MIT's Stata Center Dedicated

AJL writes "On Friday, the long-in-coming, $280M Stata Center was dedicated at MIT. Featuring some pretty cool technology (including a row of Linux computers proclaiming 'Welcome to the William H. Gates Building' by Tux, the Linux Penguin), amazing design, and some pretty neat use of space, Stata is among the first of some high-budget, high-tech buildings being put on campuses these days. See some Pictures or go to the Main Stata Site for more details. Richard Stallman is now less than pleased that he has to work in the Gates Building, as well as having some other problems with his new office in general."

Comments

Re:RMS raises a stink as always

[penguinoid]

My pet peeve with the RFID and credit card is to a high degree influenced by the following verses from the Bible:

Revelation 13:16,17
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Now I don't want to sound like a religious troll, but how long is it before some scandal like 9/11 or worse throw in a bunch of legislation to force everyone to be implanetd with an ID chip? And how long before it gets combined with a credit card?

And certainly this sort of chip, an implanted chip that allows you to buy and sell (with some pulse/body temperature detector to ensure that the chip is not stolen) would eliminate a lot of problems. Uncle Sam would really love to have all monetary transactions done by credit card because these can be easily tracked, and people would like that their tax forms can be filled out automatically. There would be no theft of money, because doing so will enable the theif to be tracked; likewise bribes would be noticed. Also any for pay crime would have to be done by barter or link the two people in a bank statement.

Anyways, that is my own rant about RFIDs and credit cards. Oh, and did I mention that such a system would be likely to be abused?