Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Improving security via watching people?

(via Stupid Security)
Here is a security move that I want to praise.  Rather than the other senseless screening precautions we’ve seen, such as by name (which resulted in Sen. Ted Kennedy having difficulty flying), we now have preliminary work being done to identify people for greater inspection based on how they are acting.  I know that this is one thing customs agents do to help pick out which travellers need to be screened more carefully.  And this is a smart way to work on improving security.  Yes, these will be times when the wrong people get picked out due to issues like race or attire, but in general, this is a good way to increase efficiency of inspection.  But it was an important part of the identification and capture of Ahmed Ressam in the attempted millenium bombing of LAX.  Much like insurers use actuarial tables, identifying people by suspicious behavior generally works if the identifiers are well trained, and incorrect identifications tend to be minimally intrusive.

This is a good move by the government, and I hope more of this kind of thing is used in the war on terror (which, by the way, is a term I don’t like even though I get why it is used).

[tags]Behavior assessment profiling, Intelligent airline security procedures[/tags]

12-year-olds on a plane

(via StupidSecurity)
I missed this when it happened, but last week on Thursday, a 12-year old boy managed to get on an airplane without a passport, without a ticket, and without being screened by airport security.  This is what the heightened security in the UK gives travellers for security?

The boy was discovered by cabin crew and turned over to airport police. Officials said they could not explain how he got aboard the plane, especially in light of security checks imposed last week after authorities foiled an alleged plot to bomb jetliners leaving Britain.

[tags]UK airport security win? 12-year-old on plane without ticket[/tags]

Google’s flash of insight

(via Dan Gilmor’s blog)

I’m stealing Dan Gilmor’s whole post.  It’s only interesting because of his comment on the situation:

————–

The Independent: To google or not to google? It’s a legal question: But the California-based company is becoming concerned about trademark violation. A spokesman confirmed that it had sent the letters. “We think it’s important to make the distinction between using the word Google to describe using Google to search the internet, and using the word Google to describe searching the internet. It has some serious trademark issues.”

There’s a great idea: Force people to stop reinforcing your brand. Sounds like Google has too many lawyers…

————–

[tags]Google working to stop people from using term Google[/tags]

Ultra-obsessive artists create ultra-realistic vector images

(via boingboing)

If you look carefully at these images, you can see that they are not real. But the images are exceptionally well done drawings of real things/people, and look pretty convincing to the casual glance. The first picture I looked at was a drawing of Angelina Jolie. If the skin weren’t so perfect, I’d not have noticed the eyebrows are just a little off, and thought it was a picture instead of a drawing. See all the images done by various artists and highlighted on blogspot at bansang panaginip’s page. Note that a few are not work-safe, so you might want to just send the link address to your home email for later perusal.
Here are a few that looked really well done to me and that are safe enough for work. Ignore my apparent hang-up with pictures of females…

[tags]Ultra-realistic drawings, Vector art touched to near perfection[/tags]

Transparent face mask?

OK, this one just baffles me. Over at the Modern Mechanix blog, there is an old advertisement for a transparent face mask from the March 1940 issue of Popular Science magazine. Looking at the ad, all I can see is a plastic bag which someone put on a chicks head. Haven’t we spent our entire lives being told not to put plastic bags on our heads due to danger of suffocation? And isn’t putting a plastic bag over a woman’s head something more likely to be done by a serial murderer? And why is this woman smiling?

Transparent Face Mask
Slipped over the head, a bag of cellulose tissue designed for use in skiing and other outdoor sports offers protection for the face without interfering with vision. The transparent mask can also be used as a shower cap, an apron, a tray cover, and a turban, the makers say.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Transparent face mask?[/tags]

Worrying about the baby

I posted this image once before, on a version of this site hosted with another provider.  It’s gone now, since the host went away and I wasn’t smart enough to maintain backups at that time.  Since this has recently been getting mention again elsewhere on the web, I thought I’d post it again.  And this time, I do keep backups of my site, so I’m not worried about losing it this time.

A good write-up on the article and a check on whether or not it is real can be found at Snopes.

[tags]Jackhammer noise bad for baby, Is it the noise that she should worry about?[/tags]