Tuesday, July 30, 2019

You Lose Something Every Day ~Willie Perdomo

https://poets.org/poem/you-lose-something-every-day




Monday, July 29, 2019

While I Slept ~Navtej Bharati

While I Slept ~Navtej Bharati


Why Is There Confetti In So Many Taser Guns?

http://mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confetti-in-so-many-taser-guns?fbclid=IwAR28XedfE_sOQdwTpfX_aydv20ZHCi6wcECgiQPp50KnJ3Q066RtBzukJgkone of the advantages of walking daily (besides the whole getting healthier, losing weight, blah, blah blah is having the  to listen to more podcasts—something i lost when i stopped longer commutes (which i don't miss, by the by)

anyway, today learned that many tasers have confetti which contain trackers in it


When a Taser gun is deployed, two probes are fired up to 10.6 metres, attaching to the body through up to 5cm of clothing and creating an electrical circuit between the gun and the victim’s muscles and nerves.
Normal gun manufacturers use various techniques to make every barrel unique. When a bullet passes through the barrel, it produces individual markings and these can be used to analyse whether the bullet was fired from a particular gun.
But, unlike regular gun bullets, the Taser probes are not able to leave an identifying mark that would lead investigators back to the person that fired them.
So in 1993 the AFID system was created. Now, when many Taser guns are fired, they disperse dozens of colourful anti-felon identification (AFID) tags, which resemble confetti and are printed with tiny serial numbers. It would be very time-consuming to pick all the tags up and so inevitably the police are able to find some and trace the gun that was used.
Huge swathes of law enforcement officers also carry this variety of Taser, which helps in determining overall accountability when the gun is used in the line of duty, although it’s mainly used to trace personal Taser use.
"What it is doing is preventing people from doing crimes," says Taser Vice President Steve Tuttle. "It tells the owner, if you do, you're putting twenty to thirty [business cards] out there."
"There's a ninety-eight per cent chance that when you deploy this, good luck, because we're going to catch you."

I also highly recommend listening A Violin’s Life by Frank Almond at the moth

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Horses ~Witter Bynner - 1881-1968

i've always had mixed feelings about trying to interpret another's words
but i know from my own writing workshops that other people often find things in my own words that i didn't know were there until they brought them out, and when they point them out i realize they were there all along. We all colour things with our own thoughts and experiences (and that's why movies NEVER live up to books, but can be great on their own) but once you put a creative work out into the world it no longer belongs to you alone (though your interpretation has more meaning than others', theirs has some validity as well--it might also have something to do with why, although i still want to write, i don't really want to publish, ironic though it may be, i'm stating it here...
Horses ~Witter Bynner