The Marauder's Map

If you've seen or read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, then you've heard of the Marauder's Map. For those who don't know, it's a really cool idea. Basically with the help of the map, Harry could see everyone who was on the school grounds in real time. He would see their location and their name would be floating above their footprints. No one could hide from the Marauder's Map. Anyways, since I'm fascinated with really expensive techie toys, I was thinking that the Marauder's Map really isn't such a far fetched idea. At my work, we already have these proximity badges that have little passive (no power required) devices that communicate to the doors. Obviously they aren't powerful enough to just read it when we get close to the door, so we have to put the badge up to a reader still, but you could have a badge that does. What I'm getting at is this badge has all this information about me. It knows who I am and what areas I have access too. So I thought if you put these little RF readers that are powerful enough to read someone's badge anywhere on the campus, you could essentially know where they are at all times. You could have this computer screen with a layout of the whole workplace and see everyone's name just floating around where they are. You could even know when someone is hiding out in the bathroom, ha ha. You would just have to put these little RF devices all over the campus kinda like how cell towers are all over the city for cell phone service. It would be the boss's dream come true. Now he doesn't have to look far to find you. He could even use the search tool on the program and the program could pinpoint your location for him. Talk about big brother!

So I'm convinced that this must exist somewhere already since the technology to make it seems to exist already. You're probably wondering why I don't make an effort to find out or seek to invent it myself. I don't want such a thing to exist, ha ha. That would be just where it would start. First the workplace, and then the world! They can use it to fight terrorism. Every person must be ID'ed and that will make them possible to track. It's kinda sounding like Minority Report, ha ha. Of course a badge won't do it by then, it will have to be implanted. People would have these little nanomachines coursing through their blood vessels always telling Big Brother where they are and if they are in a place they are allowed to be. Anyways, such a thing sounds much more fun in a book than in real life. Of course, that's where we started in the first place...The Marauder's Map from Harry Potter. And then Big Brother also came from the book, 1984 (written in 1948). Yeah, so I hate it when I come up with a really cool idea for one of my books, and then I realize the reason it's cool is cuz I got it from some other book subconsciously. I want my stories to be original. I don't care if they sell if they are based on someone else's ideas. That person was the real genius not me.

Anyways, I thought I would just share that little bit about the Maurader's Map. Pretty cool idea. Wish I had thought of it. Imagine all the trouble you could cause with it.

"Mischief managed" indeed.