PDA

 Depending on where you sit in the auditorium, those three letters PDA may mean something different. To many of our tech-savvy readers this three letter acronym may refer to your Personal Data Assistant. This would be especially true if you were still holding on tightly to your Blackberry. If you happen to be seated in our special psych section, you might be thinking of Pathological Demand Avoidance. Not that I'm into labeling or diagnosing or anything like that. 

The rest of you know. PDA stands for (say it with me!) Public Display of Affection. You know. Those moments in which we find ourselves watching uncomfortably close moments shared by two people who are in love and/or need to get a room. Most of us have at one time or another been on the receiving end of such a sight. And maybe you've even been on the transmitting side, swapping a little tongue swab or playing slap and tickle while waiting for the bus. Sometimes we all forget where we are. 

Andy Byron knows exactly where he is, now. He's out of a job. If that name doesn't ring a bell, you may have been away from all manner of media over the past week and a half. Andy was, up until recently, the Chief Executive Officer of Astronomer, a tech company that  specializes in data workflow management, particularly with Apache Airflow. Andy won't be reporting to work anytime soon because of PDA. And the way that some data got managed. 

Specifically the image of Andy at a July 16 Coldplay concert at which he was caught on a "kiss cam" and projected on a screen for thousands in attendance to see. The mildly intimate moment was cut short when Andy and his PDA partner ducked out of view. At this point, lead singer Chris Martin suggested, “Oh, what? Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.”

Or both. Thanks to the ever-lengthening tentacles of social media, that moment went, as the kids say, "viral." The identity of the woman captured in that awkward moment turned out not to be Mrs. Andy but rather the head of his former company's Human Resources Department, Kristin "not Byron" Cabot. 

Oops. 

If you are unfamiliar with the "kiss cam" trend, before you head out to your next major sporting event or concert, you probably want to consider your options when the leering eye of social media comes calling. As for yours truly, I make a point of kissing my wife whenever she comes to visit me at my school. Nothing too salacious. Just enough to gross out the kids. And anyone else who might get it into their heads to post it on TikTok.