I Was A Teenage Sexist - "Girls – the ones we think of as “cool” – don’t trust other women, women who play by gender “rules” that the rest of us cannot quite understand. The most important things those women can seemingly do are spend money on clothes and appeal to the opposite sex. Meanwhile, we ourselves don’t feel particularly female. We only feel like people. It’s a tough fall. People intuitively detect that attitude, go out of their way to remind you that you’re not fooling anybody. You are a woman, and you will only ever be a woman."
[more inside]
posted by flex
on Nov 18, 2012 -
83 comments
Massive Biometric Project Gives Crores of Indians an ID: Aadhaar faces titanic physical and technical challenges: reaching millions of illiterate Indians who have never seen a computer, persuading them to have their irises scanned, ensuring that their information is accurate, and safeguarding the resulting ocean of data. This is India, after all—a country notorious for corruption and for failing to complete major public projects. And the whole idea horrifies civil libertarians. But if Aadhaar’s organizers pull it off, the initiative could boost the fortunes of India’s poorest citizens and turbocharge the already booming national economy. [more inside]
posted by infini
on Aug 30, 2011 -
30 comments
First they take Ugarte and then she walks in. On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether people must show "papers" whenever police demand them. Unlike
Dudley Hiibel (discussed on mefi
last year) who had (arguably) caused a disturbance meriting police attention, Deb was just riding the bus when she was "welcomed" to the Denver Federal Center.
posted by Smedleyman
on Nov 25, 2005 -
35 comments
How "Real ID" Act will affect you [CNET]
Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
posted by dand
on May 6, 2005 -
94 comments
Identifont is an amazing, free, font identification tool. Ever seen some nice text in print or on the web, wanted to use it yourself, but couldn't work out what font they used? By answering a series of simple questions (Does the 'Q' tail cross the circle? What shape is the 'g'?), all presented with handy example pictures, Identifont can quickly identify the name of the font you're looking for.
posted by chrismear
on Apr 7, 2004 -
13 comments
Papers, please! On March 22, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will answer whether or not citizens have to provide identification whenever police demand it.
posted by Irontom
on Feb 18, 2004 -
43 comments
Thanks Again, Frauhofer! "Software developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institut, the creators of the MP3 ... called "Query by Humming," -- a type of melody recognition software program that identifies a song by title and composer based on a person humming a few bars into a microphone."
Sure, it'll put quaint sites like
this out of business, but think of the fun you'll have walking by your co-workers cubicle only to hear them furtively humming into their PC so that it can search for that pesky tune they can't get out of their head.
(This technology sounds familiar, so advanced apologies for a double post. I did a search, really.)
posted by chandy72
on Jan 22, 2003 -
4 comments
Shazam! The
Media have been talking about it for a while, but this Music Identification Service for
British (nyt) mobile phones is finally here. For 50p, you can place your mobile phone next to any machine playing groovy unidentifiable music, and within a minute, it'll text and tell you what's playing. So far, I've worked out that it's great at identifying Sheryl Crow and Bush tracks, but it's not so good at
identifying traditional Greek folk music.
posted by seanyboy
on Sep 17, 2002 -
11 comments
National identification cards The pros and the cons are given here. Do you have a preference after considering these arguments?
What would we do with the 11 million illegals said to be here now?Send them to New Jersey?
posted by Postroad
on Sep 25, 2001 -
52 comments
Is this necessary? Don't we already fingerprint/footprint babies after birth here? Is this just an attempt by our overzealous government to have a classification of every citizen on file? Police these days are scary enough for adults let alone children. Save the children...right?
posted by wantwit
on Jun 16, 2001 -
8 comments
How far will the Taleban go in isolating themselves from the rest of the world? This possible move brings to mind memories of how the Nazis treated the Jews during WWII.
posted by da5id
on May 22, 2001 -
32 comments
