PO Box 75498 Tampa, FL 33675 | 813-622-8252

Tampa Bay Library Consortium

Provide better, faster library services to the residents of central Florida.

By Posted on Posted in General interest, Hidden
I hate carrying ID cards.  But if I use my library or my bank or Sam’s Club or Blockbuster or my doctor or any of several other services, I have to be sure to have their specific, special card with me.  I once worked with a woman who said, “If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they put them all there?”  So, I say, “If Florida can put everything they need to know about me on one card, why can’t the rest of the world get on the same card?”

But let’s not stop there.  My boss at the Sleepy Hollow Public Library often said, “I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached.” 

 

 

 

Well, why not boil all this ID-specific information down to one barcode and have it tattooed—in ink visible only under ultraviolet light—on our foreheads?  With the same data on an RFID tag we could wear as an earring?  Sure, you’d have to stick your head out the window when you went through a Sunpass toll booth.  But that’s a small price to pay for overall annoyance reduction.

Think about it. You’d look perfectly normal. (Well, as normal as you ever look. And it’s not your fault that your mom dresses you funny.)  But you could go anywhere and use anything, so long as you brought your head along.  It would be like the old days, when all your friends recognized you on sight.  Even your imaginary friends.  Only now it would be computers who’d be saying, “Hey!  Que pasa?  Whazzup?”  (They’d actually say “1011010011010…!”  But I thought it would be best to translate.)  And you could leave your billfold at home.

This is not yet a service TBLC is offering. But if there’s enough demand….

–Al Carlson

UV Tattoo
Scroll to top