The Best Hraka Around
Well, technically back from over the brink.
Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey, declared extinct in 2000.
Declared probably-not-extinct-after-all in 2003.
Excellent. Now if only the Tasmanian Tiger rumors can be borne out.
And an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker or two wouldn’t go amiss, either
Syrian Minister Buthayna Sha’ban: ‘There Is No Opposition’
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: ‘Were There Not Forgiveness and Democracy in Syria, There Would be Harsher Measures Against the Opposition’
Nazi ideology held that only pure “Teutonic” Europeans were the “Master Race”; all other races and ethnicities were Untermenschen (subhuman). While the Jews were doubtless considered by the Nazis to be the “lowest” of these, that did not stop the Nazis and their allies from rounding up and slaughtering other members of the “inferior” groups.
Like, for example, the Gypsies.
I’ll be scanning the barcode on the back of my driver’s license sometime over the weekend–the SWIPE tookit will tell me what personal information is contained within it.
I found SWIPE via an article at Wired News, Great Taste, Less Privacy, about bars that have started scanning licenses in an effort to detect fake licenses and catch underage patrons. Which is all well and good, but there is a lot more information in the license barcode than just age. Once a card reader is combined with a database, then all sorts of correlations become possible.
In addition to fear of relentless marketing, there are concerns about stalking. A bar employee, for example, could create a list of all blond female patrons between the ages of 21 and 25 who weigh 120 pounds. The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 was passed to prevent states from selling driver’s records, in part because people were outraged states were making money on the data. In addition, an obsessed stalker killed actress Rebecca Schaeffer a few years ago using an address obtained from public driving records.
Heck, combine the scan with a floor level scale, and not only would a bar employee create a list of all blond female patrons between the ages of 21 and 25 who weigh 120 pounds, he could track over time which ones are the most prone to weight gain.
Eventually some nightspot will cotton to the notion of, not only collecting personal information, but displaying to the crowd already assembled within, though probably with things like addresses taken out. Nightclubbers will enter a bar, scan their license or have it scanned, and voila! Their likeness, image, age and weight appear on screens placed around the room, then continue to pop up randomly through the night, until a exit swipe was recorded by the system.
Certainly some people will avoid these places like the plague, but for others, especially the young and good-looking, the sensation of being the focus for hundreds of eyes, even if for only a moment, will prove addictive, as will having dozens of total strangers know your name. The usual rationalizations will pop out–”That way my friends know I’ve arrived,” “It’s a great way to meet people,”–a thin covering of excuse to put the mind at rest. What will really be going on is the trading of personal information for something percieved as valuable by the participants–in this case, social connections.*
Hundreds of thousands of people hand away equivalent information to the grocery stores every day in return for a few cents off comestibles. How much more would they be willing to give away in return for attracting the interest of the opposite sex?
Now if I just had an investor or two.
*Euphemism for “the possibility of getting laid.”