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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 09/11/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 11
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824/bucc.htm.
Evelyn Leeper Bucconeer (Worldcon) report. [-ecl]
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2. My local grocery has a machine that sorts and counts coins at
the cost of a hefty 7.5%. The labeling says "Turn your coins into
cash!" I can imagine it keeping 7.5% and having the rest of the
coins drop out below with a little card that says "Coins are cash,
sucker." [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. I got a piece of e-mail from somebody who was asking what is it
about new cars that honk when you leave them? I don't know if you
have noticed, but cars have changed in the way that you protect
them. It used to be that if you left a car you pushed down on the
lock button at the base of the window and as you closed the door
you held the button in. It was nice and quiet, at least as long as
you didn't slam the door. That was nice enough while it lasted.
Of course, there was the possibility that if you left a crack in
the window for air circulation someone would come along with a
little wire noose. They would drop it around the neck of the lock
button and pull it up. In those days the button got wider at the
top so there was something to grab onto. Well, the auto industry
said the safe way around this problem was to make a button that did
not get wider at the top. It was just a stick. You pinched it
hard to pull up on it. Then to make it look good they made the
button smooth and with a mirrored finish. Or perhaps it was
chrome-plated. That meant there was little friction on the button.
It made the button really nice-looking and at the same time made it
a lot harder to use. Particularly if you hands were sweaty these
buttons were hard to use. You could not even tell by looking if
the button was up or down. This is the same sort of incoherent
thought surrogate that cause the auto industry to recess the bumper
of a car so that the frame shielded the bumper, rather than the
other way around.
Then they came up with a new sort of lock. It was a combination
lock so you did not have to carry your half-ounce key. Instead you
would learn a number combination. You just push the right three
buttons and the door was unlocked. By just knowing the right
buttons you prove to your car that you are either the car's owner
or someone who was using binoculars to watch the owner unlock his
car. Now there is a new lock. The newest way to lock you car
seems to be to get out and point a little contraption at it and
push what looks like a toy button. The door locks itself and the
horn beeps to show that all systems are functioning normally. So
you want to honk your horn each time you lock your car door. The
worst you used to fact is the sound of a slam. But people all
around know you have arrived, because you cannot lock your door
without honking the horn. James Bond does not want one of these.
Is this what technology has brought us? Is there not enough noise
pollution as it is? That honking is going to be darn irritating
after a while. The best I can say is perhaps it will not be as
irritating as car alarms. Why people get these things and leave
them on a hair-trigger is beyond me. All over New York you hear
car alarms going off and nobody is around them. Have you heard the
one that is a Tutti-frutti collection of different car alarms?
There is a klaxon-like a submarine is diving. There is a jackass
bray like European police cars had during WWII, there is the slide
whistle, there is the buzzer, there are about eight others. And
every ten seconds the alarm changes from one to the other. It is
the most irritating thing and you hear this thing all over
Manhattan these days. I say that it should be a law. If your car
burglar alarm goes off and disturbs the neighborhood, you have to
be able to prove that someone was trying to break into you car. If
not, you have to be whacked with a large fine or better yet, The
Club. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619