Biometric scanning at UNBC · Thursday November 29, 2007 by colin newell
University of the North, in Prince George, British Columbia has caught the eye of the media today – as they have just started rolling out some new technology in the Athletics department…
Biometric scanning… of fingerprints.
To allow access to sports facilities, UNBC students are now required to give up their valuable, unique and very personal identity to the University… so they can get into the gym.
The American made technology was quickly implemented with little discussion. It has, not surprisingly, raised the ire of the student body.
I was curious about this so I did a little scanning myself.
And I found a 2002 article about a hotel in Saskatchewan that instituted biometric scanning to replace punch clocks for staff…
Ostensibly because staff kept losing their ID cards.
That and finger prints do not rub off.
I have a problem with all of this – just a little too much big-brother for my taste.
Back to Saskatchewan for a moment – the Human Rights commission and the Labor relations board said it was OK and that there is nothing Illegal about demanding peoples finger-prints as a condition of employment.
Right. And there is nothing ethical about it either.
Additional reading: A website in the UK called Leave Them Kids Alone dedicated to fighting the trend towards fingerprinting all children…
CBC picks up the story here
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Movie review - Inland Empire · Friday July 6, 2007 by colin newell
Ok. I do not actually do movie reviews. But I am making an exception for those so unfortunate as to fall into the World of David Lynch. Here is your warning.
David Lynch’s latest movie (and I most certainly use this term loosely) Inland Empire is an utter mess.
Inland Empire is an amalgam of all the Lynchisms ever cast on celluloid.
And unless you knew this already, Lynch is the ultimate trickster – using obvious visual metaphors and simple stories to create the illusion of complexity and plot.
Inland Empire has no plot. There is no story. It is one manipulative juxtaposition after another – woven like a spider on LSD.
Inland Empire has it all; Dark corridors. Men and Women in rabbit suits. Dark language speaking gypsy freaks. Simple dialog repeated – delivered in circles. More dark corridors. More blood. Bare breasts. Heck, there is even a monkey.
Bottom line – if you are thinking of spending some money to see this movie. Do yourself a favor. Give the money to a stranger or street person. Or visit a bar on the wrong side of town. Walk up to a prostitute and offer her (or him) 50$ to take the night off. Anything. Just don’t see this movie.
David Lynch’s Inland Empire is film-making proof that the man that brought us Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and heck, even Dune has lost his marbles.
Colin Newell lives in Victoria and writes about pop culture, the arts, politics and Western Living. His only hope is that he is never forced to see a movie this bad… ever again.
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The Soprano's explained · Monday June 18, 2007 by colin newell
My buddy Bob in Los Angeles wrote an article on the final episode of the Soprano’s…
and the entire internet showed up to look.
Click here
to become the 13,234,456th person to view this funny article.
Now I have never watched an episode of the Soprano’s but I can certainly appreciate the energy that Bob put into this.
Bob and I co-wrote an episode of CSI-Las Vegas, Season-3, Episode title: “The Last Laugh” — all good fun… now on DVD.
Now go join the hordes over on BobHarris.Com!
The downside of Facebook.Com and LiveJournal.Com · Friday May 25, 2007 by colin newell
Few people realise this so I am going to cut to the chase is it were.
FaceBook.Com and LiveJournal.Com are bad.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Yet so many people rave about it…
Like my work-mate Mike.
Quoting Mike:
Facebook is so wonderful. So wonderful. There are thousands of users on it at our workplace. You must join. You must. Goo-goo. Gaa-gaa.
Shut-up. Whatever.
Now the truth.
Ever read the user agreement on these online communities when you sign up? Ever? ever at all? Show of hands?
Noone. As I suspected.
Dig this. When you join FaceBook.Com, they own you. And everything you deposit. All your photos and all your rants. It is theirs. Forever.
Example: Being the curious science guy I signed into Facebook (and did not read the user agreement) and joined the network that Mike suggested.
What is the first thing I see and read? It is a 19 year old student at my University straddling a toilet puking her guts out after an all-evening drinking binge. Her first and last name is there and her photo.
So. All future employers can see that she is a piss-tank. And probably not a good employee.
In an entry I spotted on LiveJournal.Com (I have a friend on there who is a witty middle-aged writer and game designer…) he has many teenage friends it seems…
One of them writes:
Hi readers. I am Julie Xxxxxxx and I am going to f—-k my boyfriend for the first time tonight
I wonder if this is the right thing to do. It is my first time.
Ok. Is what the right thing to do? Writing about it where everyone can see OR doing it with someone you have known for 3 weeks?
As we have also discovered in some study on the phenomenon of social networking sites is that GIGANTIC CORPORATIONS watch the content whilst licking their chops.
It seems that all these people spilling their whatever have softened the jobs of the marketing experts.
When a whole community decides to share every last intimate detail of their sad lives on the internet…
Well.
You fill in the blanks.
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Chase us, Tom Cruise, Chase us · Monday May 14, 2007 by colin newell
John Sweeney, a BBC reporter who worked on a Scientology documentary that’s shortly to air, describes the way that the cult psy-opsed him, following him around (even at his wedding!) and calling on his family members and neighbors (I have a friend who did a Master’s thesis on the “church” and got inept, threatening phone calls at 2AM for years afterward). Eventually, Sweeney “snapped” on camera and shouted at a Scientology leader he was interviewing.
Scientologists recorded the outburst and then complained that Sweeney had made a “terrorist death threat.” Oh, puh-leeze. If there’s anything worse than being a sinister, greedy, brain-washing cult, it’s being a crybaby sinister, greedy brainwashing cult.
Source
Whole Story
More goofy Scientology factoids
I lived in a house for about 15 years and while there I got mis-delivered mail from a member of Scientology… of course I had to open that mail. It was my civic duty.
What blew me away was the catalog of stuff you had to buy to move up the Scientology rangs; cassettes, books and what-have-you…
Scientology is very much as pay as you go religion – full members could easily pay over 100,000 dollars for full enlightenment.
Yea. I guess I shouldn’t have been opening other peoples mail, huh?
That should be left to the FBI and CIA.
