Ripples 17 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

17 Pereō ante Perdō

A waterfall of papers, notes floating like mist, swirled to the floor.

She glared at the empty folder, the crease fully ripped, the contents now patterned the floor. Her sorting useless.

One by one, she collected the pages and placed them on the table. The torn folder sheets, doubled up, now served as a poor man's clipboard, sans the clip. Like many things, in her life, sans was more often the case.

She shuffled the recovered pages into a slightly tidier pile, the new top page drawing her interest. She tabbed through the new pile selecting like pages. Reading each page, adding to her notes. Reviewing the earlier pages.

Back and forth she went.

The pages she carried away from the Fruit Stand Store, their shiny surface reflecting the poor lighting, declaimed many things. Then they declaimed the opposite.

Lost is not Lost.

Found is not Found.

Theft is not Theft.

Or maybe it is...

Like the jetsam she picked up on the beach, phones were also thrown away. While recycling was often touted, recycling often meant "sending it to a dump in China". The majority of phones ended up in drawers. Some got resold. Some donated.

The news that even old phones could be harnessed against their previous owners, extracting old contact lists, old photos, music/videos, stored messages and emails made them gold mines to those so interested.

The phoront separated from its human host could no longer pretend to protect the host's interest, and regurgitated it's contents readily. Subjected to indignities, lies, and mistreatment, the phone had little chance to survive intact. Or rather, survival was re‑determined by the extent of the compromised chips that allowed the phone to function.

The unique identifier that every phone carried could be turned off by the telecom carrier, blacklisting the phone, but depending on the circumstances of how the phone got separated, this often didn't happen or it didn't matter. Much of what the phoront did or didn't, was independent of having an active connection.

Smartphones, she reflected, were a lot like James James Morrison's Mother:

LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.

Because it mattered very much

"how she got down to the end of the town".

Fine Time Art 12 by KimB 2017

Fine Time Art 12 by KimB 2017

My new pet

Its the first of its kind that I've acquired, and I have to learn how to care for it. Its a persnickety thing and very demanding. Its quite self sufficient if left to thrive on its own, but when taken in by a person and treated like a pet, it can require special treatment.

I had been wanting a pet for some time, but wanted one that be more fun to look at than one to walk and play with. I thought about getting a fish. Guppies are fun to watch when they have babies. At one time I had a gold fish I named George that I gave away when I moved out of state, but I wasn't really in the mood for a fish pet.

It wasn't until I watched a PBS nature program that helped me make up my mind. The program featured plants from around the world. Their diversity is amazing as is the ingenious ways plants have of propagating themselves. As the program went from displaying air plants to those living in swampy bog like conditions, I saw what I thought might be the perfect pet. Voila!

My new pet is a Venus Flytrap. In fact I have two. They are in tiny 2inch pots; each having numerous little traps or lips as they are called. I will take them outside with me when I sit out in the cool part of the day. If they don't feed themselves while they are outside, I will have to buy bugs from the pet store for them. In the meantime, the little pots are sitting in a tray of distilled water while I do more research to learn more about Venus Flytraps and other carnivorous plants.

[Editor's update 05/29/2017:
We finally got them to stand still long enough for a photo...]

Venus Flytrap Pets

Ripples 16 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

16 Slight of Hand

Too much information, not enough answers: Life.

She peered over the documents, comparing notes to pages; pages to notes. The Fruit Fone certainly could do a lot of things.

She liked puzzles and games but this wasn't an ordinary puzzle. Or perhaps is was. Just a more complicated one, with lots of waffle in play.

The Fruit Fone had loads of gizmos inside that could detect and tell what was happening to it. It had a gizmo that could tell compass direction. It had a gizmo that could tell how fast the phone was moving. It could tell if the phone was being held in a hand waving it around or if it was moving in a car across town. It could tell up from down, right from left and flipped from flopped.

There was a gizmo that could tell exactly where you are on the planet. Or rather, exactly where the phone was on the planet. This gizmo worked by connecting signals from a host of satellites orbiting the planet.

The idea of so many satellites flying around space was just an accepted part of life. That the number of man made objects being rocketed into orbit just grew and grew over time. She remembered when there was only one satellite: the moon. Now hundreds crowded the area above the Earth creating massive space jams; not without a few collisions, as one satellite might kilter into the course of another.

There was no one sweeping up the debris.

It all fell to Earth.

Eventually.

The Fruit Fone could do just about everything except move on its own. It needed a human to move it. What horses and oxen did for humans, now humans did for robots: a new symbiotic relationship.

The human belief in supremacy, effectively marshaled by robots, assured cooperation. The new human hosts were easily trained to carry the robots to destinations indicated by pixels on a screen. The hum-droid, dutifully hauled the robot, believing that the relationship was of sole benefit to the host: the human.

Of course, that is what all parasites need to accomplish: convincing the host to carry them without complaining too much. By enticing the human into thinking the relationship was beneficial, that they were

eating at the same table

or even at

a table for one

guaranteed the robot phoront, would be mechanically transported by its host without issue.

Hum-drafts hauling billions of silicon robots in their pockets.

Billions and Billions

7 Billion and counting.

Nearing the equal of the 7.5 billion global human population; with 2 billion more every year.

But the robots were vulnerable, with a life cycle of just two years, maintaining the herds of hum-ports was essential. A phone could not survive without its human ... not even a Fruit Fone.

Rule 1: Don't let the Humans know.

Fine Time Art 11 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 11 by Marion 2017

Ripples 15 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

15 Ring Tones

The empty dinner dishes, a summary of her life.

The old pad of paper was filled with notes, the stubby pencil resting along side.

She rested her eyes. Thinking.

So much. So little. Too much. Not enough.

Thoughts spinning and weaving: the magic of neurons.

Cataracts of images, concepts, ideas, spinning, turning, foaming, battling, plunging and merging. The magic of the mind. Unlimited space for thoughts. Limited only by the self.

She let the wilding currents flow, following the ideas as they bucked and plunged into dead ends, tight corners and then converging into a calmer river. Myriad streams coalescing into new understandings, new visions, new pathways.

There were some answers but not the ones she expected.

While it was true a Fruit Fone could find it's owner, it was true only in a limited sense. Too many restrictions. Too many options. Everything had to happen "just so". If even the smallest detail was missed, a lost Fruit Fone was just that: lost.

To start: the battery cannot be dead.

There were lots of reasons why the battery might fail. A bad battery. The battery may not have been charged in a long time or had a full charge. The Fruit Fone may have been in use, doing what Fruit Fones do, the battery draining away. The battery might be damaged along with the entire phone by water, like falling in the ocean.

She considered this last part. Thinking back how she had found the phone on the beach.

• She had picked up a driftwood branch.
• She had seen the phone in the sand.
• She had picked it up.
• She remembered brushing some sand from the phone.
• The sand was damp but drying.

The phone had not been wet.

The phone had not been in the water.

The phone had not come from the ocean.

Fine Time Art 10 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 10 by Marion 2017

New Worries

I have added 3 more worries to those I already had.

After watching a TV program about having over fished the oceans, this is one of them. Fish is 70% of the major source of the worlds food supply, and now we learn that 90% of the worlds fish stock is being fished to their limit or beyond it.

Another addition to my worry list came after reading a news item in the paper about the letter of Wednesday, April 26, 2017, signed by 150 faculty members of the University of Texas to Chancellor William McRaven asking him to reduce methane emissions leaks from oil producing facilities operating on more than 2 million acres of land owned by the University of Texas. Between the years 2009-2014, more than 9,000 wells pumped 11.7 million tons of methane into the air. Oil and gas facilities are main methane producers, but other sources like landfill waste and manure also produce methane gas.

Fear of nuclear accidents have been at the top of the list. Watching the awesome achievement of erecting a dome over the Chernobyl nuclear explosion site was amazing to say the least, but the dome is only a temporary fix. It's planned to last a long time, but this dome was built as the old shell was collapsing. Eventually another larger dome will have to be built when this one starts to collapse, with each succeeding dome being larger and larger to contain the radiation dust.

My grandmother used to tell me not to worry about things that won't make a difference a hundred years from now.

Ripples 14 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

14 Comfort Zone

Comfort flowed through the air.

The simmering pots bubbled and steamed an enveloping serenity.

She placed the discounted chicken pieces in a large pot and covered with water, a bit of salt and a few herbs. She let it simmer until the liquid had absorbed all the flavors. She removed the pieces from the soup and pulled the meat from the bones. Setting this aside, she cut the few vegetables she had procured: potato, carrots, onions, celery and added these to the broth. In a nearby plastic container were a few green beans and sliced cabbage for the finish.

Another pot, she filled with 1 1/2 cups of water and some salt. Once boiling, she added the cup of basmati rice that she had rinsed and set to soak earlier that morning and turned the heat to a slow simmer. 11 minutes on, 10 minutes off: perfection. The cooking rice added its subtle perfume to the bouquet of aromas.

Happiness rising.

The dinner safely in progress, she sat a the worn table watching the steam swirling from the soup. The mist rising, swaying and shifting direction, influenced by imperceptible portents.

A much used and often recycled folder, extracted from the stack of at hand papers, its previous contents replaced atop the precarious pile, now enclosed the brochures and assorted printouts she had carried away from the Fruit Stand Store. She opened the folder, briefly scanning each item, arranging and grouping them in her own ordering. Satisfied with her arrangement, she returned to the first item in the folder.

It's generally best to start at the beginning, she thought.

But then again, she reflected, it was clear, this wasn't actually the beginning.

Fine Time Art 09 by KimB 2017

Fine Time Art 09 by KimB 2017

Why Links Aint Links

[note: Editor's Post]

It seems that a simple topic like "Why isn't a Link a Link?" would be ahhh simple... but it's more complicated and that makes it simple?

Got that?

Hmmm OK

So today's report comes an article ¹ describing how your browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Opera) gets tricked into showing you an address that isn't what it looks like.

It's a curious explanation that enters another aspect of "Why isn't a Link a Link?". One that doesn't get a lot of traction because well.. it just doesn't.

Don't ask me "why"... I dunno.

So starting with the fundamentals (fundamentals are always good for you). Everything done in a computer is a series of 1 and O. Like X O but less friendly.

People Above My Pay Grade, gathered together (and still do) to decide what the 1 and 0 mean. You might think that 1 and 0 are pretty straight forward but ... WRONG!!

It's all in the way it's defined. And there's a whole lot of definitions of what 1 and 0 means. And that's what makes the internet work.

1100 might mean any of hundreds of things depending on the context where it is used.

Because it is rather hard for humans to deal with 1 and 0, I'll use the alphabet as an example.

A B C D E F G

A simple sequence - if you start at A.

ABCDEFG That's left to right, horizontal.

But if you start at the other end with G going right to left its different GFEDCBA.

If you start in the middle with D and go right it wraps around and becomes DEFGABC.

If you start in the middle and go left it's DCBAGFE.

Like playing musical scales. Infinite variations.

So, something with 110001110001000100 can mean a lot of things, depending on where you start from. So those Folks Earning The Big Bucks get together to decide where you start from in different situations.

Sounds good.

Well it's supposed to work but it doesn't.

That's because other More Clever People Than Them figure out ways to trick humans and machines into starting the sequences in the wrong place.

It's like eating a donut from the inside out... messy.

Machines are after all just dumb hunks of metal and plastic but humans on the hand are ... gullible (aka social engineering)².

Upping the ante a bit.

The internet is international. DOHHHHHH SNOOOZE

The blog has a translator option where you can read it in just about any language for which Google has a translation engine.

So A isn't just A. In other countries they use accent marks. In some countries they have more than 26 letters in the alphabet (52 with capitals and lowercase), plus numbers 0-9 and symbols like + / - etc. and lots of other things that need to be displayed. Chinese has 300+ of these. ³

100 0001	A
110 0001	a
100 0010	B
110 0010	b

Ohhhh Ohhhh ... looks like maths...

No worries

If we shove a zero in the right spot

110 0001	a	010 0001	!
110 0010	b	010 0010	"

a becomes a !

and

b becomes a "

Easy as pie!

And that's the problem. It's easy.

So today's report is from an article ¹ describing how some Clever BlockHeads trick your browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Opera) into showing you an address that isn't what it looks like.

Huh???

What it does is take an address that's created in funky sequence and the browser displays it your way.

Hold that thought....

If you are reading this in English (USA) then the characters will look "normal" to you. If you use the translator option, the text will shift to Spanish or French or whatever you select. So the browser displays what you most expect it to show you.

Getting that warm fuzzy feeling yet? Didn't think so..

So these Clever BlockHeads figured out that they can use something like

xy-nnn-zbs08ssy

and get your browser to display this as something you will recognize. I made this one up but the RealDealTrap would use a sequence that would render as a "near perfect" match to what you expect to see. Perhaps some slight shift in the font face but nothing glaring. The hook can be made from some other alphabet like Cyrillic or Chinese or Arabic.

Sort of like a computer homonym.

• row (propel with oars)
• row (argument)
• row (a linear arrangement of seating)

Except this one is purely intended to steal your information. Not that we don't just give it away or have it taken but there are still a few limits.

The issue isn't just English (USA) it can happen in any language. ³

The People Above My Pay Grade defined it to be so. They could fix it if they wanted to.

They don't.

So they won't.

There maybe a specific patch or fix for one instance of this language surfing but the same thing happens with other symbols too.

You like emoji and emoticons? Those happy faces and animated party hat icons? You like that flag flapping one? Because these can contain hidden tag-alongs too. And it's much harder to spot.

Perhaps the flag flapping one oughta flap a red flag ...

So that's today's episode of Why a Link isn't a Link...


KimB Editor
Someday a rant on: Tiny Urls or URL shortening⁴

References
1. https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/04/chrome-firefox-and-opera-unicode-phishing/

This isn’t the apple.com you’re looking for: Chrome, Firefox, Opera users beware
Unicode slight of hand makes it hard for even savvy users to detect impostor sites.
Dan Goodin (US) - Apr 21, 2017 7:26 am UTC

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Coded_Character_Set
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening

Ripples 13 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

13 Antipasto

She entered the market; the driftwood would buy meals for a week.

What was discarded and swept away still had value, if one could see it. Most people did not.

What was trash to one, was a meal to another. As long as the trash was out of sight, the originator could pretend it no longer existed, that somehow, like magic, the item had vanished, but of course, magic doesn't work like that.

You cannot make nothing into something.
You cannot make something into nothing.

The trash remained, transformed by time, decay or perhaps lingering for millennia. You can cover it, bury it or hide it but it remains. A heúrēka for the future.

She started her customary circuit of the store. Moving from one end to the other. Passing much. Selecting little. Stopping at the various gleaning bins, placed in far corners or lesser used pathways where "final mark down" items awaited their dispersal into yet other bins and then to dumps. The poorly placed and peeling 50% Off stickers still hoped to entice buyers too poor to buy in the better lighted areas.

The items were the same, only the lighting was different.

Although now, she noticed that more people hovered over the discounted meats and vegetables. People with jobs but not enough food. People with shelter but not enough nourishment. People dressed well but not dressed in fashion. Gleaning was bargain hunting. Those struggling to stay abreast sheltered their minds from reality. Bargain hunting made reality less bitter.

She riffled though the bins finding some treasures. Meat she could turn into broth. Vegetables to turn it to soup. Dented cans turned pasta to marinara. Magic.

In her pockets, shiny brochures and jumbled printouts also described a magic.

Magic dark. Magic sinister. Magic of a different sort

Fine Time Art 08 by Marion 2017

Fine Time Art 08 by Marion 2017

Baby giraff

I watched April as the giraffe cam streamed live video of her baby giraffe being born.  I've been watching the cam for several weeks along with thousands of other interested persons.  April kept us guessing about the birth day.  She fooled us several times, but she finally gave birth to the baby Saturday morning, the 15th of the month she's named for. 

I took note of the persons watching at the beginning of the birth process; it went from 831,252 people to 1,248,859 people when the baby was actually born.  It was fascinating to watch the baby's effort to stand.  After a few tries, it managed to get all four legs working enough to take a wobbly stance.  As it became more confident, it took a few steps.

It wasn't long before April and her baby began nosing each other to start the bonding process.  The mother giraffe very gently nosed the baby close to her body.  As the minutes went by, the baby became more steady and it wasn't long before the baby was circling around and walking underneath the mother.  It was difficult to tell if the baby was nursing, but after some time, the baby started leaving the mothers side, then coming back to stand near her. 

The baby is boy and there will be a contest to name the baby.    

Pre-Season Garden Report from The Home

A Honey of a Bee Story
Mrs. Bizzy B's ... Bees !!!
April 2017



Honey Bees in the Pot

Whilst prepping the container garden for this years attempt at some tomato’s. peppers, and cukes down here at the home, we discovered that some honey bees had taken up residence in one of the main planter pots used to make a shelf for the container garden ... wow!!

Bees – yikes!!?? Are these safe, or African bees?– is there honey? – how can we save them, or can we? … hmm ...

What to do Percy?

I puzzled on this for a day or so, then realized that our local farmers market folks might be a lead on where to find a bee person for advice. I was hoping – with crossed fingers – to be able to find someone who could help me save, and move the bees – versus an exterminator and killing them!

First, I called our Urban Harvest folks – who coordinate our community gardens and our truck farms and farmers markets. They referred me to the 'Honey Lady', but alas, when I called, she was harvesting honey out of town. She referred me to Shelly – a well known local bee keeper, and teacher of Bee Keeping at the local High School. Shelly was the right call! Here's why! First 3 calls, got me to right to Shelly who is locally known as “The Bee Rescue Lady” !! woo hoo! What a great decision to call the farmers market – the bees will be saved!!!

Shelly was instantly interested and helpful! She immediately came over and inspected, and determined these indeed were nice docile honey bees – not the aggressive “Africanized” bees that are so dangerous to have around. Shelly said she'd be back the next day with a means to capture the hive. They would be rescued, and moved to her acreage with many other bees, and live a nice happy bee life! Yay!

The process to transfer the bees however, had surprisingly many steps and stages over the next few days ... who knew? I did re-discover how super fascinating bees are, and this whole 'close up and personal' episode was a delightful exploration of how bees live and work. Mentally I reviewed all the nature documentaries on bees I've seen over the years, and remembered that as a youth, I loved to visit the Museum of Agriculture. I would sit entranced for long periods of time, by observing the huge bee hive they had behind a glass wall for spectators, and watching the little 'dances', signals, and moves of the workers and drones. Totally engrossing, but I digress!

The next day when Shelly arrived, the first job was to determine if there was even a decent hive, that would transfer! So far, we only had seen a few bees going in and out of the 'drain' holes in the upside down flower pot.

Without any protection or netting ... Shelly gently lifted the container straight up ... but then a curious thing happened. As Shelly picked the pot straight up, out fell a giant 'disc' the size of a dinner platter – and apparently had covered the whole bottom! The bees had actually sealed the opening over the ground, to prevent water and moisture from affecting the honey combs.

The large disc was made of the tan bark bits that had been on the ground under the planter. The bees had glued together all the individual bits of bark to make a large unified disc, and completely seal the bottom. It was a spectacular bit of construction. Shelly had never seen one so perfect. They had sealed the whole inside of the flower pot!! Amazing!

I gently put my cellphone camera on 'selfie' – slid it under the pot while Shelly was holding it up at waist level – and quickly snapped a couple pics. On the playback, we were delighted to discover a beautiful hive with six beautiful combs. It was a well established, healthy hive! Nice!

Once we realized there was a lovely hive, apparently with several hundreds of bees ... the next step was to get a transfer box, and get the hive resettled -- out of the flower pot – into the temporary hive. This was the part we were all excited to watch. How ever is it done?

When Shelly returned the next time, she had a small specially designed cardboard transfer box with several frames slotted into it ... the empty frames are designed just for this process. The box becomes a temporary travel home. It was late in the afternoon by this time, and it was decided to let the roaming bees return home to the flower pot, and start the project of transfer in the morning while most of the bees were out of the hive gathering, so there would be fewest at home to worry about.

The next day, around 10 am, Shelly arrived and brought Cameron (manager of our local farmers market). He is also a bee keeper and came to help open the hive and start the transfer. Cameron got out his sharp serrated knife, and gently began to cut open the side of the heavy plastic planter ... to inspect what was there and what might be transferable. He made a nice opening on the side and we could see the hive working. Fascinating!! They studied how to remove the combs, and keep them intact, and so they could be attached to the frames of the transfer box.



Honey Combs

Once determined that the well established combs could be removed, they were gently and carefully taken out one at a time, and attached to frames with large rubber bands to cinch them. This took quite a few hours, always being careful not to hurt the bees, or cause damage to the combs.

The process to remove and attach the combs to the frames took the best part of a day ... the bees were surprising in that they were so gentle. A bit of bee smoker was used once at the start ... but not really a lot. There was very little need for more smoke later... the one quick puff around the hive at the start was enough. I found it curious that the best bee smoke is made by using local oak leaves and ground debris from where the hive is – somehow this seems to calm the bees.



Bee Carrier

By the end of the afternoon, all the combs had been transferred, and placed in the frames, and all the while, the bees were continuously working and tending the hive – even during all the disruption! The box was closed up, and left in place for the night. The bees that were out, would follow pheromones to the new hive, and find the entry. That evening the harvesting bees returned as dusk fell. By dark they were all home in the new box- hive.! How easy was that?!

That night, all the bees came home to the new box. After dark, Shelly came and got the box with all residents aboard!! They are now living on a lovely acreage, with many other bee hives, and will no doubt continue to be a very productive hive on their own. Bees saved!!

In all this process of moving and attaching combs, drops of honey got everywhere, and of course had to put just a wee drop on my finger – and quickly finding it delicious and sweet, with just a lovely hint of fruitiness. Yum!

Shelly has promised to bring us some honey soon, and we are even talking about putting a small official hive back where these guys were, to continue pollinating the local neighborhood gardens! Apparently they were there a long time – maybe a few years – and never bothered anyone – maybe we can do it again ... properly? All in all though, it has been quite the Bee Adventure!

Shelly will be using the left over materials – the cut away flower pot , and the plug / disc made from the bark, as well as many of these pics and videos for teaching … We got enough photos and video's to even make Ken Burns nervous!

I was surprised that I never needed any protection to get in close with the camera. The bees would check me out, but somehow sense I wasn’t meaning harm ... and they let me put the camera wherever I wanted. There are some great shots of the queen cells with the attending bees... even some of a pest beetle that moves into hives and kills therm – they were saved that fate and have a grand new rebirth!

This has been a great experience and fun project. Very satisfying and rewarding. Bees – and bee photography.. who knew?

Mom grew up on the farm, and Grandad always had bees ... I recall having him tell wonderful tales about keeping his bees, holding swarms in his hands. I saw him pick up a bee many times ... trapped in a window ... and carry it outside! He delighted in his bee's, and now I can understand why, and Mom always has tales of the bees down on the farm – my how we also love when she reminisces about those honeyed golden days too!

Well that’s about all from the home folks ... this is Bea Hunei ... signing off for now.



Honey Bees at Work

Ripples 12 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

12 Glare

The glare was intentional.

Shiny display tables, shiny glass cabinets, shiny polished floors, shiny gizmos bedazzling shiny faces.

Shiny, antiseptic, clean, sterile, dead: an advertisement of flawlessness.

Schools of eager buyers moved through the store, looking at assorted plastic holders and tastefully designed technobabble cards. She followed the circling press until she found a break point and stepped towards a white shiny display cabinet letting the current carry the shoals of buyers along the infinite loop of wants and desires.

An eager shiny face appeared moments later.

"Can I help you?", asked the shiny face.

She smiled and nodded in reply.

Pointing at a Fruit Fone, she began to ask the questions that needed asking. Taking time between each to listen to the eager dialogue and probing softly for what she needed to know most.

Not too fast. Not too slow. Steady on.

She played the "What happens if" game and the "Show me how" game and the eager shiny face happily played along. A few times, she had to replay her lines, hardly comprehending what she heard in response. "Is that so?", "Really?", "How does it do that?" were followed by enthusiastic explanations the shiny face had memorized; designed to convince wannabe shiny faces.

There it was. Right there. Right in front. A colored bull's-eye.

FIND ME

The shiny face explained that: if this and that, and this over here and that over there, and this other thing with this option, a Fruit Fone could find itself. It could say where it was. It could reach out and tell.

There is no such thing as a lost Fruit Fone.

Fine Time Art 07 by R Cane 2017

Fine Time Art 07 by R Cane 2017

Egyptian hieroglyphics

I have a colorful page of Egyptian hieroglyphics, alphabetized in English, on my refrigerator. I got it a number of years ago when I saw an exhibition of the Rosetta Stone. I find television programs about ancient Egypt fascinating and recently watched a documentary on the discovery of deciphering the hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphics is a written form of drawings and symbols, but rather than letters as in our modern English alphabet, the symbols represent sounds. Every time I see the sound symbol glyphs on the fridge, I marvel at the translation achievement.

A French linguist, Champollion, had been obsessed with hieroglyphics from a very young age. He was familiar with the work of Thomas Young, an Englishman, who had discovered cartouches, which were phonetic representatives of Greek names. Further translation remained stymied until Champollion decided to work backwards thru older languages than Coptic, finally focusing on a cartouche with only 4 glyphs.

The first two drawing were unknown, but the repeated pair at the end represented 's'. (/??-s-s). Champollion wondered if the first glyph might represent the Coptic word for sun - ra. (ra-s-s). If he allowed for the omission of vowels, the missing letter had to be 'm'. Only one pharonic name fit....Ramses!

The breakthrough came on September 23, 1827. Champollion shouted to his brother, "Je tiens l'affair'" ('I got it"), and promptly fainted. He remained bedridden for 5 days. On the 27th, his famous report was read at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris.



Fridge and Glyphs

Ripples 11 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

11 Malling

Like water flowing down hill, people flowed into the mall.

Flood tides of people washed along from one store to the next, swirling eddies swept up and deposited in front of store windows then washed away again. An unseen current propelling shoppers along walkways and inlets in hopes that at some will grasp for That Door as a toehold before being swept along to the next embankment of opportunity.

She often wondered how the driftwood branches she collected got to the beach. Unlike the shifting waves of shoppers who flowed into The Mall by choice, the branches often started far away, high in the mountains. Washed down streams and rivers, most of which ended in dammed waterways. Artificial lakes, attempting to hold the power of rain and harness it for human use. The wood, floated down the water ways sometimes to sink, waterlogged into the muddy bottoms, yet always seeking freedom to follow the water. Water: nourisher and reaper.

How the branches made it over the dams she didn't know. Perhaps some sudden rainstorm allowed the branches to continue their journey. Perhaps they managed to find an alternate path, inching along drainage ditches, attempting to avoid the glare of human eyes and crushing machinery.

She followed the schooling shoppers was they flowed thru The Mall, easing her way towards one of the larger eddies. A large pool formed in front of her destination. Slipping free from the rip tide, she entered.

The Fruit Stand Store gathered more that its share of dead wood.

Fine Time Art 06 by KimB 2017

Fine Time Art 06 by KimB 2017