Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends"

-- Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst), "When The President Talks To God" ( Full lryics, Recording (iTunes, free).)

I have news. I have deep[*] thoughts. I have witticisms. And I plan to get around to posting those later if I still remember them by the time I get around to sitting down and really writing. But on this morning, I present you with yet another eBay eNtertainment:

Someone is selling a roll of film they found with writing on the outside that says, "CINDY + LINDA 3/04". The seller says, "I found this in the basement of the student co-operative that I live in and naturally assume there are nude - girly pics just waiting to get developed - personally I wana keep the dream alive so I'm not processing it in case its something less exciting."

This reasoning amuses me, at least this morning.

[*] No guarantee of any particular depth implied, as thoughts may have settled during shipment[**].

[**] From Poughkeepsie, NY, by car, which relates to the "I have news" bit.

While the traditional, "open road" cruise control continues to be useful, long drives this past weekend got me thinking about how much I'd like to have an "in traffic" cruise control.

That is, in addition to "maintain this speed", which is only useful if there's either nobody in front of you or there's plenty of room for smooth lane changes as needed to avoid crawling up someone else's tailpipe, I'd like to be able to tell the car, "maintain a following distance of [minimum safe distance + user-specified comfort buffer] seconds from whatever's in front of me".

Such a cruise control would probably need to be linked to the brakes, not just the throttle, and even with the ability to brake it might be good to have a warning tone sound when the car in front decelerates at an unusual rate. (And just as with traditional cruise control, the idea would be simply to make driving a wee bit easier, not to lull the driver into no longer Paying Attention, since what I'm describing is still short of an autopilot.) Additional tweaks to the algorithm would include setting a maximum speed, which would double as the speed setting for reverting to traditional cruise control when there's no vehicle in sensor range, and detecting lane changes (as momentary override plus acquisition of a new sensor target).

This is the front-bumper parallel to what I've wanted on the back of my car for a while now: a rangefinder coupled to my spedometer which would light up a "You Are Too Close" sign whenever someone tailgates me.

1. Simple pleasure: Rainbow.

2. Slightly-less-simple pleasure: That oddly glowy greenish quality of the light that sometimes happens before or after a thunderstorm ... plus a rainbow.