Lockport schools

Let me start off by saying my family is a loving and caring one, but even the holiest of angels has a bit of the devil in them. We can be quite devious when we want to be. My wife’s birthday is in June along with two granddaughters, daughter and my son. I won’t tell you how old she is because a gentleman never asks or tells but I am 71 and she is just a little younger than me.

My son asked us to join him at a favorite, local restaurant of ours with his wife and 8 year twin old sons to celebrate his birthday. Donna watches the boys after school so she was to bring them there rather than their home. He sent me an IM and several texts that this was all a ruse and the real reason for dinner was the give my wife a surprise party.

I take great pride in the fact that my wife, “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” if you will, never figured out what was going on. We seldom can put one over on her but now that she is seventy (oops!) years old and with the turmoil (good) we have had at our house recently I don’t think she had the time to figure it out.

Even the twins were in on this one and you probably know how hard it is for an eight year old to keep a secret. It all started with the twins. At the time we had to leave for dinner, even though they had just gone to the bathroom 15 minutes earlier, they BOTH decided they had to go poop. They were told by their parents to stall leaving our house until 5:45. Of course I had to use the bathroom too and seeing as we only have 2, I was outside the bathroom door waiting my turn.

Donna was pulling her hair out. She didn’t want to be late. There was no way we were going to be on our way at 5:30 like she wanted and she didn’t want to make our son and daughter in law wait. She had lost control.

The one twin kept yelling thru the door, asking Donna what time it was because he was told to stall until 5:45. Donna wondered why he asked her to let him know when it was 5:45 and thought she was dealing with Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. Why did he have to remain in the bathroom till 5:45? The other grandson developed this sudden problem with tying his shoes. Even though I was instructed to stall her I didn’t know at this point what they were doing.

When we finally hit the road the boys were in the back seat. Donna likes to be able to see out of her rear view mirror and when the boys are waving their arms in the air she will actually pull over until they stop. As soon as a song they knew came on the radio, they started dancing in their seats, waving their arms, and Donna pulled to the curb. That’s when I realized just what was going on because up until then I didn’t know they were in on the plot.

Once we got going again I flipped down my visor and watched them in the mirror. They were whispering and then suddenly we would hear “Donna, Ian pushed me.” It was at that point I joined into the subterfuge. I would start yelling at the boys full well knowing that this was pushing Donna’s buttons. At that point she would pull over again and start yelling at them. They never act like this.

They calmed down and Donna started driving again. Once more time the boys started acting up and I began yelling. Donna pulled to the curb again and yelled at them one more time. All the time, Ian had a silly smirk on his face and I yelled for him to wipe that smile off his face. He took his arm and wiped it across his mouth but that didn’t last long.

The whole time they were giggling and that only added fuel to the fire. They are having a sleep over Saturday and she yelled their behavior caused them to lose their television privileges. This made them laugh even more. Donna said that’s it and she was going to drive to the front of the restaurant, throw them out and drive home.

When we got there, I put on my best “It’s hard to get out of her van.” act. You see I had broken my leg the month before and was still in a boot. This was quite believable if I say so myself. When we entered the restaurant and Donna told the hostess “Reservations for Rug.” The Hostess smirked a bit and took us to a screened off area and when Donna rounded the corner my family members yelled “Surprise!” Donna stopped dead in her tracks and was speechless.

We’ve only been able to trick her once before, at a Bison’s game, but that story will have to wait for another time because I am out of space.

I am an independent journalist who lives in Lockport as do my children and grandchildren. I also blog at norb-has-opinions.blogspot.com

I am for the implementation of the Facial and Object Recognition System (FORS) in the Lockport schools. There I said it. I know this might be an unpopular stance but it is the way I feel. I believe an integral part of journalism is to present both sides of an issue and to write how I feel not to just agree with the prevailing opinion. I expect very little support and a lot of blow back due to my opinion but with all the articles condemning FORS I thought it was time to hear from the other side.

Perhaps the most persuasive reason to have FORS in schools is that it could make our children safer. FORS allows the software to look at it’s photographic database to identify a person and see if he or she is supposed to be on school property. It can also identify a person who is prohibited to be near a school like sexual predators, fired employees and gang members. It can then alert an armed, trained school resource officer, a Lockport city policeman or a Lockport policeman moonlighting as a school security guard to approach the unknown person to evaluate their intent.

Initial security should be to lock all the doors while school is in session so no one from the outside can get in. The doors in Lockport are being locked right now. I know this isn’t a perfect solution because a person could wait near a door till someone opens the door so they can gain access. This also wouldn’t stop a person who is supposed to be there from committing a crime and we can’t lock all the doors from the inside due to fire and other safety concerns but FORS would add an additional layer of protection.

Facial Recognition is the highest speed biometric technology available. This has only one function and that is to recognize human faces. Forget the eye scanners and thumbprint readers, FORS currently analyzes the unique characteristics of a person’s facial images that are taken by a digital video camera. It’s the least invasive way and provides no delays and makes people completely oblivious to the process.

Whether you know it or not, FR software is out there and is currently being used right now. Facial recognition has been around in one form or another since the 1960s but recent technological developments have led to a wide proliferation of this technology.

Face recognition has been used to find missing children and victims of human trafficking. If missing individuals are in a database, law enforcement can be alerted when they are recognized by face recognition in an airport, retail store or other public space. Three thousand missing children were discovered in just four days using face recognition according to the website facefirst.com.

The best in facial recognition technology is currently available. The Apple’s iPhone X represents the beginning of a new era by using Facial Recognition Technology to unlock a smartphone. This is made possible by the cautiously running infrared and 3D sensors that work with a forward facing camera. The system’s unlock would is practically instantaneous and does not need the user to press any buttons.

But this is hardly the only example. There is the infamous Facebook facial recognition software whose power and accuracy is better than the FBI’s systems! Each time you post a photo or tag your friends on Facebook, you provide massive help for thier facial recognition algorithm.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection began testing facial recognition technology at around a dozen U.S. airports. The New York Times reported on the use of FR for security purposes in the private sector, notably in Madison Square Garden and at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Despite broad experimentation, there is no federal law governing the use of FR, although Illinois and Texas have laws that mandate informed consent. Whether used by governments or in private enterprise, the technology appears to be developing faster than the law.

Instead of utilizing manual recognition, which would be done by a security guard or the approved representatives not on the premises, the facial recognition technology automates the identification process and ensures its flawlessness every time without any pause.

Anyone that has a problem getting photographed by “Big Brother” might be advised to look around. There are cameras everywhere like Walmart, Home Depot and Walgreens to name a few. With the low price of digital, video surveillance systems, even my neighbors have them.

Facial recognition software can be used to quickly detect perpetrators of identity fraud. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles’ Facial Recognition Technology Program has been doing just that, with 21,000 possible identity fraud cases identified since 2010.

Aside from public usage by airports and railway stations, stadiums. There is even an adaptation of facial recognition for use in medical applications by diagnosing diseases that cause detectable changes in appearance.

Some citizens may resent the idea that the government obtains, holds, and uses their biometric data without their consent. Anyone who holds a passport or has sought a visa should not be surprised that the government at least has this information, even if the individual has not expressly consented to allow the government to retain it.

Like I said, I am for anything that has the potential to protect our children.

Norb is a freelance journalist from Lockport. His children and grandchildren have been/are Lockport students.