Silicon Soapware #221

[bubbleblower]

Silicon Soapware #221 is out. Look in

http://www.well.com/~bubbles/SS0221.txt

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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 #221
                      New Moon of December 13, 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.


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

This is the time of year when the sunlight seems to have a sort of 
late-afternoon quality to it, even around the middle of the day.

Were I out and about more in the early mornings, and were mornings in 
this area less likely to be cloudy than they are, I might think of it as 
more of an early-morning quality.  But as things are, I tend to associate 
that kind of light with late afternoons.

Either way, it's because the sun is staying low in the sky all day this 
time of year, instead of climbing high during the middle of the day like 
it does in the summer months.  Based on past experience this feeling will 
gradually go away during February.


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

It's not really noticeable yet, but sunset is getting later now.  No, we 
haven't reached the shortest day of the year, but we've passed the date 
of earliest sunset.  That was about a week ago, at least for these 
latitudes.

Now sunrise and sunset are both getting later.  The amount by which 
sunset gets later each day is less than the amount by which sunrise gets 
later, so the days are still getting shorter.

The difference in sunset times from day to day is growing, while the 
difference in sunrise times is getting smaller.  After a few more days 
they will both be getting later at the same rate.  That is the time of 
Solstice, when the days are shortest.  After that the days will start 
getting longer, although the time of latest sunrise won't be until around 
the end of the first week of January.

A similar thing happens in June, when the dates of the earliest sunrise, 
the longest day, and the latest sunset are all different.

Just another bit of seasonal trivia that not everybody is aware of.


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

We're also just a few days away from the Mayan calendar rollover.  Lots 
of stuff has been written about how the world will or won't end then.  
Lots of other stuff has been written about how lots of the earlier stuff 
that had been written about how the world will or won't end then is 
baloney.  And more is being written even now, much of it baloney.

I don't think I have much to add directly to that.  I could in theory 
come up with more baloney to toss onto the pile, but does the world need 
it?  I kind of doubt it, although there's always the chance that I'll 
come up with some new flavor of baloney.  That might be worthwhile.  
Maybe.

Then again, the publication date for this issue is getting close, and it 
doesn't look like I'm likely to come up with any wonderful new flavors of 
end-of-the-world baloney within the next few days.  So don't hold your 
breath waiting.


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

The subject of Spike Jones and his City Slickers came up at a lunch 
get-together.  One of his pieces that I recall from my childhood was 
"Happy New Year," released as the B side of the single "All I Want for 
Christmas is my Two Front Teeth."

The song consists of a number of verses, each being a different band 
member's New Year's resolution, and each being a distinct joke (If you 
want to hear it, it's on YouTube).

When someone played it on their phone one woman said her preteen kid 
would love it.  I can see where that type of humor would appeal to a 
child that age, but I also wonder if he'll get all of the jokes.

Two in particular come to mind.

In one a child who had not been obeying his parents sings "I resolve to 
come more quickly when I'm called / Because my dad just bought a hair 
brush and he's bald."

Just about everybody got the joke back in the late 1940's when the song 
came out, but nowadays, what with corporal punishment of children having 
pretty much gone out of style, how many of those too young to remember 
that era will know that it was once common to spank children with a hair 
brush?

Another person's resolution ended with "I resolve not to tell a corny 
joke.  [phone rings] Hello, what's that?  The church burned down?  Holy 
smoke!"

Is the expression "Holy Smoke!" still in common use nowadays?  Or would 
someone doing a modern version of the song prefer to change the lead-in 
rhyme from "joke" to something like "wit", change the conflagration to a 
plumbing problem, and then bleep the final word because you're not 
supposed to say that on the radio?

Another verse deals with women wearing large hats in movie theaters, 
thereby annoying those sitting behind them whose view of the screen is 
blocked.  That seems to be much less of a problem nowadays, mainly 
because women's hats are smaller than they were back then.  Newer styles 
of theater construction may also have helped.  But even though this is 
not a major problem now, the gag is still pretty much self-explanatory.  
I think the kid will get it OK.

So what jokes from your childhood would a child of today be likely not to 
get?


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

At a recent party the TV happened to be on.  I was sort of partially 
paying attention when I noticed a commercial for some kind of cold 
medicine.  They said it was guaranteed to cut the duration of your cold 
in half.

But then I got to wondering how you judge that.  Some colds last longer 
than others, due to random environmental factors as well as differences 
between virus strains.  So if you take the medicine and the cold does or 
doesn't get better, how do you know if the medicine had anything to do 
with it?

Then it came to me.  They have access to time travel technology, so when 
someone comes in complaining that the medicine didn't help they go back 
and look at timelines in which the person didn't take it.  Did the cold 
last longer in those timelines than in this one?  If so, how much longer?

Once they have that information, they can decide whether or not to give 
the refund.


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

Plenty of people have written about how if Santa Claus were to try to do 
all the stuff the story books have him doing, his sleigh and reindeer 
would have to be supersonic, he would have problems getting into places 
without chimneys, and so on, on and on.

But there's been less written about the economic aspects.

According to the legends, at least as I've heard them, Santa goes around 
giving out toys and such made by elves at a secret workshop at the North 
Pole.  There's no mention of where the raw materials come from.  They're 
apparently just sort of There when they're needed.  Likewise Santa, or 
whoever is running day-to-day operations at the shop, doesn't seem to 
need to buy food or other supplies to keep things running.  To all 
appearances it's a self-contained economy.

But it isn't a strictly closed system.  Even if there are no inputs in 
the form of raw materials and food and such, there is output: The gifts 
Santa distributes at Christmas.  Either there's a hidden source somewhere 
or whatever Santa uses for sustenance and raw materials is not conserved.

The question I'm wondering about right now is what this would do to the 
economy.  I'm concentrating on the US, mainly because the Yuletide 
folklore of other countries varies so much.

According to census data the US population is a little over three hundred 
million.  If Santa gives each American, on average, a thousand dollars' 
worth of stuff, that's about three hundred billion dollars.  That's a 
rough figure, and you can probably argue it up or down by at least a 
factor of two or three, but let's go with it for now.

So what effect would this have?

It's of a similar order of magnitude to things like the bank bailouts or 
the stimulus payments that the Feds have handed out in past years, but it 
doesn't directly stimulate the economy.  It's not money that people can 
go out and spend.  In fact it's sort of the opposite, in that people who 
had been thinking of going out and buying stuff won't have to now that 
Santa Claus has brought it to them for free.  Likewise, retailers won't 
be selling as much stuff because Santa is giving stuff away so people 
won't need to buy it.

There will be some second-order purchases, as when giving someone a 
computer printer leads them to buy more paper and ink.  Many toys 
nowadays use batteries, which people will therefore be buying more of.

Also, some people will have been holding off on buying certain things 
because they felt they couldn't afford it.  But now that Santa has 
brought them a bunch of other stuff they'd been expecting to have to buy, 
they can afford things further down their priority list.

Thus Santa's gift-giving will lead to some economic activity, much of it 
after Christmas.

But there will be many people who won't rush out and buy more stuff.  If 
Santa brings something they'd been planning to buy, they'll put the money 
they would have spent into savings.  Or if they're too poor to have any 
savings, they won't go as deeply into debt as they otherwise would have.  
So for these people gifts from Santa will reduce their total spending.

I don't know for certain, but I suspect the net result would be a slowing 
of the economy.  With people buying less stuff, factories won't need to 
produce as much.  And so on.

But we're getting into areas I'm not expert in.  So what do you think?


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

           Comes now the time for the traditional reprinting of

                            THE CHRISTMAS CAT


Once upon a time in a village
In a little mountain valley in Borschtenstein
Lived a wicked millionaire
Whose hobby was foreclosing mortgages
And sending people out into the snow.
He also took great pride in having
The best Christmas decorations in the village.

Also in this same village
In the little valley in Borschtenstein
Lived a poor family
Whose mortgage, which came due on Christmas,
Was designed to be impossible to pay off.
The Christmas weather forecast was for snow
And the millionaire's eviction lawyers were waiting.

Now this wicked millionaire
In the valley village etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
Also had the monopoly on Christmas trees
To be sure of having the prettiest Christmas decorations
In the whole village.
Thus the poor family had nothing at all
To put their presents under.

Now by chance it so happened
In that village in etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,
The wicked millionaire had evicted his cat
Because its ears and tail were the wrong color
And it hadn't paid its mortgage.
And the poor family had taken it in
And given it a home.

So just before Christmas
When the Good Fairies asked the animals of the village
About people in need and deserving of help
The poor family got the highest recommendation.
"We will help them!" said the elves and fairies,
"They won't have to worry about that mortgage
And they'll have the prettiest Christmas decorations in town!"

The mortgage was really not much problem:
If the millionaire couldn't throw people out into the snow
He wouldn't bother throwing them out at all.
So the elves spoke to the North Wind and they agreed:
No more snow to throw people out into.
Some people in the village would have liked snow to play in
But agreed the sacrifice was for a good cause.

Christmas trees were more of a problem:
They had already given them out to other needy families
And there were none left at all.
They rummaged around in forgotten corners
But not a Christmas tree could they find.
Then someone had an idea:
"Let's decorate their cat!"

While one of the elves who spoke Feline
Worked out the details with the cat
The fairies flew around gathering decorations:
Borrowed bits of light from small stars nobody ever notices,
Streamers of leftover comet tails,
And other assorted trinkets
From odd corners of the universe.

So the poor family gathered around their Christmas cat
And sang songs and opened presents
And had the happiest Christmas imaginable
While all agreed they had the prettiest decorations
The village had ever seen
And the millionaire's eviction lawyers
Waited in vain for snow.

So that is why, to this day,
In that valley village in Borschtenstein,
It never snows
Unless the eviction lawyers are out of town
And every year the millionaire tries to decorate a Christmas cat
But gets nothing for his pains
But bleeding scratches.

EPILOGUE:

While overnight miracles are rare outside of story books,
Even those who learn slowly do learn.
So keep checking the weather reports for Borschtenstein.
If some Christmas it snows there
You will know the millionaire has given up being wicked
And has found a truer meaning 
Of Christmas.


     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                        May you have the happiest
          Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Whatever imaginable!


                             Thomas G. Digby
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


                                first draft written 0115 hr 12/25/74
                                this version edited 2320 hr 12/14/86
                                format cleaned up   14:19 12/22/2001


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

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