More Random Thoughts And Whatnot

What?

2008-05-19T15:21:00.001-04:00

If you watch Lost, you'll get a kick out of this montage:

Best Hey Jude Cover Ever!

2008-02-23T14:08:00.001-05:00

Hello Saferide

2008-01-08T13:43:00.001-05:00

Annika Norlin writes this about her experience getting started in the music industry and her lyrics:

Darth Vadar - in love and feeling like an idiot video

2007-12-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

"...and I've got the receipt, so if you don't like it you can exchange it" LOL~!

Fionn Regan - Be Good or Be Gone

2007-12-23T12:52:00.000-05:00

OMG - The Wrong Trousers

2007-12-23T12:43:00.000-05:00

Video Killed the Radio Star:

Doomsday vault

2007-11-19T19:37:00.000-05:00

There can be no bigger news this: Doomsday vault begins deep freeze and described a different way here.

Cigarettes and the new realm of big brother

2007-11-13T21:28:00.000-05:00

Buy cigarettes, get scanned for age:

A cigarette vending machine that can tell adults from minors by determining their approximate ages based on bone structure, wrinkles and the way their skin sags went on sale Monday.

More surveillance news

2007-11-08T07:50:00.000-05:00

Beijing, host of next year's summer Olympics, has pledged to protect its water supply and add state-of-the-art surveillance systems around Games sites, state media said on Thursday, quoting officials.

and in other news, in Malaysia,

Starting next year, police will use cameras to book traffic offenders all year round nationwide, instead of using them only during peak periods.

Bigfoot is back

2007-11-02T18:56:00.001-04:00

The latest bigfoot photo at this site:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-11/01/content_6221422.htm

The technology isn't good enough for police, so let's install it in our schools

2007-11-02T18:52:00.000-04:00

This surveillance technology doesn't work, so let's put more of them in:

A Nashville school district plans to be the first in the nation to use facial recognition cameras for security. The technology uses cameras to measure and identify a person's major facial features, much like the device used to train students at Pellissippi State, seen in the pictures and video with this story. If the cameras detect an unfamiliar face or identify someone barred from the school, an alarm sounds.

Three Nashville schools and an administrative building will be equipped with the cameras next month.

A few police departments in Virginia and Florida have already tried the technology and dropped its use, after they said it failed to spot wanted criminals.

The Sharper Image makes inroads into biometrics

2007-11-01T20:59:00.000-04:00

Over-the-counter biometric devices coming to a shopping mall near you: The Sharper Image Makes an Initial Order in Excess of $500,000 From Sequiam Biometrics. So now you too can lock down that important electronic device that only opens for your fingerprint. This is a bit odd, since laptops like my IBM Thinkpad have a thumb scan device built in. Even so, this over-the-counter product can secure other electronic devices, locking them down for everyone except the owner. I'm thinking of the applications: garage doors, gaming equipment, computers, home security systems, and maybe even iPods.

In other news, Chicago drivers can now pay for gas with their fingerprint. Seems like an obvious segue, since first graders essentially do the same at school cafeterias. In fact, I'm surprised the adult market wasn't the first one opened to this technology. Of course, first graders won't question the technology and the potential sharing (loss) of personal identity.

The American Analog Set - Baby Julie Come Home

2007-10-31T19:28:00.000-04:00

If you would like the mp3 of the song, try this link.

Speaking of Tree houses

2007-10-27T11:33:00.001-04:00

Check out this CBC.ca video about the concept of live tree houses--only takes 5 years to grow:
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1785
and YouTube:

Roswell tribute video

2007-10-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

I take no credit for this, but I like the song, I loved the TV show, and the editing is pretty good:

If you like the content, try to find the Roswell DVD's at your local library. Although from what I understand, the soundtrack on the DVD's is different than the original series because the artists held their rights to the songs when they were used when the series originally ran.

Bunches of other Roswell media at this person's youtube site.

The next generation of video surveillance

2007-10-27T11:13:00.001-04:00

I read a book recently which had the premise that nobody could move through society unrecognized by surveillance cameras and intelligent algorithms would record when a person acted in a behavior outside their norm. So browsing the news yesterday, I found this quote buried in the fourth paragraph of the article "Cradle Launches Janus Surveillance System in India":

Unlike conventional CCTVs, where one has to constantly monitor the camera to detect abnormal behaviour, Janus system not only records data it can also trigger alarm automatically if it detects any abnormal behaviour, said Gupta.

Now that's what I'm talking about. They're not just recording suspicious behavior of bad guys and evaluating it against normal behavior, but they are recording behavior of all of us and running that through their evaluations to determine abnormal behavior. I'm trying to think of what it could evaluate, without human judgment, to be abnormal behavior: leaving or forgetting a bag on the floor at the mall, loitering and taking pictures at monuments and government buildings, or maybe racing to your car because you forgot your wallet. Couple this with facial recognition software and beware!

Demetri Martin - Montreal 2006

2007-10-27T11:11:00.000-04:00

Canadian comedian who has good stuff:

Yoda on a stamp and R2/D2 dances

2007-10-25T20:19:00.000-04:00

Yes, he Yoda is on a stamp. It appears not to be a forever stamp, but he'll take it anyway.

Of course, there is always pirate Yoda:

Most interesting it is that the word "Yoda" is in my blogging software's dictionary!!

OMG, I just found this video and like had to share it:

Umm, too much time on their hands?

Make an average face

2007-10-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

Make an average face at this site. You can also upload a cluster of faces to make an average of those, but that's only if you register at the site. I didn't register but found it quite fascinating to make an average face from the several faces provided.

I found the above link when I stumbled on this face:

Pretty cute, although she's a digital composite. The article Beauty is in the Processing-Time of the Beholder, is a good read as well.

Holy cockroaches, Batman! They conceived in space.

2007-10-24T18:46:00.000-04:00

The Russians can now claim the first space conception. And why not!

"Hope" the Russian cockroach gives birth to first space babies.

Plug me in -- RFID my child please

2007-10-23T22:42:00.000-04:00

No proximal privacy in the age of cell phones:

Kyna Fong, a 24-year-old Stanford graduate student, uses Loopt, offered by Sprint Nextel. For $2.99 a month, she can see the location of friends who also have the service, represented by dots on a map on her phone, with labels identifying their names. They can also see where she is.

One night last summer she noticed on Loopt that friends she was meeting for dinner were 40 miles away, and would be late. Instead of waiting, Ms. Fong arranged her schedule to arrive when they did. “People don’t have to ask ‘Where are you?’” she said.

Umm, Kyna, maybe they were blowing you off!

In more serious news, what do you think about the voluntary use of RFID chips in the clothing of UK students in South Yorkshire?

On the other hand, the school's head teacher, Graham Wakeling, has denied that they were adapting a "Big Brother" mentality.

"The system is not intrusive to the pupil in the slightest. The benefit is that it provides the immediate registration of the pupil as they enter the classroom. This supports staff as they are getting to know pupils. All the information it provides is already stored on the school information management system," he said.

Umm, isn't that the definition of Big Brother? They know where you are at any given time. If it were me, I'd go for the under the skin RFID chip, that way the schools, like insurance agencies, can track me much better. Heck, just plug me into the matrix, please.

How can surveillance produce a hero? This thought and others after reading from The New American

2007-10-22T21:38:00.000-04:00

I never thought of myself as a libertarian, because I've always voted for the conservatives in presidential elections, but I have voted for many libertarians in local elections. But I never thought of myself as a libertarian because government has a purpose. It holds a nation together and it is important to stand strong against terrorists and our collective foes. It is also important for me to have individual freedom: to visit the flower store and not have that information relayed to my wife, to drive an alternate route to work and not have my supervisor check up on my reason for being tardy, to fly a plane and wear a vest and not have someone question whether or not the bulge in my chest pocket is controlled or not. I am speaking of the near future, of course, but this future asserts itself strongly.

Now I read a libertarian "Cover Story" by Wilton D. Alston, who also authored a helpful primer called A Libertarian Cheat Sheet. In Living Under Surveillance, Alston takes a measured approach to surveillance, noting how this genie is out of the bottle but bureaucracy cannot handle the quantity nor the complexity of the data. He writes:

If this assessment sounds too harsh, please consider who the real heroes of 9/11 were: they were the citizen-soldiers who attempted to stop the terrorists aboard United Airlines Flight 93; they were the local firemen and policemen who willingly and selflessly rushed into the doomed WTC towers; and they were the field FBI agents who reported important pieces of the 9/11 plans to their superiors in Washington, only to have the information ignored. The entity that failed most grossly to protect us on 9/11 was the Washington bureaucracy itself, and yet we are supposed to prevent future 9/11s by transferring more power to that bureaucracy?

The number of times airport security has been breached since the supposed improvements in airport security should put the myths to rest. The Seattle Times published a report of all the airport security breaches they had found between 2002 and 2004. The list was far from inconsequential, although the Times evidently stopped collecting reports after the number reached 100. According to the Times, “Screeners say that’s [only] a fraction of the incidents, and most are never disclosed.” The reported incidents included one instance when five DHS investigators posing as passengers managed to get knives, a gun and a bomb in their carry-on baggage through security checkpoints without being detected.

Before stumbling upon this article, I had never heard of The New American online magazine. Now it seems like it might be worth a repeat visit.

Surveillance in Vegas

2007-10-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

It should not be a surprise that Las Vegas is the playground for surveillance cameras and recognition software.

In secret rooms in casinos across Las Vegas, surveillance specialists are busy analyzing information about players and employees. Relying on thousands of cameras in nearly every cranny of the casino, they evaluate suspicious behavior. They ping names against databases that share information with other casinos, sometimes using facial-recognition software to validate a match. And in the marketing suites, casino staffers track players' every wager, every win or loss, the better to target high-rollers for special treatment and low- and middle-rollers for promotions.

The article continues to explain that RFID chips are already placed in betting chips in order "to detect counterfeiters, to keep track of chip flow at tables, to know instantly how much a player has bet, won or lost."

I'm last to know that schools now fingerprint our kids

2007-10-16T06:47:00.000-04:00

Yes, as the title says, I'm the last to know that schools now fingerprint our kids. It is a strange world we live in, when our biometric data is so important, we cannot leave 1st grade without being fingerprinted for identity purposes. Of course, no one wants their 1st grader stolen, so maybe the biometric data can come in handy for some, but it still makes me worry about mis-use. Okay, I can accept that we need more cameras in urban areas, and I can accept that flying saucers are soon going to provide surveillance, and I can accept that adults can now open car doors with their finger print, but do I need to accept that first graders need to use a fingerprint to buy their lunch? I know! Let's give up privacy little by little every year until the watchers are doing our work. Pretty soon there will be more programmers for the watchers than developers for anything else in society. Then the programmers for the watchers will be writing applications for devices that will be watching their own behavior. Oh, and I was sarcastic with what I can accept, described a few sentences back.

Kiddyprinting and Flying Surveillance Saucers

2007-10-15T19:48:00.000-04:00

Kiddyprinting in Scotland

and

UFO's are right around the corner, and will be brought to a neighborhood near you by the U.S. Department of Defense.