Category: Longreads

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The Touch of... A-Maze-ing Laughter, Yue Minjun, Morton Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Being ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #191

This is a bit of a rough sketch for a chapter in a series which began with Come It Said and continued to Like a Hammer on a Drum. These stories revolve around the idea of a sort of ‘electric Buddha’ I’ve been toying with for years.

Also, my apologies for the lateness of this week’s challenge. I had to work today, and then this much prose takes much longer to pen than a poem. 😉

The situational awareness of a Series 25 is pretty hard for a mere human to wrap their head around. While these battle droids are equipped with a pair of excellent optical sensors, positioned to replicate the appearance of a predator’s stereo vision, it is their internal sensors which provide the bulk of their operational data. These include radar (both atmospheric and ground-penetrating), with full sonic and electro-magnetic spectrum arrays. Their entire body acts as an antenna, collecting sensory data in a sphere up to a one kilometer radius. The Quantum Processing Unit parses and analyzes this data in real-time, determining all relevant threats in the sensory sphere and developing ongoing action plans for eliminating them.

I talked with a droid designer once who said there was really no way of putting an upper-limit on how fast a 25 can assess and respond to every situational detail of a battle in terms I could understand. “But,” she said, “if you can imagine beating Bobby Fisher at chess one hundred million times in a nanosecond while simultaneously playing every instrument for a full orchestra’s rendition of the William Tell Overture, you’ll have an inkling.”

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Prayer Wheels, Labrang Si Monastery, Xiahe, Gansu Province, The People's Republic of China

Prayer Wheels

Clockwise. Always clockwise. Clockwise round. Walking, spinning. Always clockwise. The wheels turn, continue turning, after they pass. Some turn and turn and turn while others fight against the inertia. Pilgrims, bright and tattered, or bright, or tattered. Some of these too will turn and turn, always clockwise, round the cluster of buildings capped in gold and brass at Labrangsi.

I will not count them: the prayer wheels, the meters, the pilgrims, the steps, the number of times I will feel the smooth patina of wood against my palm. I say to Emma: “I want to do this.” She assents.

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End of the Trail of Tears

End of the Trail of Tears

“My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.”
~ Andrew Jackson

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ROY G. BIV

WordPress Photo Challenge: ROY G. BIV

It began with a drive down the Sea-to-Sky Highway, returning to Vancouver from Whistler. While still in the mountains, I shot The Tantalus Range from Cheakamus Canyon, just off the highway. Further along, after passing through Squamish, the light was pretty awesome all along Howe Sound, so I pulled off at Britannia Beach by the old Customs House to look for some landscape/seascape photo opportunities. I may yet get a few images out of that, but it wasn’t until I was on my way back to the car, ready to head off, that I noticed the sailboat. The sailboat is where this story begins.