A New Way Of Screening Terrorist
Computer and behavioral scientists at the University of Buffalo are developing a system that will allow authorities to track faces, voices, bodies and various other biometrical data to create a score for how likely an individual is to commit a terrorist act. Sound like the scariest Big Brother plot since China’s ID card scheme? Well, rest assured, Winston Smith, the researchers only have your best interests in mind. "The goal is to identify the perpetrator in a security setting before he or she has the chance to carry out the attack," says Venu Govindaraju, professor of computer science and engineering at the university, who was recently awarded $800,000 by the National Science Foundation to create such a system. "We are developing a prototype that examines a video in a number of different security settings, automatically producing a single, integrated score of malfeasance likelihood," adding that the system will incorporate machine "learning" capabilities, which will allow it to adapt over time. "Human screeners have fatigue and bias, but the machine does not blink," the researcher said, just before remarking that he was late for an appointment at the Ministry of Truth.
Just One Wish!!
A man was walking along a California beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie!
The genie said, “OK. You released me from the lamp, blah, blah blah. This is the fourth time this month and I’m getting a little sick of these wishes. So you can forget about getting three wishes. You only get one wish.
The man sat down on the beach and thought about it for awhile. Then he said, “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii; but I’m scared to fly and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so that I can drive over there to visit?”
The genie laughed and said, “That’s impossible! Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete… how much steel…! No. Think of another wish.”
The man tried to think of another wish. Finally, he said, “I’ve been married and divorced several times. My wives always said that I don’t care and that I’m insensitive. So I wish that I could understand women… know how they feel inside and what they’re thinking when they give me the silent treatment…know why they’re crying…know what they really want when they say, ‘Nothing’…know how to make them truly happy….”
The genie said, “You want that bridge two lanes or four?”