Well, the issue isn't so much overfeeding as it is allowing a screaming child who "wants a TOY!!!!!" to overrule parental judgement. So far as I'm concerned McDonalds has done nothing wrong, in fact adding carrots as an option over fries was a GOOD thing. But parents can be weak and so it's not so much that they overfeed as it is they cannot say no.
That said, a McD's small hamburger is 250cals, with cheese 300 as I recall. The small fries add say another 150-200cals. To a parent, or someone like me on a diet, this seems pretty reasonable (I skip cheese though). However to a small growing child this could be WAY too much! Parents know they can inhale a quarter pounder easily, so what's wrong with Jr having a small burger? They aren't educated and frankly kids aren't as active. I'll never forget as a kid ordering a 20piece nuggets with a friend at a Popeyes and the lady's eyes getting big as she hollered for a "party pack". She nearly passed out when the friend behind me ordered the same thing! These days though this is commonplace and they have them stacked up and waiting - not so 20 years ago.
BTW a quarter pounder is less cals than two small burgers, the swiss mushroom Angus however is like 770 and the way my McD's slathers on the mayo it's probably more - way more. Sweet Tea isn't on the menu but fries add another 300+ so that "meal" is well over 1K. My height and size say I can eat 3Kcals but I ain't getting' them THAT way! I didn't feel as bad though eating that when I saw a breakfast that breached 1100cals BEFORE syrup and butter not to mention the M&M McFlurry which also breaches 1K if you get the 12oz. Really the Happy Meals ain't all that bad by comparison!:-O
How many parents, let alone grown up adults pay attention to this stuff? I didn't until I decided I was too damned fat and started walking to McD's locally as a treat on my diet *cough*
Ah yes, THAT. When it can be ripped and played I'll be more interested in it - I think eac3to pulls one channel but MKV or some other issue holds the process up for doing the 3D never mind playback. I'm aware of the format, just not exactly jumping around looking to use it. ALL of my media is ripped for playback and I've not got a projector so this isn't an issue I'm going to have to deal with anytime soon. Especially if it means a new switching receiver and TV not to mention hand-fulls of $150 glasses heh
What video are you watching on your TV that's being pushed at 120FPS over HDMI and where did you get it.... Hint: 120hz TVs receive the same bandwidth signal as more normal HDTVs so that ain't it.
Certainly it's possible in longer runs to have issues with crosstalk and other things. Been there done that with Cat5 myself. However a 3foot HDMI run from TV to stereo in your living room does NOT require a gold plated Monster cable - Monoprice stinky rubber cable works just fine..
Information from an illegal search that is used to find other evidence is also likely to get that evidence kicked out - fruit of the poison tree or somesuch? I do not think the police feel encouraged to make illegal searches as if it were a gamble that might pay off.
Okay, this DOES exist! Unfortunately I cannot give you links off the top of my head. I know there have been Slashdot articles in the past with TONS of links to good hardware in them though that would help you. The last was within the last month or two and I got some good info from it. ASUS was one of the companies I recall making it and I know there were at least 3 different N supporting routers available that could be had from the likes of Amazon and NewEgg. I would have switched myself but my Linksys running Tomato is also still doing well and nothing I own supports N yet save one machine that's hardwired anyway.
Hopefully others will chime in but I promise you that there's at LEAST two dual band 5ghz N capable routers out there that are supported by 3rd party firmware that don't cost a million bux or require you to become a distributor of an overseas product to get it. If I can find the links I saved I'll post them tonight...
Yes, all doable but at some point they will spend more time taking care of basic needs then they will anything else! At least shelter is taken care of when it's not falling apart on them:-)
Honestly BSG began to depress me so I laid off of it. I still have the entire series on disk and will eventually watch it. I've also got Caprica and the various BSG movies too.
StarGate had some serious undertones too but yeah they did laugh at themselves occasionally. It was certainly lighter and most certainly better lit too! Not many shows parody themselves but StarGate did and they did it fairly well too.
Hopefully SGU will have a good run and not jump the shark. I've enjoyed that universe and hope that they continue coming up with cool ways to continue it for awhile. I admit that I too wonder how long the razor blades and other things will last - what do they do for feminine napkins, birth control, or diapers? They've shown mending socks but how long till there's no thread? Somehow I don't see these folks wearing leaves anytime soon...
Boxee from XBMC which was first. XBMC has supported ShoutCast forever and Boxee is a fork of XBMC. Just a nit, Boxee being more commercial doesn't win it any points in my book.
Wow, so that explains why there's been no Dick Tracey sequels - that sucks! I appreciate you pointing that out, that situation is pretty sad and I'll bet there are tons of others out there too...
I agree and I'd bet there are tons of shows out there just like it. I will admit that Defying Gravity got a little bit off the deep end towards the end but I would have been willing to stick with it and see where it went.
Check out The Dresden Files sometime. It too had an interesting premise and based on that show I got into the books - I've now read all of them on my Kindle. The Stargate series have all interested me and have had a GREAT run with SGU being one of the best yet and the others having ceased. BSG was also a good one but a bit dark and I've yet to watch it, I guess that one is "complete" with Caprica now...?
Obviously I like the SciFi stuff but I also like the criminal science shows. I still see decent shows like Saving Grace barely hanging on though and that sucks!
This particular show has a decent premise and is free to download. Check it out and maybe look past some of the camera work and more at the story. Honestly I found the premise pretty interesting but I won't spoil it for you. It's certainly not the budget of Defying Gravity but it has as much potential I think. I'll be interested to see where it goes and I'd buy the book if they cannot keep it going...
You realize it's been on TPB for like a week already right? It's now seeding in the 21K range so still going up. Really you only need say 100-200 seeds to make a download fly so 20+K is silly huge. I can max out my connection grabbing a Linux ISO with less than 1K online seeding...
Oh, they want 20K to make the next 3 episodes. Prior to this story they already had more than $3K of that. http://vodo.net/pioneerone#Donate
I've not watched much stuff like this but I HAVE watched a few series that I thought were decent do well and then DIE due to network stupidity. FireFly is everyone's fave in this regard but Defying Gravity and Dresden Files are also good examples. I worry about shows like Sanctuary, SGU, Eureka, and others more mainstream like Lie to Me, Saving Grace, and Numb3rs. "Reality" TV just plain sucks, I won't watch it. But it's CHEAP to make by comparison and they can just keep throwing crap at the wall to see if it sticks. Shows funded like this at least have a chance if they're good and people who follow it have some input.
I agree there's a glut of entertainment. What we need is interesting entertainment!
I enjoy movie theaters, I do NOT enjoy the sky high prices, the asshat punks with cellphones, and the sticky floors. I go occasionally but not nearly as often as I watch shows at home. Big screens are cheaper and cheaper and if I had a basement a projector would have already followed me home for sure. Projects like XBMC and unRAID allow folks to setup VERY nice HTPC systems fairly cheaply to access tons of media. Unless prices at the box office regain some sanity it's only the highly anticipated movies I'll be looking to see - the rest I can wait on...
Bull. If you leave your pipe wide open then yeah you screw up the provider. However many of us understand the usage of the throttle and by actually using it we don't fill the pipes to bursting. This thing is currently seeding with OVER 20K users for the low def version, if all of those people throttle then you and I can download this pretty easily without anyone saturating their pipe. This isn't too complicated. I seed quite a few pieces of video this way without crushing my bandwidth or pissing off my provider.
Just finished watching this show. I like the premise, I'm going to contribute. If half of the 20K seeds feel the same way then their budget just got a TON bigger...
Personally the one good thing about this format is that if people LIKE the damned show they won't just cancel it because some asshat made a political move on another producer. I cannot count the numbers of times I've LIKED a show but it's been killed off, scheduled stupidly, or who knows what.
I'm watching this now - so far I like it and yeah I think I'll contribute to it. I'd like to see the next episode for sure!
At this point they have had little to no exposure. With more exposure and perhaps more donations more of those folks working for free might get paid. At that point yeah maybe this is viable. It's seeding HUGE right now and it sounds interesting so just maybe they will make some money on it - who knows. Perhaps contingency payments to those who work on it? Network TV seems pretty crappy lately so perhaps this will shake things up...
What you fail to understand is that NSA doesn't seem to be having an issue hiring despite claims of an astronomical error rate. You can claim 60% or some other number someone pulled out of their ass but the fact is that you don't know and NSA is apparently not dying for applicants. On top of that those numbers aren't from NSA - who's polygraphers were they judging and with what evidence exactly? They did a SURVEY of psychologists to get that 60% - lol talk about coin flips! If it's the police then yeah probably not a great chance IMO, do they run those tests 8 hours a day every day?
NSA's people do this all day every day and again I will point out that that the polygraph isn't some machine with a red and green light. It's only as good as the person driving it. Those with more experience will do better with it, those with less will do worse - NSA and other people who do it all day long will do better. Police who don't do it constantly will do worse. Not to mention the fact that anyone showing up for a police polygraph is probably already feeling the heat of being fingered whereas with someone doing it as a part of a regular routine or screening isn't going to be so freaked out. I am betting the police polygrapher is already predisposed to his findings when he wires you up too - I mean seriously what are the chances of them being objective?
If you're taking a polygraph and admit to abusing a child, stealing money from somewhere, or doing some other felony I wouldn't be surprised to find the police waiting for you to exit the room. Sure, it "just points the way" but I'm betting if it's any of the above it's not going to take too much digging after you've spilled your guts and probably had it recorded.
It's an interrogation tool for kripes sakes, do you honestly think these people don't know how to use the thing but have had it as part of their screening process for HOW long? Seriously? They may not catch all the bad apples but I bet they catch plenty and there's a reason why this isn't the one and only thing they use to screen I'm sure. That would be silly - it's a process not a pass/fail test.
Umm, if you've passed it once and done nothing to make it trigger why wouldn't it be just as easy to continue passing it? If you are failing your first time around then you've built no stake in that industry...
The tech has advanced a great deal. And if the operator couldn't get a baseline then they would simply call him back again. The machine is just part of the investigation is all. Sadly they get misused by the police and folks often are ignorant as to what they can and can't do.
So you're admitting that it works well as *part* of a screening *process* for folks you don't want handling sensitive information - something like the NSA?
For that it would seem to work along with who knows what for an investigation into a background. For a criminal investigation it would probably suck and I see no up side to taking one in that case for sure. YOU cannot call the results in court but the officers can?! F that!
Umm, there isn't actually a big green or red light that lights up to say you lied. That chill? It probably moved a needle a little bit. Maybe the person asks deeper questions. Maybe you tell them how pissed off you get at the thought of someone harming national security and acting against the nation - you know the truth. The fact that NSA uses the polygraph is pretty well known, I think some other Govt offices use it too. If you are so freaked out by taking the test then the solution is simple - don't apply for those jobs where it's a requirement.
FWIW when I was younger I was subjected to what was surely an illegal interrogation by a security guy for a drugstore where I worked. This guy did everything but beat me with a rubber hose. He had already interrogated many of the other employees and one by one they were fired. I had been told that I wasn't under suspicion for the missing controlled drugs (!) and not to worry. But after this guy fired like 6 people my number was up. I was in a tiny room seated, he stood over me and yelled. He told me he had video, he had witnesses, he had proof I was stealing and why didn't I just admit it. This went on for WELL over an hour and I was maybe 19 at the time. I asked to see the video, I asked to have witnesses come forward, I denied having stolen anything because I hadn't. I was sweating and scared and thought he was going to send me to jail - he was threatening to do so. He threatened to take the green-card of one guy's mother to get him to admit to something. Finally after forever he slammed down a piece of paper and told me to sign it. I asked what it was and he told me it was my ticket to keep my job. That piece of paper really said that he hadn't physically beaten me or coerced me and I stupidly signed it and was allowed to leave. I should have refused and sued the crap out of them but I was terrified. I was the ONLY person that fucker interviewed that wasn't fired! They later found out who was stealing - it was one of the temp pharmacists. Dumb-ass should have known they do a COUNT of every single pill in the controlled cases regularly - hell *I* knew that!
I also went through an interrogation in junior-high when an item went missing in a class. They claimed that the "anonymous papers" turned in by everyone in the class during the investigation (wtf?!) had pointed to me and that they recognized the handwriting as being from trustworthy students blah blah. I hadn't done it, I said as much. They got down to "okay if you didn't steal it but wanted to where would you hide it" kinds of questions - I told them to goto hell. That was actually easier than the interrogation by the security guy even though this was TWO teachers in a small room berating me. My parents took care of that one, I was told that if they ever tried that again I was to walk right the heck out the front door and keep on trucking - they also reamed the administrators. That was 8th grade for kripes sakes and I remember it like it was today. That too was over an hour and in today's schools is probably deemed okay since they have checked in girls panties and whatnot for Advil.
My kid EVER gets into a situation like either of those I will come down on someone with a hammer, that shit can scar you for life!
Those kinds of interrogations are far worse than any polygraph could possibly be. If someone asking you a question about something you didn't do scares you so badly then dude you need to get a grip. If you didn't do it say no and stick to it, better yet tell them you want a lawyer. If you're that scared of a machine test required for a job then don't apply for jobs that require it - how hard is that?
Why do you say it's not good for their purposes? In this case if someone fails they aren't sick of a horrible disease they simply aren't allowed to get a job. Now if they are screening THE very best person in the world for the ONE job they have to have him do then yeah might be an issue if it falses but if it were that important they would work around any issues. In this case they have tons of applicants, if they falsely fail 10% then oh well they still had a 90% success rate and if 50% of those all passed then yup they have filled their slots. As for privacy, if you fail the test it's not put in the newspaper and you walk out the door still looking for a job. If you admit to criminal activity well then that might be a problem for you - they aren't going to cover that up! Nor should they be expected to anymore than someone telling me in a bar they raped a woman should expect me not to call a cop.
So really - I agree with your argument so far as accuracy but I refute your conclusion. If someone fails the consequences aren't nearly as bad as a disease and erring on the side of caution when dealing with whatever it is they deal with is how they have decided to manage their risk.
Polygraphs are used as interrogation tools. The subject believes that they work and the polygrapher CAN see changes that can indicate that the person under scrutiny is having an issue with something. It's not a true false stoplight but it gives them an indication that something is on the subject's mind and they pursue it. At that point it's a guided interrogation with the polygrapher using indications from the machine to try and figure out if there's subterfuge going on. If the subject is able to provide reasonable explanation for the readings and what goes through their mind when queried then a good polygrapher will let it go. If they see enough of this kind of reading or they just get a hinky feeling they will make the subject come back for another reading until they feel like they have gotten the truth.
Used properly by someone who has a clue and who is trained to look at more than just the silly screen or stylus, someone who can listen to the timber of the voice or other tells the process (not the machine) can work. Someone who is a pathological liar isn't going to get caught. Neither is a person who has a change of heart after the process which is why the process is done on a regular basis by places that care about keeping their employees "clean".
There ARE downsides. Some people have medical issues that provide goofy readings be it heart or sweat or breathing. Sometimes people are SO stressed out by the magic machine that they freak out and cannot give a good reading one way or the other. Some people are just guilty - about every freaking thing in the world! These kinds of folks aren't going to pass the testing easily, in fact they may never be able to pass and then I guess the employer has to make a judgement call. This is simply risk management and if you're Joe Blow secretary tough luck - you're toast! Oh, some drugs will screw with the machine too apparently so if you take those for whatever reason it's going to be weird, not sure what they do then. But if you're a normal well adjusted person and understand what's going on the test is not that big a deal.
Frankly places like the NSA are using these things correctly from what I'm told - devices to get employees to talk about things that concern them from a security standpoint, skeletons in the closet, etc.. The silly stuff you see on TV where they ask you long rambling questions that require something other than a yes or no - that's bullshit and done wrong. Any employer that wants you to undergo something like that isn't using a service that's worth a shit and it's not going to work out. Run don't walk from those - it's crap and they will pull who knows what out of their ass.
Thank you, sincerely, for having linked to the site with additional scrutiny of that video. Having seen that video I too was pretty upset and I can imagine how this guy might have felt after viewing it if he hadn't had benefit of the additional scrutiny that was obviously done after the fact during the investigation. I think this is a pretty good example of why he shouldn't have been so quick to leak this material. He saw the video, he got angry, he leaked it, but the rest of the story was that it may very well have been a justified shooting. Without benefit of the additional scrutiny he thought he was justified perhaps. If indeed, as that page asserts, Wikileaks had information that proved the men were armed and failed to mention it then it casts a shadow over them as well!
I agree with much of what you say about folks leaking things deemed "secret". Some information truly should be closely held and embarrassing comments about other world leaders that were supposed to be kept in closed channels are probably a good example! Undermining the system as you assert is a bad thing. However people should question their Govt. and shouldn't be dissuaded from doing so. Certainly the camps in Germany gassing Jews were deemed "secret" so rigidly following along without pause isn't something I'd argue is a good thing. This guy however sounds like he didn't put quite as much thought into this as he should have and was perhaps personally motivated more than he was morally motivated despite his claims otherwise. He should indeed pay the consequences and he could perhaps have found a less biased outlet...
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Well, the issue isn't so much overfeeding as it is allowing a screaming child who "wants a TOY!!!!!" to overrule parental judgement. So far as I'm concerned McDonalds has done nothing wrong, in fact adding carrots as an option over fries was a GOOD thing. But parents can be weak and so it's not so much that they overfeed as it is they cannot say no.
That said, a McD's small hamburger is 250cals, with cheese 300 as I recall. The small fries add say another 150-200cals. To a parent, or someone like me on a diet, this seems pretty reasonable (I skip cheese though). However to a small growing child this could be WAY too much! Parents know they can inhale a quarter pounder easily, so what's wrong with Jr having a small burger? They aren't educated and frankly kids aren't as active. I'll never forget as a kid ordering a 20piece nuggets with a friend at a Popeyes and the lady's eyes getting big as she hollered for a "party pack". She nearly passed out when the friend behind me ordered the same thing! These days though this is commonplace and they have them stacked up and waiting - not so 20 years ago.
BTW a quarter pounder is less cals than two small burgers, the swiss mushroom Angus however is like 770 and the way my McD's slathers on the mayo it's probably more - way more. Sweet Tea isn't on the menu but fries add another 300+ so that "meal" is well over 1K. My height and size say I can eat 3Kcals but I ain't getting' them THAT way! I didn't feel as bad though eating that when I saw a breakfast that breached 1100cals BEFORE syrup and butter not to mention the M&M McFlurry which also breaches 1K if you get the 12oz. Really the Happy Meals ain't all that bad by comparison! :-O
How many parents, let alone grown up adults pay attention to this stuff? I didn't until I decided I was too damned fat and started walking to McD's locally as a treat on my diet *cough*
Ah yes, THAT. When it can be ripped and played I'll be more interested in it - I think eac3to pulls one channel but MKV or some other issue holds the process up for doing the 3D never mind playback. I'm aware of the format, just not exactly jumping around looking to use it. ALL of my media is ripped for playback and I've not got a projector so this isn't an issue I'm going to have to deal with anytime soon. Especially if it means a new switching receiver and TV not to mention hand-fulls of $150 glasses heh
What video are you watching on your TV that's being pushed at 120FPS over HDMI and where did you get it.... Hint: 120hz TVs receive the same bandwidth signal as more normal HDTVs so that ain't it.
Certainly it's possible in longer runs to have issues with crosstalk and other things. Been there done that with Cat5 myself. However a 3foot HDMI run from TV to stereo in your living room does NOT require a gold plated Monster cable - Monoprice stinky rubber cable works just fine..
You do realize that NSA didn't design AES right?
Information from an illegal search that is used to find other evidence is also likely to get that evidence kicked out - fruit of the poison tree or somesuch? I do not think the police feel encouraged to make illegal searches as if it were a gamble that might pay off.
Okay, this DOES exist! Unfortunately I cannot give you links off the top of my head. I know there have been Slashdot articles in the past with TONS of links to good hardware in them though that would help you. The last was within the last month or two and I got some good info from it. ASUS was one of the companies I recall making it and I know there were at least 3 different N supporting routers available that could be had from the likes of Amazon and NewEgg. I would have switched myself but my Linksys running Tomato is also still doing well and nothing I own supports N yet save one machine that's hardwired anyway.
Hopefully others will chime in but I promise you that there's at LEAST two dual band 5ghz N capable routers out there that are supported by 3rd party firmware that don't cost a million bux or require you to become a distributor of an overseas product to get it. If I can find the links I saved I'll post them tonight...
Yes, all doable but at some point they will spend more time taking care of basic needs then they will anything else! At least shelter is taken care of when it's not falling apart on them :-)
Honestly BSG began to depress me so I laid off of it. I still have the entire series on disk and will eventually watch it. I've also got Caprica and the various BSG movies too.
StarGate had some serious undertones too but yeah they did laugh at themselves occasionally. It was certainly lighter and most certainly better lit too! Not many shows parody themselves but StarGate did and they did it fairly well too.
Hopefully SGU will have a good run and not jump the shark. I've enjoyed that universe and hope that they continue coming up with cool ways to continue it for awhile. I admit that I too wonder how long the razor blades and other things will last - what do they do for feminine napkins, birth control, or diapers? They've shown mending socks but how long till there's no thread? Somehow I don't see these folks wearing leaves anytime soon...
I so wish my mod points hadn't expired earlier today! :-(
Boxee from XBMC which was first. XBMC has supported ShoutCast forever and Boxee is a fork of XBMC. Just a nit, Boxee being more commercial doesn't win it any points in my book.
Wow, so that explains why there's been no Dick Tracey sequels - that sucks! I appreciate you pointing that out, that situation is pretty sad and I'll bet there are tons of others out there too...
I agree and I'd bet there are tons of shows out there just like it. I will admit that Defying Gravity got a little bit off the deep end towards the end but I would have been willing to stick with it and see where it went.
Check out The Dresden Files sometime. It too had an interesting premise and based on that show I got into the books - I've now read all of them on my Kindle. The Stargate series have all interested me and have had a GREAT run with SGU being one of the best yet and the others having ceased. BSG was also a good one but a bit dark and I've yet to watch it, I guess that one is "complete" with Caprica now...?
Obviously I like the SciFi stuff but I also like the criminal science shows. I still see decent shows like Saving Grace barely hanging on though and that sucks!
This particular show has a decent premise and is free to download. Check it out and maybe look past some of the camera work and more at the story. Honestly I found the premise pretty interesting but I won't spoil it for you. It's certainly not the budget of Defying Gravity but it has as much potential I think. I'll be interested to see where it goes and I'd buy the book if they cannot keep it going...
You realize it's been on TPB for like a week already right? It's now seeding in the 21K range so still going up. Really you only need say 100-200 seeds to make a download fly so 20+K is silly huge. I can max out my connection grabbing a Linux ISO with less than 1K online seeding...
Oh, they want 20K to make the next 3 episodes. Prior to this story they already had more than $3K of that. http://vodo.net/pioneerone#Donate
I've not watched much stuff like this but I HAVE watched a few series that I thought were decent do well and then DIE due to network stupidity. FireFly is everyone's fave in this regard but Defying Gravity and Dresden Files are also good examples. I worry about shows like Sanctuary, SGU, Eureka, and others more mainstream like Lie to Me, Saving Grace, and Numb3rs. "Reality" TV just plain sucks, I won't watch it. But it's CHEAP to make by comparison and they can just keep throwing crap at the wall to see if it sticks. Shows funded like this at least have a chance if they're good and people who follow it have some input.
I agree there's a glut of entertainment. What we need is interesting entertainment!
I enjoy movie theaters, I do NOT enjoy the sky high prices, the asshat punks with cellphones, and the sticky floors. I go occasionally but not nearly as often as I watch shows at home. Big screens are cheaper and cheaper and if I had a basement a projector would have already followed me home for sure. Projects like XBMC and unRAID allow folks to setup VERY nice HTPC systems fairly cheaply to access tons of media. Unless prices at the box office regain some sanity it's only the highly anticipated movies I'll be looking to see - the rest I can wait on...
Bull. If you leave your pipe wide open then yeah you screw up the provider. However many of us understand the usage of the throttle and by actually using it we don't fill the pipes to bursting. This thing is currently seeding with OVER 20K users for the low def version, if all of those people throttle then you and I can download this pretty easily without anyone saturating their pipe. This isn't too complicated. I seed quite a few pieces of video this way without crushing my bandwidth or pissing off my provider.
Just finished watching this show. I like the premise, I'm going to contribute. If half of the 20K seeds feel the same way then their budget just got a TON bigger...
Personally the one good thing about this format is that if people LIKE the damned show they won't just cancel it because some asshat made a political move on another producer. I cannot count the numbers of times I've LIKED a show but it's been killed off, scheduled stupidly, or who knows what.
I'm watching this now - so far I like it and yeah I think I'll contribute to it. I'd like to see the next episode for sure!
At this point they have had little to no exposure. With more exposure and perhaps more donations more of those folks working for free might get paid. At that point yeah maybe this is viable. It's seeding HUGE right now and it sounds interesting so just maybe they will make some money on it - who knows. Perhaps contingency payments to those who work on it? Network TV seems pretty crappy lately so perhaps this will shake things up...
What you fail to understand is that NSA doesn't seem to be having an issue hiring despite claims of an astronomical error rate. You can claim 60% or some other number someone pulled out of their ass but the fact is that you don't know and NSA is apparently not dying for applicants. On top of that those numbers aren't from NSA - who's polygraphers were they judging and with what evidence exactly? They did a SURVEY of psychologists to get that 60% - lol talk about coin flips! If it's the police then yeah probably not a great chance IMO, do they run those tests 8 hours a day every day?
NSA's people do this all day every day and again I will point out that that the polygraph isn't some machine with a red and green light. It's only as good as the person driving it. Those with more experience will do better with it, those with less will do worse - NSA and other people who do it all day long will do better. Police who don't do it constantly will do worse. Not to mention the fact that anyone showing up for a police polygraph is probably already feeling the heat of being fingered whereas with someone doing it as a part of a regular routine or screening isn't going to be so freaked out. I am betting the police polygrapher is already predisposed to his findings when he wires you up too - I mean seriously what are the chances of them being objective?
If you're taking a polygraph and admit to abusing a child, stealing money from somewhere, or doing some other felony I wouldn't be surprised to find the police waiting for you to exit the room. Sure, it "just points the way" but I'm betting if it's any of the above it's not going to take too much digging after you've spilled your guts and probably had it recorded.
It's an interrogation tool for kripes sakes, do you honestly think these people don't know how to use the thing but have had it as part of their screening process for HOW long? Seriously? They may not catch all the bad apples but I bet they catch plenty and there's a reason why this isn't the one and only thing they use to screen I'm sure. That would be silly - it's a process not a pass/fail test.
Umm, if you've passed it once and done nothing to make it trigger why wouldn't it be just as easy to continue passing it? If you are failing your first time around then you've built no stake in that industry...
The tech has advanced a great deal. And if the operator couldn't get a baseline then they would simply call him back again. The machine is just part of the investigation is all. Sadly they get misused by the police and folks often are ignorant as to what they can and can't do.
So you're admitting that it works well as *part* of a screening *process* for folks you don't want handling sensitive information - something like the NSA?
For that it would seem to work along with who knows what for an investigation into a background. For a criminal investigation it would probably suck and I see no up side to taking one in that case for sure. YOU cannot call the results in court but the officers can?! F that!
Umm, there isn't actually a big green or red light that lights up to say you lied. That chill? It probably moved a needle a little bit. Maybe the person asks deeper questions. Maybe you tell them how pissed off you get at the thought of someone harming national security and acting against the nation - you know the truth. The fact that NSA uses the polygraph is pretty well known, I think some other Govt offices use it too. If you are so freaked out by taking the test then the solution is simple - don't apply for those jobs where it's a requirement.
FWIW when I was younger I was subjected to what was surely an illegal interrogation by a security guy for a drugstore where I worked. This guy did everything but beat me with a rubber hose. He had already interrogated many of the other employees and one by one they were fired. I had been told that I wasn't under suspicion for the missing controlled drugs (!) and not to worry. But after this guy fired like 6 people my number was up. I was in a tiny room seated, he stood over me and yelled. He told me he had video, he had witnesses, he had proof I was stealing and why didn't I just admit it. This went on for WELL over an hour and I was maybe 19 at the time. I asked to see the video, I asked to have witnesses come forward, I denied having stolen anything because I hadn't. I was sweating and scared and thought he was going to send me to jail - he was threatening to do so. He threatened to take the green-card of one guy's mother to get him to admit to something. Finally after forever he slammed down a piece of paper and told me to sign it. I asked what it was and he told me it was my ticket to keep my job. That piece of paper really said that he hadn't physically beaten me or coerced me and I stupidly signed it and was allowed to leave. I should have refused and sued the crap out of them but I was terrified. I was the ONLY person that fucker interviewed that wasn't fired! They later found out who was stealing - it was one of the temp pharmacists. Dumb-ass should have known they do a COUNT of every single pill in the controlled cases regularly - hell *I* knew that!
I also went through an interrogation in junior-high when an item went missing in a class. They claimed that the "anonymous papers" turned in by everyone in the class during the investigation (wtf?!) had pointed to me and that they recognized the handwriting as being from trustworthy students blah blah. I hadn't done it, I said as much. They got down to "okay if you didn't steal it but wanted to where would you hide it" kinds of questions - I told them to goto hell. That was actually easier than the interrogation by the security guy even though this was TWO teachers in a small room berating me. My parents took care of that one, I was told that if they ever tried that again I was to walk right the heck out the front door and keep on trucking - they also reamed the administrators. That was 8th grade for kripes sakes and I remember it like it was today. That too was over an hour and in today's schools is probably deemed okay since they have checked in girls panties and whatnot for Advil.
My kid EVER gets into a situation like either of those I will come down on someone with a hammer, that shit can scar you for life!
Those kinds of interrogations are far worse than any polygraph could possibly be. If someone asking you a question about something you didn't do scares you so badly then dude you need to get a grip. If you didn't do it say no and stick to it, better yet tell them you want a lawyer. If you're that scared of a machine test required for a job then don't apply for jobs that require it - how hard is that?
Why do you say it's not good for their purposes? In this case if someone fails they aren't sick of a horrible disease they simply aren't allowed to get a job. Now if they are screening THE very best person in the world for the ONE job they have to have him do then yeah might be an issue if it falses but if it were that important they would work around any issues. In this case they have tons of applicants, if they falsely fail 10% then oh well they still had a 90% success rate and if 50% of those all passed then yup they have filled their slots. As for privacy, if you fail the test it's not put in the newspaper and you walk out the door still looking for a job. If you admit to criminal activity well then that might be a problem for you - they aren't going to cover that up! Nor should they be expected to anymore than someone telling me in a bar they raped a woman should expect me not to call a cop.
So really - I agree with your argument so far as accuracy but I refute your conclusion. If someone fails the consequences aren't nearly as bad as a disease and erring on the side of caution when dealing with whatever it is they deal with is how they have decided to manage their risk.
Polygraphs are used as interrogation tools. The subject believes that they work and the polygrapher CAN see changes that can indicate that the person under scrutiny is having an issue with something. It's not a true false stoplight but it gives them an indication that something is on the subject's mind and they pursue it. At that point it's a guided interrogation with the polygrapher using indications from the machine to try and figure out if there's subterfuge going on. If the subject is able to provide reasonable explanation for the readings and what goes through their mind when queried then a good polygrapher will let it go. If they see enough of this kind of reading or they just get a hinky feeling they will make the subject come back for another reading until they feel like they have gotten the truth.
Used properly by someone who has a clue and who is trained to look at more than just the silly screen or stylus, someone who can listen to the timber of the voice or other tells the process (not the machine) can work. Someone who is a pathological liar isn't going to get caught. Neither is a person who has a change of heart after the process which is why the process is done on a regular basis by places that care about keeping their employees "clean".
There ARE downsides. Some people have medical issues that provide goofy readings be it heart or sweat or breathing. Sometimes people are SO stressed out by the magic machine that they freak out and cannot give a good reading one way or the other. Some people are just guilty - about every freaking thing in the world! These kinds of folks aren't going to pass the testing easily, in fact they may never be able to pass and then I guess the employer has to make a judgement call. This is simply risk management and if you're Joe Blow secretary tough luck - you're toast! Oh, some drugs will screw with the machine too apparently so if you take those for whatever reason it's going to be weird, not sure what they do then. But if you're a normal well adjusted person and understand what's going on the test is not that big a deal.
Frankly places like the NSA are using these things correctly from what I'm told - devices to get employees to talk about things that concern them from a security standpoint, skeletons in the closet, etc.. The silly stuff you see on TV where they ask you long rambling questions that require something other than a yes or no - that's bullshit and done wrong. Any employer that wants you to undergo something like that isn't using a service that's worth a shit and it's not going to work out. Run don't walk from those - it's crap and they will pull who knows what out of their ass.
Thank you, sincerely, for having linked to the site with additional scrutiny of that video. Having seen that video I too was pretty upset and I can imagine how this guy might have felt after viewing it if he hadn't had benefit of the additional scrutiny that was obviously done after the fact during the investigation. I think this is a pretty good example of why he shouldn't have been so quick to leak this material. He saw the video, he got angry, he leaked it, but the rest of the story was that it may very well have been a justified shooting. Without benefit of the additional scrutiny he thought he was justified perhaps. If indeed, as that page asserts, Wikileaks had information that proved the men were armed and failed to mention it then it casts a shadow over them as well!
I agree with much of what you say about folks leaking things deemed "secret". Some information truly should be closely held and embarrassing comments about other world leaders that were supposed to be kept in closed channels are probably a good example! Undermining the system as you assert is a bad thing. However people should question their Govt. and shouldn't be dissuaded from doing so. Certainly the camps in Germany gassing Jews were deemed "secret" so rigidly following along without pause isn't something I'd argue is a good thing. This guy however sounds like he didn't put quite as much thought into this as he should have and was perhaps personally motivated more than he was morally motivated despite his claims otherwise. He should indeed pay the consequences and he could perhaps have found a less biased outlet...