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Viral Video About Body Scanners

blog.tsa.gov

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Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#101

Post by matthew-wegner »

temphn wrote: post #66
pg wrote: post #8

There is something chillingly unconvincing about their attempts at informality. Big Brother jokey is a lot more frightening than Big Brother bureaucratic or Big Brother bombastic. Too bad this insight wasn't available to Orwell or he could have made 1984 even scarier.

The spelling and grammatical errors tell you within 5 seconds that this person is not very intelligent. For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail, however TSA conducts extensive testing of all screening technologies in the laboratory and at airports prior to rolling them out to the entire field. This is a run-on sentence. Imaging technology has been extremely effec…

The entire blog post is meant to be as colloquial as possible. What makes you think they wouldn't deliberately include spelling/grammar errors to support this?

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#102

Post by DanBC »

c1sc0 wrote: post #82
corin_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

Can you elaborate on how this is technically inaccurate? Is there something like a Flesch-Kincaid test for intelligence?

See the number of people on HN who use it's when they mean its.

See also the people using English as a second language.

I agree that the blog was awful and reflects really poorly on TSA. There is a big difference between simple English or plain English and bad English.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#103

Post by temphn »

corin_ wrote: post #77
temphn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spelling and grammatical errors tell you within 5 seconds that this person is not very intelligent. For obvious security reasons, we can’t discuss our technology's detection capability in detail, however TSA conducts extensive testing of all screening technologies in the laboratory and at airports prior to rolling them out to the entire field. This is a run-on sentence. Imaging technology has been extremely effec…

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

No.

Speaking intuitively, if you can't judge someone's intelligence by their writing ability, what possible measure could you use? Grammatical deficiencies are symptoms of conceptual deficiencies.

Speaking technically, vocabulary tests are some of the most highly g-loaded batteries around:

  Different tests in a test battery may correlate with (or 
  "load onto") the g factor of the battery to different 
  degrees. These correlations are known as g loadings. An 
  individual test taker's g factor score can be estimated 
  using the loadings. Full-scale IQ scores from a test 
  battery will usually be highly correlated with g factor 
  scores. For example, the correlations between g factor 
  scores and full-scale IQ scores from Wechsler's tests 
  have been found to be greater than .95. The g loadings of 
  mental tests are always positive and range from slightly 
  greater than zero to slightly less than unity. Raven's 
  Progressive Matrices is among the tests with the highest 
  g loadings, around .80. Tests of vocabulary and general 
  information are also typically found to have high g 
  loadings.[10]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_%28psychometrics%29
It's unclear to me what your underlying premises are. We will likely go in circles about whether you believe intelligence can be measured, whether it is meaningful, whether g is a measure of intelligence, whether it differs between individuals and groups, and so on. So let's agree to disagree.

Yet whatever your definition of intelligence, I believe it is hard to deny that the TSA is run by morons.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#104

Post by prodigal_erik »

danssig wrote: post #98
guynamedloren wrote: post #71

Today, I am not proud to be an American. Thanks TSA.

Why were you ever proud of something that just happened to you having nothing what so ever to do with any actions you took yourself?

Some people say "proud of X" when they mean "refuse to feel shame about X". It bugs me a little also.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#105

Post by amirmc »

temphn wrote: post #103
corin_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

No. Speaking intuitively, if you can't judge someone's intelligence by their writing ability, what possible measure could you use? Grammatical deficiencies are symptoms of conceptual deficiencies. Speaking technically, vocabulary tests are some of the most highly g-loaded batteries around: Different tests in a test battery may correlate with (or "load onto") the g factor of the battery to different degrees. These cor…

You're trying to equate doing a vocabulary test with writing for a public audience (and then using that writing as a proxy for judging the individual's intelligence).

Vocab tests and writing skills are not the same.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#106

Post by joshz »

pg wrote: post #8

There is something chillingly unconvincing about their attempts at informality. Big Brother jokey is a lot more frightening than Big Brother bureaucratic or Big Brother bombastic. Too bad this insight wasn't available to Orwell or he could have made 1984 even scarier.

Just a way to make you feel good about not having a say.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#107

Post by cskau »

rogerbinns wrote: post #29

Guess how many of the people who work on the ground airside are scanned? In any event the TSA is not taking enough credit here. Did you know their scanners have prevented meteorites? They have also prevented tiger attacks. Since installing them there has not been a single instance of meteorites hitting planes or tiger attacks on planes. I think the US government should borrow even more money so we can get them to als…

Also snakes.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#108

Post by ThomPete »

temphn wrote: post #103
corin_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

No. Speaking intuitively, if you can't judge someone's intelligence by their writing ability, what possible measure could you use? Grammatical deficiencies are symptoms of conceptual deficiencies. Speaking technically, vocabulary tests are some of the most highly g-loaded batteries around: Different tests in a test battery may correlate with (or "load onto") the g factor of the battery to different degrees. These cor…

"if you can't judge someone's intelligence by their writing ability, what possible measure could you use?"

Who says you can judge it by their ability to write? That's assuming the conclusion and not very intelligent where I come from.

Also there are many people who write great but have nothing intelligent to say.

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#109

Post by dlss »

temphn wrote: post #103
corin_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that you can judge someone's intelligence by their spelling and grammar is so incredibly wrong. And I don't mean wrong in a moral "don't be that guy" way (though that too), I mean wrong as in technically inaccurate.

No. Speaking intuitively, if you can't judge someone's intelligence by their writing ability, what possible measure could you use? Grammatical deficiencies are symptoms of conceptual deficiencies. Speaking technically, vocabulary tests are some of the most highly g-loaded batteries around: Different tests in a test battery may correlate with (or "load onto") the g factor of the battery to different degrees. These cor…

Grammatical deficiencies can be symptoms of conceptual deficiencies. They can also be symptomatic of getting overly excited, or of discussing very conceptually or emotionally difficult topics. They can be symptomatic of lying. They can also signify which social group you belong to, bro.

To give a more specific critique: vocabulary tests are done in a controlled environment, and hence can not be used to judge the correlation of vocabulary with IQ (or g, etc) in any other environment (unless of course someone has studied this problem and published results).

For example, many otherwise intelligent people exhibit vocabulary deficits, working memory deficits, and many other correlates with stupidity when talking to attractive members of the opposite gender. This doesn't mean that they have a low IQ or g-factor.

In this case, since this was a blog post written at what must have been a very difficult time in this poor TSA blogger's career, I don't think we can really say that their vocabulary is highly indicative of intelligence or g-factor.

That said, I do agree that the TSA is run by morons :p

Re: Viral Video About Body Scanners

#110

Post by Terretta »

pizza wrote: post #17
philk wrote: post #6

If their security is as good as their blogging it's time to consider travelling by bus. Also their "20 layers of security" chart[1] is an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece. Note the arrow they've drawn circumventing every layer of security apart from passengers . So really, we can't say they didn't warn us. [1] http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/index.shtm

When I saw the 20 layers chart, I thought it was a troll blog because the graphic looks like it has planes crashing into towers .

> Each one of these layers alone is capable of stopping a terrorist attack.

Well, we were vetting crews before 911. How many attacks did that layer stop? The sentence needs a qualifier: "...through that vector."

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