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

The worst

[Have Blue]

I hate it when the boss walks in to check up on me and I have to frantically close all my Slashdot windows.

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

[dillon_rinker]

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.

If you beleive the former, you are simply un-American

Thank you for implying that EVERY military and political leader for the past 50 years has been un-American.

I could pay an extra $2 to prevent my face turning into what a french fry from dropped into a deep fryer looks like, I think I'll pony up the cash.
I would, too. What I don't want to do is to spend $2/paycheck to make weapons manufacturers rich.

We should take the Israeli approach and start blowing up any facility among our potential enemies that looks like it might be used to create weapons of mass destruction. If you suggest otherwise, then you are UN-AMERICAN. And an ANTI-SEMITIC. And a NAZI.