The typical use case is to go both ways; out and back in (for residents), or in and back out (for visitors). When you pass through, the biometrics data is linked to the passport or other reference. At a minimum, one can confirm that someone claiming to be a returning resident really is the same person who left; and that a departing visitor really is the same person who entered; and if there is a maximum time for visitors (default or visa), whether a visitor has overstayed his/her/its maximum time.

My point, though, was more about the reflex reaction of "big government spying on us". This isn't spying - it's gatekeeping, and it's one of the few legitimate purposes of such data. The problem, as with so many other things like wireless toll passes or license plate scanners, is limiting the usage to those few legitimate purposes. I don't mind being tracked on the occasions that I cross the national border; I *do* mind that the information I gave to get my passport, and the photos, become the base for identification systems tracking people all over the place "for our own safety".

Come on, people, be realistic. Slashdotters are the foremost people complaining about antiquated low-tech approaches to problems and how they could be sped up, and probably half of us already use fingerprint or face recognition on our devices. Yet we're also among the people most aware of the negative impacts of such systems and the potential for abuse.

This isn't random scanning, or general surveillance - this is a Customs checkpoint, where their ENTIRE JOB is to know who is passing in and out of the country. This is one of the ONLY places where such technology is justified. The danger isn't the open explicit mandated checkpoints, it's the misuse of this technology at every commuter station and the entrances to entertainment or shopping venues - and the availability of government-collected information (which we are coerced to provide) to commercial interests for non-public purposes. Though on a practical level it's more likely to go broke because someone got access to my finances through stupid commercial activity.

Reid and Pelosi and everyone doing strategy for the Democrats should be eliminated. All these years they have kept letting the Republicans take the initiative, frame the discussions. and define the terms of discourse. They are constantly two steps behind and on the wrong foot. Hell, Sansa Stark could do better, let alone anyone who has ever played any strategy games. Play the damn game by *all* of the rules, including backstabbing and poisoning the well like the Republicans do, and that includes the "knee to edge of board" variant that the Tea Party keeps trying to pull. Even this Clinton email thing is being handled badly, whichever side you agree with; the response - the very same day - should have been, "Yes, I ran my own email, just like I did for years before that, and the server is in the former President's house guarded by the Secret Service, and by the way all of you were receiving my emails ALL THOSE YEARS - didn't any of you idiots ever notice my return address all this time? and nobody cared all this time? But go ahead, assholes, because if you seat a committee to look into email, we're going to look into EVERYONE's email. Yes, including the ones with the dick pix and the dominatrix mistresses. Go ahead, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

Is that more nipples per person, or more nipples per person? Because the latter could be kind of weird . . . .

It isn't expensive to start rolling out as part of the new generation of Neverlost hardware. Eventually they'll check on who's driving ("You only paid for one driver and signed for one insurance coverage, but we see that both of you were driving..."), once their lawyers have finished changing the microprint that nobody reads before they sign.

Somehow I think the price on his head would have been as high as on Vetinari's.

This is a self-contradicting problem. I have absolutely no interest in killing myself or being killed, unless and until I'm incapable, which is precisely the point at which I need help. What I want to be able to do, while capable, sane, and demonstrably *not* in any immediate need and *not* under any duress, is set up the contract (oops, the "will and testament") that specifies the conditions under which I want to be assisted off this mortal coil since I can't do it myself any more.

I am in favor of a right to die, and I simultaneously appreciate the concern that people will be pushed into it before they want to - maybe even by well-meaning "avoid suffering" arguments, as opposed to "die faster and stop using up our inheritance" situations. In our current legal environment a hospital can ignore a properly executed living will, and fight a properly executed power of attorney (not to mention where some states still don't have "living wills"), and claim that it is "erring on the side of caution". And anything suggesting that one wishes to die, no matter how dire or specific the circumstances, immediately gets cast as an attempt at suicide which clearly indicates mental incapacity, so *of course* it should be ignored.

I know the "Darwin Awards" are intended as a joke, but consider a purely animalistic / mathematical perspective: the individual doesn't matter to Mother Nature. Most species produce lots of offspring simply to overcome the high odds of dying before reproducing. Those odds are mostly external from predators and injury, and also include internal causes like illness, "unfitness" (in the Darwinian sense), and any kind of defect. Some calculated risk-taking is useful, but poor calculation skills (or excessive bravado despite calculation) lead to the "Darwin Awards" concept. Maybe, in the same vein, some amount of fear / depression / unhappiness is useful as a moderating influence on behavior - as often stated, courage is not the absence of fear, it is persistence despite fear - but too much of those emotions renders the individual less useful, and enough of those emotions to cause self-damage or self-killing is a trait that will self-cull from the gene pool.

Is it, then, worthwhile from a purely economical point to try to baby-proof the world, or would it be more practical to emphasize recognition and identification of people with problems for targeted help? Not to mention impinging on everybody for the safety of the few (a hot reaction in so many posts here). This has some analogy to the issue of "playground safety" meaning that children get no exercise and learn no skills because the play area must be totally safe for all activities and ability levels. At what point does making the world totally safe mean nobody can have a cooking knife?

I would think that a specific *goal* would be to have a car with enough independence that the passengers could be drinking, though only as a specific use coase of the more general category "unable to drive" due to physical or mental handicap, incapacity, ability, age-related infirmity, or even a frivolous desire to concentrate on something else, be it reading, work, or companion(s). On the other hand, if you need a license to be a passenger, then a very significant portion of the potential utility is missing. One would expect that you need a license to take individual control, and perhaps to be able to drive outside of a control grid area.

Let's see how fast they can shut down that accounting website . . . .

Now if only Microsoft could find a way to embrace-and-extend the cellphone system, so that Microsoft phones only work right with other Microsoft phones, they might be able to do what they did on the desktop . . .

But . . . there IS a love story with Wyoh. Polygamy could be a hot seller in the modern ethos. And there ARE shootouts - unfortunately, brutal government suppression of civil unrest, but that's PC nowadays. And the Loonies DO throw rocks. So the Hollywood maceration machine will say, "Hey, we included lots of stuff from the original book, what are you complaining about?" while losing much of the meaning that readers got out of it. (By the way, American democracy used to be secretly socialist; just watch "Teahouse of the August Moon", in which the naive good officer insists that any profits from the town have been banked in a collective account to be shared equally like a family, and his superior shouts "But that's Communism!")

Let's see, just how badly could they mess this up . . . Well, I still have the paperback with the reversed artwork, showing Mannie with the WRONG ARM being cybernetic, so messing up a book has a long and storied history.

The obvious problem is that the story takes place over a multi-month or year-long period, which never comes across well in a movie. This would need a miniseries to do it justice.

The problem with "recognize based on content" is that the system has to *open* the file to read a *standardized* *header* to do this. Good luck getting people to standardize on a header for everything; there are multiple conflicting standards for pictures, and audio, and various other "containers" already. And does opening the file just to check content type count as a reference, or as a use? Or is system activity magically exempt from being counted? Extensions date back well before DOS, because they're simple and obvious and straightforward - not clever, not the best, not complete, but simple.