I must shamefully admit that after vaguely watching American tv shows like CSI for last twenty years I was convinced this is already a thing for a long time.
Does it mean you can't see a perfect reflection on a slightly rusted screw?
There's a certain cinematic quality to this story... perhaps so much so that if it were to be included in an actual movie it would be seen as "too over the top" (i.e. CSI-like)
> (Hollywood/any cop tv show would have you believing the opposite)
Hollywood and cop TV would have you believe that "zoom, enhance" is a legitimate means of surveillance. I suspect most educated Americans avoid framing their understanding of surveillance around CSI and SVU.
Literally one movie, that was an unexpected hit is your contender for better culture?
In 2001 the highest grossing movie was Harry potter, and right below lord of the rings was monsters inc and jurasic park.
In 2002 Lord of the rings, Harry potter, Spiderman
in 2003 lord of the rings, matrix,nemo and pirates of the caribean.
Like how is that any different to now when you have pirates, spiderman, some children disney movie and fantastic beats which is just more harry potter?
> the old skills are no longer there.
Dune had more practical effects than lord of the rings. In 2001 the TV golden age had not started. Shows like the sopranos and the wire where struggling to find an audience. Friends and CSI reigned. Nowadays House of the Dragon and Last of US two high quality shows, with good use of practical effects are doing better than comparable mediocre daytime tv.
Even blockbusters are in many ways better. Andor is a million times better than anything from the 2000s prequels.
You've picked two films by a single Korean director who is outspoken about his views, which his hardly a good way to show it's a recurring theme across the media in general.
I could pick Atlanta and The Wire and say American media is commonly critical of police. Or turn around and pick CSI and Law & Order and say that American media is commonly supportive of police. It hardly says something about the overall landscape. And thats even picking shows with different directors!
I can't comment on the specific example of signing a form, but I did read about a case like this in Robert Sapolsky's "Why zebra's don't get ulcers".
It's a famous case in neurology, a man called "H.M."
Here's what's written in the chapter "Stress and memory" about H.M.:
"H.M." had a severe form of epilepsy that was entered in his hippocampus and was resistant to drug treatments available at that time. In a desperate move, a famous neurosurgeon removed a large part of H.M.'s hippocampus, along with much of the surrounding tissue. The seizures mostly abated, and in the aftermath, H.M. was left with a virtually complete inability to turn new short-term memories into long-term ones -- mentally utterly frozen in time.
Zillions of studies of H.M. have been carried out since, and it has slowly become apparent that despite this profound amnesia, H.M. can still learn how to do some things. Give him some mechanical puzzle to master day after day, and he learns to put it together at the same speed as anyone else, while steadfastly denying each time that he has ever seen it before. Hippocampus and explicit memory are shot; the rest of the brain is intact, as is his ability to acquire a procedural memory.
If you ask me, the CSI episode is definitely plausible if you consider that H.M. was real
The Lord Of The Rings did not open with "One does not simply walk into Modor". Blade Runner didn't open with "Yes, Rachel is a replicant".
You were confused after 5 seconds _because_ of the way he chose to write his story. It's proof that it was "readable" and well written because you reacted like that. Like you, I spent the first 2/3rds of the post wondering what "gone" meant. When I got to the bit where he came out and said "dead", the whole of the previous ambiguity and confusion resolved in a quite powerful way, almost as though I'd been internally hoping "gone" just meant "they drifted apart after stopping working so closely together". It hit me like a slap when the truth was revealed, which made the feeling of compassion for Ryan's loss and sorry even more bittersweet. I totally appreciated this style. _My_ "personal take" is that your personal take is based on a misunderstanding of the medium you're reading and the authors intentions. (Perhaps not a totally unexpected misunderstanding, given the site we're on and the more usual type of articles HN links to. But I doubt you have too much difficulty getting your head into "API documentation" or "political opinion" mode in the first few sentences if an article, I just don't quite understand why you (and a few other comments) didn't work out "Oh, a personal story piece" and either read it in that mindset or click back if they're not your thing.)
I'm guessing you've never read many murder mysteries? Or watched many crime or medical tv series? Or played Cluedo(/Clue)? Do you think each round of that game should open with "So Professor Plumb did it in the library with the candlestick. Right, you start." Should CSI open with "So we convicted him on DNA evidence found in the back seat of the Uber we linked to his credit card"?
I'd say a majority of people are fascinated by crime.
Exactly. I’ve googled stuff after seeing it on CSI or NCIS. Or on the news, or in a movie, or whatever. You could definitely cherry-pick stuff out of my google search history to make out like I’m a big time terrorist criminal mastermind.
But doesn't all media do that for the most part? I mean, most people are looking for escapism.
It's particularly galling that they do it with suicide, but it's what people want:
1- Movies/TV glamorizes violence from gangsters/mob/police/army... or they demonize it.
2- Movies glamorize drinking/smoking/taking drugs... or they demonize it.
3- Movies glamorize casual sex/strip clubs... or they demonize it.
4- Movies glamorize college... or they demonize it.
5- Movies glamorize having money... or they demonize it.
6- Movies glamorize 'justice' (criminal justice, etc)
I think the series is an insult to everyone who has been exposed to a suicide in their life, but I think that applies to many points. The guy who spent 15 years in jail falsely convicted won't appreciate the BS that is CSI. Just like the guy who is a recovering alcoholic, the ex-stripper, the person who lived real life violence like war, etc.
Whenever something bothers me, and this series bothers me plenty, I look within and why it bothers me. Why other things that might be similar don't. It really helps me understand our shared humanity.
My aunt, who was a forensic doctor, would be driven up the walls by the absurdity of the CSI screenplays. I'm an engineer and they manage to trigger me into laughter.
A bit is suspension of disbelief when some inaccuracy is needed by the story (like the sandstorm in The Martian) is tolerable, but completely messing up innocuous stuff you should have hired a field specialist to help you (physics, astronomy, police, medical, anything) with is inexcusable with the kind of budget even a lowly Sharknado has.
Seriously: I love movies. I was torn between engineering and cinema in college. Let's join together to never again have a cringe worthy moment on TV (unless it's there for the comedy value).
In the US criminal justice system (and likely most others), there is no standard for how to systematically compare fingerprint images--as distinguished from scanning a finger itself. The biometric machines are good at saying, "the surface being scanned has the features I'm looking for." But they can't take a latent print (e.g. lifted from a drinking glass or door knob) and match it to another (including one made "professionally" with an ink blotter) in a defensible way.
It turns out that fingerprint examination depends hugely on examiner judgement. That judgement is quite susceptible to several biases, such as a detective saying, "hey, we've got prints and someone in custody, can you match the prints?"
TV shows like CSI etc. have trained us to think of fingerprint identification of criminals as something like public/private key signing, but it's not nearly that trustworthy. The error rate is in the neighborhood of 15-30%!
The result is that fingerprint-comparison results are presented as facts when they are closer to guesses. This ends up convicting innocent people and letting guilty people go free.
If you would like to work on this, please contact me!
I got a few things out of it, but nothing I didn't already know.
1) Real life isn't often like CSI. Things aren't easily tidied up like in a 1 hr TV episode. Many times these things aren't solved at all.
2) Most real life crimes aren't investigated by a Lt. Columbo, who shows up at the scene, immediately figures out who the likely suspect is, then badgers the suspect until that person confesses just to get some piece of mind.
You know the saying "if you like sausages never go to the sausage factory"? Well I've got some bad news for you about the justice system.
We like to think of courts and juries in the idealistic view given to us in school. Its just like "12 Angry Men". Everyone gets their fair shake in court. Even if 11 people want to convict and go home the 12th one will stand up right? After all, you're a reasonable person. You can't imagine just convicting a guy without a reasonable discussion. Surely enough of your fellow citizens are the same?
The truth is a shocking amount of people in society just have deference to authority figures. They'll trust whatever expert the prosecution produces. You would think that courts have standards for what counts as experts, but the truth is the standards are horribly lacking. Shows like CSI give the average citizen a cops and robbers view of reality. When is the last time an episode of CSI didn't end with the guy getting caught and convicted? Have they ever made a mistake in CSI? Made an ambiguous decision?
And why wouldn't the DA choose to prosecute as much as possible? You don't want to appear weak on crime. After all, you have an election to win if you want to keep your job.
Trial by jury is only as good as the society within which it exists.
Bleach: poisonous so be careful (no toothbrushes :)). Mortal killing death to everything. Essentially, if something is so far gone you recoil, bleach will overcome. Great if you're Dexter.
Lemon: fish and other foody oils. Bad smell in your skin / hair. CSI episode had a girl showering with lemon juice because she smelled like corpse. I believe them.
These are the rules of thumb of house cleaning.
Nonsensical aside: Acid + baking soda = fizzy, I don't know if they cancel each other out :p
The "sensible argument" is that ads allow small "content creators" to "monetize" their content.
I think this is mostly a fallacy. I know of many developers, bloggers, musicians, film makers, etc who put their content out into the public domain because that's what they want to do. There are "monetizing" opportunities above and beyond advertising that seem to work well, but the lowest common denominator, and by inference, the lowest form of media, are generally ad-driven.
People argue with "yeah, but what about game of thrones and silicon valley". I reply with "yeah, but what about keeping up with the kardashians, jersey shore and the latest CSI franchise".
The gold / dross ration is 1 / 99. We can easily lose most of the ad driven content in the world without losing entertaining content.
I may be a statistical aberration though. I'm obviously not the "target audience".
AOL acquired CompuServe, but still maintains the mail servers - for now. People go all wide-eyed when they hear my '@csi.com' address, associating it with the TV series.
That makes more sense. So to me, the headline reads as "Location can be tracked just by measuring battery usage" when in reality its "Location can be tracked if:
A) they know the tower you are speaking to
B) they have information on how buildings are constructed in this area
C) You move around
D) they have some other crowdsourced info about how much power is required to talk to the tower you are connected to."
I can see this "technique" being used in an episode of NCIS, CSI or similar cop show.
<plot> We need to find this guy, but all we have is his cell number.
Police tech #1 "Sure no problem, I will just connect to his phone and measure the battery drain..... Got him, he is Downtown at 5th and Main- lets go arrest him!!!"
</plot>
No need to be a wealthy law firm. $1100 for an obviously deductible business expense isn't much, about the same as a quality laptop (and far less than what people used to pay for a quality laptop). You'll see people using these on CSI or some other legal-themed network TV show before the end of the year, possibly even the end of this season. If I was a TV show producer I'd be on the phone to Sony right now begging for two of them - one for the TV lawyers to use on screen, and one for me to mark up scripts on.
I understood this point to deal with the abuse of the judicial system and the belief that law enforcement has the same powers as portrayed in TV shows like CSI, not in the fact that we have a justice system in place.
Is he much worse than CSI? I mean I don't trust both, they have right details (like some study proving one thing, or name of disease), but overall miss the big picture.
Also it seems that he sometimes hits a mark. I remember his article on criminal Profilers being mostly correct as far as I could tell.
Anyone who trust a journalist unconditionally and blindly is a fool. They are paid to pique your interest and entertain you, not find out the truth (most people don't like the truth, I definitely wouldn't like all the truth about me to come into light). Just like someone that thinks that most crime TV series depict real life.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's because it's harder to get away with a gun crime now than it used to be. TV shows like CSI probably have more to do with the decline in gun violence than any other environmental factors.
> A crime has been committed using the user's internet connection, so in most civilized countries (i.e. places I would like to live in), that means the police have the legal and moral right to investigate that crime.
I agree so far.
> Until proven otherwise, the 'tor' user [operator?] is a suspect
The burden of proof lies with the police, not with the suspect. If the police fails to come up with reasonable evidence, the operator is to be acquitted, furthermore the operator has to do nothing to aid the police. It's definitely not up to him to prove the child porn isn't on his computer.
This is an important point. Consider what happens if the seized hard drives were encrypted (I don't know whether this is the case). Then it's virtually impossible for the police to prove that the operator was downloading the data himself. The operator on the other hand is not required to give up his passwords. In the end it all comes down to the question of whether relaying data via Tor is in itself enough to constitute an offense. And this is the question we all care about so much, because it will have implications for all exit node operators in the area.
> watch a few episodes of CSI if you want to get a rough idea how it works.
I see your point but it's hard to explain a "human body decompose" Google search, when years later a [family member] disappears and the cops suspect family (as is normal.) But I was watching a CSI episode and ....might not fly. Especially if you searched for large bags a few months later.
Search engines are much worst given that you search for information and ask questions about everything.
I think CSI qualifies as bad scifi. Not only the user interfaces are ludicrous, but they also employ "sufficiently advanced technology" in just about every episode.
Games, especially MMO's and Social Gaming exploit their addictiveness to keep people paying them.
Certain TV shows exploit similar addictiveness. CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Trial by Jury . . . all still supplying ~24 new episodes a year during prime time slots. To put it roughly, 9 days worth of programming that is essentially identical. Then there's the more unique (to some degree) procedurals (IE NUMB3RS, Castle, etc. Incidentally, the only procedurals I like, I can't stand the CSI crap as my mind is violently raped by unscience almost every other episode I watch) that appear.
I personally did stop watching TV for a prolonged period, but for no elitist reason as I love TV . . . perhaps too much. However, I'm satisfied watching only the show, so I'm more a DVD person.
Movies, again, strike at this addictiveness with the 'unnecessary sequels' market. It's one thing when a movie plans multiple parts, a la the Borne trilogy. However, then there are the Bond series that maybe only hit a good movie every 3rd or 4th produced, but still take in millions. Then there are the totally unnecessary sequels that appear because the studios dangled hundreds of millions of dollars off an ACME sized mousetrap to bag a producer.
Books similarly can get into this trouble of unnecessary sequels. I believe Agatha Christie inadvertently suffered this problem as her publishers forbid her from killing off Poirot, it took her 40 years for the novel that killed him off to be published.
Ironically, the most addictive TV shows and books appear to be detective dramas. This is easily illustrated by the fact that Mystery/Crime novels is the biggest market in literature, and by the fact there are over 9 procedurals routinely running during prime time slots, year after year for almost a decade.
Hacker Cinema
39 comments on Hacker News
I must shamefully admit that after vaguely watching American tv shows like CSI for last twenty years I was convinced this is already a thing for a long time.
Does it mean you can't see a perfect reflection on a slightly rusted screw?
There's a certain cinematic quality to this story... perhaps so much so that if it were to be included in an actual movie it would be seen as "too over the top" (i.e. CSI-like)
> (Hollywood/any cop tv show would have you believing the opposite)
Hollywood and cop TV would have you believe that "zoom, enhance" is a legitimate means of surveillance. I suspect most educated Americans avoid framing their understanding of surveillance around CSI and SVU.
From my memory they always said 24h for adults in movies. Kids never had a time limit in csi or similar shows
Like sure, it is technically possible he runs termux, has all of his hacking tools available, and is amazingly good with an onscreen keyboard.
That being said, if this were an episode of CSI, I would be rolling my eyes.
> the culture that made those days happen
Literally one movie, that was an unexpected hit is your contender for better culture?
In 2001 the highest grossing movie was Harry potter, and right below lord of the rings was monsters inc and jurasic park.
In 2002 Lord of the rings, Harry potter, Spiderman
in 2003 lord of the rings, matrix,nemo and pirates of the caribean.
Like how is that any different to now when you have pirates, spiderman, some children disney movie and fantastic beats which is just more harry potter?
> the old skills are no longer there.
Dune had more practical effects than lord of the rings. In 2001 the TV golden age had not started. Shows like the sopranos and the wire where struggling to find an audience. Friends and CSI reigned. Nowadays House of the Dragon and Last of US two high quality shows, with good use of practical effects are doing better than comparable mediocre daytime tv.
Even blockbusters are in many ways better. Andor is a million times better than anything from the 2000s prequels.
A future episode of CSI:
"Why didn't the victim just drive away?"
"I found trace remnants of Jack Daniels on her clothing, the killer must've asked her to roll down the window, splashed it inside the car..."
You've picked two films by a single Korean director who is outspoken about his views, which his hardly a good way to show it's a recurring theme across the media in general.
I could pick Atlanta and The Wire and say American media is commonly critical of police. Or turn around and pick CSI and Law & Order and say that American media is commonly supportive of police. It hardly says something about the overall landscape. And thats even picking shows with different directors!
I can't comment on the specific example of signing a form, but I did read about a case like this in Robert Sapolsky's "Why zebra's don't get ulcers".
It's a famous case in neurology, a man called "H.M."
Here's what's written in the chapter "Stress and memory" about H.M.:
"H.M." had a severe form of epilepsy that was entered in his hippocampus and was resistant to drug treatments available at that time. In a desperate move, a famous neurosurgeon removed a large part of H.M.'s hippocampus, along with much of the surrounding tissue. The seizures mostly abated, and in the aftermath, H.M. was left with a virtually complete inability to turn new short-term memories into long-term ones -- mentally utterly frozen in time.
Zillions of studies of H.M. have been carried out since, and it has slowly become apparent that despite this profound amnesia, H.M. can still learn how to do some things. Give him some mechanical puzzle to master day after day, and he learns to put it together at the same speed as anyone else, while steadfastly denying each time that he has ever seen it before. Hippocampus and explicit memory are shot; the rest of the brain is intact, as is his ability to acquire a procedural memory.
If you ask me, the CSI episode is definitely plausible if you consider that H.M. was real
The Lord Of The Rings did not open with "One does not simply walk into Modor". Blade Runner didn't open with "Yes, Rachel is a replicant".
You were confused after 5 seconds _because_ of the way he chose to write his story. It's proof that it was "readable" and well written because you reacted like that. Like you, I spent the first 2/3rds of the post wondering what "gone" meant. When I got to the bit where he came out and said "dead", the whole of the previous ambiguity and confusion resolved in a quite powerful way, almost as though I'd been internally hoping "gone" just meant "they drifted apart after stopping working so closely together". It hit me like a slap when the truth was revealed, which made the feeling of compassion for Ryan's loss and sorry even more bittersweet. I totally appreciated this style. _My_ "personal take" is that your personal take is based on a misunderstanding of the medium you're reading and the authors intentions. (Perhaps not a totally unexpected misunderstanding, given the site we're on and the more usual type of articles HN links to. But I doubt you have too much difficulty getting your head into "API documentation" or "political opinion" mode in the first few sentences if an article, I just don't quite understand why you (and a few other comments) didn't work out "Oh, a personal story piece" and either read it in that mindset or click back if they're not your thing.)
I'm guessing you've never read many murder mysteries? Or watched many crime or medical tv series? Or played Cluedo(/Clue)? Do you think each round of that game should open with "So Professor Plumb did it in the library with the candlestick. Right, you start." Should CSI open with "So we convicted him on DNA evidence found in the back seat of the Uber we linked to his credit card"?
I'd say a majority of people are fascinated by crime.
Exactly. I’ve googled stuff after seeing it on CSI or NCIS. Or on the news, or in a movie, or whatever. You could definitely cherry-pick stuff out of my google search history to make out like I’m a big time terrorist criminal mastermind.
I asked for the most notable movies and shows. A few choice specimens which you think would resonate would work.
For example, if I were to pick a few top candidates for nerd representation in media I might pick the IT Show or CSI or Mr Robot.
You are absolutely right they glamorized suicide.
But doesn't all media do that for the most part? I mean, most people are looking for escapism.
It's particularly galling that they do it with suicide, but it's what people want:
1- Movies/TV glamorizes violence from gangsters/mob/police/army... or they demonize it.
2- Movies glamorize drinking/smoking/taking drugs... or they demonize it.
3- Movies glamorize casual sex/strip clubs... or they demonize it.
4- Movies glamorize college... or they demonize it.
5- Movies glamorize having money... or they demonize it.
6- Movies glamorize 'justice' (criminal justice, etc)
I think the series is an insult to everyone who has been exposed to a suicide in their life, but I think that applies to many points. The guy who spent 15 years in jail falsely convicted won't appreciate the BS that is CSI. Just like the guy who is a recovering alcoholic, the ex-stripper, the person who lived real life violence like war, etc.
Whenever something bothers me, and this series bothers me plenty, I look within and why it bothers me. Why other things that might be similar don't. It really helps me understand our shared humanity.
Finally! CSI movies will make actual sense now with their once absurd zoom on blurry pictures ^_^ hahaha!
My aunt, who was a forensic doctor, would be driven up the walls by the absurdity of the CSI screenplays. I'm an engineer and they manage to trigger me into laughter.
A bit is suspension of disbelief when some inaccuracy is needed by the story (like the sandstorm in The Martian) is tolerable, but completely messing up innocuous stuff you should have hired a field specialist to help you (physics, astronomy, police, medical, anything) with is inexcusable with the kind of budget even a lowly Sharknado has.
Seriously: I love movies. I was torn between engineering and cinema in college. Let's join together to never again have a cringe worthy moment on TV (unless it's there for the comedy value).
In my limited acquaintance with actors which participated in dumb TV series, yes, they often do.
On that note, I have no idea if this is true, but wouldn't be surprised: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/f2i7t/ive_written_for_tv_shows_like_csi_and_numbers/
In the US criminal justice system (and likely most others), there is no standard for how to systematically compare fingerprint images--as distinguished from scanning a finger itself. The biometric machines are good at saying, "the surface being scanned has the features I'm looking for." But they can't take a latent print (e.g. lifted from a drinking glass or door knob) and match it to another (including one made "professionally" with an ink blotter) in a defensible way.
It turns out that fingerprint examination depends hugely on examiner judgement. That judgement is quite susceptible to several biases, such as a detective saying, "hey, we've got prints and someone in custody, can you match the prints?"
TV shows like CSI etc. have trained us to think of fingerprint identification of criminals as something like public/private key signing, but it's not nearly that trustworthy. The error rate is in the neighborhood of 15-30%!
The result is that fingerprint-comparison results are presented as facts when they are closer to guesses. This ends up convicting innocent people and letting guilty people go free.
If you would like to work on this, please contact me!
I got a few things out of it, but nothing I didn't already know.
1) Real life isn't often like CSI. Things aren't easily tidied up like in a 1 hr TV episode. Many times these things aren't solved at all.
2) Most real life crimes aren't investigated by a Lt. Columbo, who shows up at the scene, immediately figures out who the likely suspect is, then badgers the suspect until that person confesses just to get some piece of mind.
You know the saying "if you like sausages never go to the sausage factory"? Well I've got some bad news for you about the justice system.
We like to think of courts and juries in the idealistic view given to us in school. Its just like "12 Angry Men". Everyone gets their fair shake in court. Even if 11 people want to convict and go home the 12th one will stand up right? After all, you're a reasonable person. You can't imagine just convicting a guy without a reasonable discussion. Surely enough of your fellow citizens are the same?
The truth is a shocking amount of people in society just have deference to authority figures. They'll trust whatever expert the prosecution produces. You would think that courts have standards for what counts as experts, but the truth is the standards are horribly lacking. Shows like CSI give the average citizen a cops and robbers view of reality. When is the last time an episode of CSI didn't end with the guy getting caught and convicted? Have they ever made a mistake in CSI? Made an ambiguous decision?
And why wouldn't the DA choose to prosecute as much as possible? You don't want to appear weak on crime. After all, you have an election to win if you want to keep your job.
Trial by jury is only as good as the society within which it exists.
Vinegar: against: fungi (mould), calcium deposits; shaving brush, bathroom, washing machine / dishwasher once every dozen washes.
Baking soda: against: bacteria. Mouthwash (halitosis), dishwasher (rank smells), shoes (quarter teaspoon, against smelly feet), ... basically everything.
Bleach: poisonous so be careful (no toothbrushes :)). Mortal killing death to everything. Essentially, if something is so far gone you recoil, bleach will overcome. Great if you're Dexter.
Lemon: fish and other foody oils. Bad smell in your skin / hair. CSI episode had a girl showering with lemon juice because she smelled like corpse. I believe them.
These are the rules of thumb of house cleaning.
Nonsensical aside: Acid + baking soda = fizzy, I don't know if they cancel each other out :p
The "sensible argument" is that ads allow small "content creators" to "monetize" their content.
I think this is mostly a fallacy. I know of many developers, bloggers, musicians, film makers, etc who put their content out into the public domain because that's what they want to do. There are "monetizing" opportunities above and beyond advertising that seem to work well, but the lowest common denominator, and by inference, the lowest form of media, are generally ad-driven.
People argue with "yeah, but what about game of thrones and silicon valley". I reply with "yeah, but what about keeping up with the kardashians, jersey shore and the latest CSI franchise".
The gold / dross ration is 1 / 99. We can easily lose most of the ad driven content in the world without losing entertaining content.
I may be a statistical aberration though. I'm obviously not the "target audience".
AOL acquired CompuServe, but still maintains the mail servers - for now. People go all wide-eyed when they hear my '@csi.com' address, associating it with the TV series.
But, yes, it's free ;-)
"The public puts so much faith in DNA testing that it makes it especially important to make those the best estimates possible"
The public was made to believe DNA testing was absolutely bomb proof, there are even entire TV shows centered around this "fact" (CSI whatever ...)
May be people assume that things already work as shown in such movies, a la http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
That makes more sense. So to me, the headline reads as "Location can be tracked just by measuring battery usage" when in reality its "Location can be tracked if: A) they know the tower you are speaking to B) they have information on how buildings are constructed in this area C) You move around D) they have some other crowdsourced info about how much power is required to talk to the tower you are connected to."
I can see this "technique" being used in an episode of NCIS, CSI or similar cop show. <plot> We need to find this guy, but all we have is his cell number.
Police tech #1 "Sure no problem, I will just connect to his phone and measure the battery drain..... Got him, he is Downtown at 5th and Main- lets go arrest him!!!" </plot>
No need to be a wealthy law firm. $1100 for an obviously deductible business expense isn't much, about the same as a quality laptop (and far less than what people used to pay for a quality laptop). You'll see people using these on CSI or some other legal-themed network TV show before the end of the year, possibly even the end of this season. If I was a TV show producer I'd be on the phone to Sony right now begging for two of them - one for the TV lawyers to use on screen, and one for me to mark up scripts on.
If I'd seen this recreated in an episode of CSI, I would have thought "Bullshit."
I understood this point to deal with the abuse of the judicial system and the belief that law enforcement has the same powers as portrayed in TV shows like CSI, not in the fact that we have a justice system in place.
Coming soon to an episode of CSI
Is he much worse than CSI? I mean I don't trust both, they have right details (like some study proving one thing, or name of disease), but overall miss the big picture.
Also it seems that he sometimes hits a mark. I remember his article on criminal Profilers being mostly correct as far as I could tell.
Anyone who trust a journalist unconditionally and blindly is a fool. They are paid to pique your interest and entertain you, not find out the truth (most people don't like the truth, I definitely wouldn't like all the truth about me to come into light). Just like someone that thinks that most crime TV series depict real life.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's because it's harder to get away with a gun crime now than it used to be. TV shows like CSI probably have more to do with the decline in gun violence than any other environmental factors.
>watch a few episodes of CSI if you want to get a rough idea how it works.
Please don't watch CSI if you want to see how anything works. CSI is bullshit from top to bottom. If you want to see reality, watch "The Wire".
> A crime has been committed using the user's internet connection, so in most civilized countries (i.e. places I would like to live in), that means the police have the legal and moral right to investigate that crime.
I agree so far.
> Until proven otherwise, the 'tor' user [operator?] is a suspect
The burden of proof lies with the police, not with the suspect. If the police fails to come up with reasonable evidence, the operator is to be acquitted, furthermore the operator has to do nothing to aid the police. It's definitely not up to him to prove the child porn isn't on his computer.
This is an important point. Consider what happens if the seized hard drives were encrypted (I don't know whether this is the case). Then it's virtually impossible for the police to prove that the operator was downloading the data himself. The operator on the other hand is not required to give up his passwords. In the end it all comes down to the question of whether relaying data via Tor is in itself enough to constitute an offense. And this is the question we all care about so much, because it will have implications for all exit node operators in the area.
> watch a few episodes of CSI if you want to get a rough idea how it works.
Oh come on.
I see your point but it's hard to explain a "human body decompose" Google search, when years later a [family member] disappears and the cops suspect family (as is normal.) But I was watching a CSI episode and ....might not fly. Especially if you searched for large bags a few months later.
Search engines are much worst given that you search for information and ask questions about everything.
My way doesn't sound like a bad episode of CSI.
I think CSI qualifies as bad scifi. Not only the user interfaces are ludicrous, but they also employ "sufficiently advanced technology" in just about every episode.
http://i.imgur.com/prFIq.jpg (via the TV show CSI, haha)
I love UI reproductions in TV shows... this looks like a glorified Winamp plugin for doing reverse ip lookups hah.
Your last is one reason for the microprint on the bills. You can't upsample "into" microprint, except on CSI/NCIS type TV shows...
Games, especially MMO's and Social Gaming exploit their addictiveness to keep people paying them.
Certain TV shows exploit similar addictiveness. CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Trial by Jury . . . all still supplying ~24 new episodes a year during prime time slots. To put it roughly, 9 days worth of programming that is essentially identical. Then there's the more unique (to some degree) procedurals (IE NUMB3RS, Castle, etc. Incidentally, the only procedurals I like, I can't stand the CSI crap as my mind is violently raped by unscience almost every other episode I watch) that appear.
I personally did stop watching TV for a prolonged period, but for no elitist reason as I love TV . . . perhaps too much. However, I'm satisfied watching only the show, so I'm more a DVD person.
Movies, again, strike at this addictiveness with the 'unnecessary sequels' market. It's one thing when a movie plans multiple parts, a la the Borne trilogy. However, then there are the Bond series that maybe only hit a good movie every 3rd or 4th produced, but still take in millions. Then there are the totally unnecessary sequels that appear because the studios dangled hundreds of millions of dollars off an ACME sized mousetrap to bag a producer.
Books similarly can get into this trouble of unnecessary sequels. I believe Agatha Christie inadvertently suffered this problem as her publishers forbid her from killing off Poirot, it took her 40 years for the novel that killed him off to be published.
Ironically, the most addictive TV shows and books appear to be detective dramas. This is easily illustrated by the fact that Mystery/Crime novels is the biggest market in literature, and by the fact there are over 9 procedurals routinely running during prime time slots, year after year for almost a decade.