Golden Pavements.

Via: Boing Boing, pointed out by Matt Ward.

There’s no need to take this video too seriously, and I’ve even less inclination (or maybe intelligence) to think about the ethical issues involved in debate around RFID, but it does highlight something that is always worth remembering.

Phrases like ‘Absolute consistency’ and ‘total knowledge’ used in the video are indicative of the belief, particularly from a commercial perspective, that certain technologies, like RFID, will be some sort of magical solution to all our problems. There is no perfect technology, there are no final solutions, ‘total knowledge’ and total efficiency are a myth.

There’s one (admittedly throw away) comment in there about how we’d always know where our luggage was if it was tagged. Complete rubbish – it’d still get lost, just in different ways. As Matt once said to me: “If the streets were paved with gold, there would still be dog shit and chewing gum”. To my mind that’s no bad thing – go with it.

As far as the brain tissue stuff goes, I have no idea what he’s talking about – does a man being able to control his prosthetic hand with his brain have anything to do with RFID? Or anything else in the presentation?