World's Worst Dog'n'Pony Shows

A dog'n'pony show is that delightful moment where some $1000 suits and the investors wearing them politely demand to be shown why they've paid you a salary for the last three months without hearing anything back except "we're all working hard here" and "stop bothering us and it'll get done faster." You pray the software works as well now as it did at 5AM when you finally killed the last display bug and headed home for a quick shower. Just two words of advice: don't cheat. Like VisuaLABS did with its "tiled LCD screens," or the Pentagon with its "missile defense test," you'll get caught. ...or will you? Tell us your best demo war stories.

Thanks to coli for passing along last Thursday's press release from VisuaLABS. This is a company that has been telling investors that they have what they call "GroutFree(tm)" technology, which joins multiple LCD screens invisibly into one, large, flat screen.

On July 3rd, investors were wowed by the demo of the company's "42 inch diagonal flat screen display" prototype. Sheldon Zelitt, VisuaLABS' Chairman and Chief Scientist, said, "It was our great pleasure to share an early look at that technology with our loyal shareholders at the Shareholders' Meeting."

And on July 26th, we got another press release -- this one titled "VisuaLABS Announces That Its Primary Technologies Are Not As Represented And Dismisses Sheldon Zelitt." It turns out that "the large screen GroutFree prototype demonstrated at the Annual Meeting was, in fact, a standard 42 inch plasma television purchased by Sheldon Zelitt ... at a local Calgary consumer electronics retailer ... The Committee believes that no working prototype of a device incorporating the GroutFree technology exists."

While all this was going on, the Pentagon was busy launching two missiles and making them smack into each other. This is the missile defense justification, the one scientists say can't be done, the umbrella that will protect the U.S. and its allies from all those Third World dictators who just have to deliver their nuclear warheads the hard way.

The big test came on July 14, when a target missile (avoiding mishaps) was launched and successfully blown to pieces by its interceptor. Bush was "pleased." CNN showed us the debris radar. And Michael Kelly of the Washington Post stuck it to the "liberal critics," pointing out that "The 'Smart People' Were Wrong." As he wrote:

"In the blink of a video screen going blinding white on July 14, it became impossible to offhandedly disdain a missile defense system as 'weapons that don't work.' It does work."

Yep! So phase one of our missile defense plan is complete. Now we go on to phase two, which is to convince all our enemies to install GPS transmitters in all their missiles.

Oh, you didn't know the test missile had a GPS transmitter on board? Well, you do now.

My favorite part is that the test missile actually launched a Mylar balloon as "chaff" to try to fool the "kill vehicle." Luckily, the balloon didn't have GPS.

So what's your favorite dog'n'pony story? Ever had a demo fail in some especially embarrassing way? Ever cheated? Ever get caught? C'mon, you can tell us...

Update: 08/01 08:00 PM by J : I'm seeing a lot of discussion of the relevance of the GPS. Here's Defense Week which claims the "prototype interceptor was able to find a target warhead partly because the target signaled its location to the interceptor for much of the flight, and the transmissions formed the basis of the targeting orders."

And thanks as always to Slashdot readers for posting more information. monopole points out this link, or take your pick, this one -- they're plans from last year, but still interesting:

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: And we take the GPS data, and we fuzz it up quite honestly, because GPS is a lot more accurate than radars. Okay? [...]

Q: Well, actually, would you then use the degraded GPS, or would you just the regular GPS that you use as a fallback -- (inaudible word)?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: (Inaudible.)

STAFF: Use the regular GPS.

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Regular GPS.

Comments

Nice editorial on Star Wars, Jamie

[Che Guevarra]

Okay, let's just get straight to it. Someone please tell me why missle defense will not work. Please tell me why we are no longer a nation that can achieve any goal we put our minds too. Why are we not allowed to protect our kids from nuclear missles? And I'm not talking about missles from the piss-ants of the world, I'm talking about swatting down every fucking missle China and the former USSR can throw at us. Why don't we want that? Why doesn't anyone want to try? These people saying we can never achieve it, can never develop it, it'll never work... HOW DO YOU FUCKING KNOW THAT???

I believe the only limitations to human invention are time and the will to do it. Could DiVinci ever imagine a pocket calculator? Did Mozart ever imagine DTS surround sound? Were they impossible? No.

I remember a lot of "impossible" things coming into their own during the Reagan administration. That was a time when the people with the will found a way. If the tree huggers hadn't shut everything down during the 90's, we'd have transporters, time machines and a deathstar in orbit by now.

Instead, we tell ourselves we can't do it anymore. Good for us, way to lay down and die. I'm glad we've reached the limit of our capabilities. We'll gladly step aside for whatever nation arises in our absense. Then they'll be the ones on the moon.

p.s. Is Mars impossible, Jamie? Is it?

Re:Get over the obvious bias against StarWars

[l33t3$t_hax0r]

The useful update rate on GPS technology is rather low. It's impossible to use it to do final homing on a target moving thousands of feet per second. Sure, it MIGHT help you spot it a few miles away at best, but the real test of this system was the ability to HIT the target.

That's bull and you know it. The TRUE test of the system was the ability to differentiate real warheads from fake ones. Missile collision ability has already been proven and used in the field successfully for years.

This is definitely a dog'npony example because it shows how are elected officials are trying to pull a fast one on the American Public by rigging the system to succeed - making it as easy as possible, just so they can prove that they were right and the other guy was wrong. Notice all the cable TV pundits yelling "nah, nah, you suck" to the missile defense opponents.

If Salon knows about this transmitter, the test PLANNERS knew about it years ago, and payed (sic) particular attention to whether or not that transmitter might have ANY effect on the real data being collected.

The difference between Salon and the Planners is that the planners pushed the knowledge of bias aside as inconsquential to the test, while Salon, and most of the smart people in this country, asked harder questions about that fact. Why is it inconsequential to the test? And how can a test that is rigged to succeed help us determine the true future of the project? It's weighted in favor of one outcome and isn't a balanced approach to determining whether this technology is capable, feasible or NECESSARY to the protection of our country.

You know what the sad thing about this whole scenario is? It's that the United States is too dumb in world affairs to help combat terrorism except with violence and warpower. Violence is the only solution the Republican politicians and pundits know, and as I've always quoted, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." The United States would be far better off averting disaster by not withdrawing from Global affairs and trying to push itself around like the bully on the playground. It's just sad that this country has so much going for it but is being pulled to destruction by childish politicians with penis envy. I love living IN this country, just not WITH this country.

Re:Are you for M.A.D.?

[SlippyToad]

Knowing the facts, there are only two ways to argue against missile defense: you are either in favor of M.A.D., or you believe that taxpayer dollars shouldn't pay to protect us from a very likely threat of nuclear devestation.

Or, you are highly suspicous of a system that has not ever worked, is threatening to throw 30-year old treaties into disarray, and appears to exist only for the purpose of forking over huge wads of my cash to defense contractors.

Face it, if there was a GPS transmitter on the missile, the test was rigged, rigged, rigged. No other assumption can be made. If they can do the test without the transmitter, it would pass a bullshit detector. But as it stands right now, it stinks.

I do not feel like paying any amount of my tax money for a system which promises so little and is guaranteed to cause so much additional distress and unpleasantness. We were de-commissioning nukes before this, were we not? Dumbya is simply cashing the check the defense industry wrote for him. He's not interested in the long-term effects at all.

Oh, nice argument, by the way. You accuse Jamie of producing a red herring, and then proceed to funnel five paragraphs of your straw-man reasoning into his mouth. Cute.

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