Yesterday the Better Half and I drove past one of the local sugarbushes. She noticed they had their sap collection tubing strung. A little farther down the road, as we crossed the St. Croix river, she spotted a fisherman, in a boat, on the open water of the river. This is not usual for early February in the North Country.
Today, as we drove home from a mid-morning visit to the Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Granddaughter, in 28℉ temperatures, with cloud covered skies, we noticed the dusting of snow on the road edges was melting. Neither of us has the slightest idea how to explain that, since the overnight temperatures had stayed well below freezing and there had been no noticeable sunshine all morning.
 |
| phone lines: threads by which we hang?
Photo by J. Harrington
|
Yesterday’s ultra-ultra-slow internet service has been restored to its usual less than broadband speeds, after only about 36 hours of effective outage. I suspect things will get worse before they get better. Why? Here’s some examples:
- Landline Phone Owners Are Protesting AT&T’s Plans to Drop Service
- Still love your landline? Phone service providers are getting closer to phasing it out
- Fiber cut along North Shore exposes vulnerabilities in tech-dependent world
- Chinese hackers infiltrated plane, train and water systems for five years, US says
We have created, and are becoming increasingly dependent on, systems that are insufficiently reliable relative to their criticality. Who in the US government is the systems agency responsible for thinking about the system of systems we depend on? It might be helpful to think about something more than short term self indulgence come next November.
The Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak
In a countryside green as a dollar bill,
with the much handled commercial vegetation
from around mall parking lots or in freeway divides,
in a landscape where the wireless has been shut off,
emoji are at war. Emoji are at war
in the mural outside the employee cafeteria
for reading The Things They Carried or Yellow Birds
or The Red Badge of Courage: instead of eating,
emoji are at war.Outfitted in a list supplied by Wikipedia,
(breastplates, gauntlets, steel collars, mail shirts,
vambrace, pouldron, bassinet, barbute, aventail),
chain armor from a 3-d printer for a smaller budget,
emoji are at war: Blushing Emoji, Frustrated, Weeping,
Smiling Emoji near the village firewall,
& a thousand spears like toothpicks,
emoji are at war.It’s like Where’s Waldo. It’s like Pac Man.
I spot with my little eye in the “watch-fires of a hundred
circling camps” two generals outside a recharging tent,
a tiny banner unfurling PRIVACY * NET NEUTRALITY
* DEREGULATION. Sound of emoji blood
as the Smiling Emoji advance, swallowing everything,
going postal, kamikaze, road rage, suicide bomber
“hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,”
sound of emoji blood.A sword pierces Blushing Emoji #956, Pram’s son,
below the groin, and “the dark came whirling down
across his eyes”; a hurled spear is shot through the temple of
Angry Emoji #23, only son of Matthew Thornton
of Boston, and “the dark came swirling thick across his eyes,”
sound of emoji blood. Sound of Emoji blood as Weeping
Emoji #3,418, daughter of the river god, a bullet
plunging into her lung, lodges in the “mortal spot,”
scream fumes.Outside the village firewall, internet access was slowing
way, way down until the CEO who has her eye on Jim,
a Cubicle Emoji, petitions the Board of Directors
to rescue Jim from his jangling fate of war, seduces him,
gives birth to a daughter ½ Hollywood, ½ New Jersey mortal,
with a weak ankle…Emoji were at war.The CAPS LOCK is on,
so this story ends at the door to the men’s restroom.
For we have seen,I have seen, you have seen, they have seen how emoji blood sounds
like a ring tone of a 50 gun salute in a thousand wavy ploughed
lines, lines, lines, lines where truth is marching on.
********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment