Don’t know what to know, what not to know, what there is to know. I know nothing, I know everything, but all else I know is that something exists in between nothing and everything.
At the library for the first time in a long while, save for just idly passing through. I don’t see any of the regular fixtures who inhabited this place when I sat here before, save for one librarian, the cranky one who ordered me out of the section reserved for children and young adults. I quit coming her altogether for a while on account of that.
Funny, someone wearing an “OF MICE & MEN” t-shirt just walked in, and moments later someone carrying a bag with those words on it passed by, en route to exiting the premises.
I started reading some Hemingway last night, finding it surprisingly engrossing. Men used to be able to write like men, and maybe they still can.
Kiosk detail continues, though at not quite as urgent or determined a clip as before. The subject is out there, it is in the discussion, and more and more people will continue to associate those kiosks with the demented slo-mo Mr. Softee jingle. That is what I want, to make the jingle synonymous with those obnoxious monoliths, and part of any discussion about them, as with the porn and the encampments. I was thinking earlier that if the whole program crashes and burns (I don’t think it will) then the coast will be clear for me to reveal myself. But I’m not worried about being revealed. It is an open secret, and I am reasonably certain the company itsellf knows exactly who is behind this.
Someone here just announced her phone number: 917-680-xxxx. What to do with this information? Hmmm. OK, Was not planning to be here long anyway, feel like moving on.
Thinking about surveillance again. It seems to be among the activitsts’ leading issues with the kiosks, though nothing has emerged to suggest they are actively being used for real-time surveillance or any kind of widespread deployment. I could be misinformed about this, but it’s the sort of thing that makes me remember why I am no activist. I can’t take a shred of information, neuter it of its context, and run with it. Today it was pointed out that the company website does not point out the existence of the cameras in its illustrations of the kiosks. Are they trying to hide what is a painfully obvious thing? Was the existence of the cameras recently removed from the website? I don’t know except that the website has never volunteered in its top-level specifications of those devices that the cameras are there, probably because they are not in use. They evidently told a Seattle reporter that 37 of the cameras were being deployed in beta mode, but I couldn’t find that reportage.
OK, really am leaving now.
