Speaking of Senators having bad ideas, Fidelma Healy Eames (FG) tweeted this yesterday:
Playstn Xbox danger 2 health as 20 yo dies.Makers shd install auto shutdown chip af’r 2hr play w/ 12hr break on all game.http://t.co/kR0ebnu
The link goes to the Daily Mail – but don’t worry, I’ve read it so you don’t have to. This noted UK journal of objective health information explains how a twenty-year old died from deep vein thrombosis because he played on his Xbox for twenty hours a day sometimes. Well they don’t actually say because, they say he played Xbox and he died of DVT, but the inference is there to be drawn.
Therefore she wants all Xbox-PlayStations to have a chip that will turn them off for twelve hours after two hours of play. (Strikes me that a games console already has all the necessary hardware for a timed shut-down, but politicians do like “chips”.) Even the Daily Mail didn’t go that far, merely reporting the father’s call for parents to pay attention to what their kids are doing. That is actually good advice. Our failed TD Senator however believes in discipline through technology.
Of course games consoles are only the beginning. If DVT is caused by sitting too long, then anything that causes you to sit too long should logically have a Healy Eames chips in it. Two hours of TV a night should be enough for anyone. Two hours on your work computer, then a twelve hour break. Sounds good to me. And of course there will be Healy Eames cars that will only run for two hours at a time, then drive along beside you while you take a healthy walk.
But of course one might sit for twenty hours doing crossword puzzles. Healy Eames will eventually have to put a chip in the real culprit – your chair. Well less a chip, more a sort of giant spring mechanism.
Can’t you still cheat, by sitting on a box instead of your proper government-approved childsafe anti-sitting chair? For a while maybe. Until she finds out how to put a chip in your arse.