Be careful what you wish for...

[hellison]

So there I was in work, studiously browsing LJ and reading the boards when a man walks past with a trolley full of boxes. A couple of minutes later he walks past again, but he has not come back from where he went the first time yet!
Then he comes back from whence he went with an empty trolley. Twice. Just as my poor brain is about to implode or the Matrix swallows me WHOLE, both of him appear and it turns out he is twins.

Twins who bring new monitors no less! Shiny new flat screen ones at that.
Hurrah, I think, for I have long coveted one of these, jealously eyeing up those who already have one. So a monitor twin plugs it all in and goes, I look and my EYES MELT. Way too bright and all the text is horribly fuzzy and out of focus.
Cue much fiddling with settings and whining to mivvvv who dispenses wonderful advice without once saying 'what you mean, you have no idea what that means?', and there is some improvement.
Then a nice IT man arrives and installs the driver that the Monitor Twins were apparently supposed to, and it's somewhat better.

Apparently these are less glarey and easier on the eye than the old ones. I have the brightness turned down to 0 and my eyes still hurt :/ Tho that could be from the horror of the blurry text earlier. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow.

In other news... is there any? Riding lesson later, we're back on jumping, and if the rain stays off, jumping out in the field, which is always more interesting.

Ah theres what I was thinking earlier - what's all the fuss about ID cards? I haven't really read up on it much (because of bleeding eyes etc) but people seem to be very up in arms about the whole thing.
Is it just photographic id, or is there more to it? Maybe its because we've had photo driving licenses here for as long as I can remember, plus the growing up being stopped by the Forces of Imperialist Oppression etc, so I'm used to having ID on me and I can't see what the fuss is about.
Or am I missing something here and is there a Darker Undertone (or even overtone) or Ulterior Motive being subscribed to the whole thing? eg would there be penalites for not producing your ID when demanded? Is it a fear of too much State Control? I've seen 'loss of civil liberties' bandied about some, but is that Soxspiracy material, or are there genuine grounds for concern?

Comments

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

My personal problem with photo ID is not so much the civil liberty issue - though I do very much dislike the idea of being required to prove who I am - but what they seem to be planning on doing with the database.

If they've got this database, the odds are that they'll be mining it for security reasons - and I suspect it'll also be seen as terribly comprehensive and trustworthy. Which it won't be, of course, they never are. It looks really easy to insert false data into it at the beginning - especially given the, er, estimable track record of the people doing this.

The other problem, of course, is that I don't have any confidence in the government not to sell the data to their dodgy business contacts.

I'd also rather they didn't start relating to us as database entries rather than people... but I suspect they do already.

[dreammonkey.livejournal.com]

Another reason why twins are Scary.