Ponies make lousy car mechanics. The lack of opposable thumbs really hurts them when it comes to removing or adding components.
The usual Wednesday night Linux/video games thing didn’t happen, mostly because it was Steve’s wedding anniversary. Well, family generally is more important than friends, so no problem. Fuzzball appreciated that I was home instead of away, at least.
Work: Win some, lose some. I think I may have a solution to the stupid NFS problem, but will need some time to test stuff and see if it works. Time is always in short supply.
Books: The author of Testing Testing makes a fairly strong case that polygraphs are a load of horse feces. This is not news (or should not be news) since non-governmental organizations are prohibited from using polygraphs in many cases, and William Poundstone’s “How To Beat a Polygraph” section in Bigger Secrets should’ve clued many people in to how this claptrap assemblage of 1950s tech and 1930s psychology is designed to railroad uninformed people into doing stupid things. Most of what I’ve read about the polygraph smacks of bad science, idiocy, and false fronts—maybe that’s confirmation bias in what I’ve read, but I feel that a device which claims to detect any and all falsehood should be able to stand up to an extraordinary standard of proof. And many studies show that polygraphs are not infallible by any means.
There’s more rant potential in the author’s description of widespread drug testing and “presumed docility”, but that’ll have to wait for the next entry.
2 users commented in " Polygraph Pony "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI’m not surprised about the polygraph business, but I suspect it is still used even though it has been proven pretty useless.
Love the picture. Re: the debate last night, I guess this is Pony the Mechanic instead of Joe the Plumber. Why do people pick up on these nonsensical things when the country is going to hell in a handbasket? A question for another day I guess.
As far as I know, the only people using polygraphs in a large capacity are the government. Figures, really.
I was reading a book instead of watching the debate. People focus on trivial details when things are collapsing because that distracts them from the fact that things are collapsing. It’s like the way that cats will wash their feet immediately after doing something really clumsy or stupid—I think the psychologists call that a “displacement activity”.