Next month Wal-Mart is going to start putting radio frequency ID tags (RFID) on some of the jeans and underwear sold in thousands of U.S. stores as a way to closely track what is on the shelves and to streamline the inventory procedures. In theory, an employee with a special gizmo will be able to wave a wand over a pile of Levi’s for men and tell you if there’s a pair in there with a 36 inch waist. It’s a shopping timesaver, if only you can find an employee to help you.
Privacy watchdogs are nervous about this development, especially if the tags become standard on consumer items of every kind. One scenario described in the Wall Street Journal had mysterious third parties driving down the alley, scanning your trash for discarded RFID tags in order to collect information about the kinds of things you buy. That’s assuming your online credit card receipts haven’t already spilled the beans. Scary? Perhaps. But as an unemployed person my first question was “Garbage Scanner … I wonder what that pays?”
Really, once you let go of any sense of privacy a whole new world opens up. RFID doesn’t have to be on a tag – it could be embedded in the clothing. Imagine a scanner that could tell you where every shirt in the house is located. On those frantic Monday mornings when you’re trying to find enough matching stuff to wear, this feature could come in handy. And what about the scientific advances? The scanner might be able to follow lost socks to a second and even a third dimension!
Add GPS to the equation and when you donate your tagged clothing to charity, you could use satellite technology to watch it disperse around the globe. “Look, honey! My old Def Leppard t-shirt just landed in Ghana!”
Take it in the opposite direction and there’s a business opportunity there to create and sell (for cash only) non-RFID tagged garments under the name “Clandestine Clothing”. No one knows you have it except the people who see you wearing it! Is it worth paying extra for that?
How “smart” do you want your clothes to be?
Trail Baboon 
What an intriguing premise, Dale. My first impulse was to say I wouldn’t want my shirts (and certainly not my BVDs) to be smarter than I am, but as I age I have fewer and fewer pretensions. It wouldn’t upset me too much if my socks were smarter than I am, at least before I’d had my first cup of coffee.
And I have trouble adopting the concern of civil rights advocates who are terrified of what the government will do with information about their private lives. If there is anyone who really cares what is in my garbage, I’m more flattered than outraged, but mostly I feel sorry for them. If I were someone important, like maybe I drove a bus, it would be a big deal to find controlled substances in my pee. But as an aging American studies major with a word processor, nobody in officialdom gives a hoot what chemicals I abuse. I’d be honored if you scanned my garbage, Dale, but there is less interest these days in those results than in the methane escaping from cows.
And look at the upside. If my clothing were electronically tagged, it would be a lot like having a wife again because I imagine a little speaker by my dresser that would snarl, “You are NOT going to wear those pants with that shirt again! I swear, you have less fashion sense than a homeless person!”
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Funny, Steve!
Maybe an alarm could go off when the mismatched items are in close proximity. The more they clash, the louder and harsher the tone. But then you’d have to get separate dressers to store your plaid shorts and your argyle shirts.
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I think the matching assistance would be something my brother would appreciate. e once bemoaned the lack of Granimals – the clothes that matched based on their animal themed tags – for grown-ups.
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Ahhh! I was going to post something about Garanimals!!! Garanimals (probably I should do the trademark sign thingy) is a great idea, and Sears would have done far better if they had extended the concept to grownups. Especially women trying to look like they cared, but didn’t really.
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There was something in the 80s for women who wanted to look like they cared, but didn’t really want to bother…wish I could remember the name of the line…dang it. It was an assortment of cotton knits in basic colors – pants, skirts (I think two skirt options), tops (long and short sleeve as I recall – all with boat necks), a duster-type jacket, and a tube-like thingy that could be worn a variety of ways…I had some black, a blue-ish/purple-ish tube thingy, and I think some magenta (maybe that was a dress). Loved that stuff. Never wrinkled. Somehow always managed to look more polished than it ought to have…
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Rise :and Shine Babooners:
Great storm last night — I got up about 11:45 to sedate the shaking dog and watch the lightening and hear the thunder.
There might be a few smart functions for my/our clothing:
Steve’s idea about “this is a fashion mistake” would be really nice.
Something that beeped: “you gained 6 lbs and if you don’t deal with it now it will become thirty,” or “you don’t need that piece/bar/bag of candy.” might help; or the clothing could publicly humiliate you by flashing “Oh my god, she’s now wears a size 20,” as if just appearing strained and bulging is not bad enough signage.
The GPS function would be super for tracking deadbeat dads and criminals.
Steve could wear a shirt that would say, “Jacque I’m making a joke now” so that in my distracted, overwhelmed state I would pay attention to subtlies. Oh, that’s right, I’ve never MET Steve, so he’d have to write it on the page. Guess that won’t work.
Maybe I’ll think of more after I finish my coffee. Just listened to Robert Simon’s memory of Dan Schorr. Makes me sad — another Great One gone. Now there is someone who made all our lives better. And it sounds like he lived until he died.
Thanks for the kind words from people earlier this week. It was indeed a very difficult Thursday and Friday. Whadyaknow — Cyber-support does help.
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Oops- Scott Simon. Too early
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i was coming home form softball last night when i heard daniel schorr had died. it reminded me of the 4th of july 10 years ago when i heard charles kerault had died. it feels like someone said that my dog had died. i just heard dan schorr on bob edwards a month or so ago and was impressed with how sharp his mind and his tongue were at the age of 90. we re fortunate to have the opportunity to witness and appreciate great people and dan schorr was one of them.
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I want to pick up on something in Jacque’s note. There is something in the culture now that I would like to strangle in its crib, namely a hostility to cyber-friendship based on the notion that face-to-face contact is *the* right way to meet people and exchange ideas. Or, putting it the other way around, I am bugged by this reflexive skepticism about cyber-friendship that treats it as if it were inherently illegitimate.
Bah hooey! We are fortunate enough to live in an age that allows us to make positive human contact with people we cannot meet in person. Face-to-face contact is great because it is so rich and it helps us understand others by reading visual cues from them. It is highly desirable to meet people “in person.” But that isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with meeting, talking to and caring for people we know only through our computers. That kind of friendship is not destructive of face-to-face friendship; it is something layered on top that makes our lives vastly richer.
I’m all for “real” friendships, which is one reason to join the Blevins book group, but I refuse to apologize for the joy I get by chatting here with Dale, Tim, Jacque, Catherine, Clyde and all of the rest of you. And if friendships that are “only” cyber can help a good person like Jacque deal with a difficult week, well . . . god bless! Friendship is wonderful, whether it can be enriched by personal contact or not.
I hope you have a better week, Jacque. Either way, I hope baboons can give you smiles along the way.
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I am one hundred percent in agreement with you, Steve. Electronic friendships are our contemporary epistolary novels.
They are different from face to face contact, which means simply that they are…different. Among their attributes: one can think carefully about what the other has said, ruminate on it, and respond over time. The lack of facial cues can mean that we can compose ourselves before revealing the first stupid thing to cross our mind/forehead.
That being said, there is a bit of a high-wire-act quality to creating links with people on a public electronic medium, where tens of thousands (right, Dale? your readership is tens of thousands right?) are maybe reading (and scoffing at) your posts.
To say nothing of what their smart underwear is saying about you.
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amen!!!
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Electronic media relationships of all kinds are so interesting. I was so disappointed in MPR’s layoff of Dale. He’s been my radio/State Fair/Morning Show event friend for SO MANY years. And he really is that kind of friend– now on a blog, and I don’t know him personally. And I don’t have to. And he is still my blog friend, entertainer. (I would like a You Tube or voice function on this blog, since Dale, your voice soothes me). It is important, but not personal. I think media allows us to appreciate people with parts of ourselves, but we often don’t have to cope with each other in the Whole.
Dale, whether you and Jim Ed knew how important it was 20 years ago, my then “boyfriend” now husband, sent in relentless song requests to encourage me through the end of chemotherapy treatments. It REALLY helped. I’m still around today to appreciate you and maybe annoy you at times.
So complex.
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Thinking on electronic friendships – as I rode on the carousel at Como Park today, I thought of you, Steve. And got to thinking how fun it is to know people who appreciate such things, even if we haven’t met in person…yet.
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Reading yesterday’s prompt only today, I can’t resist telling one quick story–the story of a recent brush with western television star from my youth.
A couple years ago I went to the funeral of an uncle who had worked for a television station in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, one of two television stations we could pull in when I was a child. As I sat at the reception, I looked down the long church basement table, and saw, at the end of it…SHERIFF BOB! The STAR of my favorite after school program from childhood! He looked IDENTICAL, despite the passage of, well, a few years.
And I guess I don’t mean IDENTICAL identical. For the funeral, he’d removed the cowboy hat and badge.
But honestly, when I saw that smiling face at the end of the table, I was five again. The thrill was unimaginable.
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i just had a discussion last night with someone who grew up with casey joens and roundhouse rodney and clancy the cop with will e ketchum of twin cities kid show fame. we didn’t get to axel and his dawg but boy those memories do light you up don’t they. kansas city star anyone?
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Good Morning Smart Commenters
Life is certainly getting strange. Even in Brave New World I think clothes that can secretly be tracked electronicly were not considered. At some point I think it becomes impossible for all of this potential for secrete data tracking to be used. Who is going to sort out all of the secretly collected data that can potentially be collected and make use of it? I guess any data that is secretly collected might be used in some harmful way, so I don’t think it is a good thing, but I think it is only potentially harmful and mostly doesn’t amount to much. I say let them fill up their data banks with “smart” info about my clothes that will probably just confuse any efforts they might make to use this info in some unfair manner.
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if the library can give you an e book that deletes itself from your i phone in 3 weeks why can’t they make time affected e stuff? the radio waves are going out into the universe to that society that will discover what neurotic twits we are in 232,000 light years when all these cyber bleeps hit the airwaves of north end of the milky way galaxie. leave it to walmart to come up with a way to keep form looking at what they are selling us. now instead of paying the factory who made the jeans they can tell the factory that they will put them on the shelves and pay them when they sell. they will have a bulletproof inventory reading and can pay after the fact instead of doing markdowns. you don’t care if it doesn’t sell if it isn’t your’s yet from the walmart point of view. we are getting close to the time when you won’t need people at all. you won’t need a clerk to scan just put the scanner above the rack and when you go to the checkout you won’t need to have them ring stuff up just walk through and the bleeps will jump onto your sales receipt and bill your walmart card to the second mortgage account on your record at corporate headquarters. ahhh what a life
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Jacque’s Raspberry Liqueur that she gives her best friends for Christmas, then hoards the rest for herself until it is gone in April
A quart canning jar
1 cup sugar poured into the bottom of the jar
Raspberries, frozen or fresh, that fill the jar to the top
10 oz vodka over all
Let this set for 6 weeks. Shake intermittently and turn the jars over daily until the sugar is finally dissolved. When the six weeks are done, strain the raspberries out.
Use in the most condensed state as ice cream topping; add to lemonade for delicious raspberry lemonade. Water down a bit and pour over crushed ice as a dessert drink.
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can i have the leftover raspberries after you strain them out?
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sounds wonderful
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My brother in law makes a similar concoction with Crown Royal. He calls is Bounce. We are blessed with tons of raspberries this year. I have picked 2 gallons this week and they are still coming. I have a non-alcoholic raspberry nectar recipe in which you combine 4 qts of fresh or frozen berries with 2 c. of white vinegar and 2c. of water. Let stand overnight. Bring to boil over medium heat. Boil one minute. strain through several layers of cheese cloth or toweling . Do not squeeze. Measure the juice and add 3/4 c. sugar for every cup of juice. Bring to boil over medium heat. Boil 10 minutes. I then can the juice in a water-bath canner, processing 15 minutes with one minute added for every 1000 feet of altitude above sea level. It makes about 4 pints. You could also just leave it in the fridge uncanned. Add 1/4 c. of the nectar to 2c. of water and serve over ice. This recipe comes from Beatrice Ojakangas’ Scandanavian Cooking. Its Swedish name is Hallonsaft.
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This sounds soooooo good. I’ve done Jacque’s alcoholic version-have also done it with rhubarb and cranberries. It is all good and as an added suggestion, I spike my bedtime cup of tea with some during the winter.
Tim, I’ve got a bottle of alcohol soaked rhubarb I’m still trying to figure out what to do with-maybe blend it into sauce to go over ice cream? I’m open to suggestions.
That’s it for me for awhile, folks. Up to my neck in projects that MUST get done.
Socks are already smarter than we are-can YOU travel into another dimension????
On-line friendships-I look at it as similar to the access I now have to obscure costuming items (etc). Everyone online who is interested in corset making supplies can sustain a business, everyone in the Metro, not so much.
I might or might not have met any of you (or read the books you recommend or tried the foods, or seen the movies, or heard the music) any other way, but my life is considerably richer for it.
Thanks for building and maintaining the playground, Dale.
I miss Dan Schorr too-where are you still hearing Bob Edwards, tim? Yeah, I could google for that, but more fun to find out here.
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bob edwards is on xm radio. excellent interviewer.
i’d put toothpick in the rhubarb and eat it like swedish meatballs, or if the booze took the bite out of the rhubarb add a little honey or sugar. trying to play the tart off the sweet maybe throw is a little unalchohol treated rhubarb to crank it back toward the tart again.
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I think I’d rather have clothes that weren’t completely synthetic that don’t wrinkle. And clean themselves. If they have enough nano-tech to create stain-resistant clothing, it’s not too far to being able to run an app on my smart phone to reset the particles of my clothing to make it clean and pressed.
Tell me whether or not they match? Nah. Takes the adventure out of dressing in the dark and discovering, at noon, that you have on one navy and one black sock (or shoe).
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life on the edge huh
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It’s just how I roll. 🙂
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years ago i read an ann tyler book called the accidental tourist. the book didn’t motivate me to read any more ann tyler but it did have some neat ideas for the traveler who wants simplicity to the nth degree. one idea was to pack only charcoal gray or gravy brown clothing that wouldn’t show stains and then to take your shower at night with your clothes on and peel them off as you washed them in the shower then you are down to skin, wash that, hang your clothes up to hang dry by morning and you are ready to go.
other equally wonderfu ideas in the book. i think they made a bad movie out of it with gina whatshername and william hurt
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well, they’d get pretty bored waiting for us. last year our clothing expenses were $42. no lie. and that went to underwear and socks. we told our neighbors about that budget item and they said “you bought underwear AND socks IN THE SAME YEAR??” ha, ha
i’d like my socks to be so smart that they would heal any hole that was developing and also flick off any advancing ticks.
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Have you read the book by (argh! her books always have a square trim and that heavy paper cover!), who bought nothing new for a year (other than food)? She nearly went mad when her Smart Wool sox blew a hole. What to do, what to do? So few Smart Wools make their way to the thrift store.
On the subject of Smart Wool, tho…wouldn’t it be nice if those sox were smart enough to darn themselves?
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i’m embarrassed, but when i read (every night) it is in goat books. ever trying to discover the mysteries of the animal.
good news – we are buying two new doelings on thursday. they have a clean bill of health (no CAE or Johne’s) and matching the beauty of Miss Alba and Miss Dream. they don’t need no stinkin’ smart clothes.
i expect Steve will do a blog update soon after they arrive w/ lots of pictures.
re yesterday’s topic: Dead Man was really quite wonderful. a lesser cuss-word, almost as violent, but sweeter than Deadwood little film.
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underwear got expensive didn’t it?
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I’d be happy with a system that would tell a teenage girl what she really had in her closet and make it impossible for her to buy any clothes items of which she had too many of at home. Its amazing the memory lapses that occur in the young when they walk into a clothing store. We solved the Homecoming dress issue, by the way. My daughter’s best friend who lives across the street has a dress that is acceptable in length to both of us. Best friend is only 5’2 (daughter is 6 feet) and I have no idea how they are able to share their clothing, but they do. I think we are going to build a communal closet in the middle of the street so they can share clothes with more ease.
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I was stunned, a few years ago, to learn (courtesy of the state fair) that “shopping” had become a 4-H project. The friend with whom I was viewing the “shopping” exhibit–the mother of a teenager–assured me that this was the best idea she’d seen all week. Actually calculating the price-per-wearing of that snazzy little number that has to be dry cleaned every time you look at it would, to her mind, have been a real advancement in her daughter’s development.
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Lisa — did the course include information about what compound interest can do to a credit card account if some young person misses a few payments? I have my guess about the answer. Grumble, grumble, grumble.
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good solution. leggings do tend to detract from formal attire. gald it worked out. posted pictures will be appreciated on the night of the event.
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OK, but as Dale said, what happens to those electronic clothes when they go second hand? Other than jeans (and I am in this purely from the ‘working’ point of view; Tractor Supply Company sells my new favorite brand; $15 / pair) I haven’t bought new clothes in years… All my shirts are from Savers– (must be 100% cotton have two pockets and be solid colors) and the first thing I do is cut off the sleeves (when asked by a student once why I do that I told him my muscles are too big for sleeves… he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or not…)
I do have a few nice shirts for meeting the banker… or funerals.
….I’m not a ‘dress up’ kind of guy and my wife is OK with that.
We were also up at 2AM due to the weather… another 1″ of rain and another tree down across the road.
Have a great weekend TB’ers!
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There would then be the equivalent of the Used Book Syndrome. (In your library now, but autographed and heavily annotated by the previous reader, whose views you may not share.)
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i like the savers and cut the sleeves off idea. i am a tommy bahama hawaaiian shirt guy but i do my shopping at savers too. 5.00 is the right amount to spend n a shirt unless i am garage saleing and see em for 50 cents. i have enough dress shirts to last me until i’m dead.
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hope that’s a long time, tim
have a good weekend All
family arriving – staying until tomorrow afternoon. perfect.
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perfect indeed
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Well, my clothes don’t need to be very smart for my daily life. Most of my clothes come from thrift shops. They’re experienced and wise. I like them this way. They’re flexible when I need them to be. I’m a very, very infrequent WalMart shopper but I feel sorry for any industry that needs to put electronics in consumer goods in order to find out more about consumers… what kind of world are we creating? I’m not a big fan of capitalism, I guess. This is just one more reason why.
I agree with those of you who feel positive about communicating with others this way. I appreciate having time to consider the topic, gather my thoughts and express my views as well as I can. I’ve always been more articulate when writing. I tend to be rather impulsive when speaking and I regret many things that I’ve said – open mouth, insert foot. I just don’t seem to learn! Electronic communication seems to be a thoughtful way of communicating, and no one can interrupt you as you struggle to make your point. And I can’t tell you how happy I am to know that there are people who miss Dale’s voice and the Morning Show as much as I do. You just really created a masterpiece, Dale. I don’t mind telling you over and over…
I’d also like to return briefly to yesterday’s mention of Bishop Henry Whipple (I caught up on yesterday’s posts and want to respond to Dale…) The bluffs on the east side of Faribault have sometimes been known as Whipple Heights. I don’t remember if that’s a local appellation or a given name. There is also a cul de sac type of street directly north of the Shattuck campus that is called Whipple Way. It’s a newer development on the oak bluffs that overlook Faribault.
Bishop Whipple was the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota. The Cathedral of Our Merciful Savior was built in the 1860s and Bishop Whipple is buried beneath the altar. It’s a very lovely and historic church. Like some of the buildings on the Shattuck-St Mary’s campus and some of the buildings on the St Olaf College campus, the cathedral was built from limestone quarried east of Faribault (east of the Straight River in what is now River Bend Nature Center).
Sorry, I’m really not a historian… Thanks, Babooners, for the opportunity to express myself!
http://www.thecathedralfaribault.com/History.dsp
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thanks
i am the living proof that you can open mouth and inset foot online too. please join in the fun whenever it strikes you fancy . we need historians in this group
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Goodbye, all, for a while. I have to dash to the cabin to do some work and to read sheep mysteries. You are losing nothing, for I have shot my bolt in terms of sharing any wisdom I have about intelligent underwear. I’ll be without internet access until I get back, putting me on a painful baboon diet.
Be well, invisible friends, and don’t put no beans up your nose.
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Dale asked: How “smart” do you want your clothes to be?
My answer: No smarter than I am.
Chris in Owatonna
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Smart clothes remind me of my last expedition for a dishwasher…The clerk offered a dishwasher that would let me know if the dishes were clean or dirty and if more soap was needed. She was perplexed when I said I did not want an appliance that was smarter than I am. It would truly be intimidating to have socks with intelligence. That would mean a pair of socks was more than twice as smart as I am.
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This WordPress blog thing really needs a “like” key.
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Greetings! Smart socks, brainy blouses and genius jeans — oh my! While the idea of RFID chips in clothes sounds harmless enough, as with any new tracking invention, some nefarious cad with bad intentions will figure out some way to make a cool device an instrument of criminal activity. Like computers — it never ceases to amaze me how many new computer viruses spring up every day that requires more and newer versions of virus scanners, blockers, firewalls, etc. Who makes up all this crap; the companies that sell the software to detect them? One wonders …
And let’s just set the record straight — computer chips in clothes, appliances, cars, etc., do not make them SMART! These objects will never have the ability to think, be creative, reflect on the meaning of life, give joy to another or have the wisdom of baboons. They simply have the ability to use ones and zeros to analyze, measure, calibrate and report back exactly what they’re told — no more, no less. These chips may do complex calculations at alarming speeds but they can’t tell me what clothes look best on me today to fit my mood. Granted, there are some sophisticated computers and software that are starting to learn and emulate the human brain, but not these lowly Wal-Mart chips.
I can’t shop at Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart in general — none of them have clothes/pants for tall women. Plus they’re usually so cheaply made they fall apart and shrink so much, I can’t wear them. I rarely go shopping and make no fashion statements, but Lands’ End makes excellent clothes — and most of their pants are hemmed free at my exact 33 3/4″ inseam. I usually buy their clothes on sale or clearance — and ladies, they make the BEST swimsuits that actually fit real women.
Anyway, don’t fret that your clothes will be smarter than you — RFID chips may give them interesting and useful capabilities that we don’t have. But knowing the exact whereabouts of your favorite sweater is just trivia — flotsam and jetsam in the brain. The sweater will show up when you clean your room (in my case).
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Thats right Joanne. You don’t want to have computers smarter than you are.
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Not smarter? just with better Memory! I need a computer with eyes in all rooms with face recognition, and item recognition, so when someone MOVES my stuff, I’ll know where they put it!
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I’ve often thought it would be swell to have a USB port right behind my left ear so I could insert a thumb drive (or similar device) that would aid with specific memory things – like, say, peoples names. Or where I put the____ after I used it last (especially handy for tools). That sort of thing.
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work on it it. sounds like a million dollar idea
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