Staying connected, part 2

I got a letter in the mail the other day telling me that my cell phone provider wasn't going to support my old cell phone anymore. So yesterday I went to the local company office. I had a new phone all picked out, and I was pretty excited about it. This new phone would not only allow me to call friends and family, it'd also take pictures, play music, and connect wirelessly to all sorts of useful devices. Plus it was red. How cool is that? So when it was my turn to talk to the sales rep, I plunked the new phone's pamphlet down on his desk and said, "This is the phone I want." Well, this thirty-something guy looked at me, looked at the pamphlet and looked back at me. Then he said, "I think this is too much phone for you."

So, anyway, my new phone can take pictures, play music and connect wirelessly to all sorts of useful devices. Plus it's red.

And the sales rep? Yeah, he's red, too.

P.S. The phone picture isn't mine; I found it doing an image search. It's a kick, isn't it? Early '60's, I'm betting.

Off world technology

Right up front I have to say this isn't a photograph I took. Boy, I'd be really happy to create something with such interesting light and shadow! But even if I was technically adept enough and creative enough, this image would still be out of my reach. It shows a sand dune field in Rabe Crater, located in the southern highlands of Mars. The image was produced by NASA and is part of the HIRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, a project by the University of Arizona, Department of Planetary Science, Lunar and Planetory Laboratory. My current assignment is to look at some technology sites on the Web. I was led to the HIRISE site by an article in Slashshot: News for Nerds

HIRISE offers downloadable high resolution photographs of amazing images from space. The image above is a portion of a larger image taken of sand dunes in Rabe Crater. I find it interesting, aesthetically, because the larger image was taken simply to gather information for scientific inquiry into the nature of the surface of Mars, but I suspect that whoever cropped the larger image chose this particular crop not only because of the information it conveyed, but also because it was pleasing to the eye.