'I had a vision of where her body is'

The use of psychics in investigations is more and more getting a spotlight in the news, sensationalized by the media when there is even a close hit. This is a common trend in the world of paranormal to only report the hits. It doesn't really make a good story to say 'A psychic provided a tip and it wasn't right'. So these stories get published and people believe psychics have the ability to find bodies.

I can completely understand a parent who has lost their child using any possible means to find their loved one regardless of the truth behind the method. I would likely follow up on a tip from a psychic simply because the ramifications are to great if I didn’t and it was correct. But for an investigator to actually employ a psychic in a murder case is a scary subject. No psychic has ever stood up to a legit unbiased study (to the best of my knowledge and if someone can point me to someone who has ever done so please share it with me) and therefore should not be used in the pursuit of a truth in a murder/crime.

That being said anyone can make an educated guess as to the location of a body if they know enough about the case. I give the example of the Calyee Anthony murder case. Dominic Casey (a private investigator hired by the Anthony to help look for Caylee) alleges that a psychic contacted him and told him she had had a vision, and that Caylee’s body would be found in a wooded area not far from the Anthony’s home. And so she was. Was this person truly in touch with the spirit world, or possibly making an educated guess? I suggest the later. I will explain.

Here is a Google map view of the location Caylee Anthony’s remains were found and also the location Dominic Casey was directed to by the psychic.

How on earth could she have picked the correct location?

If we zoom out a bit you see that the Anthony’s house is right down the street (pin A). Knowing a little about the case and the suspect, Casey Anthony, anyone could make a pretty good guess of that location. Casey is not a hardened criminal. Assuming she did murder her daughter for whatever reason. She would likely be extremely impulsive while disposing of the body. The closest place she had access to would be very likely. The remains were even on the right side of the road pointing to a car traveling east.

Anyone could have made that guess. I also have a feeling this so called “psychic” just might be proven to be none other than someone with close intimate knowledge of the location. Suspect?

Now the scary thing is that if it is a lie and the psychic story is not even real what would possess a presumably professional investigator to use that as their reason for checking that part of the woods. So that leads me to think HE thinks it was a psychic. He claims not to believe in them but if you’re going to use words like “freaked me out” you are a believer. My first thought, wouldn’t be “Freaky! How did she know?” Mine would be “let’s bring her in for questioning”.

Dominic in his deposition even stated there were other psychic tips and he never followed up on them. Because the guesses where not plausible (i.e. stuffed in the gas tank of the car). Every large case would have a number of self proclaimed psychics calling and hoping for the publicized hit. If you were the one who found “that missing person” you turn from a $50 per hour unqualified councilor into a $3000 an hour TV dead guy whisperer. It is ludicrous. When this case broke and Casey was charged and did herself in with all her lies, I guarantee there were several people out there thinking the same thing the psychic “saw” but don’t claim a vision. Any thought in your head could appear like a vision if you are deluded into thinking you have some super power. I know I used to believe I was a super hero. Then I woke up and saw myself for what I was. Maybe a bit intuitive, but not psychic.

I don’t doubt there are millions of people who would disagree with me as their psychic is right to often to not be psychic. But I can counter that with a prediction of my own. That their psychic when put in front a controlled test would not be right any more than common probability dictates.

Let the Dead walk - You should just run

I have reinvented "Let the dead Walk". But you likely have no idea what that is, it is a project I have false started on no less that 3 times.

The intent for the blog is to be what I refer to as an ARlog (Alternate Reality Blog). A fictional account of someones life as through their eyes.

When I started this project I started with to many rules.

The character was me, he started in my house. He only had access to what I could get and then his life would run in parralel to my own but with the added bonus of Zombies.

It didn't work. It was impossible to attempt to tell an engaging story with all the rules.

So I have removed all the rules. What "let the dead walk" will be is simply the episodic story of a fictional character, Ryan Brady, running in real time. Time lines split a while ago, and his world is collapsing around him.

I invite anyone and everyone to intereact with Ryan, just be in his world when you do it. He knows there are others out there. He is very alone at the moment.

Groundhog day? Bah Humbug

The fat old marmot got pulled from is hidey hole and perched upon a podium yet again. And with this tradition we are told 6 more weeks of winter.

I hate to be a grump but is this really necessary? I mean I understand the need for culture and tradition and as we all know this is a huge part of American and Canadian culture. Really?? Is it really?

To be honest I have never really understood the importance of such a tradition. Important enough to have a feature film titled after it. So because I hate to hate without knowing what to hate, I did a little reading and I stumbled upon this (source Wikipedia)

Famous predictions and groundhogs
Groundhog Day proponents state that
the rodents' forecasts are accurate 75% to 90%. A Canadian study for 13 cities
in the past 30 to 40 years puts success rate level at 37%. Also, the National
Climatic Data Center reportedly has stated that the overall predictions
accuracy rate is around 39%.

Thirty Eight percent? Now I know in the 21 century we take this kind of thing with a grain of salt. But come on, this guy is no weatherman; even they can do better than that. Let the poor beast do what he wants to and that is sleep, eat and shit. Realistically, the times he predicted an early spring he likely only stayed out to take aforementioned shit and then headed back into the hole.

I understand getting out to have a good time, have a little ceremony, and get drunk before noon. But the ground hog doesn’t want to do that. As I said Eat, sleep , and shit. I do not see anything about wearing a stupid hat and marching around being douche bags.

I understand years and years ago there was a need to figure out the length of the winter it meant survival, but I am sure even they just looked outside on or around now and saw if they saw their own shadow.

Then they went and ate a groundhog.

Beam me off, Scotty.

A pretty major milestone in the quest for in the field of teleportation has been achieved.

Detailed here, in Scientific American, if you are interested in reading the whole article. Basically what took place (or at least was reported to have taken place) is as follows:

A group of researchers, however, report today in Science that they've made headway in quantum teleportation, and thus communication. The team, led by physics graduate student Steven Olmschenk at the University of Maryland, College Park, succeeded in teleporting quantum information between ytterbium ions (charged atoms) three feet (one meter) apart.

Now it seems a small step towards the possibility of a star trek type transporter, and really at this point the only practical use would be in the field of quantum communications, which in itself is revolutionary.

But of course it got me thinking.

If the ability to transport was readily available to the population, would you use it? Would you have an issue standing in a pod or beam that would scan you at the atomic level, disassemble you in one place and reassemble you in a new place?

There is one possible problem that has been approached before. What if the transported you is not YOU at all but a copy of you that has no idea it is just a copy as it has all the memories you entered the pod with (including getting into the pod itself).

Now what if your old you simply stops existing.

For some reason I fear something like that more than even death. At least with death it is finite and you’re dead. But the thought of myself walking around as myself but not being witness by my SELF, is terrifying. Even though I can depend that my new self will perform in much the same manner as my original self, not being PRESENT to witness it freaks me out to no end.

I mean if I stepped in and went I would never know I didn't make it, but the possibility someone else (while still being me) would probably prevent me from trying it anyway.

And here lies a similar dilemma with the afterlife debate. If you get to the afterlife and there is nothing you can't tell anyone. If you go and there is something you still can't tell anyone. AND in the rare case where you are brought back from what you think was the afterlife. You still cannot be certain it was not a product of the lack of O2 or similar phenomenon. You can't know if you have eternal life after death without staying there.

As in the afterlife in teleportation, no matter how many people have done it you cannot say for sure the actual person perceiving the end result made it through.

So again I ask. Would you dare walk into one of these devices willingly?

Snow madness

Well it happened as they said it would. Snow all night and morning stop around noon. Last I saw it had stopped.

Why is it that people are suprised by this. There is no snow removal in Richmond so hopefully Surrey is better!

We will see.

Oh and about that format? *Shrug*

Thought of the week — Cubicles and Dinosaurs

Over the next 10 years, millions of baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965 will be leaving our workforce, unfortunately they will not be leaving as many children in their wake to make up for the mass retirement.

At first this looks to be a major issue. Let’s think about that for a moment.

This morning I was asked for assistance by one of these people let’s call him Herbert Neck. Herbert is a technological dinosaur. For someone like him even the simplest task on a computer is challenging to say the least. He is a one path user, in the sense he only knows of single methods for accomplishing tasks. He uses the Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste methodology for almost every task I take for granted. Ctrl and Alt keys are foreign to him and forget about that “new key that looks like a Swedish flag”.

This man is detail orient to say the least, needing to read whole pages of text to understand what is being displayed. There is no scanning skills present.

The tasks that this man needed help with were as follows.

· Set up a projector and laptop for a Presentation
· Insert a DVD and queue it for sharing at the meeting
· Get a couple slides from three or four separate slide shows
· Combine into an overview slideshow consisting of 14 slides

I take every step in this process for granted. I not only know how to do them but I don’t have to think about it. If I was tasked with this it might take me 15 minutes, while sipping coffee and eating a bagel. With him, it too 2.5 hours. And he still was not convinced it was all going to be fine.
Now in my world, if I were presenting something, I might worry about messing up my speech or having the correct numbers in the slide, but for him, that was second nature. He was worried if the computer might “go black”.

So it got me thinking. His meeting is over at 12 noon. His slides were prepped (but not compiled) yesterday. So really in 4 hours he accomplished or three tasks missing every phone call and not responding to emails. In the time it took me to write this post I have completed 10 tasks and answered 4 emails. I answered a call from my wife. And I never missed a beat. Switching applications and grabbing note paper when needed.

Now I am not suggesting that Herbert is the norm for the age group I am speaking about, he is exceptional, or that I am somehow better than him. But I was left wondering...

I can complete hundreds of computer and technology related tasks a day, great. But of those tasks, with all my multitasking how much attention to the details am I possibly paying. I would hope enough, but probably not. However Herbert, can formulate plans so complex that they shape the very fundamentals of human thought. And cover every base 10 times over. Now that is something.

We work in two very different fields, mine being web development and design, and his more a business analyst type role. But our computer/tech challenges or tasks are virtually the same. Print this, read this, copy this, post this, save that, read that, answer that.

Could my generation’s efficiency in completing these tasks make up for the disparity in the workforce?

There will definitely be a quality vs. quantity issue, but will the fact that it takes my generation 5 minutes vs. his 1 hour to overcome a challenge faced with the tools make up for the extra time I will need to formulate and find solutions to the overall business need?

Tuesday Talk Back — Slapstick Politics

When reading the following post, Slapstick Politics: More Than 650 Scientists Dissent over UN Global Warming Report by Julian Dunraven, I could not help but agree.

No matter what side of the fence you are on with the global warming debate, you have to agree that science is the method for finding the truths.

Politics entered the science stage a long time ago, but there has been few topics where the science can be this economically damaging to the "big guys". In a world driven by greed, it is little surprise they have gotten involved.

Science can prevail and the truth is achievable but only if the people get off their asses and learn to tell the difference between real science and political positioning.

As I said in a previous post. The earth is resilient. It will survive, whether it be through warming or cooling till we all die. All we can do is make sure we aren't killing ourselves, and the path to that is Science.