Drafted while on my travels a couple of weeks ago …. Finally posting it ….

While there were 60 or so people in the ‘pre approved’ TSA line .. for some strange reason there were maybe 3 of us in the non pre approved line. Plain sailing right? Not so fast.

My computers could stay in the bag .. my shoes could stay on .. but my jacket and belt had to come off. #whatever … oh and empty your pockets. I did. Oh .. and take off your shoes (see earlier instruction). I walked into the scanner … and the alarms went off … bugger … had left my phone in the rear pocket of my jeans.

Off it went to get scanned. Meanwhile I now need to be ‘rescanned’.

I was told to stand to the side so i didn’t block the way. I looked behind me .. nobody there.

Eventually some dude appears and I am manually scanned. In a very rigorous, thorough and intimate way. (Though I was allowed to keep my clothes on and no anal probes were used.) Still nobody in my line .. so I asked .. why not just rescan me with the machine?

Because you fucked up

.. replied the Federal TSA agent.

Right then.

All done and I went over to collect my stuff off the conveyor. All there .. no phone. No people. No bags coming through STILL no phone. Eventually they tell me to go to a different line to get my phone.

#Thankyou …

In the big scheme of things - really - who cares - except ..

All of this in a little airport called Palm Springs. Not NYC. Not DFW. Not SFO. Not LAX .. but Palm Springs. I guess the TSA wannabe disease is spreading.

Imagine how you will be treated in a big airport if you make one step out of line - much less the treatment you are going to receive that is actually being reported (though not that much in the mainstream media).

Just composing an email to a friend in the USA … which included the line

Hope all is well with you in the land of the free.

It used to be just a pleasant and different way of greeting that I have used for many years with certain people. And then it hit me … I then spent 5 minutes trying to decide whether to include it or not. I ended up writing …

Hope all is well with you in the ‘land of the free’.

Spotted Art

Schindler’s Lift

Revisiting some of our old walks over the weekend - and seeing this reminded me how often we saw scooters being pulled out from this particular wharf.

This one’s a bit different - Beam were unceremoniously removed from Auckland CBD a little over a year ago - so it has been in there for at least that - and now it’s out .. I wonder where ‘home’ is?

🎬 Cordelia Cupp is my new hero. Absolutely F A N T A S T I C stuff.

The writer Paul William Davies is masterfully channeling David Hare’s ‘rapid exchange’ in the dialogue and Uzo Aduba is brilliant in the role.

I have only watched episode 1 - but I am IN!

💯 🔗 It’s Scorched Earth Time - let’s start with over throwing 🖇️ Chuck.

This is the second post from Indexed with that headline …

🔗 This is the first

I’ve been following 🔗 Umair for years - but - only 10 references to him on this blog (I just counted). I think partly because he sometimes seems do be so out there and partly because he desperately needs a good editor - because he can go on … and on … and on …

Still - when you look at some of his old stuff that was ‘out there’ then .. and you look at today - maybe he isn’t as weird as he sometimes reads. So I commend you to today’s offering ….

What’s going to be left after five years or so of this? What we’ve already seen, and we’re just two months in?

💬 Umair Haque

🔗 Trapping misbehaving bots in an AI Labyrinth - well beyond my technical competence to understand if this will really work - BUT - I applaud the effort - and on the face of it - very clever … swamp the zones where the zone swampers hang.