Friday, October 17, 2008

Last Action Hero

I sometime salute the ability of the USA to be able to project a positive image of itself as part of its defence mechanism and strategy of protecting its sovereign state. I have always believed that countries that need to protect its sovereignty needs to do the following:-
a) Have a mechanism of Self preservation
b) Have a protection mechanism against attack and lastly
c) Be able to project a positive image of the country by any means.

The reason why i brought up this issue, is that sometimes most of us are so convinced that what ever that was presented to us in CSI episodes and movies are taken as fact and we do not take the trouble to investigate whether such a claim is plausible. I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger taking punches at this in his movie "Last Action Heroes" about how most movies misrepresent the reality of people in California.

I was told and informed that there may be a possible requirement of the powers that be to be able to determine the exact location of a cellular caller to within 10 feet. Now, upon checking the FCC website and getting some of the vendors (who by the way are US based vendors), most of these technologies can only ascertain the location of the cellular callers to about plus/minus 150m.

The irony is not that we are to explore and recommend the best technology suitable as recommended by the FCC, but that can operators look into some of this solution becoz we have seen it in the movies/CSI. I am reeled because our bearing is now changed from basing on facts and standards to what is available on movie scripts and the TV.

Nevertheless, the conclusion that i draw here is that the US has been able to project its superiority through this new media that we are now not able to tell fact from fiction. Now, how about that for projecting positive values. Not only do they lead in a) and b), but now to our mind they also lead in c).

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