May 12, 2008

A cigarette vending machine that can perceive whether you're old enough to smoke?

Can this thing work?
The Fujitaka company system compares facial characteristics including bone structure, sags and crow's feet against a record of more than 100,000 people....

The company says the system gets it right in nine out of ten cases. The remaining 10% would be sent to a "grey zone for baby-faced adults" where they would be asked to insert their driving licence or identification card.
Grey zone for baby-faced adults? Won't old-faced teens make it into the zone? By the way, a good way to prematurely age your skin is to smoke:
Few people realise that if they smoke, their faces will wrinkle ten years ahead of time and they are likely in middle age to end up with a face like a wrinkled walnut that would rival that of a bloodhound. Even fewer women are aware that smoking also weakens the connective tissue in their breasts and bottoms. Breasts are more likely to develop the spaniel-ears effect, and after even a few years of smoking, bottoms become soft and saggy, rather than pert and firm.
The spaniel-ears effect! That gives pause.

17 comments:

MadisonMan said...

The rare clumber spaniel ear effect!

KCFleming said...

Pert and firm was my favorite folk group in the seventies. Their one hit, Saggy bottom blues slipped into obscurity until featured in the 2001 independent film by Gus Van Zant,Girdle.

They are currently operating a t-shirt and head shop in Eureka Springs Arkanas.

Jennifer said...

Oh those crazy Japanese. Wouldn't it be easier to just have everybody insert their ID?

Sloanasaurus said...

Wow, I haven't seen a cigarette vending machine in a long time. Do they take $100 bills now?

bearbee said...

Can it read a mask?

Oh those crazy Japanese

Ya gotta love 'em

titusisdreamingofhog said...

Where is the rare clumber spaniel picture?

I think you are BS'ing me.

titusisdreamingofhog said...

If you do actually have a rare clumber spaniel pic from the street I expect much fanfare when you introduce it on the site.

titusisdreamingofhog said...

My thinking of balloons, bells, whistles, confetti (sp), and silly string everywhere.

vbspurs said...

Smoking is not a pastime in Japan, it's a birthright.

Did you know that until 1985, tobacco was a nationalised interest -- a government-run monopoly? The mind reels when you think of the US doing the same thing from Washington.

Now its attempts at controlling the monster they bred are laughable.

Here is the Japanese driving licence, which you need to get a Taspo, the card used in those vending machines.

Here is how the Taspo looks.

Obviously, you need to present the driving ID to get the Taspo, so people are skipping the latter as an unneeded second step.

We'll see how they fare with these face-recognition machines.

But smoking is a complicated issue in Japan.

Check out this KFC. Left is smoking, right non-smoking.

The proximity is laughable, but unlike most countries with even a token attempt at controlling the situation, food workers can dangle a cigarette from their lips when preparing food. WTF.

I lived in Japan during my gap year. I'm a non-smoker, but not extremist about it. I don't like how in North America, smokers are marginalised, even for the public's greater health.

But as this non-smoker in Japan put it:

"This has to be the worse thing about living in Japan - I can put up with the earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, heat waves etc but having just about everybody smoke around you is rather depressing. But I choose to live in Japan so I try not to complain to much. If you are thinking of living in Japan and hate, loathe the smell of pungent filthy cigarette smoke then be warned - there is really not much you can do about it :-("

Cheers,
Victoria

rhhardin said...

The spaniel-ears effect! That gives pause.

I hope this is not an awful pun.

Chip Ahoy said...

Yes, the machine can work. But can it recognize a well-made fake ID? Who cares? I don't. Once my dad sent me to the BX to buy him some cigarettes. But this was overseas and nobody asked any questions. It was also dark outside and there was no concern whatever about my being kidnapped as we were on a gated and patrolled base. And apparently no concern about us precious darlings *cough* being gassed by secondhand smoke.

Please decide on American or British spelling and stick with it. Switching back and forth is disorienting. Mustn't lose track of where I landed.

gray: Am.
grey: Brt.

realize: Am.
realise: Brt.

For the record, Clumber Spaniels are indeed rare but that is not part of their name. Belgian Sheepdogs are rare too the United States but the term isn't attached to their name either. (In both cases you need only a few dogs in the ring in order to pick up points toward a championship, both major and minor, which makes championship attainment for these breeds much faster.)
Here's an interesting site for comparing characteristics bred into dog lines and for determining appropriateness for particular households, starting with Clumber Spaniel.

Smilin' Jack said...

I don't understand all the fuss about keeping children from smoking. Smoking doesn't harm children--they won't show the effects till long after they've become adults, and who cares what happens to saggy, spaniel-eared adults?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Victoria:

It's funny to recall it was not that long ago one could smoke in hospital rooms here. Then they moved it to only being allowed in the visitors rooms which were on every floor. Now it is banned altogether.

I can also remember smoking in college classrooms and just putting the butts out on the classroom floor (early-mid 1970's). Did that annoy you Ann - you were in college around that time?

Eli Blake said...

One way to age real fast is to use methamphetamines. It makes teenagers look like late middle age.

So why am I discussing meth on a post about smoking? Simple. Here in Arizona our anti-smoking law for kids has had a disastrous effect. The legislature passed a law making it illegal for adults, even parents to purchase tobacco products for kids. So the drug dealers happily expanded their 'product line,' got droves of new customers, and before long they got to 'if you like that, smoke this,' and not much after that they brought out the meth. So now we've seen about a 500% increase in methamphetamine use among teenagers, and just based on anecdotal evidence (I do get to speak to a lot of young people, including some who are troubled--) probably the majority of new meth users first met the drug dealers because they were the only adults who would buy them cigarettes. But ironically it seems the authorities are clueless about why the rate of meth addiction among teens has jumped upward as fast as it has.

Now, I'm a parent. I absolutely don't want my kids to smoke (and when I caught my oldest doing it some years back I had a good long talk with her-- but something worked because she doesn't smoke anymore.) But if any of my kids end up smoking, then I would rather be the one making the purchase so I could at least keep a monitor on it, than have them go to other adults who will buy it for them-- because you can be sure that such adults are up to no good (we've also unwittingly handed a golden key to child molesters if you think about it. Something a kid wants, they know the adult could get in trouble if the 'tell' on them, so they're already in a 'keep it secret' mode.)

Synova said...

See, now THAT would convince young people not to smoke...

Picture the commercial... cute perky teen accepts a cigarette. She inhales a nice puff and blows it out in a long stream... POW... her boobs fall. BAM... her butt sags.

Then as she stands there, horrified, the info about connective tissue is given in a voice over.

This would work. Forget lung cancer. Hit the kids where it hurts.

Ralph L said...

You didn't mention the effect of long term smoking on erections. I once saw an anti-smoking billboard with a flacid cigarette.
A pre-coital smoke also makes it harder to orgasm, which may be a good thing for some people.

I had several high school teachers who smoked in class (3 pipes, 1 cig, all men over 60). One got demerits for emptying his pipe out the window and lighting the mulch below.

Eli Blake said...

Synova:

I like it. You might add that her face wrinkles up like a prune and her hair starts to fall out (from chemo treament.)