Yesterday was very biometric:
- The date for my seminar with the Surveillance Project at Queens was reset for later this month. I am going to talk about my thesis on the constitutionality of automated biometric surveillance and the recent cases on the liberty right in section 7 of The Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
- The US confirmed that we need to get the new biometric passorts before October. I, too have no problem with this as it is not my country.
- On West Wing the nutty DARPA (not ARPA) character in the Hawaiian shirt admitted to spokesperson lady that they were doing biometric studies within government on the biometrics of citizens. [It was very well described in the script.] And she was shocked at the imposition on the US Bill of Rights.
Comments
Arthur - January 8, 2004 9:33 AM
Gaff and gaaf. Spelling has yet to settle on that one.
Don't you just love the language? :-)
Alan - January 8, 2004 12:12 PM
What exactly does gaaf mean, by the way?
Arthur - January 8, 2004 1:05 PM
Back in the old days I think the word was associated with diamonds ('shiny', 'clean',
'neat', 'genuine'). Nowadays 'cool' will do, as in:
'Dat ziet er gaaf uit' - 'That looks pretty neat'.
'Dat is een gave auto' - 'That's a pretty original (or cool) car'. (Note the 'understatement' in English, I added that intentionally to better reflect the real meaning of the sentence)
If there's any other Dutch speaking person, feel free to correct me.
Alan - January 8, 2004 1:21 PM
What a great word. Portland and I are Nova Scotians so also familiar with "gaff" as the baseball bat with a hook you use to bring in a big fish. It also means somewhat goofy error.
I also worked in Poland as well as at Aalsmeer and the Polish word for "very" is "bardzo" which I love for as intensifier for the the sort of circus sound to it.