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Photoshopping your Xerox of a Kleenex
Julie Olearcek recently dropped by a Staples to inquire about buying a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator for her son. The Staples attendant got worried that she was a terrorist trying to learn how to crash planes into buildings, he called the cops. And then, according to Court TV:
A few hours later, a State Trooper showed up at Olearcek’s house incognito, shining a flashlight through a sliding door and tapping on the glass.
Olearcek was frightened at first, but the State Trooper identified himself and asked Olearcek if she had inquired about the video game.
The kicker? Olearcek is an Air Force Reserve pilot. The kicker to the kicker? She didn’t mind the state inquiring as to why she was buying a video game. “At first I felt like, ‘Wait a minute, this is America.’ But we also have to understand it takes everybody to pay attention,” she said.
Now, I am not one of those high-octane privacy-at-all-costs nuts who have been driven apoplectic by today’s security measures. I don’t mind being subjected to running my shoes through airport scanners. But there’s something awfully weird about the criminalization of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is the best selling flight sim in history.
(Thanks to Watercooler Games for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
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