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Oceanside Pier, thirty seconds

Monday, November 21, 2011

Brave the new world

Rene Magritte - Le double secret - 1927
I concede that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But help me get this straight. We have a constitution and bill of rights that protect us from a numerous number of violations from the state and our fellow citizenry, not the least of which is the right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizure. Why do politicians and pundits think that those rights need to be diminished and qualified because we have sparkling new technology?

Read this interesting article today - Natasha Singer, New York Times. New facial recog program gauges passerby's age, sex and attention level. I wonder what processes are involved to check attention level? Perhaps it is a retinal thing or do we have an unusual heat or infrared profile when we are concentrating? Anyway the company tailors the specific information you get to see on the screen according to your demographic and data profile.

Another company, Scene Tap, has an app that gives you the scoop on bar scenes, men to women ratios, slut index, what have you.

Many of these facial recognition applications store your information in a database without your consent. Based on the Obama administration's position that one is not entitled to privacy outside your home I would have to think that they will accede to all of these new technologies without a glance. Frightening, really.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your readers are a bunch of pussies. They never share comments about important social and political events.
Once in a while I read some conservative reader complain that your blog is too liberal. Other than that, your self righteous ex-hippie turned capitalist readers are too bloated and stoned to express valuable opinion other than an occasional blurb about their favorite over-priced bistro or some self serving nimby issue.

Anonymous said...

While some of that may be true, I think it is also a bit of "preaching to the choir". It's pretty hard to comment on shit that you saw coming thirty years prior and only now people are standing up. It used to be you were called a communist, now you're called a conspiracist. Any label to thwart a dialogue or debate. Your comment is just a cheap shot or trolling for a comment response. Well, here it is. Write something beyond empty complaining about how lame we all are and let us get back to our bong and burritos.

windowdancer said...

Anonymous...

Since you are obviously a frequent reader of this blog and given the fact that you have failed to comment on the content of this post, I think that it is fairly safe to say, without a doubt... you are the reader who is the biggest pussy of all.

Now, for you punishment...

Go into the bathroom, pull down your pants and slap your ass silly.

WD