selectivity
I am told that one can build an electronic device that responds only to the right signal from a particular other device. a bluetooth device for instance, that takes commands and returns data only to your computer; it doesn't respond to a car driving by, for instance, who just happens to emit a signal at the same frequency. or to your neighbor's computer. a car unlocking device that only responds to a particular fob, or one of a small set of fobs. I sorta know how that might be done, but am fuzzy on the details. but people have been doing a similar thing maybe as long as we've had people. haven't you ever seen a pretty girl or woman sitting alone, apparently oblivious to men strutting and pawing and snorting around her, to horns and catcalls and rude remarks, who apparently comes back to life as soon as her friends enter her space, even before they recognize or greet her? I once watched a pretty young woman do that only she came out of it for her father among a horde of several hundred engineers and technicians streaming by, more or less on their way to their cars and their ways home. but I have seen school age kids do that for a parent or an older sibling: they were gone, and then they were animate. I used to do a variation on it myself. I would go into my room and turn on my radio, tuned to the country-western radio station, and do my homework - math, science, history, English - until supper was ready. I'd shut off the radio and be the second or third responder to the call, with no idea what the radio station had played, or what my brothers and sister had done. the house wasn't that big. what I mean is that what I was doing then was shutting out the rest of the world until I got the right signal from the right device, the supper call from my mother. I think I do a similar thing now, when I lose track of everything around me while I work on a poem or on a story - unless, of course, Lindy calls. yes, I appreciate selectivity.
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