Evanston: no longer alarming
Evanston: no longer alarming
For several years and several countries I have been setting off shop-lifting alarms in stores. In some it happens intermittently; in some constantly to the point I don’t like to go into the nearest Walgreens.
I have tried repeatedly to figure out the cause without success, until last week at Barnes and Noble where the alarm went off as I entered. When paying for my books at the cash register, I advised the clerk that I was almost certainly going to set off the alarm on the way out. I did. She was not busy, so we experimented and through a process of elimination discovered that the unexpected culprit is my ostrich skin billfold bought in South Africa in 2002. There is not the slightest sign of a tag. No bulge inside the lining. Nothing. But the alarm did not like that wallet.
So I bought a new one and dissected the old one. Sure enough, glued to the inside of the leather, covered by a sewn lining, was a thin foil barcode sticker. Even if you knew it was there when you bought the wallet, there was no way to remove it without destroying the lining. I would ask what was whoever put it there thinking, but obviously they were not thinking at all.
I liked that wallet. It still had some good years in it. But it is in the trash. And I am no longer alarming.
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I predicted that the outcome of the America’s Cup would be apparent not later than half-way up the first leg of the first race. If anyone is still accepting bets, put your money on Alinghi.
The start was fairly even, with New Zealand perhaps having a minor advantage. But as I watched the boats head upwind, it seemed that Alinghi was moving slightly more smoothly through the water. She was ahead at the first windward mark and has an even greater speed advantage downwind.
New Zealand will probably try to be more aggressive in subsequent starts. If she can clearly win a start or get Alinghi to foul, she might be able to keep ahead and win a race. Otherwise she is going to have to hope for lucky wind-shifts or equipment failure on Alinghi.
There isn’t much between the boats, but the Swiss Kiwis are going to beat the Arab Kiwis, and the Cup is going to remain in Europe.
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The above photos are the self-indulgence of an old man with new toys: before and after Aperture manipulation of an image of metal shoring up the entrance to the lagoon at Northwestern’s campus, taken with my new camera a couple of days ago.
(Sometime since writing the above, in an effort to keep down the size of my Aperture library, I must have deleted the ‘before’ photograph.)
I’m getting used to Aperture. I read that Lightroom may be better, but I’ve already invested too much time learning the first. Reports that Aperture is slow seem valid. It is the first program that has caused me to wish that I had more than 2 GB of RAM.
Saturday, June 23, 2007