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Small Town Wants 60 License Plate Readers
The tiny Michigan town of Ypsilanti wants to blanket the area with 60 or more Flock ALPR license plate reader cameras, placed at every entrance and exit point of their roads.
(Flock ALPR license plate reader camera is fixed to a pole)
That includes solar-powered cameras that would surround Ypsilanti city limits, according to the map, capturing vehicle license plates, vehicle make and color and any decals or stickers on the rear.Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton discussed the technology at an April community education session, saying the readers could be useful in law enforcement investigations but only if proper safeguards are put in place.
“I believe that if this is not used in a proper way, there can be harm. But there is evidence it can be used to assist in investigations. I don’t want a Big Brother state,” the sheriff said during the presentation.
Yes, let's not have a Big Brother state. However, this possible future was well covered by Robert Heinlein in his 1940 classic Methuselah's Children. Of course, he also figured out the counter to this technology:
The car slid up the ramp, waited until the traffic control signaled a predicted break in traffic, then joined the high-speed northbound stream. Mary Risling settled back for a little nap...She woke just before the signal from the car which would have called her... She signaled the traffic control ahead; it cut her out of the stream of vehicles and reduced the speed of her car, then rang the alarm which notified her to resume local control. Before doing so she fumbled in the storage compartment on the instrument board and fumbled, apparently purposelessly.
But the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway was not the number in which the car was registered.
(Read more about the Camden speedster car)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/1/2022)
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'And here they began to build...'
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'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
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'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
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'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
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'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
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'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
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'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
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't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
