They have invented a vending machine that spots underage smokers: Now for a voting booth that can spot idiots
I’ve said it many, many times before but science can be such fun. Like this latest Japanese invention:
Teenage smokers in Japan could soon be taking their last illicit puffs thanks to the introduction of cigarette-vending machines that can spot underage customers just by looking at them. The machines are equipped with a digital camera that can compare users’ facial characteristics with a database of more than 100,000 people. Their ability to spot sagging skin, wrinkles around the eyes and other signs of maturity means underage smokers - in Japan anyone under 20 - will have to look elsewhere for their nicotine fix.
It’s kind of funny if you think about it. One of the ways anti-smoking campaigners are trying to wean people off the evil weed is to appeal to their vanity - because it seems to be a fact that smoking is bad for your skin.
To have a machine that actually recognises the quality of the skin and that only hands out ciggies to those whose skins are already ravaged by time and by years of smoking is a fitting supplement to this ‘You’re going to look like Godzilla when you smoke’ campaign.
I wonder if you could apply this to other things as well. Machines at the entrance of bars that refuse to let anyone in who doesn’t look like a hopeless alcoholic, or hypodermic needles that can tell the true junk from a rank beginner. Slot machines that only accept money from gambling addicts.
Still, first things first, so let’s forget this smoking machine for a moment. I really want to give that inventor a call, to ask him if he could develop a voting machine that can recognise born-again Christians & radio talk show listeners and immediately annul their votes.
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