TLA

I wonder.
Are they still together? Was it true love? Where are they now? But most of all I wonder...
How much hell did Bryan catch for spelling errors?

This memorial is in a driveway in an older part of town. From the appearance and location I would guess this to have been from the late 60's or 70's. Possibly older. The house is now a business and the driveway is on a side street behind the deli. It's used for parking now. I also wonder how many people step on this admission and never notice the omission ?

the_heart.jpg a.thurston 2012

Light on

Sometimes I can be a kid. I'm walking around target in the early morning. They have energy efficient light controllers in the freezer aisles. As you move into the aisle the sensors pick up your movement and turn t he lights on in the cases. If there were a lot of people shopping you would most likely never know this. But in the early morning they are fun. you turn into a darken aisle and the lights go on, one case at a time. If you hold still long enough, they go off. I tried to "sneak" into the aisle but the sensors are well placed. They must have had children in mind when they designed them.

The Dishes

The dishes are hard to love. And by dishes I mean the verb. Not the traditional meaning of the verb "to serve up" but the informal common use, to wash the frigging things. I wash dishes. Mostly my own, sometimes others. I find it difficult to cook while they pile up on the counters. But for that very reason I have grown to love the dishes. It's a meditative thing. You can concentrate on the next aspect of the meal while you reduce the mess and clutter. If you have a small place and limited utensils this is important. It's necessary. It's part of your game.

Finding joy in the simple necessary tasks is part of learning to cope with a stress of everyday life. So shut up and pass the sponge.

The New Radar

A few days ago I was shown a demonstration of technology that has me worried. If it falls into the wrong hands it will be disastrous. The wrong hands being defined as the right hands by the law. It's inevitable that it will and so I warn you now.

If you are familiar with  aviation then you will know what a transponder is. If not, then in simple terms, it's a way to identify an individual aircraft by radar. The pilot of the craft sets a code and the air traffic controller knows which plane on the radar screen is yours. Nice feature that's been around for years. Now they would have trouble passing a law requiring these on autos, talk about self incrimination for speeders. What they can do is identify your cell phone. The device I saw could only identified individual devices. It did not tell you who owned them. But it could remotely track the device and calculate your speed. Evil concept if the law could have that data and ID the phone. What places you in the car? A call to a local patrol and they pull you over. The use of proximity keys and Near Field will even make that easier for the bad guys.

This currently only indicates the cell phone was in the car and was on. If you turn it off there is no way to track you. But if you turn it off, how can you text and drive?