Seiko's Memory Bank Calendar watch (model FX 003 caliber M354) was released in 1978 and sold for around two hundred and fifty dollars; it contained full calendars for an eighty-year period, and users could set the watch to flash reminders for specific days, as this Seiko print advertisement explains.
In Nothing Ever Happened, Cox truncates his chorus to a furious yelp of "life just crashed", and it becomes a lightning-flash reminder of the car accident he was involved in late last year; when the song bleeds imperceptibly into a roaring cover of Patti Smith's Horses, he sings with the fury of a man revived.
It's radical self-love, of course, but the metaphor is a flashing reminder of the troubled alternative that has faced black stars before now.
A person comes in to discuss their suicidal ideas or recent cancer diagnosis and the computer flashes reminders about smear tests and flu jabs.
When Big Boi shifted to older material, the video screen behind him flashed reminders of what feels like a distant past: a younger, slimmer Big Boi alongside his OutKast partner, André Benjamin, in the gritty clip for their first single, "Player's Ball," from 1993; the duo mugging exuberantly through audacious, high-concept videos for "B.O.B (Bombs Over Baghdad)" (2000) and "Ghetto Musick" (2003).
But unless they win eight more games, the Yankees of 2012 will be defined by two portraits of pain, flashing neon reminders of the subtler message the game tells its fans every year.
Also a reminder: Flash is proprietary.
Daily reminders flash before us in every corner of life to let us know, those over 50, are kind of the forgotten tribe.
The hefty minimum system requirements serve as a reminder that Flash probably doesn't have a home on mobile phones, as much as we'd all love it to.
Increasing the duty cycle of the chime and flashing icon in a reminder cycle did not influence these ratings either, but it did make the system more annoying.
The symptoms of PTSD (hyper-arousal, flash-backs, avoiding reminders of trauma) are debilitating.
