Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Expert systems, General Musings, Government, Predictions, Privacy, Space, tech, Terrorism
Ah, great – the military has a new techno gizmo to use in the Global War on Terror: a hand-held lie detector! From the article:
FORT JACKSON, S.C. – The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.
The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We’re not promising perfection — we’ve been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it’s properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”
Of course, there are all kinds of problems here. let’s just start with the next paragraph in the story:
But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. “I don’t understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment,” said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. “Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report.”
Furthermore, the only tests which have been conducted on the devices has been done by the company selling them to the military. And that only involved a small group of paid volunteers (226 people, from the same MSNBC story). American volunteers. Here at home. Meaning without taking into consideration either cultural differences or the stress factors of a war environment.
Now, think about that for just a moment. They sold the military a bunch (94) of these units, even though they haven’t been tested for the situation where they’ll be used. That the military would leap at the chance to use such a thing without adequate data supporting it does not come as any surprise to me. Not at all. But look past the military, at a much larger market, where that data supporting the effectiveness of the devices *would* seem a lot more appropriate: used on Americans, here at home.
Never mind the fundamental problems with any kind of polygraph – that technology is already widely accepted as an investigative tool up to and including being accepted in some courts of law. Never mind that this device is much more limited than a conventional polygraph machine, and doesn’t require the operator to have extensive training to use it.
The device is being tested by the military. They just don’t know it. And once it is in use, some version of the technology will be adapted for more generalized police use. Just consider how it will be promoted to the law enforcement community: as a way of screening suspects. Then, as a way of finding suspects. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to some critical facility. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to an airplane, train, or bus.
Just how long do you think it will be before you have to pass a test by one of these types of devices in your day-to-day life? I give it maybe ten years. But I worry that I am an optimist.
Jim Downey
(Via this dKos story. Cross-posted to UTI.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Guns, Humor, movies, RKBA, Science, tech, Weather
Ever see what happens to modern electronics when you shoot them with large caliber handguns?
Wait . . . I’m getting ahead of myself.
* * * * * * *
As noted previously, I’ve been busy the last few days getting things ready to start the next round of ballistics testing. Round one was about three weeks ago, and in addition to getting a lot of good data about three of the 13 calibers we’re doing the research on, we also learned a great deal about the testing platform and procedures. Because of that amount of learning, when the three of us got together this week before setting everything up on Wednesday, we decided that we would go ahead and push this weekend to do all the remaining testing.
As a friend said in an email Wednesday night: “Whoa.”
Yeah, because that is 10 more calibers (eight barrels, since the .38 special and .357 magnum bullets use one barrel, and so does the .44 special and .44 magnum). And over 5,000 rounds of ammo.
We’re fortunate in that all three of us (me, Jim K and Steve) are all in situations where we can set aside our work demands for a time and devote our attention to doing this. And in looking at the remaining barrel/ammo combinations, it was clear that there would be some efficiency in doing things all at once – a number of the somewhat more unusual calibers have only two or three types of ammo, meaning that we’d be spending more time swapping out the barrels and chopping them than actually shooting and recording data. So there would be a benefit in getting all those calibers done, then move on to the several calibers where we had a lot of different ammo to test while the other barrels were chopped and prepped (de-burring and modest recrowning to get good consistent results).
And that’s what we did yesterday – dove in head first, in spite of very uncooperative weather (lots of rain and temps in the 40s). Our set-up keeps us out of the wet (we’re using a fair-sized cabin tent for our work area, with the chronographs outside under a protective tarp) but the damp chill still takes a lot of energy out of you. The changes we made to the shooting platform – the addition of an inexpensive target laser – meant that you essentially didn’t need to take the time to aim the thing (once we had it zeroed in), all you had to do was control it with the more powerful calibers.
And before we stopped early in the day, we had gotten to the same point with these remaining 10 calibers as we got on the first day of the previous round of testing with just three calibers.
Now, why did we stop early, if things were going so well?
Wasn’t due to the weather. Not unless you consider a .45 caliber bullet as rain.
What happened was this: one of us (who shall for now remain nameless, until I can spend more time to write up the saga appropriately) was in the middle of shooting the second most powerful of the calibers we’re testing, and didn’t manage to control the gun completely when he fired the round. And it went right through both chronographs. Perfectly.
We use two chronographs, lined up one in front of the other, to be sure we’re getting good data. He hit the first one right dead center, a little high from the middle. Like a perfect shot in a movie, hitting the bad guy right between the eyes. The large bullet punched through the display, destroyed the electronics, and shattered the back of the chrono – then entered the front sensor of the second chrono, exiting out the bottom rear sensor as well.
It was spectacular. A perfect shot. I have pix I’ll be posting later.
But it meant we were done for the day. No chronographs, no way to measure the velocity of the bullets.
But such things are available here, and we’ll pick up a couple more units this morning. And we’ll be getting the kind which have a remote readout – meaning that it’s just the sensors in the line of fire, the electronics on our shooting bench. Meaning that we can place some protective armor plates in front of the sensors to prevent this from happening again.
Meaning that we’ll just have to find a new and improved way of screwing up. 🙂
More when I get the chance.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Fermi's Paradox, movies, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Society, Space, tech, Titan, Travel, UFO, Writing stuff
There’s a good piece by Seth Shostak over at Space.com about the possible motivations an extra-terrestrial race might have for visiting our pale blue dot. (Shostak is one of the principals of the SETI Institute, and knows whereof he speaks when he addresses these kinds of issues.) First, he dismisses the usual SF plot devices of an alien race wanting our turf, our resources, or even our bodies:
Taking our cue from Tinseltown, I note that most cineplex sentients come to Earth either to solve some sort of ugly reproductive crisis or simply to take over the planet. The former doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. You can’t breed with creatures at the zoo, despite the fact that most of the base pairs in the inmates’ DNA are identical to yours (note that this is a biological incompatibility, and not just zoo regulations). The aliens, needless to say, will have a different biochemistry, and probably no DNA at all. Forget, if you can, the breeding experiments.
Taking over the planet would only make sense if there were something really special about our world. The best guess of the exoplanet specialists is that the number of Earth-size planets in our galaxy exceeds tens of billions. That doesn’t sound like our hunk of real estate is terribly privileged.
They won’t come here to mine our minerals, either. The entire universe is built of the same stuff, and while the solar system has a higher percentage of heavy elements than found in many stellar realms, it turns out that this is precisely the condition that seems to foster planet formation. In other words, ET’s own solar system will be similarly blessed with these useful materials. So why would they come here and incur multi-light-year transport charges?
Why, indeed? These various issues are ones which are discussed in the course of speculation about the alien artifact discovered in Communion of Dreams. And while I never actually reveal the motivations that aliens might have for having left the artifact on Titan in my novel, I do have thoughts on the subject (which might come out in a future sequel to Communion.)
Be that as it may, Shostak does go on to make a pretty good argument that if indeed there are a large number of technological civilizations out there, that they may just not consider us worth the trouble of contacting/visiting. Again, from the article:
Then again, there’s that last point: they just want to learn more about us. Well, perhaps so. Maybe that’s really what’s interesting about Homo sapiens. Not grabbing our habitat, saving our souls (or our environment), or subverting our industrial output — but assaying our culture. I’m willing to consider that even very advanced beings might find our culture mildly worthy of study.
Keep in mind that if they’re near enough to find us, that implies that there are many, many galactic societies (otherwise the distances between any two of them will be enormous). If there are lots of them, then we’re just another entry in a big book. Once again, not all that special. Kind of like another weird fish found in the Atlantic. I don’t expect mammoth expeditions to be sent our way.
It is a good point. I would counter, however, that we have seen plenty of evidence in our own history of people going to enormous trouble to bother to learn about seemingly trivial things. One only has to look at the difficulties encountered in sea-faring during the time of the great naturalists – people were willing to go to great expense, to risk great hardship and a fair chance of death just to add another entry into the botanical texts or to discover a new species. Even today we mount insanely expensive expeditions into the deep ocean just to expand our knowledge.
We have no evidence of extra-terrestrial life, let alone advance civilizations. Yet I think that you can make a fair case that any space-faring race which may exist must have some degree of curiosity – and that curiosity may alone be reason enough to come check out the new kids on the block, whatever the hurdles or cost.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Augmented Reality, Babylon 5, DARPA, Government, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, movies, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Wired, Writing stuff
Of all the many wonderful characters created by J. Michael Straczynski for his Babylon 5 universe, I have always been particularly fond of the Technomage Galen. Why? Well, actor Peter Woodward is just plain cool (he understand real weapons and fighting like few actors or fight directors do – his ‘Conquest‘ series for the History Channel a few years back was one of the best such documentary series I have ever seen). But more than that, the character Galen uses *exactly* the kind of technology that I envision is commonplace in the world of Communion of Dreams: the cyberwear which allows the user a functional augmented reality.
Recently, I wrote about how researchers have made a first important step in this direction, with the development of “a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.”
Well, now Wired is reporting that – surprise, surprise – DARPA is interested in the development of this technology. From the article:
Today, a handful of soldiers with advanced gear can see a few digital maps, through helmet-mounted monocles. Some pilots can get data about their world, on heads-up displays. But one day, troops could see an info-“augmented” reality all around them, with contact lenses that provide “first-person shooter-type video game” environments to those that wear them. At least, that’s the idea behind the latest project from DARPA, the Pentagon’s blue sky science and technology division.
The agency’s Information Processing Techniques Office announced Wednesday that it’s looking for information on “the creation of micro- and nano-scale display technologies for the purpose of creating displays that could be worn as transparent contact lenses.” And not in some far-off future. But in “three to five years.”
Three to five years. As I said in that post in January:
Woo-hoo! I love it when my predictions start to become reality!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Cory Doctorow, NPR, Predictions, Press, Promotion, Publishing, tech, Writing stuff
NPR this morning had a segment on how publishers are starting to figure out that having electronic books posted for free download actually helps them sell conventional printed books.
Well, duh.
No, that’s not directed at NPR. It’s a comment directed towards the publishing industry in general, and a number of the large publishing houses in particular. As the NPR story indicates, there has been plenty of evidence that this works for at least several years, yet getting a large corporation to realize that their business model and mindset have been surpassed by technology is never easy. Just ask Cory Doctorow about his experiences in getting this done with his writing.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear that things are starting to sink in to the conventional publishing world. Downloads of Communion of Dreams are now approaching 8,000 – almost entirely by word of mouth. That has got to help my chances in finding a conventional publisher. And I have you all to thank for that!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, Book Conservation, movies, Podcast, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Writing stuff
I have been *really* enjoying the audio version of Communion of Dreams, which I discussed in my last post. And I think you will too, once we work out some additional logistical things on the hosting end (the files are very large, relative to the .pdf files of the text, and necessitate increasing my bandwidth allotment significantly.) With a little luck, we should have that ready to go by this weekend. My friend’s interpretation of the characters is quite interesting – some of them have caught me a bit by surprise, though I cannot object in the slightest to his artistic decisions. And he is very good, really getting into the pacing and mood of the story the further he goes.
In fact, listening to the book, and the need to catch up on book conservation work from the long break last week through this weekend, is responsible for my not posting anything yesterday. And that’s OK, since I would have been tempted to do what just about every other SF blogger on the planet seems to have done: write a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Beyond being one of the best Science Fiction writers of the 20th century, Sir Arthur had an impact on the larger society, changing not only how we see space, but how we actually use it. It is completely understandable that everyone wants to write about him, and how his writing changed their lives (and writing). I did so in some discussion forums. And I have written about him here, and noted on my CoD site just what his influence has been on me as a writer.
But after I heard of his death all I really wanted to do was sit back and enjoy his vast vision. Tuesday night I popped open a beer, popped 2001 into the DVD player, and paid homage to the narrator of Tales from the White Hart.
Then yesterday, as I worked in my bindery, listening to my own story of humanity’s first encounter with an alien artifact, I thought about Clarke. A lot. And in thinking of him, and all that he accomplished, there was a danger, a tendency: to despair, to feel unworthy, to judge my own writing by his measure. Because I fall short, no matter how you look at it.
But that’s not what it’s all about. We all fall short of the best, at least in some areas. That does not negate the good work we do. Even Arthur C. Clarke had his failings. That does not change the fact that the world now is a poorer place for his absence.
Farewell, my old friend and mentor, though we never met.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Feedback, Marketing, Podcast, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, Writing stuff
A good friend – the one who actually got me started in book conservation (and has written a brilliant book on her time in the UICB program) – was by to visit for the first time in a long while. No discredit to her, we were just unable to have guests for the last year or two of caring for Martha Sr.
Anyway, last night, over a glass of wine and chatting, she handed over a wrapped package. “Your Christmas gift.”
(We’ve always been close enough friends that such things can be done whenever the timing works out, rather than obsessing over calendar pages.)
I unwrapped it. A small CD/DVD travel case. I unzipped it – and saw the first disc labeled “Communion of Dreams by James T. Downey.”
I was stunned. Gobsmacked, the Brits say.
My friend’s husband (also my friend – I’ve known them since they were first married) does custom audio books. He’d read Communion of Dreams last year, and really liked it. And together they conspired to produce the book as an unabridged audio production. 12 CDs worth.
I’m not sure yet just how long that is – I’m guessing about 20 hours. I just listened to the first chapter last night – and it was brilliant! A wonderful adaptation of the text, with some fun interpretations of the characters. Over the next few days I’ll get nothing much else done, I’m guessing, as I listen to the thing. Wow.
And here’s the best part: I have permission to use the MP3 versions that also came along with the gift as podcasts!
My good lady wife is starting to do the work of adapting my CoD site to host the MP3 files, and once we have all the details worked out, those will be available as a free download as well.
This is really cool – and really exciting! Just this past weekend downloads of the text of the book surpassed 7,750. I was just starting to think of contacting agents/publishers again – now having the podcasts of the book available will really help to promote the thing and make it easier to arrange conventional publishing.
Very, very cool!
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Cory Doctorow, General Musings, Genetic Testing, Government, movies, Philip K. Dick, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Travel
Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.
Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.
‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’
“We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society” . . . and turn them into criminals by the way we treat them from the very start.
The Minority Report, anyone? No, not the movie, which was OK, but the original short story by Philip K. Dick, which also shows the dangers of a post-war military regime/mindset to a civil society.
See, here’s the thing: people will largely react to the way you treat them (yes, I am generalizing.) If you take one set of people, and treat them like criminals from early childhood, guess what you’ll get?
I am constantly dismayed by just how much Great Britain has become a surveillance society, to the point where it is a dis-incentive to want to travel there. In almost all towns of any real size, you are constantly within sight of multiple CCTV cameras, and there is increasing use of biometrics (such as fingerprint ID) as a general practice for even routine domestic travel.
But getting DNA of all five year olds, under the excuse that it will better allow for catching criminals? Scary. To then match that up with the notion that you can predict the future behaviour of a 5 year old, based on someone’s model of personality development is just plain insane.
And you know that if they can pull this off in Britain, there will be plenty of people who think it should be instituted here.
Welcome to the future.
Jim Downey
(Via BoingBoing. Cross-posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 