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On thrift stores, books, and Phantoms

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Thrift store DEFINITION: A non-profit or for-profit retail establishment selling previously owned, second-hand items ranging from clothes, housewares, appliances, books, electronics, and miscellanea. Donations to thrift stores are usually tax-deductible. Here Wikipedia's international description of a thrift store, also known as a charity shop. The thrift store was always an exciting place to go growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money, so every couple of months, we’d hit the local thrift store for clothing and other supplies. This is a picture of the thrift store I remember the most. It’s the RAD Thrift Store, located at 215 West Main Street, Santa Maria, California. There is a smell to thrift stores (at least all the thrift stores that I have ever visited). It smells like body odor, mildew, disinfectant, perhaps ages of perfumes, cigarette smoke, dank attics, danker basements, and lastly, I suppose it smells like poverty. I can remember running through the aisles
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The Future of Robotics

Ever since I picked up my first Isaac Asimov novel, I have been fascinated with robotics and what they could mean to the future of humanity. ( Wikipedia.com has a very concise description of the field and its evolution) What always struck me in my pursual of this topic was that robots were always slated to be of service to man. For example, the Robot Institute of America defines a robot as a programmable, multi-functional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices, through variable programmed motions, for the performance of a variety of tasks. Like Asimov, I thought they could be so much more -- human. When I started my education in the computer science field, my ultimate goal was to become an artificial intelligence/robotics engineer. The ethical dilemmas and concerns presented by Asimov in his novels, particularly in his Law of Robotics, heightened the interest and enthusiasm I felt when following the advancement of robotics. My interest was
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Power to the Snail!

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Slowly millimetering itself along the walkway to my apartment is the everyday garden snail. The snail is not an attractive creature. It does have an interesting shell, but its earth-toned body is slimy and not particularly endearing, and yet, I have such empathy for the snail. Perhaps my empathy stems from its very slowness. That must be it. One day, my sons and I made a quick trip to the local grocery store. Since it is close by my apartment, we walked. On the way down the walkway, we saw a snail had just started to cross the walkway. I advised my sons not to squish the creature, though they didn’t know why. My general answer is that it is a living thing and deserves to live and die naturally. When we returned about 40 minutes later, the snail had gone ¾ of the way across the walkway. My sons were shocked! It had taken the snail so very long to cross and it still had a ways to go. I used the opportunity to convince my boys they shouldn’t kill the snails we see. After
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