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Face Photos from Readers
Photo Memory of the Week
Posted: 2025 Apr 04
Poetry of the Week
The Rhodora
- Ralph Waldo EmersonRhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.Posted: 2025 Apr 04
Tag Archives: Technology
We Appreciate Your Business
Thank you for calling the blank-blank-blank. All of our associates/agents/technicians are currently serving other customers. We appreciate your business. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. In the … Continue reading
We Know Where That Information Is
Have you seen a blue binder? From his glassed-in perch, the bulldozer operator frowns for a moment at the note in his hand, looks down suspiciously at the guy with the mop of curly hair who is looking up at … Continue reading
How Long Has it Been?
Thanks to databases and nifty analytics, targeted advertising is almost magic. But nothing is perfect, as some notable clunkers make clear. Isabel: University of Ottawa I glance at the apparently personalized subject line on the email from my professional … Continue reading
There’s An App (er, Site) For That
A chance observation of a billboard for a personal-injury law firm launches deep thought (OK, maybe just a rant) about personal injuries and website proliferation. Injured in a hotel? If a billboard can blare, this one does. Injured in a … Continue reading
One of 55 Million
Ten years ago, on 14 August 2003, and less than two years after 9/11, a power outage affected 45 million people in eight US states and 10 million people in Ontario. There were 55 million stories in the darkened cities. … Continue reading
Computer Illiteracy
The inherent challenge of relying on a machine so complex that I neither understand it nor can repair/maintain it. Waking at zero-dark-hundred, I see the glow of the screen in the otherwise darkened room: my computer is quietly defragging … Continue reading
One for the Road
Anthropomorphizing our GPS would be unreasonable if she weren’t really a person. Continue reading