Phone Backgrounds Quotes

Another night then,' Mom said. 'Maybe on the weekend we can have a barbecue and invite your sister.' 'Or,' I said turning to Rafe, 'if you want to skip the whole awkward meet-the-family social event you could just submit your life story including your view on politics religion and every social issue imaginable along with anything else you think they might need to conduct a thorough background check.' Mom sighed. 'I really don't know why we even bother trying to be subtle around you.' 'Neither do I. It's not like he isn't going to realize he's being vetted as daughter-dating material.' Rafe grinned. 'So we are dating.' 'No. You have to pass the parental exam first. It'll take you awhile to compile the data. They'd like it in triplicate.' I turned to my parents. 'We have Kenjii. We have my cell phone. Since we aren't yet officially dating I'm sure you'll agree that's all the protection we need.' Dad choked on his coffee.

We’d said we’d keep in touch. But touch is not something you can do from a distance. Touch is not something you can keep; as soon as it’s gone, it’s gone. We should have said we’d keep in words, because they are all we can string between us-words on a telephone line, words appearing on a screen. But they cause more complications than clarity. On the phone, there are always voices in the background. On the screen, there are always the sentences saying he has to go.

Eventually she fell asleep, but I kept the phone against my ear, lulled by her breathing, and her breathing again in the background. And yes, it felt like home. Like everything belonged exactly where it was.

I love when I reach Marcus on the phone and as he says hello, I can hear the music he's listening to in the background. That music is the sound of him without me. How he surrounds himself when I'm not there, which is almost all the time.

Georgie took out her phone. 'I want to take a picture of you two.' She held up her phone and motioned for us to get together. Darcy and I lined up against the railing. 'No, I need you closer together to get you both in the photo,' she instructed. I had taken countless pictures on the waterfront and I knew that if you were getting the skyline in the background, you didn't need to be that close. Darcy put his arm around my shoulder and we leaned in. I slipped my arm around his waist and I noticed how easily I fit into the little nook on his side. 'Oh, hold on, I'm having problems.' Georgie played with her phone for a few moments while we just stood there in our posed embrace. 'Georgie...' She looked up at her brother and blushed. 'Um, I think it works now.

She said, “Do you see how I’m wearing this apron? It means I’m working. For a living.” The unconcerned expression didn’t flag. He said, “I’ll take care of it.” She echoed, “Take care of it?” “Yeah. How much do you make in an hour? I’ll take care of it. And I’ll talk to your manager.” For a moment, Blue was actually lost for words. She had never believed people who claimed to be speechless, but she was. She opened her mouth, and at first, all that came out was air. Then something like the beginning of a laugh. Then finally, she managed to sputter, “I am not a prostitute.” The Aglionby boy appeared puzzled for a long moment, and then realization dawned. “Oh, that was not how I meant it. That is not what I said.” “That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don’t know how it works with the real world, but . . . but . . .” Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but now what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. “Most girls, when they’re interested in a guy, will sit with them for free.” To his credit, the Aglionby boy didn’t speak right away. Instead, he thought for a moment and then he said, without heat, “You said you were working for living. I thought it’d be rude to not take that into account. I’m sorry you’re insulted. I see where you’re coming from, but I feel it’s a little unair that you’re not doing the same for me.” “I feel you’re being condescending,” Blue said. In the background, she caught a glimpse of Soldier Boy making a plane of his hand. It was crashing and weaving toward the table surface while Smudgy Boy gulped laughter down. The elegant boy held his palm over his face in exaggerated horror, fingers spread just enough that she could see him wince. “Dear God,” remarked Cell Phone boy. “I don’t know what else to say.” “Sorry,” she recommended. “I said that already.” Blue considered. “Then ‘bye.’” He made a little gesture at his chest that she thought was supposed to mean he was curtsying or bowing or something sarcastically gentleman-like.

For most affairs, this eventually becomes the most fundamental of questions, the only one that matters: Do we love each other more than the lives we already have? It is the question that hovers in the background of every secret phone call, flavors every tryst with the head of possibilities of apocalypse and renewal; and it is the answer to that question, or the lack thereof, that so often dooms an affair to failure.

For the entire summer, Lane’s cell phone background was a picture of Jared eating Lucky Charms out of the Kelly Cup. Jared’s was, of course, that shot of his that blocked Lane’s would-be goal. According to Jared, it was going to stay that way until he had a picture of Lane drinking Dr Pepper out of Lord Stanley’s Cup to replace it with. He liked to call it incentive.

He called her on the road From a lonely cold hotel room Just to hear her say I love you one more time But when he heard the sound Of the kids laughing in the background He had to wipe away a tear from his eye A little voice came on the phone Said "Daddy when you coming home" He said the first thing that came to his mind I'm already there Take a look around I'm the sunshine in your hair I'm the shadow on the ground I'm the whisper in the wind I'm your imaginary friend And I know I'm in your prayers Oh I'm already there She got back on the phone Said I really miss you darling Don't worry about the kids they'll be alright Wish I was in your arms Lying right there beside you But I know that I'll be in your dreams tonight And I'll gently kiss your lips Touch you with my fingertips So turn out the light and close your eyes I'm already there Don't make a sound I'm the beat in your heart I'm the moonlight shining down I'm the whisper in the wind And I'll be there until the end Can you feel the love that we share Oh I'm already there We may be a thousand miles apart But I'll be with you wherever you are I'm already there Take a look around I'm the sunshine in your hair I'm the shadow on the ground I'm the whisper in the wind And I'll be there until the end Can you feel the love that we share Oh I'm already there Oh I'm already There

Guy tries to buy a gun, but when he returns, he learns he’s failed the background check. ‘Oh well,’ the guy tells himself. ‘It was worth a try.’ The dealer says to the guy, ‘Hold the phone, buddy. Ask a friend, your brother, your sister, anyone you know, to come in, pass the background check, and we’ll sell the guns to them instead of you. What happens to them afterward is none of our business . . .

She knows she is being watched through the camera in the corner. She waits. If they hadn’t taken her laptop and phone, she would be trying to find background on what this could be about.

In the background, classical music plays from a paint-splattered radio, the New York station with the ancient announcer more frequently heard in doctors’ waiting rooms and other places where signs prohibit the use of cell phones – the last bastions of Beethoven or Chopin or, on racier days, Shostakovich.

Who knows what else is unwittingly documented in people’s phones and hard drives and dusty photo albums, background noise that would swell with meaning to a different audience?

If we are to go by what the movies and novels tell us, falling in love just happens. If it is a Hindi movie, you hear a melodious track in the background, the lyrics usually waxing eloquent about the heroine’s beauty, comparing various parts of her anatomy to the moon, stars, the sun—even Fevicol. This is accompanied by the hero gazing at her with the expression of a glutton discovering a six-course banquet consisting of various gastronomical delights. In real life though, falling in love often happens over a period of time. You see someone gorgeous and get attracted strongly. If you strike up a conversation, find each other likable—or intriguing, as the case may be—then you exchange phone numbers or email ids. After a couple of dates, discovering many things and maybe a kiss or something more, depending on how much in resonance your moral compasses are, the magic happens, and wham, you are in love.

He felt lost long before his mother left his life, he wanted to tell her, but it would ruin their dinner, their night. He thought of Frankie and Molly doing their homework with music and talking and laughter in the background. The doorbell ringing, kids stopping by, Kate on the phone, pots boiling over, everything a chaos of love. Then he thought of himself at their ages, alone in a silent house, listening for a creak on the stairs.

 It’s weird being alone in the museum. It’s dark and eerily quiet: Only the after-hours lights are on—just enough to illuminate the hallways and stop you from tripping over your own feet—and the background music that normally plays all the time is shut off. I quickly organize the flashlights and check their batteries, and when I don’t hear Porter walking around, I stare at the phone sitting at the information desk. How many chances come along like this? I pick up the receiver, press the little red button next to the word ALL, and speak into the phone in a low voice. “Paging Porter Roth to the information desk,” I say formally, my voice crackling through the entire lobby and echoing down the corridors. Then I press the button again and add, “While you’re at it, check your shoes to make sure they’re a match, you bastard. By the way, I still haven’t quite forgiven you for humiliating me. It’s going to take a lot more than a kiss and a cookie to make me forget both that and the time you provoked me in the Hotbox.” I’m only teasing, which I hope he knows. I feel a little drunk on all my megaphone power, so I page one more thing: “PS—You look totally hot in those tight-fitting security guard pants tonight, and I plan to get very handsy with you at the movies, so we better sit in the back row.” I hang up the phone and cover my mouth, silently laughing at myself. Two seconds later, Porter’s footfalls pound down Jay’s corridor—Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! He sounds like a T. rex running from Godzilla. He races into the lobby and slides in front of the information desk, grabbing onto the edge to stop himself, wild curls flying everywhere. His grin is enormous. “Whadidya say ’bout where you want to be puttin’ your hands on me?” he asks breathlessly. “I think you have me confused with someone else,” I tease. His head sags against the desk. I push his hair away from one of his eyes. He looks up at me and asks, “You really still haven’t forgiven me?” “Maybe if you put your hands onme, I might.” “Don’t go getting my hopes up like that.” “Oh, your hopes should be up. Way up.” “Dear God, woman,” he murmurs. “And here I was, thinking you were a classy dame.” “Pfft. You don’t know me at all.” “I aim to find out. What are we still doing here? Let’s blow this place and get to the theater, fast.

All around, the applause of the city, in the leaves and the trees and buildings, and a red-tail hawk shooting over the courts, and some clouds skillful overhead in the blue, and the babysitter in the background, rocking the carriage, and he had the fleeting desire to make the phone calls to Stormont, leave it all at deuce.

You boys gonna keep your hands to yourself?" Dad demanded as we heard in the background from mum, "I hope they don't." Dad covered the phone and said something to Mum and then into the phone, "Well?" "We'll try, Rich." Eli smirked and winked at me while my cheeks heated. Silence on the other end. And the, "Well, shit, at least you're being honest. You know what will happen if you screw her over.

From the pay phone at the library I dialed the number on the Missing poster. An elderly female voice identified it as the Natalie Keene Hotline, but in the background I could hear a dishwasher churning. The woman informed me that so far as she knew, the search was still going in the North Woods. Those who wanted to help should report to the main access road and bring their own water. Record temperatures were expected.

Art Levinson, who was on Apple’s board, was chairing the board meeting of his own company, Genentech, when his cell phone rang and Jobs’s name appeared on the screen. As soon as there was a break, Levinson called him back and heard the news of the tumor. He had a background in cancer biology, and his firm made cancer treatment drugs, so he became an advisor. So did Andy Grove of Intel, who had fought and beaten prostate cancer. Jobs called him that Sunday, and he drove

Yes. According to the charter of the school. One sec.” I held the phone away and called for Ingrid to inform Frau Blümen. Then I returned to the call. “What’s the situation with the press?” I asked. “None so far” came the tense answer over the phone. I could hear people in the background being frantically busy. “There’s been some chatter, but we got this very quickly.” I weighed the situation and took a deep breath. “Cut the city’s communications,” I said. “Excuse me?” came the startled response. “Do it, and call me back when it’s done—wait, Lewis! Are you there?” “Yes, Rook Thomas.

It was awfully quiet. Chicago only gets this quiet when it snows, he thought. And then he flipped open the phone, pressed the voice button, and said “Katherine.” He said it softly, reverently. Five rings and then her voice mail. Hey, it’s Katherine, he heard, and in the background cars rushed by. They’d been walking home together from the RadioShack when she recorded the message. I’m not, uh. And she uhed, he remembered, because he’d goosed her butt as she tried to talk. Uh, at my cell phone, I guess. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. And he remembered everything about it, and also everything about everything else, and why couldn’t he forget and beep. “Hey, it’s Col. I’m standing in a soybean field outside of Gutshot, Tennessee, which is a long story, and it’s hot. K. I’m standing here sweating like I had hyperhidrosis, that disease where you sweat a lot. Crap. That’s not interesting. But anyway, it’s hot, and so I’m thinking about cold to stay cool. And I was remembering walking through the snow coming back from the ridiculous movie. Do you remember that, K? We were on Giddings, and the snow made it so quiet, I couldn’t hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it’s hot, and dead quiet again, and I love you still.” Five minutes later, he was trudging back when his phone began vibrating. He raced back to the spot with good reception and, breathless answered. “Did you listen to the message?” he asked immediately. “I don’t think I need to,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Colin. But I think we made a really good decision.” And he didn’t even care to point out that they hadn’t made a decision, because the sound of her voice felt so good –well not good exactly. It felt like the mysterium tremedum et fascinans, the fear and the fascination. The great and terrible awe.

What’s the matter, Rea?” he said, still sounding half asleep. “What makes you think . . .?” “You wouldn’t have called this late unless you need to talk. Give me a minute to pull my jeans on and I’ll go out in the hallway so I won’t wake the other guys.” Reagen heard several men moan or swear in the background. When times were good, Noah had a room to himself, but when times were bad in the road game he’d sometimes bunk on the floor in someone else’s room. “I’m listening,” he said after a minute. She wanted to hear his voice more than talk, but that would sound strange, so she told him about her dream and how frightened she’d been. “I wish I were there to hug you, Rea. We could cuddle up. You could tell me everything while I slept.” “I wish you were too.” Neither one said anything for a few breaths, and then she whispered, “I miss you so much sometimes. They’d probably never be as close as they’d been in high school. He was a different man and she’d changed as well, but she still missed the Noah who was half kid, half man. “What are you wearing?” he whispered, and for a moment she swore she could hear him smiling. “Shut up.” He laughed. “Just asking. Who knows, one night I might get lucky and you’d be just out of th shower.” “You never give up trying to make me blush.” Her bad mood had vanished. “Come on, Rea, give me a break. I’ve been wondering what you like naked for years. If I ever get too old to wonder, I hope you just shoot me.” “Go to bed, Noah.” “Good night, Rea. Maybe when you go back to dreaming, you’ll dream of me.” “Not likely.” She closed the phone, thinking how he always had enough magic in his pocket to change her mood even if he didn’t have enough to change his dreams.

Still lying on the floor of my bedroom, I took a deep breath and looked at my hand. I felt strange and tingly, almost separated from my body. I wasn’t really here, I told myself. I was in Chicago, and I was watching all of this happen to someone else. It was a movie, maybe on the big screen, maybe cable. But it couldn’t be my life…could it? My phone rang again. It was Marlboro Man. “Hey,” he said. I heard the diesel engine rattling in the background. “I just dropped Mike at the mall.” “Hi,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for doing that.” “I just wanted to tell you that…I’m happy,” he said. My heart leapt out of my chest and shot through the roof. “I am, too,” I said. “Surprised…and happy.” “Oh,” he continued. “I told Mike the news. But he promised he wouldn’t tell anybody.” Oh, Lord, I thought. Marlboro Man obviously has no idea who he’s dealing with.

When I talk on the phone with my brother Ivo, who is a theology instructor at Baylor, he invariably wants to talk politics, and I hear clicking in the background, and I say, Why talk politics, just remember where we are! I used to have that experience with my older brother Vlado in Yugoslavia: I would want to expound my political views, but he would point to the phone, and say, Why talk politics, remember where we are. This is not America. How things have changed! Now I tell my brother Ivo, Remember where we are. This is not Croatia! Now I am tempted to say, Remember where we are. This is not America. We as Americans are being exiled from our country of liberty through the general paranoia being injected into our asses. The total spying which we suspected in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and East Germany, is only now possible, in the States, through credit cards, computers, EZ passes, surveillance cameras, and well-meaning neighbors.

The only people who ever called me were my dad, my brother, assorted Vaders to tell me to come early or late to work (including Sean, but he always sounded grumpy that he had to call me, so it wasn’t as big a thrill as you’d think), Tammy to tell me to come early or late to tennis practice, and Frances. I glanced at the caller ID screen and clicked the phone on. “What’s up, Fanny?” From the time Mom died until I was eleven, Frances the au pair had hung out in the background of my life. Once Sean overheard someone calling her Fanny, whch apparently is a nickname for Frances. We found this shocking. I mean, who has a nickname that’s a synonym for derriere? Who’s named Frances in the first place? So the boys started calling her Fanny the Nanny. Then, Booty the Babysitter. Then, Butt I Don’t Need a Governess. This had everything to do with the nickname Fanny and the fact that she tried not to get upset at being addressed in this undignified manner when she was trying to raise compassionate, responsible children. It had nothing to do with her having an outsized rumpus. Frances had a cute figure, if you could see it under all that hippie-wear.

I have to call your mom,” Stephen said. “You don’t have to do that,” I insisted, my voice mellowing as I returned, almost instantly, to my old self. Manic episodes can fade away as quickly as they arise. “I don’t want her to worry.” Mom was a worrier by nature, and I had tried to spare her the full story of what was happening to me so far. “I have to,” he insisted and coaxed her home number out of me. He stepped into the hallway and waited two interminably long rings before Allen, my stepfather, picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said groggily in his thick Bronx accent. “Allen, it’s Stephen. I’m at the hospital. Susannah had a seizure, but she’s doing fine.” In the background, my mom shouted, “Allen, what is it?” “She’s going to be okay. They’re discharging her,” Stephen continued. Despite my mom’s rising panic, Allen maintained his composure, telling Stephen to go back home and sleep. They would come in the morning. When he hung up the phone, my mom and Allen looked at each other. It was Friday the Thirteenth. My mom felt the foreboding, and she began to cry uncontrollably, certain that something was seriously wrong. It was the first and last time she would allow herself to completely succumb to her emotions in the frightening months that followed.

I call an ambulance and do a mini-intake over the phone but they will not come to help when they hear his background. He is a felon, they say. You have to call the police. I beg. Please help us. This isn’t a criminal matter. They refuse. They disconnect the line. My mother and I go back and forth and decide we have no other choice. I call the local law enforcement office and explain everything. I beg them to go slow. I tell them Monte’s history with police because by now I know how he was beaten and tortured by LA County sheriffs. Two rookies arrive and they are young as fuck. I meet them downstairs. I ask them, What will you do if my brother gets violent? Monte’s never been violent but I am trying to prepare for anything. I’m—we’re—in a place we’ve never been. We’ll just taser him, one responds. No! My God! Absolutely not! I refuse to let them past me until they promise me they won’t hurt him, and when they finally do, I lead them into the apartment, explaining to Monte as I walk through the door, It’s okay. It’s okay. They’re just here to help. And my brother. My big, loving, unwell, good-hearted brother, my brother who has rescued small animals and my brother who has never, never hurt another human being, drops to his knees and begins to cry. His hands are in the air. He is sobbing. Please don’t take me back. Please don’t take me back. I stop cold. I tell the police they have to leave and they do and I get down on the floor. I curl up next to Monte. I hold him as much as he’ll allow.

In an internal panic, I picked up the phone and hurriedly pushed redial. I had to catch Rhonda the Realtor, had to tell her wait, hold off, don’t let it go, I’m not sure, hang on, give me another day…or two…or three. But when the numbers finished dialing, I heard no ringing; instead, in a perfect moment of irony, coincidence, and serendipity, I heard Marlboro Man’s voice on the other end. “Hello?” he asked. “Oh,” I replied. “Hello?” “Hey, you,” he replied. So much for calling Rhonda the Realtor. Three seconds into the phone call, Marlboro Man’s voice had already taken hold. His voice. It weakened my knees, destroyed my focus, ruined my resolve. When I heard his voice, I could think of nothing but wanting to see him again, to be in his presence, to drink him in, to melt like butter in his impossibly strong arms. When I heard his voice, Chicago became nothing but a distant memory. “What’re you up to?” he continued. I could hear cattle in the background. “Oh, just getting a few things done,” I said. “Just tying up a few loose ends.” “You’re not moving to Chicago today, are you?” he said with a chuckle. He was only halfway joking. I laughed, rolling over in my bed and fiddling with the eyelet ruffle on my comforter. “Nope, not today,” I answered. “What are you doing?” “Coming to pick you up in a little bit,” he said. I loved it when he took charge. It made my heart skip a beat, made me feel flushed and excited and thrilled. After four years with J, I was sick and tired of the surfer mentality. Laid-back, I’d discovered, was no longer something I wanted in a man. And when it came to his affection for me, Marlboro Man was anything but that. “I’ll be there at five.” Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. I’ll be ready. With bells on.

By becoming the aggressor in sharing the good news of Christ with everyone in earshot, I became the one doing the influencing for good rather than the one being influenced for evil. I deduced that my Christianity is not about me but about Christ living through me. Jesus Christ represents everything that is truly good about me. Oddly enough, it started with a prank telephone call when I was seventeen. As I was studying the Bible one night, I had just said a prayer in which I asked God for the strength to be more vocal about my faith. All of a sudden, the phone rang and I answered. “Hello?” I asked. No one answered. “Hello?” I asked again. There was still silence on the other end. I started to hang up the phone, but then it hit me. “I’m glad you called,” I said. “You’re just the person I’m looking for.” Much to my surprise, the person on the other end didn’t hang up. “I want to share something with you that I’m really excited about,” I said. “It’s what I put my faith in. You’re the perfect person to hear it.” So then I started sharing the Gospel, and whoever was on the other end never said a word. Every few minutes, I’d hear a little sound, so I knew the person was still listening. After several minutes, I told the person, “I’m going to ask you a few questions. Why don’t you do one beep for no and two beeps for yes? We can play that game.” The person on the other end didn’t say anything. Undaunted by the person’s silence, I took out my Bible and started reading scripture. After a few minutes, I heard pages rustling on the other end of the phone. I knew the person was reading along with me! After a while, every noise I heard got me more excited! At one point, I heard a baby crying in the background. I guessed that the person on the phone was a mother or perhaps a babysitter. I asked her if she needed to go care for her child. She set the phone down and came back a few minutes later. I figured that once I started preaching, she would hang up the phone. But the fact that she didn’t got my adrenaline flowing. For three consecutive hours, I shared the message of God I’d heard from my little church in Luna, Louisiana, and what I’d learned by studying the Bible and listening to others talk about their faith over the last two years. By the time our telephone call ended, I was out of material! “Hey, will you call back tomorrow night?” I asked her. She didn’t say anything and hung up the phone. I wasn’t sure she would call me back the next night. But I hoped she would, and I prepared for what I was going to share with her next. I came across a medical account of Jesus’ death and decided to use it. It was a very graphic account of Jesus dying on a cross. Around ten o’clock the next night, the phone rang. I answered it and there was silence on the other end. My blood and adrenaline started pumping once again! Our second conversation didn’t last as long because I came out firing bullets! I worried my account of Jesus’ death was too graphic and might offend her. But as I told her the story of Jesus’ crucifixion--how He was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, beaten with leather-thonged whips, required to strip naked, forced to wear a crown of thorns on His head, and then crucified with nails staked through His wrists and ankles--I started to hear sobs on the other end of the phone. Then I heard her cry and she hung up the phone. She never called back. Although I never talked to the woman again or learned her identity, my conversations with her empowered me to share the Lord’s message with my friends and even strangers. I came to truly realize it was not about me but about the power in the message of Christ.

And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly. I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It must, it must be a wrong number, somebody wanted the Information Booth or-! It must have been audible outside, with all I had the slide partly closed. One of the redcaps passing by turned, looked over, then started coming across toward where I was. To get rid of him I picked up the receiver, put it to my ear. 'You'd better come out now, time's up,' a flat, deadly voice said. 'They're calling your train, but you're not getting on that one - or any other.' 'Wh-where are talking from?' 'The next booth to yours,' the voice jeered. 'You forgot the glass inserts only reach halfway down.' The connection broke and a man's looming figure was shadowing the glass in front of my eyes, before I could even get the receiver back on the hook. I dropped it full-length, tensed my right arm to pound it through his face as soon as I shoved the glass aside. He had a revolver-bore for a top vest-button, trained on me. Two more had shown up behind him, from which direction I hadn't noticed. It was very dark in the booth now, their collective silhouettes shut out all the daylight. The station and all its friendly bustle was blotted out, had receded into the far background, a thousand miles away for all the help it could give me. I slapped the glass wearily aside, came slowly out. One of them flashed a badge - maybe Crow had loaned him his for the occasion. 'You're being arrested for putting slugs in that phone. It won't do any good to raise your voice and shriek for help, try to tell people different. But suit yourself.' I knew that as well as he; heads turned to stare after us by the dozens as they started with me in their midst through the station's main-level. But not one in all that crowd would have dared interfere with what they mistook for a legitimate arrest in the line of duty. The one with the badge kept it conspicuously tilted in his upturned palm, at sight of which the frozen onlookers slowly parted, made way for us through their midst. I was being led to my doom in full view of scores of people. ("Graves For The Living")

In the meantime, I tried my best to acclimate to my new life in the middle of nowhere. I had to get used to the fact that I lived twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. That I couldn’t just run next door when I ran out of eggs. That there was no such thing as sushi. Not that it would matter, anyway. No cowboy on the ranch would touch it. That’s bait, they’d say, laughing at any city person who would convince themselves that such a food was tasty. And the trash truck: there wasn’t one. In this strange new land, there was no infrastructure for dealing with trash. There were cows in my yard, and they pooped everywhere--on the porch, in the yard, even on my car if they happened to be walking near it when they dropped a load. There wasn’t a yard crew to clean it up. I wanted to hire people, but there were no people. The reality of my situation grew more crystal clear every day. One morning, after I choked down a bowl of cereal, I looked outside the window and saw a mountain lion siting on the hood of my car, licking his paws--likely, I imagined, after tearing a neighboring rancher’s wife from limb to limb and eating her for breakfast. I darted to the phone and called Marlboro Man, telling him there was a mountain lion sitting on my car. My heart beat inside my chest. I had no idea mountain lions were indigenous to the area. “It’s probably just a bobcat,” Marlboro Man reassured me. I didn’t believe him. “No way--it’s huge,” I cried. “It’s seriously got to be a mountain lion!” “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Cows mooed in the background. I hung up the phone, incredulous at Marlboro Man’s lack of concern, and banged on the window with the palm of my hand, hoping to scare the wild cat away. But it only looked up and stared at me through the window, imagining me on a plate with a side of pureed trout. My courtship with Marlboro Man, filled with fizzy romance, hadn’t prepared me for any of this; not the mice I heard scratching in the wall next to my bed, not the flat tires I got from driving my car up and down the jagged gravel roads. Before I got married, I didn’t know how to use a jack or a crowbar…and I didn’t want to have to learn now. I didn’t want to know that the smell in the laundry room was a dead rodent. I’d never smelled a dead rodent in my life: why, when I was supposed to be a young, euphoric newlywed, was I being forced to smell one now? During the day, I was cranky. At night, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept through the night once since we returned from our honeymoon. Besides the nausea, whose second evil wave typically hit right at bedtime, I was downright spooked. As I lay next to Marlboro Man, who slept like a baby every night, I thought of monsters and serial killers: Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson. In the utter silence of the country, every tiny sound was amplified; I was certain if I let myself go to sleep, the murderer outside our window would get me.

We need to be humble enough to recognize that unforeseen things can and do happen that are nobody’s fault. A good example of this occurred during the making of Toy Story 2. Earlier, when I described the evolution of that movie, I explained that our decision to overhaul the film so late in the game led to a meltdown of our workforce. This meltdown was the big unexpected event, and our response to it became part of our mythology. But about ten months before the reboot was ordered, in the winter of 1998, we’d been hit with a series of three smaller, random events—the first of which would threaten the future of Pixar. To understand this first event, you need to know that we rely on Unix and Linux machines to store the thousands of computer files that comprise all the shots of any given film. And on those machines, there is a command—/bin/rm -r -f *—that removes everything on the file system as fast as it can. Hearing that, you can probably anticipate what’s coming: Somehow, by accident, someone used this command on the drives where the Toy Story 2 files were kept. Not just some of the files, either. All of the data that made up the pictures, from objects to backgrounds, from lighting to shading, was dumped out of the system. First, Woody’s hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely. One by one, the other characters began to vanish, too: Buzz, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Rex. Whole sequences—poof!—were deleted from the drive. Oren Jacobs, one of the lead technical directors on the movie, remembers watching this occur in real time. At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, he was frantically dialing the phone to reach systems. “Pull out the plug on the Toy Story 2 master machine!” he screamed. When the guy on the other end asked, sensibly, why, Oren screamed louder: “Please, God, just pull it out as fast as you can!” The systems guy moved quickly, but still, two years of work—90 percent of the film—had been erased in a matter of seconds. An hour later, Oren and his boss, Galyn Susman, were in my office, trying to figure out what we would do next. “Don’t worry,” we all reassured each other. “We’ll restore the data from the backup system tonight. We’ll only lose half a day of work.” But then came random event number two: The backup system, we discovered, hadn’t been working correctly. The mechanism we had in place specifically to help us recover from data failures had itself failed. Toy Story 2 was gone and, at this point, the urge to panic was quite real. To reassemble the film would have taken thirty people a solid year. I remember the meeting when, as this devastating reality began to sink in, the company’s leaders gathered in a conference room to discuss our options—of which there seemed to be none. Then, about an hour into our discussion, Galyn Susman, the movie’s supervising technical director, remembered something: “Wait,” she said. “I might have a backup on my home computer.” About six months before, Galyn had had her second baby, which required that she spend more of her time working from home. To make that process more convenient, she’d set up a system that copied the entire film database to her home computer, automatically, once a week. This—our third random event—would be our salvation. Within a minute of her epiphany, Galyn and Oren were in her Volvo, speeding to her home in San Anselmo. They got her computer, wrapped it in blankets, and placed it carefully in the backseat. Then they drove in the slow lane all the way back to the office, where the machine was, as Oren describes it, “carried into Pixar like an Egyptian pharaoh.” Thanks to Galyn’s files, Woody was back—along with the rest of the movie.

Saving Lives and Protecting Rights in Translation It is said that life and death are under the power of language. —Hélène Cixous, French author and philosopher Lifeline The phone rings, jolting me to attention. It’s almost midnight on a Friday night. I didn’t want to work the late shift, but the need for my work never sleeps. Most of the calls I get at this late hour are from emergency dispatchers for police, fire, and ambulance. They often consist of misdials, hang-ups, and other nonemergencies. I’ve been working since early this morning, and I’m just not in the mood tonight to hear someone complain about a neighbor’s television being turned up too loud. But someone has got to take the call. I pick up before it rings a second time. “Interpreter three nine four zero speaking, how may I help you?” The dispatcher wastes no time with pleasantries. “Find out what’s wrong,” he barks in English. He didn’t ask me to confirm the address, so I assume he must already have police officers headed to the scene. I ask the Spanish speaker how we can help. I wait for a response. Silence. I ask the question again. No answer, but I can hear that there’s someone on the line. We wait, but we don’t hear any response. It’s probably just another child playing with the phone, accidentally dialing 911. I imagine the little guy looking curiously at the phone and pressing the buttons, then staring at it as a voice comes out of the other end. This happens all the time. I turn up the volume on my headset, just in case it might help me pick up the scolding words of a parent in the background. Then suddenly, I hear a timid female voice speaking so quietly that I can barely make out the words. “Me va a matar,” she whispers. The tiny hairs on my arm stand up on end. I swiftly render her words into English: “He’s going to kill me.” Not missing a beat, the dispatcher asks, “Where is he now?” “Outside. I saw him through the window,” I state, after listening to the Spanish version. I’m trying to stay calm and focused, but the fear in the caller’s voice is not only contagious, but essential to the meaning I have to convey. For what seems like an eternity (but is probably just a few seconds), I hear only the beeps of the recorded line and the dispatcher clicking away at his keyboard. I feel impatient. He’s most likely looking to see how far the nearest police officer is from the scene. “Interpreter, find out where she is.

Saving Lives and Protecting Rights in Translation It is said that life and death are under the power of language. —Hélène Cixous, French author and philosopher Lifeline The phone rings, jolting me to attention. It’s almost midnight on a Friday night. I didn’t want to work the late shift, but the need for my work never sleeps. Most of the calls I get at this late hour are from emergency dispatchers for police, fire, and ambulance. They often consist of misdials, hang-ups, and other nonemergencies. I’ve been working since early this morning, and I’m just not in the mood tonight to hear someone complain about a neighbor’s television being turned up too loud. But someone has got to take the call. I pick up before it rings a second time. “Interpreter three nine four zero speaking, how may I help you?” The dispatcher wastes no time with pleasantries. “Find out what’s wrong,” he barks in English. He didn’t ask me to confirm the address, so I assume he must already have police officers headed to the scene. I ask the Spanish speaker how we can help. I wait for a response. Silence. I ask the question again. No answer, but I can hear that there’s someone on the line. We wait, but we don’t hear any response. It’s probably just another child playing with the phone, accidentally dialing 911. I imagine the little guy looking curiously at the phone and pressing the buttons, then staring at it as a voice comes out of the other end. This happens all the time. I turn up the volume on my headset, just in case it might help me pick up the scolding words of a parent in the background. Then suddenly, I hear a timid female voice speaking so quietly that I can barely make out the words. “Me va a matar,” she whispers.

My dad started shouting,” he said, hearing the sharpness, the anger, in the background all over again. “He told her to ask me if I was still a fag.” Casey swallowed and looked at Joe helplessly. “I mean, I turned down a date with Dev to make this phone call, right? He’s… he’s getting damned good at the hand job… thought we might progress from there… and she’s asking me if I’m still ‘one of them’ and I’m thinking, ‘One of what? A boy? A high school student? What the hell am I one of?’ and I say, ‘I still like boys, Mom,’ and suddenly Dad’s got the phone and he’s shouting at me that I didn’t get to come home, ever, if I was still a sissy little—

Why did these men fight? The answer is simple. We were ordinary people molded into Marines. The same can be said of those who served in the army. We all had the proper upbringings of common folk, when you have a task to do, you work hard, give it your best and get the job done. We came from different backgrounds; however, we became a team, moving and fighting as if we had known each other all of our lives. All of us have bonded for life and still keep in touch by phone, letters, and visits. If anyone of the second squad needs help you can be sure the rest of the squad would be there. All of those I have kept in touch with have been successful in the life endeavors they chose. "Not one of them is bitter about giving up two years of their life to 'Serve Their Country'" -George E. Krug

How did the West produce the intense world of visual signs? What were the underlying forces that favored the multiplication of signs? It is generally understood that there is close relationship between capitalism and Christianity. Especially through the Protestant Reformation the Christian faith produced a huge shift to the individual, a man or woman separated out before God. Sociologists and historians recognize that by means of this ideological transition the individual no longer existed within a containing order of duties and rights controlling the distribution of wealth. Wealth instead became a marker of individual divine blessing. Thus the Reformation led to the typical figure of the righteous business man, the mill-owner who made big profits during the week and with them endowed a church for giving thanks on Sunday. More recently we have the emergence of the ‘prosperity gospel’ which applies the same basic formula to everyone. As they say in these churches, ‘prayed for and paid for’, neatly chiming relationship to God and personal financial success. Thus Christianity has underpinned the multiplication of material wealth for individuals. But a consequence of this is the thickening of the world of signs. Prosperity is a sign of God’s favor, and this is shown, signified, by the actual goods, the houses, clothes, cars, etc. Against this metaphysical background, however, the goods very quickly attain their own social value and produce the well-known contours of the consumer world. Once they were declared divinely willed and good they could act as self-referential signs in and for themselves. People don’t have to give any thought to theological justification to derive meaning from the latest car model, from the good-life associations of household items, refrigerators, fitted kitchens, plasma T.V.s, and now from the plugged-in cool of the digital world, computers, cell phones, iPods, G.P.S. and so on. So it is that our Western culture has developed a class of signs with a powerful inner content of validated desire. You

I couldn’t help but smile when my Aunt Bailey answered her phone. “Hey, Liv, whose ass do I need to beat?” “Why do you assume that’s why I’m calling?” I asked with a laugh. It was the first time I had smiled in days. But with Bailey and her spunky attitude, it was hard to avoid. “Because darlin’, I got you figured out. You sent out a mass message to us stating you were studying for finals. You’ve neglected to respond to any messages that followed, and that spells out one thing. Trouble on the college guy front.” I could hear a baby squealing happily in the background. “So I’m gonna ask again. Do I need to catch a plane to Texas and beat the shit out of this Keeton guy I’ve been hearing so much about?” “Are you there?” I asked, because it wasn’t like Bailey to remain so quiet. “Um, yeah,” she said in return. I could hear clicking sounds as if she was typing on a keyboard. “I’m just checking flights to Texas, because this Lacy bitch needs to meet your Aunt Bailey.” “You need to make this Lacy realize she won’t run you off.” I sat silent, letting everything Bailey said sink in. “If he’s who you want, Liv.” I bit down on my lower lip. “If Keeton is who you want, then you have to show her he’s yours.” “I do,” I whispered. I had never felt about anyone else the way I felt about Keeton. But my fear was that the man I was already falling for was a man I didn’t even know.

Yeah.’ Roper sighed again. ‘We’d better get over there. Don’t think this is going to be a pretty one, but Smith wants us on it. Take what we can get, I suppose.’ The phone crackled as he put it down, the hiss of deodorant being sprayed in the background humming in her ear. He picked it up again, breathing into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m heading out now. I’ll send you the case link and meet you there? Or do you want me to pick you up?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m good.’ She didn’t like him being behind the wheel after a night like he’d had. At least not with her in the car. Though she never said it. ‘I’ll see you there.’ ‘Probably take me an hour,’ he grumbled. ‘Traffic’ll be a bitch at this time.’ ‘I’ll see you when I see you.’ He didn’t say anything else before he hung up.  She exhaled slowly and rubbed her head. Henley Smith was the DCI and the unit he ran had a couple of cases going on just then. A homeless heroin addict turning up in a river wasn’t at the top of the priorities list. Roper may have seen it as a win — a way to get back in good with Smith and claw his way back into the meat of things. But all she could think about was some poor homeless kid getting his fingernails ripped off.  She didn’t know why it had happened, but she knew that this city could be brutal. And that it rarely gave an inch. In fact, if you let it, it would eat you alive.  She turned back to the office, ready to tell Cake that she couldn’t stick around, and found him holding out her coffee cup. ‘I put milk in — skimmed, don’t worry — should be cool enough to drink.’ ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking it. ‘Sorry, I’ve gotta go.’ He nodded. ‘I get it. Same time tomorrow?’ She slugged the coffee. ‘Can I let you know?’ ‘Of course.’ Jamie tapped a button on her watch to start tracking her run, and turned for the door. She still needed to get her daily quota in. ‘I can give you a lift if you want?’ Cake offered. ‘No, it’s fine. Probably be faster if I run.’ ‘Probably.’ She nodded to him and then dipped through the door, shaking out her legs as she walked, the sweat on her neck and collarbones already cool in the early-morning air.  Outside the sun was barely up, but the city was churning to life.  Smog was already hanging in the air and the echo of a thousand engines buzzed in the streets like a wasp nest.  She took a few breaths, oxygenating her muscles, and then took off, clenching her fists against the cold.

She opened the case file and attached an audio clip, hitting the background record button. She still had the doctor’s number in her call log and dialled it.  It rang for a while and then went to voicemail. ‘You’ve reached Elliot Day, I can’t get to the phone just now, but if you’d like to leave a message, I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thank you.’ The voice told her he was well-brought-up. South-England native. But she couldn’t place where. ‘Hi,’ she said after the beep. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson. I’d like to speak to you regarding your work at the homeless shelter in Enfield. It’s in accordance with an active investigation. If you could call me back at your earliest convenience, that would be great. Thank you.’ She hung up and sighed, stopped the recording, and then went back to the case file, finding the number for Oliver’s parents. She hit record again, copied it and called them immediately, not wanting to put it off any longer. After three rings, a tired voice answered. ‘Hello?’ ‘Mr Hammond?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘This is Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson with the London Metropolitan Police. I understand that one of my colleagues informed you that I might be getting in touch?’ There was silence for a second and then she heard him swallow. ‘That’s right… But I don’t know what I can tell you,’ he said quietly. It sounded like he was moving from room to room, cupping the phone to his mouth. Maybe he didn’t want Oliver’s mum to hear. ‘Any information you provide could be very useful. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’ ‘Sure,’ he said, his voice small. ‘Would it be okay if I recorded this conversation?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, almost absently. Jamie hated asking it — it never had a positive impact on the conversations that came after. Made them stunted, reserved. But she had to ask.

could always come home? He wasn’t himself, I don’t think — the uh, the…’  He couldn’t say the word. Heroin. ‘It changed him. We hadn’t heard from him for a long time. We didn’t know if he was alive, or… And now…’ He pulled the phone from his ear and started sobbing in the background, the audio muffled as he put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Mr Hammond?’ she asked, forcing the words over the lump in her throat. ‘Mr Hammond?’ He brought the phone back. ‘I’m here, sorry. Sorry, it’s… Sorry.’ ‘That’s alright. Can you tell me when Oliver first started using? Who with, maybe? Did he have any friends, or?’ ‘No, I don’t know. He was always independent, you know? Going to meet friends in the city, and… He had a girlfriend, but we didn’t know who. He wouldn’t tell us. Thought we wouldn’t approve, or… or… I don’t know.’ Grace came to mind. ‘How long ago was this?’ ‘August last year, maybe? Before it all started to, uh…’ ‘That’s great,’ Jamie said, her free hand clenched tightly into a fist. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you. Would it be alright if I gave you a call tomorrow? Or if you’d prefer, I could come to—’ ‘No, no, that’s fine. You can call… I’ll be in work, but… I’ll call you back when I can.’ Jesus. He was going back to work the next day? He didn’t even think about it. Like missing a few days hadn’t even entered the realm of the possible. ‘Okay. Thank you,’ she said. Apologising for it all was bad practice. Even though she wanted to.  ‘Goodbye,’ he said. She left it at that and hung up, letting him process. She had enough to start piecing together a timeline. And an idea of what had happened. At least at the start.

Imagine how difficult it would be to doze off if all of the people you follow on social media were in the room with you, the television was blaring in the background, and several friends were having a political debate. That’s essentially what you’re doing when you bring your phone into bed with you.

Mergers and talent acquisitions would indicate that Apple and Microsoft were onto something similar, and to me, that indicated a possible emerging-trend candidate in ubiquitous virtual assistants. This trend—ubiquitous virtual assistants—meant that our machines would soon learn about us, anticipate our needs, and complete tasks in the background, without our direct request or supervision. The ubiquitous virtual assistant trend would be pervasive, spanning mobile phones at first before moving to other ambient interfaces and operating systems. Perhaps in the future, we might subscribe to a single assistant capable of interoperating with all of the people, devices, and objects in our lives.

What does True Wireless Earbuds Mean Where are my earphones? Ahh!! There they are….and they are tangled (with irksome scream inside your head). There is nothing more frustrating than going on a search operation for your headphones and finally finding them entangled. Well thanks to the advance technology these days one of your daily struggles is gone with the arrival of wireless earphones in the market. No wire means no entanglement. ‘Kill the problem before it kills you’, you know the saying. Right! So what actually truly wireless earbuds are? Why should you replace your old headphones and invest in wireless ones? Without any further delay let’s dig deep into it. image WHAT ARE TRUE WIRELESS EARBUDS? A lot of people misunderstand true wireless earbuds and wireless earphones as the same thing. When it’s not. A true wireless earbuds which solely connects through Bluetooth and not through any wire or cord or through any other source. While wireless earphones are the ones which are connected through Bluetooth to audio source but the connection between the two ear plugs is established through a cable between them. Why true wireless earbuds? Usability: Who doesn’t like freedom! With no wire restrictions, it’s easier to workout without sacrificing your music motivation. From those super stretch yoga asanas to marathon running, from weight training to cycling - you actually can do all those without worrying about your phone safety or the dilemma of where to put them. With no wire and smooth distance connection interface, you have the full freedom of your body movement. They also comes with a charging case so you don’t have to worry about it’s battery. Good audio quality and background noise cancellation: With features like active noise cancellation, which declutter the unwanted background voice giving you the ultimate audio quality. These earbuds has just leveled up the experience of music and prevents you from getting distracted. Comfort and design: These small ear buddies are friendly which snuggles into your ear canal and don’t put too much pressure on your delicate ears as they are light weight. They are style statement maker and are comfortable to use even when you are on move, they stick to your ear and don’t fall off easily. Apart from all that you can easily answer your call on go, pause your music or whatever you are listening, switch to next by just touching your earplugs. image Convenience: You don’t necessarily have to have your phone on you like the wired ones. The farthest distance you could go was the length of the cable. But with wireless ones this is not the case, they could transmit sound waves from 8 meter upto 30 meters varying from model to model. Which allows you multi-task and make your household chores interesting. You can enjoy your podcasts or music or follow the recipe while cooking in your kitchen when your phone is lying in your living room. Voice assistance: How fascinating was it to watch all those detective/ secret agent thriller movies while they are on run and getting directions from their computer savvy buddies. Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible….. Remember! Many wireless earphones comes with voice assistance feature which makes it easy to go around the places you are new to. You don’t have to stop and look to your phone screen for directions which makes it easier to move either on foot or while driving. Few things for you to keep in mind and compare before investing in a true wireless earphones :- Sound Quality Battery Life Wireless Range Comfort and design Warranty Price Gone are those days when true wireless earbuds were expensive possession. They are quite economical now and are available with various features depending upon different brands in your price range.

my lover stays lanes apart but it feels like continents once he stops replying on whatsapp: he has checked my story on instagram but one of these days, social media will be the death of me. my lover shows up on my door unannounced, two different flavours of doughnuts in his hand, he knows i have been crying. they'd taste better if they weren't so soggy, but i have enough filters on my phone to make them look pretty, my friends would be jealous, favourite desserts from half-closed, overpriced airport shops, a hundred cities away. my lover holds my hand A hasn't called me back he says, their boyfriends do not get them their and kisses my neck, i wish there was a song by the 1975 playing in the background, but instagram music isn't supported in my region. i haven't seen him in eight days, it's funny when i write it down because i was sure it was a millennium, we yearn for skin, touch, smell, but let me quickly take a photograph, make him look like he's not looking, our love can go stale, but my social media needs to keep its aesthetic game strong. two boomerangs, seven filters, and one kissing selfie later, we explode. without words, without music. i feel like it's my first kiss again. this is how it must have felt to be in love a thousand years ago.

American culture is probably the hardest place in the world to learn to pray. We are so busy that when we slow down to pray, we find it uncomfortable. We prize accomplishments, production. But prayer is nothing but talking to God. It feels useless, as if we are wasting time. Every bone in our bodies screams, “Get to work.” When we aren’t working, we are used to being entertained. Television, the Internet, video games, and cell phones make free time as busy as work. When we do slow down, we slip into a stupor. Exhausted by the pace of life, we veg out in front of a screen or with earplugs. If we try to be quiet, we are assaulted by what C. S. Lewis called “the Kingdom of Noise.” 1 Everywhere we go we hear background noise. If the noise isn’t provided for us, we can bring our own via iPod. Even our church services can have that same restless energy. There is little space to be still before God. We want our money’s worth, so something should always be happening. We are uncomfortable with silence. One of the subtlest hindrances to prayer is probably the most pervasive. In the broader culture and in our churches, we prize intellect, competency, and wealth. Because we can do life without God, praying seems nice but unnecessary. Money can do what prayer does, and it is quicker and less time-consuming. Our trust in ourselves and in our talents makes us structurally independent of God. As a result, exhortations to pray don’t stick.

Good. How are you?” I thought it would be rude to skip all the pleasantries. “Great. Your mother and I just got back from the Van Gogh museum.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Haven’t you been to that already?” “Yeah…but your mother loves it.” Dad pulled the phone away then whispered in the background. He was probably talking to my mom. “I’ll be there in a second.” He was back to me. “Any particular reason why you called?” “My computer is

Hello, 911? I’m calling from my car phone.” “What is the emergency?” “There’s been a man following me in his car, ever since I left the gym. Can you send a police officer to intercept him?” “Where are you now?” “Wait, I just passed the [Anon] convenience store. I’m going to circle around the block, and I’ll pull in there and run inside.” ... “I’m inside the store now. I’m going to run behind the counter.” [Voice in the background: “What are you doing here?  You cannot be back here.” Explains to store owner that she’s on the phone with 911, and is hiding from a man who is chasing her.] “He just pulled into the parking lot. Oh, my god, he’s coming in here. He’s coming toward me. He’s reaching into his pocket. He’s trying to give me something. ... It’s a piece of paper. Hold on. It says, “I don't normally do this, but we go to the same gym, and I've been wanting to ask you out on a date. Um, never mind, operator." [hang up]

Claire scraped her chair back, walked over to the cordless phone lying on the counter, and dialed from the business card still stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. Four rings, and a cheerful voice answered on the other end and announced she’d reached Common Grounds. “Hi,’” Claire said. “Can I talk to Sam, please?’” “Sam? Hold on.’” The phone clattered, and Claire could hear the buzz of activity in the background—milk being steamed, people chatting, the usual excitement of a busy coffee shop. She waited, jittering one leg impatiently, until the voice came back on the line. “Sorry,’” it said. “He’s not here tonight. I think he went to the party.’” “The party?’” “You know, the zombie frat party? Epsilon Epsilon Kappa? The Dead Girls’ Dance?’” “Thanks,’” Claire said. She hung up and turned to face Michael and Eve, who were staring at her in outright surprise. She held up the phone. “The power of technology. Embrace it.

I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Sean asked. “Are you kidding?” Luke said. “Shelby’s already asleep. She feels like shit.” “Again?” Sean asked. “Jeez, what’s the deal?” “You haven’t guessed? She doesn’t want to tell anyone yet, but she’s pregnant.” “Luke!” came Shelby’s loud, strident voice out of the background. “It’s just Sean!” Luke yelled back. “I thought you were asleep!” Sean chuckled into the phone. “Well, kind of seems like you two don’t have to try real hard to reproduce. You might want to keep an eye on that.” “No kidding. Don’t tell Mom yet. Shelby wants to get past a couple of months. Even though she hurls every morning and falls asleep by seven every night, she wants to be sure.” “Perfectly understandable,” Sean said.

In Ads, we had completely failed to realize the importance of the logout page on FB. A bit of background: In most developing countries, people do not own desktop computers, and their phones are non-smartphone pieces of shit (this is, of course, gradually changing). So people do what you do as a Western backpacker in Brazil or India or whatever: they use an Internet café or other public computer. They log in, use Facebook at some rate per hour, and then log out. What they leave behind is the logout screen, which just so happens to be the most common webpage up on browsers in the world. Really. You walk into a library or café anywhere in the world, and most of the screens will be glowing Facebook blue. And that is also how most new Facebook users in these countries came into being, not to mention nudging existing users into using Facebook. A fact that we in Ads did not even begin to appreciate.

When I talk on the phone with my brother Ivo, who is a theology instructor at Baylor, he invariably wants to talk politics, and I hear clicking in the background, and I say, Why talk politics, just remember where we are! I used to have that experience with my older brother Vlado in Yugoslavia: I would want to expound my political views, but he would point to the phone, and say, Why talk politics, remember where we are. This is not America. How things have changed! Now I tell my brother Ivo, Remember where we are. This is not Croatia!

One morning, after I choked down a bowl of cereal, I looked outside the window and saw a mountain lion siting on the hood of my car, licking his paws--likely, I imagined, after tearing a neighboring rancher’s wife from limb to limb and eating her for breakfast. I darted to the phone and called Marlboro Man, telling him there was a mountain lion sitting on my car. My heart beat inside my chest. I had no idea mountain lions were indigenous to the area. “It’s probably just a bobcat,” Marlboro Man reassured me. I didn’t believe him. “No way--it’s huge,” I cried. “It’s seriously got to be a mountain lion!” “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Cows mooed in the background. I hung up the phone, incredulous at Marlboro Man’s lack of concern, and banged on the window with the palm of my hand, hoping to scare the wild cat away. But it only looked up and stared at me through the window, imagining me on a plate with a side of pureed trout.

Listed below are three basic rules that will help you become a successful candidate. Remember, however, that you need not be offered a job in every case to consider yourself successful. Rather, you are successful if you keep the job search process going in a professional manner. In working with countless people in the process of looking for a job, I have concluded that, for those who are currently unemployed, the full-time job should be just that: looking for a job. For those who currently have a job, but are openly seeking a better position with new challenges or a higher salary, take comfort in knowing you are working from a position of strength; use that knowledge to add to your self-esteem. In all cases, see yourself from the employer’s point of view. In their eyes, you are a more likely candidate if you behave professionally before and after the interview (with appropriate inquiry and follow-up—more on that later) and if you interact appropriately during the interview itself. As you continue to look for a job, remember the following tips for success: 1. When you call about a job prospect, get as much information as you can about the position and the company—including the name of the person doing the interviewing. Don’t be put off by feelings of anxiety—you have a right to “interview” them too. If possible, go to the library and research the company. By the time of your interview, you will feel more confident—and less anxious—because you will have resources from which to draw during your conversation. 2. If you have time to mail your resume before your scheduled interview, do so. But be sure to include a cover letter as well. While the resume gives background information about you, the cover letter explains why you are writing and briefly describes what makes you a good candidate for the job. Don’t allow low self-esteem to make you afraid to “sell yourself!” Only you can say why you would be an asset to the company. And one more thing—write the letter to a particular person, not “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir or Madam.” Most of the time, a prospective employer’s receptionist is willing to tell you exactly whom to contact. Use courtesy titles (“Dear Mrs. Smith”), unless the person is someone you already know on a first-name basis. 3. Do follow up. An appropriate measure of assertiveness goes a long way. Most employers appreciate someone who is diligent and communicates a genuine interest in the position. But don’t be aggressive. Limit your contact to a follow-up note, a phone call two weeks later, and perhaps a third one a few weeks after that. Be sure to let them know that if another, more appropriate, position comes along, you would be interested to learn about it. Again, by communicating properly and creating your own opportunities, you can achieve some control over your own destiny.

Open offices, for example, might create more opportunities for collaboration,* but they do so at the cost of “massive distraction,” to quote the results of experiments conducted for a British TV special titled The Secret Life of Office Buildings. “If you are just getting into some work and a phone goes off in the background, it ruins what you are concentrating on,” said the neuroscientist who ran the experiments for the show. “Even though you are not aware at the time, the brain responds to distractions.

intelligence for the sector. “They say they’re uncle and nephew, and they’re clean: no tattoos. That third one, though—he’s a keeper.” The third man had given his name as José Hernández, which was the equivalent of a Caucasian claiming to be called John Smith. He had not been picked up in the sweep of the yard, but a couple of hours later, supposedly as he waited for a bus to Tucson, although it was more likely he was waiting for a ride back to Mexico, since the next bus for Tucson wasn’t scheduled to leave until the following morning. He was smaller and leaner than the others, and had so far done his best not to make eye contact with any of his interrogators. He was also the only one who had been wearing a long-sleeved shirt, fully buttoned, when detained. “What did Lagnier have to say about him?” Ross asked. “Beyond the fact that Hernández had been working for him on and off for about five days,” said Zaleski, “Mr. Lagnier had nothing to say about him at all, and that’s ‘nothing’ with a heavy emphasis.” “Meaning?” “Meaning Lagnier knew better than to ask about José’s background. It’s probably not the first time Lagnier’s done a solid for some friends from across the border: a place for cousins to sleep, a little work to replenish funds before they head farther north. But sometimes…” Zaleski let it hang. Parker figured everyone in the room now knew that Lagnier had an arrangement with the ATF, and if they didn’t, they had no business being there. “Sometimes it’s a more substantial favor,” finished Newton, one of the Maricopa detectives. “One he doesn’t share with his handlers.” “Not unless Lagnier wants to try holding his silverware without thumbs,” said Zaleski. “This whole territory belongs to the Sinaloa cartel, and nothing moves in or out without their knowledge. Young José in there has himself a collection of tattoos under that shirt. He didn’t much approve of us having a look-see, but he knew better than to kick up a fuss.” Zaleski took out her phone and displayed a series of photographs of Hernández’s adornments.

I've never known anyone with the capacity for sugar that Adeena has. She'd demolished her waffles, which she'd drowned in syrup, and then ordered a slice of triple chocolate tuxedo pie, another sugar bomb. If I ate the way she'd did, I'd have lost a foot to diabetes by now. Martha slid our desserts in front of us, and Adeena and I hummed in appreciation after taking our first bites. The lemon icebox cake was cold and creamy, with a background sweetness and a whole lot of tang. As I often did when sampling delicious desserts, I tried to deconstruct what was in it. Graham crackers, cream cheese, whipped cream, and a ton of lemon curd seemed to be the basis of the recipe. Similar to the ginger calamansi pie I'd made, but simpler and no-bake, if I decided to buy the graham crackers instead of making my own. Definitely worth experimenting with, as I had a jar of calamansi curd tucked away in the fridge just begging to be used. I made a note on my phone later, maybe as a summer offering. As per usual when eating out, Adeena and I swapped plates so we could taste each other's desserts. "What do you think, girls?" I grinned at Martha. "Delicious. I love how the lemon cake is sweet and tangy, but you don't go too far in either direction." Adeena added, "It's the perfect counterpoint to my chocolate pie, which is divine, by the way. Rich, creamy, and so satisfying.

COVID-19 outbreak made them a norm of public life. Many also wore helmets and carried melee weapons. Together, the crowd of around four hundred brought traffic to a standstill—by now a regular occurrence in the City of Roses, as Portland is known by. As usual, the police stayed away. They knew whom the streets belonged to. Working as a journalist with a phone and a new GoPro camera, I slowly made my way toward the front of the crowd. Some of the protesters recognized me. They glared and whispered in the ears of their comrades. Luis Enrique Marquez looked right at me. The 48-year-old Rose City Antifa member has been arrested so many times at violent protests in Portland over the past few years that he no longer bothers to wear a mask. Still, I ignored the stares and continued forward. By this point, the crowd’s chants had changed. “No hate! No fear!” they began shouting. Before I made it much farther, someone—or something—hit me hard in the back of the head. I was nearly knocked to the ground from the impact. Never having been in a fight, I naively asked myself in the moment: “Did someone just trip and fall into me?” Before I could turn around to look, a sea of bodies dressed in black surrounded me. In the background, I could still hear the crowd chant, “No hate!” Ironically, all I saw next—and felt—was the pure embodiment of hatred. Staring at an amorphous mob of faceless shadows, I froze. Suddenly, clenched fists repeatedly struck my face and head from all directions. My right knee buckled from the impact. The masked attackers wore tactical gloves—gloves hardened with fiberglass on the knuckles. It’s likely some of them used brass knuckles as well. I put my arms up to surrender, but this only signaled to them to beat me more ferociously. Someone then snatched my camera—my evidence. I desperately tried but failed to hold on to it. The masked thief melted into the crowd, a function of the “black bloc.” Another person ran up and kicked me twice in the groin. Someone bashed me on the head from behind with a stiff placard or sign.

Moving from “features” to “benefits” and then to “value” often confuses people, particularly folks who come from a technical background. An engineer by training, I often viewed features and the benefits derived from those features as interchangeable early in my career. For many consumer technical products, features are presented as valuable in their own right—but only because we do the translation to value automatically in our heads. For example, phone makers have often represented the quality of their cameras by talking about the number of megapixels. Consumers have been trained to translate megapixels to photo quality and therefore believe that cameras with more megapixels take better photos. Digging a bit deeper, the value of “better photos” for most consumers means sharper, more detailed images when printed or zoomed in.

Then I listen to the voice mails. The first one is just Declan singing the first half of “My Heart Will Go On” into the phone before getting cut off. I can hear a bunch of grown men yelling the words to a Beastie Boys song in the background. It’s an aural fustercluck.

Andrei avoided the internet as well and this evasion only added to his gloom. He loved music, especially old songs, and he loved movies, of all sorts. If he had the patience, sometimes he would read. While most of the pages he turned bored him to sleep, certain books with certain lines disarranged him. Some literature brought him to his feet, laughing and howling in his room. When the book was right, it was bliss and he wept. His room hushed with serenity and indebtedness. When he turned to his computer, however, or took out his phone, he would inevitably come across a viral trend or video that took the art he loved and turned it into a joke. The internet, in Andrei’s desperate eyes, managed to make fun of everything serious. And if one did not laugh, they were not intelligent. The internet could not be slowed and no protest to criticize its exploitation of art could be made because recreations of art hid perfectly under the veneer of mockery and was thus, impenetrable. It was easy to use Chopin’s ‘Sonata No. 2’ for a quick laugh, to reduce the ‘Funeral March’ to background music. It was a sneaky way for a digital creator to be considered an artist—and parodying the classics made them appear cleverer than the original artist. Meanwhile, Andrei’s body had healed playing Chopin alone in his apartment. He would frailly replay movie moments, too, that he later found the world edited and ripped apart with its cheap teeth. And everyone ate the internet’s crumbs. This cruel derision was impossible to escape. But enough jokes, memes, and glam over someone’s precious source of life would eventually make a sensitive body numb. And Andrei was afraid of that. He needed his fountain of hope unblemished. For this reason, he escaped the internet’s claws and only surrendered to it for e-mails, navigation, and the weather.

In this sense, grocery is a story still being written. In the beginning, there was nature, powerful and cruel—that original destroyer of worlds—drought and predation, wind and disease. And so we built tools to subdue her: from jamming sticks into anthills to charting out agronomist tables and plows. And we built these tools so well and for so long that now nature, real nature, is mostly a dream, an uneasy longing, repressed and turned kindly by submission, the way terrible fathers crumble into grandfathers. Then somewhere, after centuries, we woke to the fact that our tools had become too powerful—our monocultures, pesticides, and mine scalings—the tools just as fearsome as the nature they set out to rein in, and we found ourselves cowering once again. This is the typical end point, with our Frankensteins and atomic Godzillas. A daily alienation updated almost as a background app into our iPhone addictions and queasy feelings about social media we just can’t quit. But what we’ve begun to see, what I certainly learned writing this book, is that we’ve undertaken a new project. We decided that, caught between two awesome external forces—nature everlasting, and these new tools of our own creation—the one piece in the whole operation that was most malleable was us. Our selves. That we would happily trade away aspects of our lives—be it community or duty or eccentricity or care—for an ability to survive between them.

She’d need to find room in her compact kitchen for a high chair. Her second bedroom, which she now used as an office and craft room, would become the baby’s. A sense of excitement filled her, unlike anything she’d ever experienced. This was her baby, her very own child. This time she’d do everything right. This time there wasn’t a man standing in the way. High on enthusiasm, she reached for the phone and dialed her sister’s number. She felt closer to Kelly than she had in years. The weekend getaway had brought them together again, all three of them. How wise her mother had been to arrange it. “I didn’t get you up, did I?” she asked when her sister answered. Tyler bellowed in the background. “That’s a joke, right?” Maryellen smiled. “You doing anything special for lunch?” “Nothing in particular. What do you have in mind?” “Can you meet me at the Pot Belly Deli?” “Sure.” Kelly had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mother. Paul and Kelly had waited years for this baby and were determined to make whatever sacrifices were necessary. That option—staying with her baby—wasn’t available to Maryellen. She’d have to find quality day care and wasn’t sure where to even start. Just before noon, Kelly arrived at the gallery, pushing Tyler in his stroller. At nine months, the little boy sat upright, waving his chubby hands, cooing happily and directing the world from his seat. “Let’s grab some soup from the deli and eat down by the waterfront,” Kelly suggested. It was a lovely spring day after a week of rain, and the fresh air would do them all good. “Sounds like a great idea,” Maryellen told her. Practical, too, since it would be easier to amuse Tyler at the park than in a crowded restaurant. Maryellen phoned in their order and her sister trekked down to grab a picnic table. Several other people had the same idea, but she’d secured a table for them by the time Maryellen got there. Sitting across from her sister, Maryellen opened her container of chicken rice soup and stirred it with a plastic spoon. Cantankerous seagulls circled overhead, squawking for a handout, but Maryellen and Kelly ignored them. “I

Transatlantic phone calls suck because I can hear the ocean swishing in the background and it makes me all nervous, like the fish are listening, or something.

Apple is losing its grip on the IOS and iPhone ecosystems. One example is the bad experience of IOS killing the background apps, which shows that Apple is not planning and controlling the IOS ecosystem well. Another example is the sudden increase in RAM for different iPhone models, which creates a lot of fragmentation and confusion for developers and users. It also makes the iPhone less efficient and reliable. I remember the days when the iPhone had 1G RAM, and it could keep the app content even after restarting. But those days are gone and it's not over yet.

One study, for example, involved a video game that placed photographs of white and black individuals holding either a gun or other object (such as a wallet, soda can, or cell phone) into various photographic backgrounds. Participants were told to decide as quickly as possible whether to shoot the target. Consistent with earlier studies, participants were more likely to mistake a black target as armed when he was not and mistake a white target as unarmed when in fact he was armed.42 This pattern of discrimination reflected automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations.

If you spot anything out of the ordinary, something that seems wrong, I urge you to contact the sheriff’s department. Anything that could relate to the missing victims. Discarded items of clothing. Shoes, purses . . .” Brittany took a step back and snapped her fingers. “Shiner. Drop it.” The dog let the cloth fall to the porch. Brittany swallowed and clutched Tanner tight. “Shiner. Inside.” The dog ran into the kitchen. Brittany followed, bolted the door, and found her phone. In the background, the FBI agent’s voice cut the air. With shaky fingers, Brittany called 911. “I need the police. My dog just brought home half a shirt. And it’s covered in blood.

HE SAID TO ME. I looked across at him. I could see his eyes in the glow from the dash. “I figured it out,” I said. “I know what it’s all about.” He glanced back again. “So are you going to tell me?” he said. “Did you call Princeton?” I asked him. He grunted and slapped the Bentley’s wheel in irritation. “I was on the phone for an hour,” he said. “The guy knew a hell of a lot, but in the end he knew nothing at all.” “What did he tell you?” I asked him. “He gave me the whole thing,” he said. “He was a smart guy. History postgrad, working for Bartholomew. Turns out Bartholomew and the other guy, Kelstein, were the big noises in counterfeiting research. Joe had been using them for background.” I nodded across at him. “I got all that from Kelstein,” I said. He glanced over again. Still irritable. “So why are you asking me about it?” he said. “I want your conclusions,” I told him. “I want to see

Winkler was checking his e-mail and yawning before going to bed. Davis was working out well as his Second and Glen had slipped into the background a little. He and Phil had been friends for a very long time, but even Glen hadn't known anything about Phil's betrayal. Lissa's cell phone and the credit card he'd given her still rested on a corner of Winkler's desk; he couldn't bring himself to get rid of them. They were the only things he had left of her. Lissa's fake ID was missing and he could only imagine that Gavin had taken it with him. Winkler got down to his last e-mail message of the evening. It was from an unknown source. He was just about to hit delete without reading it when he changed his mind and opened it up. He stared at the three words for a very long time. "She lives. -Gavin

My mother’s voice echoes in the background, her message blaring from my cell phone’s speaker. With each word come memories, filtered through shards of broken glass. I want to, need to, shut the phone off, but my body refuses to move. Her voice gets louder as she calls to me, the desperation in her voice seeping through the fog that is clouding my mind. With approximately seven billion people in the world, I wonder how one person’s voice can have such an effect. I imagine I am stronger than I used to be, more resilient. That I am the master of my destiny and everyone is a pawn in my game—not the other way around. Because if I am the poker chip, then I have to wait to see how I’ll be played. The unknown is the hardest. Which might explain why we try so hard to rule our worlds. It is the only hope we have to

My daemons are crashing,' the computer tech said. I thought I’d misheard over the crush of the computer store, but then she repeated it. 'My smart phone wasn’t working because the computer daemons in it were crashing. Computer daemons are programs that wait in the background until you call them into service, sort of like the original idea of genies, or jinn, that give magical help if you have the power to call and control them. Not too far off from some of the mysterious workings of computers.

What are you listening to? I love that song.” “It’s the college station. Logan’s show is on,” I say with more than a smidgen of pride. “Hold on.” A second later, Logan’s voice echoes between my radio and hers, which would normally be annoying, but gravelly voice or not, it’s him. “We have a caller. Caller, we’re discussing when was the last time you told someone off. Go ahead.” “Eek.” I can picture her nose crinkle up. “He does not sound happy.” The caller’s voice echoes just like Logan’s did, but this person makes me want to clap my hands over my ears. “I know what’s wrong with you, A.L. It’s that girl, isn’t it? The one you had on the show last week. Well, I’m not going to say I told you so.” “Hold up! I know that voice,” Terra squeals. “I know, right? It’s been driving me crazy but I can’t—” Terra cuts me off. “That’s Rayann.” “No, this girl’s name is Capri.” I pause to listen more. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Logan says. “If you say so,” Capri says, and it feels like a heavenly light of knowledge bursts through my ceiling to shine down while a choir sings in the background. Those words sound exactly as they did a couple of weeks ago when they were spoken to me. “Oh my good gravy, it is her!” I yell into the phone.

Professional help for those suffering with their mental health is now only a key stroke away, thanks to a new online directory. BALLARAT, VIC - Website truecounsellor.com.au is one of the only online catalogues of mental health services in Australia, allowing people to source, and instantly reach out for help - all from their computer. Website truecounsellor.com.au is one of the only online catalogues of mental health services in Australia, allowing people to source, and instantly reach out for help - all from their computer. Launched in 2015, the website allows people to simply search professionals nearby and review their profile, background, specialisations and fees. Once they have selected a professional, they can immediately connect with them via phone, Skype or instant message to book an appointment. Website founder Luciano Devoto was keen to establish the online directory after experiencing his own struggles. “As a person who has suffered from bullying, as well as depression, I know how hard it can be to reach out for help,” he said. “TrueCounsellor aims to make it easier for people to share their concerns safely and privately with experienced mental health professionals” The website boasts a large number of qualified and experienced counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, couples’ therapists and other mental health practitioners in various suburbs across Australia. “What makes TrueCounsellor exciting is that we are the only directory offering mental health professionals the opportunity to promote their services for free,” Luciano said. “We believe that by making it easy for these professionals to list their practices, we create real value for the public as they are able to find the right support.” The website also offers extensive advice about conditions like depression and anxiety, along with information about common stressors including debt, relationship issues and career worries. Watersedge Counselling director Colleen Morris, who is part of the online directory, said the website was a vital resource. “Finding a mental healthcare professional that you consider to be safe, trustworthy, empathetic and effective can often be challenging and at times, a confusing process,” she said. “Websites like TrueCounsellor make this task less confusing by allowing consumers to make a more informed choice that suits their need.” To find a mental health expert or for more information, visit truecounsellor.com.au About TrueCounsellor TrueCounsellor is Australia’s online directory of mental health professionals. Our mission is to help people experiencing emotional challenges discover a better and happier version of themselves. TrueCounsellor gives people access to a large number of qualified and experienced counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, couples therapists and other mental health practitioners across Australia. Visitors can review profiles and learn about the practitioner’s background, specialisations and fees in order to make the best decision when booking an appointment! In addition to offer a comprehensive list of qualified and experienced mental health professionals, TrueCounsellor has detailed information on mental health issues and types of therapy available. For more information, visit truecounsellor.com.au

Would you like to join us, Rafael?” my mom asked. “Or do you go by Rafe?” “Usually.” A disarming grin. “Unless I’m in trouble.” I opened the door and motioned him in as he continued, “About dinner, I appreciate that, but my sister will be expecting me.” “Another night then,” Mom said. “Maybe on the weekend we can have a barbecue, and invite your sister.” “Or,” I said, turning to Rafe, “if you want to skip the whole awkward meet-the-family social event, you could just submit your life story, including your views on politics, religion, and every social issue imaginable, along with anything else you think they might need to conduct a thorough background check.” Mom sighed. “I really don’t know why we even bother trying to be subtle around you.” “Neither do I. It’s not like he isn’t going to realize he’s being vetted as daughter-dating material.” Rafe grinned. “So we are dating?” “No. You have to pass the parental exam first. It’ll take you awhile to compile the data. They’d like it in triplicate.” I turned to my parents. “We have Kenjii. We have my cell phone. Since we aren’t yet officially dating, I’m sure you’ll agree that’s all the protection we need.” Dad choked on his coffee. Mom waved us to the door. “Go. Have fun. Dinner will be at six thirty.

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Most discussions about memory in older people concern deterioration and loss, but such discussions miss an important phenomenon. Our minds become less cluttered and more concerned with essentials. We develop deeper and more integrated memories. Where we put our cell phone or sunglasses is background. Foreground is a mix of memories about family, friends, history, turning points, and crucible moments.

Background Woman: Johnny what are you doing?! Caller: The policeman’s helping me with my math. Background Woman: What did I tell you about playing on the phone? Operator: It’s the mother… Caller: You said if I need help to call somebody. Background Woman: I didn’t mean the police

Similarly, if Baron had realized he was writing for a group raised on applications-first approaches, perhaps he would have started his e-mail with a few bullet points summarizing his proposal and explaining what he needed from the group. He might then have continued with a bit of background data, presented briskly with the recognition that “shorter is sweeter” for people with an applications-first orientation. Baron subsequently learned this lesson. “One British colleague told me that, if my e-mail doesn’t fit on the screen of an iPhone, it risks not getting read,” Baron laughs. “That’s the test I use now before I send out my e-mail.

The straw that broke my back and had me shutting down my phone for good was a text from a number I didn’t know reminding me to eat. That one could have only come from Asher Beck. Then he confirmed it by sending a picture of his smiling face with my sleeping body in the background. I’d tossed my phone across my bed like it was haunted.

The background noise from the nearest corridor, the hum people make when they want everyone else to know they’re busy, had subsided over the last ten seconds, to be replaced by the lesser but far more ominous sound of the same people reading news alerts on their phones.

Software,” as the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has proclaimed, “is eating the world.” It’s true. You use software nearly every instant you’re awake. There’s the obvious stuff, like your phone, your laptop, email and social networking and video games and Netflix, the way you order taxis and food. But there’s also less-obvious software lurking all around you. Nearly any paper book or pamphlet you touch was designed using software; code inside your car helps manage the braking system; “machine-learning” algorithms at your bank scrutinize your purchasing activity to help spy the moment when a criminal dupes your card and starts fraudulently buying things using your money. And this may sound weirdly obvious, but every single one of those pieces of software was written by a programmer—someone precisely like Ruchi Sanghvi or Mark Zuckerberg. Odds are high the person who originally thought of the product was a coder: Programmers spend their days trying to get computers to do new things, so they’re often very good at understanding the crazy what-ifs that computers make possible. (What if you had a computer take every word you typed and, quietly and constantly and automatically in the background, checked it against a dictionary of common English words? Hello, spell-check!) Sometimes it seems that the software we use just sort of sprang into existence, like grass growing on the lawn. But it didn’t. It was created by someone who wrote out—in code—a long, painstaking set of instructions telling the computer precisely what to do, step-by-step, to get a job done. There’s a sort of priestly class mystery cultivated around the word algorithm, but all they consist of are instructions: Do this, then do this, then do this. News Feed is now an extraordinarily complicated algorithm involving some trained machine learning; but it’s ultimately still just a list of rules. So the rule makers have power. Indeed, these days, the founders of high-tech companies—the ones who determine what products get created, what problems get solved, and what constitutes a “problem” in the first place—are increasingly technologists, the folks who cut their teeth writing endless lines of code and who cobbled together the prototype for their new firm themselves. Programmers are thus among the most quietly influential people on the planet.

Happiness is two-hour long baths during an energy crisis because it's fantastically irresponsible and fabulous for your soul. Happiness is fresh Spanish perfume on your collarbone and sipping ice-cool Caipirinhas with fun people whilst Mariah Carey's 'Babydoll' plays in the background on a booming system. Happiness is never giving a fuck about becoming fat because you will always fuck, and instead enjoying delicious, deeply satisfying suya and switching your phone off for a whole weekend. Happiness is bad bitches who no longer front like insanity is not festering on every floor of the Western Promise and finally stop giving a fuck. That's happiness.

We suggest taking inspiration from the elephant’s giant ears and small mouth—and stifling your inner HIPPO. Like the vice president who kept his talking in check by making his phone’s background picture a hippopotamus with its giant mouth wide open.

He seemed surprised to hear from me now, his tone holding a note of shock. “Saint, how are you? What can I do for you?” “Kenneth. I just heard about the new volunteer counselor. I was hoping to get a copy of his credentials. As you know, the situation with some of the kids is pretty tenuous and new people scare them,” I said. “Oh! Didn’t you know he was coming? He said he had been approved months ago but he had delayed his start date due to traveling out of state for a family death. His name is Roland Cunningham. He’s been a high school counselor for fifteen years and now he’s semi-retired and wants to give back. He says that he saw so many gay kids who needed an ear.” I rolled my eyes so hard I almost hurt myself and Rio frowned at me questioningly. I shook my head and pulled in one deep breath before I spoke. “No, he hasn’t been approved for months. I’ve never heard of him. I suspect he’s a spy who belongs to Clay Greene.” I could hear Kenneth suck air, then chuckle disbelievingly. “Oh, no, Saint. That’s impossible. He had a copy of a volunteer application that you signed and dated in January. You probably just forgot, I know you’ve had a lot on your mind with your sister and everything.” I heard him click his tongue and had to work to not reach through the phone and wring his neck. “He’s going to make sure the kids have someone else to talk to. Don’t worry about it, I’m taking care of everything.” Rio’s frown had morphed into mild alarm, and I wasn’t sure what my face was doing that was causing it but whatever it was must have been interesting. He edged closer as I took several deep breaths. “Kenneth. Listen to me. You need to be cautious. Have you seen the security reports from Mr. Rao? Did make sure you let him know about this Cunningham? Did you run the background check?” “I glanced through the reports, yes, but no, I didn’t tell him about Roland. Mr. Rao is the night guard and Roland is scheduled for afternoons.” He chuckled lightly. “I didn’t see the overlap.” I did not grind my teeth, but it was a near thing. Rio hovered, not touching me, which I was grateful for. Once I got off this phone I was going to go off. “What about the background check, Ken? You know the background check policy.” “Oh, yes,” Kenneth said. “We did the background check. Completely clean, exemplary record with several awards from his career. Really, you need to calm down. I have it all under control.” “Right,” I said. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it then, Ken. Thank you.” I hung up before Kenneth could reply and Rio looked at me warily. “I am going to have him kicked off the board so fast his fucking head is going to spin. Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s full of ball bearings and broken gravel,” I snarled. “So that didn’t go well,” Rio observed quietly. He was still hovering, clearly unsure of how best to handle me.