In article <3BCC7B13.9F2375C3@mitre.org>, Carl Burke said:

>>> In a way, he's a little like the Roadrunner.
>>
>> But everybody roots for the Coyote...
>>
>> Er, don't they? [wdstarr]
>
> No, of course not. If he wins, the game's over.
> Does anybody ever actually root for the coyote?

Of course! He's the technologist, the tool-user, the direct spiritual descendant of the ape who got an Idea in the opening of "2001: Space Odyssey!" He's got a brain and opposable thumbs and an Acme Products catalog, and by golly he's going to _use_ them!

What's the bird got besides feet and luck? An air of annoying smugness, that's what. Make him lunch, I say.

When I win the lottery, I'm going to fund a Wile E. Coyote Chair of Applied Engineering at some university, I am...

-- William December Starr

Suppose this magically effective face-recognition software is 99.99 percent accurate. That is, if someone is a terrorist, there is a 99.99 percent chance that the software indicates "terrorist," and if someone is not a terrorist, there is a 99.99 percent chance that the software indicates "non-terrorist." Assume that one in ten million flyers, on average, is a terrorist. Is the software any good?

No. The software will generate 1000 false alarms for every one real terrorist. And every false alarm still means that all the security people go through all of their security procedures. Because the population of non-terrorists is so much larger than the number of terrorists, the test is useless. This result is counterintuitive and surprising, but it is correct. The false alarms in this kind of system render it mostly useless. It's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" increased 1000-fold.