More Friday Fun

Here is a very entertaining skit from MadTV using a new mock Apple “i” product to illustrate some not so entertaining realities of U.S. foreign policy.

Obesity, a cure for loss of identity

Clive Hamilton, the executive director of The Australia Institute, has published a wonderful thought piece in The Sydney Morning Herald. In it, Hamilton suggests that:

“While we stigmatise fat people, perhaps they are behaving normally in a sick social environment. The answer then is not diets, drugs and surgery but a wholesale change in the culture of consumption, which itself is a reaction to the emptiness of affluence.

Maybe we need a new organisation, Overconsumers Anonymous, to provide us all with a 12-step plan in which we first must admit we have lost control and then submit ourselves to a higher power. It may turn out to be a less painful way of coping with our addiction to stuff than being swallowed up by consumer debt when the economy turns sour.” Click here for more.

Contrasting this presentation (indeed, any honest presentation for that matter) of Western society with the trials and tribulations of less wealthy nations and the question begs, how equipped are we as a society to face adversity?

Although there is a sentiment among many that humans are exceptionally resilient, are those who have known no hardships beyond over-consumption really able to face catastrophe?

We are prone as a society to accept so-called social sicknesses with compassion, often blinding us from asking what the long-term effects of such conditions will have on the wider social fabric. Our growing inability to look at these human problems objectively is preventing us from asking serious questions about our future safety as a species.

In the immediate future alone, over-consumption threatens the world’s limited fresh water supply and is already destroying ecosystems. This is to say nothing of the impact our current spoiled state will have on our ability to overcome the challenges that will undoubtedly follow as a result of the environmental changes brought on by over-consumption.

It’s an ugly reality, to be sure, but one that needs considering nonetheless.

ED Day – Dead Sydney

Here is a very interesting concept. Daryl Mason has been writing and publishing an on-line novel “set in Sydney, after the bird flu pandemic.” The story centres around 300 survivors. New chapters are posted frequently.

This is a very exciting exercise. Most people prefer to avoid considering what the future might be like should things turn ugly. Unfortunately, anything is possible and even the worst eventualities must be considered to ensure survival of the species. Perhaps if more people like Daryl took to wondering what tomorrow has in store we would be better prepared for what might be awaiting us.

The Looming Wars on Water

TVO aired a wonderful documentary last night entitled “A World Without Water.” The film, by True Vision, reveals the impact of water scarcity on average people.

An unthinkable deprivation once seemingly far removed affecting only the poorest of countries, water scarcity will soon effect even the wealthy West. Indeed, for the disenfranchised living in some wealthier nations water scarcity is already a reality.

Despite our tendency to waste considerable amounts of water, it is not an unlimited resource. Even the means by which water now so easily enters our homes is subject to limitations, infrastructure does and is deteriorating. The costs of maintaining or replacing decaying infrastructure is avoided by many public institutions through the privatization of water systems. Leaving many people who cannot afford the costs associated with accessing a private water supply in the lurch.

As water is a resource that humans cannot live without, conflicts between those without water and those who possess it should be anticipated in the years to come. Of course, such wars are entirely avoidable by striving for a balance between the haves and the have-nots. It seems unlikely, however, that any politician will even attempt to lead his or her voting public in such undesirable cutbacks.

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Biometric sensor can’t fall into the wrong hands

It’s nice to see that biometric firms are improving technologies all the time. If the databases that store user information could be enhanced a useful solution might be at our fingertips…

If you’re using your cell phone in Japan right now, there’s a good chance that you have to swipe your finger over a thin gold bar like this in order to gain access.

You might also use one of these sensors to log into your PC or in place of a key to open your front door. And if you’re doing that, you’re probably not going to bother with your wallet the next time you buy a cup of coffee, paying instead by briefly holding your cell phone to an RF reader. The early adopters of fingerprint authentication are Japan and S. Korea, but Florida-based AuthenTec is hoping to make the technology ubiquitous.

If this seems crazy to you, you’re not alone. A major concern about fingerprint biometrics is the possibility of faking or transferring fingerprints. Or worse—in movies and reality alike, the bad guy has been known to cut off someone’s finger to get around the fingerprint security device.

But AuthenTec’s sensor aims to discourage the removal of fingers to gain secure access.

“It only reads live skin,” AuthenTec representative Brent Dietz says. “So you couldn’t cut off someone’s finger and then use it.” Dietz says other technologies only look at the finger’s surface, which can be adulterated by cuts, oily skin, or worn fingerprints. But this sensor (actually an RF scanner) looks at what Dietz calls the “true fingerprint” in the live skin deep beneath the surface—so deep that you can see individual pores. A lost or stolen phone becomes completely useless.” Click here for more.