  We illustrate in a simple setting the instantaneous shock tracking approach
to stability of viscous conservation laws introduced by Howard, Mascia, and
Zumbrun. This involves a choice of the definition of instanteous location of a
viscous shock-- we show that this choice is time-asymptotically equivalent both
to the natural choice of least-squares fit pointed out by Goodman and to a
simple phase condition used by Gu\`es, M\'etivier, Williams, and Zumbrun in
other contexts. More generally, we show that it is asymptotically equivalent to
any location defined by a localized projection
