gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Your portal to safety

This week, the CBC building in Toronto begins getting serious about security. They're building a new "Security Centre" to monitor the building, and "will be upgrading access control to elevators on the ground floor by replacing three current sets of turnstiles with entrance 'portals'."

Coooool. I've seen these things at the CBC building in Montreal. They look neat, and dangerous – the doors swing open to allow you in, then swoop back together like an airlock or giant cigar cutter (and if they were as sharp, those terrorists would think twice about bolting through.)

And please, please God... Please let them have a little speaker that makes the Star Trek door swoosh sound!

[Original] [Next Generation]

Actually, the portals in Montreal don't add much to security. True, you can't vault over them like a New York turnstile, but it's easier to sneak in someone who's walking right behind you. With the turnstiles gone, at least I can expect fewer groin-related injuries when my passcard doesn't work.

I'd love to know if people outfoxing the turnstiles has ever been an actual security threat. I can't imagine the Plexiglas doors will stop a Ryder truck full of fertilizer, but they might keep out the real threat: wandering students from the International Academy of Design and Technology.

Once these features are installed, the Toronto Broadcasting Centre is gonna be tighter than Fort Knox. But there's still no word on the existence of the legendary "weapons room" for defense when the revolutionaries come to take over the national broadcaster.

Teamakers has a nice TBC article with that original rumour, as spread by Robert Fulford in 1993. It also includes the other legend, the mythical "washroom for the Queen". I can't confirm or deny its existence, but I did meet Her Majesty, at CBC, and she didn't use the can (royal or otherwise.)

The weapons room idea always struck me as funny, because I don't think our poor security guards are particularly well paid. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't rush to arms to lay down my life for the Corp. If and when the revolution comes, I'd be buzzing in Our Glorious Leader and drawing him a map to master control. Then I'd run like hell.