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Bank Of America ATMs Are Now Truth Machines
Thanks to activists in San Francisco, Bank of America automatic teller machines have been transformed into truth machines. This is accomplished by placing a variety of colorful stickers on top of the ATM screens (see below).
(Stickers transform BofA ATMs)
The stickers also encourage BoA customers to “Stop doing business with Bank of America until they start behaving responsibly” and have the URL to our new blog, which we’ve just launched along with The New Bottom Line:BankruptingAmerica.tumblr.com.
We’re using that blog to track all the ways BoA is bankrupting America, hence the name. We’ve received so many submissions it’s clear to us that this website was badly needed. There are lots of grievances to be aired with regard to how Bank of America is conducting its business these days, as it turns out. (Not that that’s terribly surprising.)
In his 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider, sf great John Brunner described a tapeworm that enforced complete Government Data Transparency by appending screens of information like the following onto every public data net transaction:
AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON
YOUR OVERDUE-TAX DEMANDFor the information of the person required to pay this tax:
Analysis of last year's federal budget shows that:
***17% of your tax dollar went on boondoggles
***13% on propaganda, bribes and kickbacks
***11% on federal contracts with companies which are a) fronting for criminal activities and/or b) partly or wholly owned by persons subject to indictment for federal offences and/or c) hazardous to health and the environment.
Fuller details may be obtained by punching the code number at top left of this form into any veephone. They take about 57 minutes to present.
This has been tried to some extent in reality - not just stickers: see Silicon Sunshine - Data Transparency In Government and Hey WikiLeaks! Where's My Shockwave Rider App?.
And did you know that this week is Philip K. Dick Twitter Week on Technovelgy? More than 100 PKD inventions will be twittered @Technovelgy!
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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