The Null Device
2001/11/30
An interesting look at the aesthetics of anatomy museums:
This note of elegance can be slightly disconcerting when confronting a human head floating in a jar. Yet transformed into sculpture by precise surgical tailoring, a preserved head boasts an unexpected elegance. Suspended in solution, it appears weightless and peaceful, free from our daily worries about decay and aging as it restfully waits out eternity in a sea of alcohol.
Routes of Least Surveillance: A group of civil libertarians has created a map of New York showing routes with the fewest surveillance cameras.
"We've designed iSee to be useful to a wide range of ordinary people," said an IAA operative who declined to be identified. "The demonstrated tendency of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) operators to single out ethnic minorities for observation and to voyeuristically focus on women's breasts and buttocks provides the majority of the population ample legitimate reasons to avoid public surveillance cameras."
"The advent of sophisticated face-recognition technologies are further reasons to use iSee. They will allow companies, private investigators, and journalists to browse video databases for footage of spouses, employees, and neighbors engaged in perfectly legal, but nonetheless private acts like attending job interviews and psychiatric appointments."
Expect it to become a big hit with dissidents, adulterers and the aluminium-hat set, before possibly being shut down lest it help potential terrorists.