alpert@cs.bu.edu (Richard Alpert) (10/30/90)
George Bray writes about the features of an offline pizza ordering facility. One such feature described was > Once ordered, your bank account would be debited instantly. That a record might exist anywhere of how and where I spend (all of) my money leaves me feeling rather unsettled. Sometimes, yes, as with a credit card, the convenience outweighs the possibility of abuse. Imagine, though (I'm sure you are aware such technology exists and is in place), making all purchases with an electronic debit card, creating a complete record of every expenditure, where, when, to whom paid, and for what. I recall in a film entitled (approximately), "Computers, Spies, and Human Lives," a conference of Soviet and American academicians from a variety of disciplines discussing a broad spectrum of issues. At one session, the question addressed was, "Were you a government wanting to maximize control over your society, how would you go about it?" The group in attendance, mostly sociologists, psychologists, physicists, computer scientists, linguists, chemists, economists, and biologists agreed unanimously, "Cashless Society". It frightens me. And, no, I have nothing to hide. > But the most important use of the Pizza HyperCard interface is the Smell- > o-Vision interface. Just press your nose to the screen and breathe in. Yes, but watch out for radiation and magnetic fields!! By the way, wasn't there a group working on introducing an olfactory dimension to motion pictures a few years ago? I remember reading about research to determine a basis of a range of odors (as in "basis of a vector space"). Richard Alpert