News of the day

Epignosis wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Epignosis wrote: Actually Slart, I'm awful with little kids.  My wife is the headmistress here.  I'm seriously restraining myself from making a couple of tasteless comments. Don't restrain too hard.

I'm thinking other people's imaginations are better than what I might have written.  What did you think I was going to say?

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Nice article on polygraphs. I'm always shocked to find out how many people think them to be efficient machines.

It was actually quite interesting. Whether the technology works or not, or whether the number of false-positives is even important - what is interesting is that the subject's were 'were twice as likely to offer “clinically significant disclosures”'. Which is an odd result since it has nothing to do with the subject lying or telling the truth, but disclosing information that they could have just kept quiet. This is a placebo effect - the lie detector doesn't have to be proven to work, the subject just has to believe it possibly might work.

The big problem with this is that some people make money off of it and a good liar can pull off a passing polygraph performance.  It's quackery.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: The same thing that makes a good liar is not the same thing which makes a person have above average homeostasis abilities. The bigger issues comes from someone who knows the effectiveness of the machine taking the test.

That's kind of what I was saying.  If you know how the lie detector works you might well be able to figure out how to pass.  There is a reason why these things are regarded as inadmissible.  False positives and negatives.


Edited by Slartibartfast - July 31 2012 at 10:42

Dean wrote: I'm not sure that's even relevant - whether the lie-detector results is admissible or not and whether there are false positives or not - use of the machines affects how the subject answers - it's the skill of the interviewer in using the polygraph as a means of coercing information out of the person being interviewed that is the important bit.

It is about coercion after all and people making money off of it.  It dovetails into torture.  You torture someone and you might get the truth and sometimes you won't.


Edited by Slartibartfast - July 31 2012 at 10:58

Epignosis wrote: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-administration-projects-2012-budget-deficit-1-2-181402042.html That would make the fourth consecutive year of trillion dollar-plus deficits during President Barack Obama's administration.

I'd quite like $3million "prize" for just doing the job I'm paid for.

No

Shooting at Sikh Temple in Wisconsin Leaves 7 Dead

Freedom of religion is one of the good things in my country.  There is violence and killings going on all over the world though.  Best wishes to all the victims who have been impacted today wherever you are.  This hits close to home because we have a temple and large Indian immigrant population here in Decatur.

Yay NASA landed the Rover a minute ago on Mars and everyone is congratulating themselves in a NASA party woot woot!