Dreaming of Security through Lanyards and Bollards
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This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog. The full post by Samuel DiBella can be read at https://blog.castac.org/2025/10/dreaming-of-security-through-lanyards-and-bollards/. About the post: A perimeter is always porous, to certain people. Managing how it is perforated is a kind of professional work. Odd behavior is socially marked out and isolated. In the US security industry, by contrast, a similar function is exported to technologies of access control and credentialing. One of the central artefacts that exercises elements of both is the lanyard. Unlike the laminated ID alone, the lanyard presents a constellation of belonging all at once and, unlike the uniform, its lightweight profile and compact size allow more individual expression through clothing. In contrast to the social subtleties of the lanyard, I present a simple tool for physical security: the bollard. These metal poles offer a catastrophic resolution for problems of permission to access a space.
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