"2245hr" with "Pyhrric".  Why?  It doesn't seem like the kind of spelling 
or typing mistake most people would make.


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

Sleep tight so the ants won't bite.  That's what my parents used to say 
to me at bedtime when I was little.  Now I tend to say it to others.

But what if you don't feel like sleeping?

I suppose you could hire a helicopter to fly around in the dead of night 
with you on a motorcycle dangling from a rope, and whenever you come upon 
an interesting looking building they can set you and the motorcycle down 
on the roof so you can ride around for a while.

You'll probably want an all-terrain bike with good tires to avoid 
skidding, especially if the roof has a steep slope.  You'll want to find 
someone who knows more about motorcycles than I do to advise you on this.

Another possible problem is that if the building is a residence riding a 
motorcycle around on the roof is likely to awaken the residents, 
especially with a helicopter hovering just overhead, and the residents 
are likely to call the cops.

Even if part of the thrill of all this is the risk of getting caught, you 
don't want to actually get caught.  So you need to time things so you can 
be done riding your motorcycle and all hauled up by the helicopter and 
flown away by the time the police arrive.  It may help to use a silent 
black helicopter with no lights, like the CIA and such are rumored to 
have.

Will the police believe the residents if you and your motorcycle and your 
helicopter are gone by the time they get there?  Possibly not, at least 
not at first, because riding a motorcycle around on some random rooftop 
isn't the kind of thing most motorcycle riders tend to do.  That's part 
of the beauty of this scheme.

But as more and more reports come in from various parts of town, 
including perhaps a few from neighbors who get a better look at the whole 
operation than the people whose roof is being ridden on (and maybe also 
get a few images with their smartphones or whatever), they'll begin to 
give credence.  But even then they may have a hard time catching you.

That brings up a reason to wear a helmet, aside from the possibility of a 
spill: Some helmets pretty much hide your face, so even if people take 
pictures of you they won't be able to tell who you are.
 
Stay tuned.  There may be more chapters in this story.  Maybe.


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

One local news item is that they're doing one of those area code overlays 
that will require people in the area to dial eleven digits (including the 
leading "1") for local calls.  I'm wondering why they need that "1".

I understand the logic for requiring it elsewhere, in that it tells the 
system that what follows is an area code rather than a seven-digit local 
number or one of those three-digit special-function things like 911 or an 
international call (which starts with a different special sequence).

But in a overlay area where no one will be dialing seven-digit numbers 
the initial "1" seems to carry no real information.  So why require it?  
If people want to dial it out of habit or whatever, let them, but why not 
make it optional?


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

That bit with the area code overlay reminds me of what may be the 
opposite problem:


                        PHONE BOOTH IN ANTARCTICA


Open with a scene of snow-covered hills
With absolutely no signs of life
And only enough gently moaning wind
To let us know we have sound
And to call attention to the silence.

Then
Behind the title we see a map of Antarctica.
All through the opening credits the camera zooms slowly in
To the place on the White Continent
Closest to no place
While all we hear
Is the gently moaning wind:
The only thing ever to be at home here.

Dissolve to
A view of a broad snowy valley:
Not a tree,
Not a bush,
Not a footprint
Has rumpled that white blanket.

Although the day is gloomy
We can see
Off in the distance
A small building.
The camera moves slowly in
Until we can make it out
To be a phone booth.

We see inside the booth
Close-ups of details
Like a light dusting of snow
In the corners,
On the shelf,
And on the phone.
It is obvious that
No one ever comes here
Except now and then the wind
To flip through the directory.

There are directions for long-distance only
Since from here there is no such thing
As local.

Inspection finished, the camera pulls away.
It leaves no footprints.

We pause a few hundred feet off.
The day looks a little gloomier
And all we hear
Is gently moaning wind.

Then,
Faint in the distance,
We hear the phone ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...
And ring...

And not ring again.



                                     -- Thomas G. Digby
                                     Entered 2245hr  3/06/84
                                     Format  13:38 12/22/2001


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

               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 you can tell which list you 
are on by looking at the email headers.

If the headers include a line like this:

  Silicon Soapware zine with reader comments <ss_talk@lists.plergb.com>

you are getting it via the list that allows comments (some software may 
hide part of the line, but there should be enough visible to recognize 
it).

To comment, simply email your comment to ss_talk@lists.plergb.com (which 
you can often do by hitting "Reply All" or "Reply to List") from the 
address at which you got the zine.  The list will not accept comments 
from non-member addresses.

If the Subject line includes the phrase "SS_Talk Digest" you are getting 
the digest version.  Otherwise you're getting individual items as they 
are posted.

The address for posting comments is the same either way.

If, on the other hand, there's a line like

  "Silicon Soapware no-reply" <ss_zineonly@plergb.com>

you're on the zine-only list.  This list does not expect comments nor 
does it accept replies for posting.  If you need to contact the author 
use bubbles@well.com.

If you are receiving Silicon Soapware and want to unsubscribe or 
otherwise change settings, the relevant URL should be just below this 
section in the copy you received.

Or you can use the plergb.com URL at the beginning of this section to 
navigate to the appropriate subscription form, which will also allow you 
to cancel your subscription or change your settings.

                                -- END --