| Another Retailer Backs Off RFIDs | 3:49 PM |
Metro AG (the fifth largest retailer in the world) has decided to drop the use of RFIDs (radio frequency identification tags) in their customer loyalty cards in one of its Germany stores where the group is testing several new retail technologies (they're still going to use them for tracking inventory). They're the third major retailer to do so -- Benetton and Wal-Mart caved to pressure last year and modified their RFID strategies.
I believe plans are still intact for plugging RFIDs into casino chips and EU and Austrailian banknotes. And while useful for managing theft, it's also useful for tracking gambling habits, figuring how much money you've got in your pocket (being a thief just got easier -- know exactly who to target and how much you'll get), and checking out your purchases (say goodbye to the anonymity of cash transactions). And while all this is hypothetical and technologically more difficult than it first appears, we don't want to let the technology outpace our debate so that when it does become a viable possibility we're still sitting on our hands wondering how we want to deal with it.
| Ohio Joins the Union Today | 10:36 AM |
Ohio became the 17th state to be admitted into the Union today in 1803. Some useless, but fun Ohio facts:
- Birthplace of aviation
- Famous Ohioans: Neil Armstrong, Ambrose Bierce, Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson's voice), Doris Day, Thomas Edison, Clark Gable, John Glenn, Ulysses S Grant, Toni Morrison, Annie Oakley, Steven Spielberg, Gloria Steinem, Ted Turner, Orville Wright
- Capital City is Columbus
- State bird is the Cardinal
- Nicknamed the Buckeye State
- And our wonderful state motto is "With God all things are possible"
| Loving My Parents | 1:24 AM |
Don't get me wrong -- I love my parents. Because I am an irrational fleshling and because family members get a huge emotional allowance. I can detach and make assessments about the type of people my parents are, but don't agree with me. Don't make your own negative assessments, and please don't disparage, ridicule, or otherwise bad mouth them in any way.
Just a couple of weeks ago near Valentine's Day, I was talking about my father -- how I adore and worship him, and how he means the world to me. But when I went to go consider why, there was no reason why. My father, because of his detachment and silence, is mostly a figment of my imagination. I have not a single childhood memory of him. He was not a part of my life except in the abstract and as a voice through my mother (supposed voice -- I suspect now that my mother just always spoke for him). Someone asked if he was "just there", and he wasn't even just there -- he spent a lot of time at the hospital. He is literally the father of my imagination. Some of his qualities are real -- his beautiful and easy smile, his dry sense of humor, his intelligence. But most of the qualities I've attributed to him throughout my life are not actually qualities he possesses.
And my mother. I have not a single childhood memory of her either. Odd, isn't it, that I don't have many childhood memories at all? I have one significant memory involving my first cat when I was in elementary school. A few others from Ohio based mostly on pictures. A few beyond that. My sister has significantly more memories of that time in our lives than I do (that time in our lives going up to and including the early part of high school).
My mom got us to do all the right things -- took all the right lessons, moved to a city that was rated high for education and made sure we excelled, kept us from working too young. She pushed us -- I don't ever recall it as encouragement, it was always push and cajole and control. Or punish.
But now, even having said all that, I sit here in my apartment back home from the weekend feeling wretched that I didn't spend enough time with my mother, that I wasn't patient enough with her, that I didn't show her enough love this weekend.
I love them. Completely irrationally and sometimes undeservedly, but always unconditionally and helplessly. They are my parents.
