Accidental Philosopher Photographs Some Things Part 3

It's the first day of school -- which if you work anywhere near the education field you know induces in most of us the same kind of anxiety and freakout that we all felt when we were back in kindergarden. What if I miss the bus? What if the other kids make fun of my lunchbox? Then when you're the teacher you have to add on top of that mundane things like getting your syllabus finished and your course list downloaded and yada yada yada.

With all that going on I didn't have time for a full essay. But here are some recent images that interested me:

I never understood --and I still don't understand -- how people are excited about 3D printing. What things exactly are there that you feel you want or need that have no special parts, that you feel could make more easily at home? I can't even think of things in that category. The only exciting thing I know about 3D printing is how kids are using it to create their own superhero cyborg prosthetics. Now that is cool. Anyway, here's the answer, in a San Francisco shop window. 3D printed replicas of .. yourself! Um .. thanks but ... I think I'm good.

I saw this lage ... mirrored lion? .. for sale in at at Home Goods (like Marshalls or Winners but home stuff) in the goodhearted but downmarket town of Vernon CT. WTF? I like to imagine it in someone's home. With the right context it'd be awesome.

It probably just goes to show I don't get out enough, but this sign at Indigo Books made me laugh. They're selling.. large letters you can put on things. The whole idea of the letters being "exclusive" and "available in black and white" with the warning of "select letters only" -- I just thought that was amusing. What if you're looking for one of the other letters? You're SOL? How hard would it have been to include all 26 letters?

OK this isn't a photograph but it's an image capture of something I find so astonishing I had to capture and save it. What this shows is that if you want to get from Hamilton, ON, to Buffalo, NY -- which is about an hour's drive -- on transit, that trip will take you almost five hours. Four hours and fifty-five minutes, to be precise. It didn't used to be this way. I take the bus, so I know. You used to be able to catch a very reasonable CoachCanada bus. But that's not there any more. What happened? Why isn't the end of a bus route major news in all the papers? What's wrong with the world, anyway?