Want Everyone To See Your Credit Card Transactions?

As the Internet matures, slowly but surely everything we do in the real world is going social. But there’s a limit to how much information we can explicitly share on all the various services. A new service, Blippy, launching today in private beta, has an interesting way to take something you do everyday, buy things with your credit card, and automatically push those transactions online for others to see and interact with.

via techcrunch.com

I am having trouble seeing what the positive would be, from the individual's viewpoint.

Posted via web from Wunderphul

Traveling home

I-5 northbound - stop and go because of the holiday traffic... :-(

I did not plan this very well. No, I did not.

-
Tom (mobile)

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More dumb things, tragic - and perhaps hope...

Continuing the texting and driving theme... (LINK)

The NY Times and CBS news has conducted a poll http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/technology/02textingside.html and it seems that there are really high percentages of people agreeing about no texting while driving. Penalties, penalties, penalties...

And then there is a story about how Britain has become very agressive in the punishment area http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/technology/02texting.html obviously hoping to curtail the behavior (heavier than "click-it or ticket" and more along the lines of "use a gun, go to jail" -> "text while driving, go to jail")

But actually, I think this technology has promise to help solve the problem in another way
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090525/170623/

While I have worked with and around face recognition software before, this particular application of similar technology would (I would think) allow a driving pattern to developed and stored within the system, because the system has to eventually recognize what the driver is looking at. According to Toshiba, it can be used to alert the driver to inattentive driving (or to operate car navigation system by combining the eye direction and manually-operated switches). The former alerting mechanism, I think, would allow this driving pattern, implicitly, to be differentiated from the texting "looking" pattern. Become inattentive, because of the texting, the system would "alert the driver". Let's hope the alerts don't lead to an aftermarket of methods of disconnection.

What do you think? obviously, more work to be done (they would need to eliminate the computational requirements that force a PC into the car, or simply wait for more horsepower) and, according to their statement in the article, they have no plans to commercialize this yet.

Still - here is something that might be worthwhile, something better than relying on GPS and/or accelerometers tied to the texting function.

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Driving, texting, and otherwise doing dumb things

I had someone almost sideswipe me over the weekend while I was out and about. It made me think about the following items I had recently seen on the "tubes"

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/07/18/technology/1194841442782/distracted-drivers.html a NYTimes video article on drivers distracted by the technology

http://3g4g.blogspot.com/2009/09/youtube-clip-on-dangers-of-driving.html a film made by a police department in the city of Gwent in the U.K. A fictional, but all too real, crash caused by a Welsh teen's texting while driving.

Why is it that we "consumers" think it's our god given right to do what we want, without regard to our own and other's safety? Perhaps the same could have been said for motorcycle helmet laws in the U.S. until finally most states adopted them solely to cut down on the expense of medical care for those critically injured in this fashion.

The same thing for smoking, in that you can't in many places any more, principally because of the direct medical costs associated with the behavior.

Perhaps this will be the angle that will ultimately be taken in order to force us to behave like sensible people. California (where I live) does have talking on the phone (without a hands free headset) and texting laws designed to prevent this. Mostly, I fear, these laws are ignored. I say this because I've seen a fair amount of tickets being written, but the practice continues, in spite of the tickets. Other places have similar laws and I suspect are also being ignored as much as out here in the west. -- Since there is a direct relationship between the behavior and the ultimate consequences, e.g. the crash, the medical care, the lawsuits - it's only a matter of time before there will be a stronger set of talking/texting laws -- a mandatory "helmet" law for our cell phones?

That would be scary for many of us, now, wouldn't it?

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Additional Moon Landing Trivia

Back in July, I posted about the upcoming moon landing anniversary.

Well, the 40th for this historic event has come and gone, but I did run across some additional information courtesy of the ABC Science show, from Australia. They were rebroadcasting an interview with the astronauts at the 20th anniversary of the moon landing, and what was really funny was the interchange between John Getter, KHOU in Houston and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Buzz Aldrin had answered the reporter's question on what's different between 1969 and 1989 with some kind of bland stuff like in the 60's we were ripe for commitment, that now so much more technology was available, that we could do a lot, things are changing Alvin Toffler style, but it was expensive. He left off and I certainly had the impression that the commitment in the 80's was somewhat lacking but he did say that he had hope that things would continue on (from the original missions).

Michael Collins must have been the straightman for the Space Program, because he replied: "President Kennedy said that we were going to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth, that was his goal. President Bush (George H Bush), whom I consider to be a president as dynamic as Kennedy, I think, in today's climate would have to say, 'I think we ought to dedicate ourselves to the goal of perhaps considering appointing a commission, after due deliberation with the Congress of investigating the feasibility of certain long-range goals for the space program, perhaps even including a mission to Mars.'

I laughed myself silly... Maybe he had lots of time in the Command Module to think up this stuff.

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What's wrong with Medicine?

Sometimes, it just rains...
 
Wife has been coughing alot lately, me too for that matter... She has
phone appt with doctor today, great idea, btw, keeping costs down...
probably some kind of bronchial infection, it's been going around...
 
I help out by going to the pharmacy to pick up some meds he's ordered
for her... There are 3 packages and 3 months worth of prescriptions!
About $125 - oh my.
 
Certainly, if the condition persists that long, I would think we might
be trying other things by then. We have cheaper mail-order refill
perscription options by then as well.
 
I am going to consider this a "click the wrong box" sort of problem,
but it illustrates the importance of patient responsibility and taking
care of your own self.
 
I know too many lemmings who just unquestioningly do what the doctor
says. Speak up people, ask questions.

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Free Read! - Personal Effects: Dark Art - Chapters 1 thru 4

Download now or preview on posterous

PEDA-Chap1-4.pdf (1766 KB)

Something for you to read, see if this book is something for you.

 

I have my own copy, am reading it now, but just in case you'd like to see what all the fuss is about...

 

 

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