How about those laser pointers? No doubt you've heard reports of mischief now that lasers have become commonplace. I myself have observed youths surreptitiously "dotting" girls out front of Tower Records; I understand that doing this to a policeman is a crime in some jurisdictions. Received this center-wide email today:

To: Resident Staff

From: Radiation Safety Office

Subject: Laser Pointers

**Safety with Laser Pointers**

You may have noticed that everywhere you look these days the word "Laser" is popping up. This is because lasers are being used in a wide variety of applications in both the manufacturing and medical fields.

Lasers are rated in a hazard classification system of 1 to 4 with 4 being the most dangerous. Laser pointers fall into a category 2 or 3a. This means that the laser has the potential to cause eye damage from a direct exposure. The damage can vary from being startled or "flash-blinded", to having an "after-image" on your retina for many days, to having permanent lesions on your retina. The effect is similar to that of staring at the sun or staring onto the flash from a flash bulb. The effect from the laser is many times greater though because of the intensity of the light.

Just recently it was reported that a laser pointer may have been the cause of a deadly crash on Highway 101. If this was indeed the fact, the most likely scenerio was that the driver was flash-blinded for a moment and lost control of the vehicle. This is the effect of improper use of a tool.

In my own way, I was a laser pioneer. For the enormous sum of $100 I bought the smallest Helium-Neon laser Edmund had, after I'd accumulated enough pay from my great summer job as a lab assistant in 1974. (This was at the U.S. Army's Night Vision Lab at Fort Belvoir - doing experimental research creating solid-state laser-light emitting diode chips.) Earlier I described what I did with this big chunky 3" x 4" x 11" of a laser at the beach the next summer; that Fall I got my first apartment and the fun continued. Along the laser's bottom surface was a socket like a camera's, so sometimes I mounted it on my Dad's tripod - but it was easier to just hold the thing and point. <1> Hitting the stop sign at the end of the street was a rewarding challenge; the reflective surface diffused a blaze of red light. In early evenings, I'd torment the neighbors and one old guy in particular - he could be found tottering around the grounds in the early evening. Suddenly noticing the red spot on the sidewalk, he'd freeze. B has a laser pointer and does the same thing with her cat - like my neighbor, both victims have no experience with coherent light, so it's a puzzle. Unfortunately some kids saw me beaming the laser around one night, and they all congregated beneath my window, three floors down, shouting about "the red light". I switched off all my of appliances and hunkered down for a long while, and thereafter only played the beam outside with extreme discretion. The HeNe unit only lasted another year or so, growing feeble - helium molecules are so small, they leak out of the glass tube containing the gas mixture.

On My Tube:
Screened another increment of this "Outer Limits" archival tape, for "The Premonition", where the X-15 pilot (and his wife) gets slightly unstuck in time. Good stuff - gripping. Just back from an evening pedal where I passed great numbers of sad, discarded Christmas trees, lying in the gutter on their sides. Many were oddly white in that manner of decoration popular in California, "flocking", where pseudo-snow is sprayed on the branches. I was riding down to the videoplatz for "The 400 Blows", and it's got this annoying copy protection which befuddles my older machine. I can't watch this tape without my hand inside the aperture, ever pushing and jiggling the tape which makes the on-screen image fluttering stop, so I can read the sub-titles.
The icon represents my television viewing experience, watching in black-and-green on an old monochrome monitor.

Star Trek scene I'd like to see:

[The Transporter Room. The usual squad is assembled and ready to beam down. The crew's cool professionalism is evident.
SCOTTY, standing at the console next SULU, pulls back the control lever.]
audio: the familiar noise
[The group on the transporter stage twinkles and fades out.]

[The surface of an alien planet.
KIRK, SPOCK and others fade into view as the transporter noise grows faint. But they're all completely naked!]

quick cut back to
[The Transporter Room.
SCOTTY and SULU are laughing uproariously, slapping each others' hands and punching shoulders.]