2/05/2008

This is so wrong in so many ways.

From Cellular-News:
Finland's Road Administration has started locking its isolated roadside toilets - and unlocking them via SMS. In response to incidents of arson and thefts, the transport authority came up with the novel solution which increased security, without reducing access for the public....The toilets have been secured, and a sign outside explains that the user just sends the word "open" (in Finnish) to a short code and the door will be unlocked remotely. The company managing the service will keep a short term record of all users phone numbers, simply so that if the toilet is then damaged by criminals, they can be traced by the police.

So, um, now people can be tracked based on where they gotta take a leak. What's next? DNA testing of poop? Microchipping people with live transmitters so that nobody ever has to wonder who's where? The government of New South Wales microchipped my horse without, it appears, needing to either ask or even notify me (although that wasn't a transmitter, I'm making that part up), so there's even a precedent, sort of.

Dark days....

8 Comments:

At 6:45 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Bio-artist Eduardo Kac actually had himself chipped with the same systems that are used to track lost pets (and presumably horses), so I think there's already a precendent for that one.

 
At 7:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. It is probably effective, if a little INVASIVE! O_o ?
Margaret

 
At 10:21 PM, Blogger Houston Dunleavy said...

Do you think anyone will try to microchip poop?

OOPS! Did I say that out loud?

 
At 7:19 PM, Blogger Chard said...

Houston: No, but you typed it pretty loudly.

I didn't realize Finland was such a police state.

And I would REALLY hate to be the person assigned to track people on the basis of their use of public amenities. This is all beginning to sound like the musical show, "Urinetown." Quite brilliant, if you haven't seen it.

 
At 7:41 PM, Blogger Laura E. Goodin said...

Haven't seen Urinetown, but my cousin worked on the sound design for it. For years, Margaret wore a Urinetown cap my cousin had given her; it was several years before the show actually got to Australia, and she got some very strange looks as people read the writing....

 
At 7:46 PM, Blogger Chard said...

It's really a wonderful parody of Broadway musicals in general. Each song is done in a different style, generally taken from something that was popular in the 80s or 90s. So you jump from Lloyd Webber style to something rather Rent-ish to....

And the narration is a HOOT. I was ready to hate the show, and ended up with it being one of my all-time favorites.

 
At 4:13 PM, Blogger Houston Dunleavy said...

Following one wherever one uses the easements. Scatophiles are going to love this.....

I suppose the price of total easement freedom is too high for the Finns. Too bad.

 
At 4:15 PM, Blogger Houston Dunleavy said...

OH! And can anyone else hear the cries from the social democratic epxeriment that is Sweden? "That will never happen here!"

 

Post a Comment

<< Home