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Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Top Stories from the last 24 hours
How to Detect When Someone's Lying (and Get Them to Tell the Truth)
November 13th, 2012Top StoryHow to Detect When Someone's Lying (and Get Them to Tell the Truth)By Whitson Gordon
What Nonverbal Cues Really Tell Us
When someone's lying, they will probably give off a few nonverbal cues that suggest something is "off," but they don't prove that someone's lying to you. Joe Navarro, former FBI agent and author of What Every BODY Is Saying, says it best (emphasis mine):
Lying can cause this type of distress, but so could many other things. For example, Navarro interviewed one woman who showed all of the nonverbal cues one might associate with deception, but in reality she was nervous because her parking meter had run out and was merely afraid of getting a ticket. Even lie detectors are susceptible to this weakness, so you need more evidence to truly detect a lie. Use Nonverbal Cues to Investigate Possible LiesWhile nonverbal cues won't prove that someone's lying, they can direct your investigation by highlighting the important clues. Pamela Meyer, author of the book Liespotting and CEO of deception training company Calibrate, says you should start off an interivew by asking your suspect easy, stress-free questions. From there, you can get a "baseline" of their body language when they aren't under any pressure. Then, when you start asking more pointed questions about the lie you're investigating, you can pick out which words make them more anxious or distressed.
You can still employ this technique even without a specific detail like the ice pick. To use a simple example, say your little brother stole your prized autographed baseball. You could ask him:
If you get a nonverbal cue that stands out among the others—say he rubs his eyes as in the ice pick example—you have a detail you can investigate further. Again, you can't accuse him of lying right then and there (after all, he could just have been itching his eyes), but you do have something that can further your investigation. Photo by Lynne Furrer (Shutterstock). Get Liars to Confess When You Have Enough Evidence
Of course, not all cases are so simple. If you really need the detailed truth, you may have to ask quite a few questions before you have enough evidence to figure it out. In other cases, if you ask the right questions, the person will realize you're onto them and confess. Whatever you do, though, Meyer says putting pressure on them isn't the answer:
In general, a truthful person will have less of a problem telling their story backwards (though it may still be a tad difficult). Navarro agrees that pressure is a bad strategy, noting that "if you use any kind of pressure on somebody, what you're going to get is compliance. Compliance gets you a limited amount of information." Cooperation, on the other hand—building up that rapport and that trust—will have them giving you much more. In the end, Meyer says, honesty and compassion can go a really long way:
In short: The less accusatory of a tone you take, the more likely you'll get cooperation from your subject. Know what questions you need to ask, look for the right cues, and do some digging yourself. When you've uncovered enough evidence, you'll either have a strong case for the truth or they'll confess to you willingly. Photo by Richard Peterson.  This post is part of Spy Week, a series at Lifehacker where we look at ways to improvise solutions to every day problems Bond-style. Want more? Check out our spy week tag page. Joe Navarro is a former FBI agent, lecturer, and author of the book What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People. You can see more of his work on his web site. Pamela Meyer is the author of the book Liespotting, and CEO of Calibrate, a leading deception detection training company. She has an MBA from Harvard, is a Certified Fraud Examiner and blogs regularly at www.Liespotting.com.  |
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Call of Duty: Black Ops II: The Kotaku Review
November 13th, 2012Top StoryCall of Duty: Black Ops II: The Kotaku ReviewBy Patricia Hernandez
Black Ops II tells the sometimes confusing story of psychotic narco-terrorist Raul Menendez, alternating between segments in the past narrated by Frank Woods that explain why Menendez harbors intense hatred toward Americans and "present day" segments that see David Mason trying to hunt Menendez down. This all occurs in a world where terrorist organizations have Twitter accounts, YouTube accounts. Compare to the real-world—where we have things like announcements made by Anonymous on Twitter, or videos of war crimes uploaded to Wikileaks. The game exists in a reality that is similar enough to our own that I felt enticed by the ideas and the politics it presented to me, yes, but particularly what these things say about the society that borne them. Though a small detail—Black Ops II is full of them, if we look beyond the competent set-piece shooter—the video of the FBI director caused me to try to understand something that I couldn't encroach when I was just 16. I'm talking about the ruthless happiness that overtook most people I knew who heard the news that Saddam is dead. We did it, we did it, and there's the proof. Go on, watch it. I couldn't watch it then. I was unnerved by a war I did not understand, unnerved by death claiming a man I knew little about beyond the constant assurance that he was "bad." The bad man died, so I should derive pleasure from watching his neck break. Like a good American. More than that: like a devout consumer of technology, of information.  WHY: Black Ops II feels great to play, especially when futuristic weapons are involved, yes—but it also makes you think. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIDeveloper: Treyarch Type of game: First-Person Shooter What I played: In a copy of the game provided by Activision, I played about 8 hours of campaign, having done most of the Strike Force Missions, as well as a couple of hours of the multiplayer in addition to that. My Two Favorite Things
My Two Least-Favorite Things
Made-to-Order-Back-of-Box-Quotes
Deep down, I think I felt that something was changing—something that now, wouldn't even seem that odd. Oh, did so and so die? Yeah, someone captured it on their cell phone, check it out on YouTube. Did that guy swindle the nation? Yep, that's what the Internet says—here's the link. The age of transparency: we can see everything, yet retain the luxury of remaining ignorant. I don't believe the things Black Ops II will make the observant among us reflect about are intentional, but elements like these remain the most fascinating thing about the title. I say this in spite of playing the prototypical Call of Duty experience many of us are familiar with: yes, the game is mechanically great. You will feel powerful as you play, you will experience thrills as you go between shooting sections, vehicle sections, drone segments, even stealth segments. You, single soldier, luck out to find reality practically bending to your will with the help of a gun and the occasional high tech toy. Explosions will always barely miss you, and you will narrowly do the impossible with enough frequency that you begin to wonder if some higher force is involved—not to part the red sea, but to allow you to play through the full glory of American individualism one set piece at a time. I have a difficult time explaining some of the crazy, implausible things I did otherwise—like dragging a mostly dead man through a legion of enemies in the jungle or jumping into the cockpit of an aircraft I have 0 experience with (the game itself makes sure to point this out!) yet piloting it with ease. Or blacking out a number of times in a row in a period of five minutes, but still being fine. The scripted world waits for you, and only you, before anything is allowed to happen—so you get the feeling that this is likely how the world thinks an American perceives things. I also say the ideas in Black Ops II are the most interesting part of the title even though the game features some of the biggest changes to the franchise in years. Notably, your choices matter and can cause branching storylines with different endings. Comparing notes with Kotaku's editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo, we found that we got wildly different details leading to very different outcomes. Some of the fluctuations are easy to foretell: someone either lives, or they die. Simple enough. Other possibilities are difficult to discern, though the end of every level greeted me with the results of my operations. I am inclined to read this screen as one that presents variables of a malleable story, making me wonder what I had to do to experience something different. Baseline, I knew that Strike Force Missions—optional squad-based levels that one can fail—can change things immensely. In one main-story mission, I failed to rescue a high value target. A SFM appeared, where we tracked down the target's location. This meant that I had a second shot at rescuing the target, and, had I ignored it, my story would have been missing an important character. Seeing all the different possibilities—should they exist—is good enough reason to replay the game, if that's your thing. SFMs are also worth experiencing if you are interested in spending more time with robotics and drones. The main campaign gives you access to these on occasion, but not too much—it mostly continues the paradigm of one-super-soldier-taking-matters-into-his-own-hands. A premise that I can't help but wonder how long it takes before it is phased out judging from real-world drone efforts; it already feels a tad disingenuous when Frank Woods says the world will always need men like him. But all that stuff was of little consequence to me. For all that we bemoan the saturation of the shooter genre, I don't think finding a shooter that feels enjoyable or entertaining to play is particularly noteworthy anymore. Obviously some developers falter, but in the realm of AAA, certainly when deciding between major Call of Duty iterations, it's like we're picking between different cuts of steak. Intentional or not, Black Ops II made me think. It's not a cerebral title or anything, but it doesn't have to be. For instance: part of what a near-future Call of Duty required was the imagining of new weapons. Or should I say new toys to play with? Gadget lust was in full force while I played, with me almost salivating over some of the tech the game gave to me. The problem—if you would call it that—with a tech-fueled war is that we think is tech is cool. We As if Call of Duty didn't already fetishize and celebrate war! Now it appeals to the consumerist in us, the one that will appreciate a futuristic gun not just through its mechanical merits, but through its technological excellence as well. There's a gun that lets me see through walls. There's a gun that highlights, with a red diamond, where the enemy's head is at—for headshot convenience, of course. There's a gadget that allowed me to go invisible. Once I got a hold of toys like these, the segments that took place in the past with Frank Woods and Alex Mason felt like they dragged on. War wasn't cool or novel in the past, not anymore—not in comparison to this. Realizing all of these truths troubled me. I began suspecting that if somehow we could, say, watch atomic bombs go off safely, without harming anything, we'd probably do it—despite it being a weapon, despite what it represents, despite the lives it's taken. Ethic and moral quandaries fade into the background if something is entertaining enough. Games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, along with no shortage of other similar media, are evidence here. Though the game makes sure that we understand that there are issues revolving around drones, the primary focus is that technology renders us vulnerable to hackers. We should be afraid of those like Raul Menendez, who want to control all the [insert hackable things here] according to the game. Not discounting that this is probably a very real issue, the game ignores the bulk of what makes up drone concerns: how remote controlling them might change our perception of war, or whether or not drones detach us too much from our actions, and so on. Despite this, I feel that Black Ops still explores the overarching questions that we have with drones, only with its futuristic guns. If part of the worry is that we become more reckless, more ruthless, or less humane when we man drones, weapons that highlight enemies for you postulate a similar problem. Perhaps worse. Click to view You no longer have to think about your actions or who your enemies are when they are clearly marked. You just have to worry about the next red target. Literally. To my morbid amusement, I couldn't help but think that in reality, tech that picks up on people of interest is optimized to recognize Caucasians. In the battlefield, I'm guessing weaponry would have the exact opposite optimization, eh? There are no shortage of things to consider as you play. On the less meditative side of things, we have Zombies and multiplayer—both at first glance seemingly robust enough to warrant bafflement at how Treyarch manages to fit so much content onto one measly disc. Unfortunately, assessments on these pre-release is of little use to anyone. For now, I will say that zombies looks deliciously insane, and multiplayer seems more viciously twitchy and cutthroat than ever before thanks to the new high tech weapons. We will make sure to update you on the multiplayer, if not give a separate verdict on Zombies, later in the week.
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What did Damon Lindelof add to Prometheus? The Biggest Differences With the Original Draft
November 13th, 2012Top StoryWhat did Damon Lindelof add to Prometheus? The Biggest Differences With the Original DraftBy Meredith Woerner
Find out for yourself. We've rounded up a list of the most monumental differences between Spaiths' script and the final product. Major spoilers ahead, if you haven't seen Prometheus... First up, we don't have Damon Lindelof's original script on hand, so we can't say 100% what Lindelof added and what Ridley Scott changed. For example, we know from set photos that the original "Elder Engineer gathering" was shot, but didn't make the final cut. However there are still plenty of differences between the two films that obviously couldn't have been filmed at all — because they would have changed the entire plot of the movie. Here are the more obvious differences. Little Things Real quick, let's run down a few minor changes we noticed right off the bat. For one, Prometheus was originally titled Alien: Engineers. Second, the ship was originally called the Magellan. The infamous black goo is a lot less goo-like, and transforms into a swarm of insects, often likened to scarabs. The Engineers didn't create humans, they merely infected us in our primitive years, and sped up our evolution (there's a scene of a primate lady getting bit by a black goo bug, thus injecting her with smartypants DNA). And also Shaw is called Watts (but we kept it to Shaw for this review). Meeting Weyland Weyland is NOT on board the Prometheus. The first time Shaw and Holloway meet the old man, he's on Mars trying to terraform the planet. This is an epic moment because it sets up Weyland's ruthlessness. He steals the scientists' notes and tells them he wants to be God. He comes across as a man willing to do whatever to get what he wants. And he also sets up the scientists bad decision making skills. Shaw and Holloway basically trade funds for the ship, crew, and time, as long as Weyland gets to keep all the technology they find. Which... there's no way THAT will come back and bite them in the ass. David's Ritual You meet David on Mars with Weyland. When the crew heads out into space David is also there greeting them and helping them out of hypersleep. However, David's Ritual, the very Lost-esque "Mamma Cass getting ready" moment, isn't in the draft. There's no basketball, Lawrence of Arabia , root dyeing — all the attempts David makes to be human are missing from the draft. In fact, all of the hypersleep moments are gone. You don't get to see Vickers doing her insane wake-up pushups, or Shaw throwing up — which was great character building detail. Point to Lindelof on this one. Vickers Vickers is NOT Weyland's daughter. She no longer has some super creepy agenda (well she keeps the terraforming thing a secret, but who cares — it's not like she's harboring her crypt keeper father on board). In Spaiths' version Vickers isn't trying to impress her father, she's pissed. She was ordered to follow the scientists on this mission, thus losing her place in line as CEO of Weyland. She doesn't believe in the alien theory and hates everything about this mission. Gone is the creepy rules about "first contact" replaced with one really bitter (slightly older) woman. Holloway Holloway is almost an entirely different character. He's no longer some sort of weird robot racist. Also when they finally get to investigate the Engineers lair, and find actual dead Engineers, he doesn't pout and turn into a giant drunk baby. While he's still a bit disappointed, Holloway seems pretty excited that they discovered alien life. Which is nice. The most jarring change has to be Holloway's death. Instead of being poisoned by David (for reasons) Holloway blacks out inside the Engineer building. He returns to the human ship, altered and terrified. Looking for solace he turns to his lady love, Shaw, and they start to make the beast with two backs. Clearly Holloway has been facehuggered — because soon enough, a terrible, horrible creature bursts through his chest (tentacles waving out of his throat). He dies instantly and the little bugger goes after Shaw. Which sets up the first ever early version of a Xenomorph, and establishes that this creature has smarts. Shaw escapes by hiding in the closet which, horrifyingly, the baby Xeno almost gets into by flattening itself and trying to crawl under the door. YIKES. David David the android is much more villainous in this version of the script. And with Weyland not around to direct his eager-to-please android son, all of David's actions are strictly personal. When Shaw realizes David is completely out of control and threatens him, he attacks her like a robot menace, legs running faster than a human's. In order to silence Shaw (an order Weyland gave him before the mission, that he's taking great liberty with) the android lets a very early version of a facehugger infect Shaw (he holds her down while it attacks). Oh and the medi pod scene where Shaw cuts out her parasite is still very much in this version — but with a twist. It's David who makes the decision to awaken the Engineers. During the two and a half years it took to reach the Engineers' outpost, David learned how to think in "trinary code." The language and logic process of the Engineers. Once mastered, the code delivered him from "slavery." Which means he doesn't have to take orders from Weyland or Vickers any more. Anxious to meet his liberators, David wakes the last sleeping Engineer up, and his head is immediately ripped off, much like in the original. It's really and truly android curiosity that killed the crew. The Fountain of Youth Vs. Terraforming Weyland is not some scary tree-beard creature looking for the secret to eternal youth. Rather, he wants the secrets to terraforming. This is why he sends the crew there. And that's why Vickers is there. He is not on board the ship at alll — but rather, a whole crew of hibernating military type folks are, whom Vickers awakens once she discovers the aliens' terraforming tech.
The final scene of Alien: Engineers isn't Shaw and David Lost In Space. Nope. Shaw is still stranded in Vickers' super sweet life boat, which hasn't been destroyed after it was ejected. Shaw is still hella pissed at David for sticking her with a facehugger, waking up the Engineer and everything else on the long list of terrible things that David did. However now she's stranded alone, in this fancy lifeboat. The conclusion fast forwards a few weeks ahead and shows Shaw living in the pod, scavenging the wreckage of their ship for supplies (Xenomoprh-like head spiked outside of her door) and playing chess with the voice of David. She's left David's noggin in the Engineer's ship, but still talks to him via their communication devices. He's trying to convince her to come get him, but she's not into it. Shaw believes someone will come, but David, being the delightful snarky little shit that he is says something to the tune of, "yes but who?" The last thing you see is the Engineer pyramid, sending off a giant light from the top of the building. The light heads through space to another planet. Where a ton of other pyramid buildings also light up. Uh oh!  |
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