Quotulatiousness

January 3, 2013

Better late than never, the annual stats post

Filed under: Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 14:09

Despite seeing lots of folks posting their annual traffic counts over the last few days, I forgot to even look at the Quotulatiousness stats page until just now. On the numbers, I think it’s safe to say that the blog continues to grow (but don’t ask me why):

Quotulatiousness visits 2009-2012

Quotulatiousness hits 2009-2012

Those are the internal WordPress numbers, starting from 10 July, 2009 when I switched over from the original site. Notional nationality breakdown, courtesy of Flag Counter:

Quotulatiousness Flag Counter 20130103

Generally speaking, every other visitor to the blog is American, one in five is Canadian, one in 20 is British, and the rest of the world combines for the remaining quarter. No wonder I have so many stories with American angles…

The old site still gets some traffic, but you’ll notice that the total traffic there (including from sometime in the late summer of 2004 down to today) doesn’t add up to a particularly large number:

Quotulatiousness old site stats 2004-2013

Rhode Island’s 38 Studios the new poster child for crony capitalism

Filed under: Business, Gaming, Government, Media, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:14

The 2012 bankruptcy of Rhode Island-based video-game developer 38 Studios isn’t just a sad tale of a start-up tech company falling victim to the vagaries of a rough economy. It is a completely predictable story of crony capitalism, featuring star-struck legislators and the hubris of a larger-than-life athlete completely unprepared to compete in business.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, an iconic figure in New England after anchoring a historic playoff comeback which ended a legendary 86-year title drought, founded 38 Studios near the end of his baseball career in the hopes of becoming a big shot in the intensely competitive multi-player gaming world.

Since 2006, Schilling invested millions of his own fortune into 38 Studios, and with the self-assured bravado he exhibited as a major league baseball player, set out to find investors to infuse his company with the roughly $50 million needed to complete 38 Studios’ first game. Although Schilling is the kind of local legend who could get a meeting with every venture capitalist in New England, Massachussets VCs passed on 38 Studios. WPRI-TV’s Ted Nesi reported that one such potential investor said “it would have taken a lot of babysitting to do a deal with Schilling because he was inexperienced and the management was inexperienced.”

Enter Gov. Donald Carcieri (R-R.I.), term-limited and searching for a legacy after presiding over one of the worst state economies in the U.S., featuring long spells of double-digit employment and frequent last-place finishes in rankings of business friendliness. In a classic spasm of “do something, anything” government desperation, Carcieri made it his mission to lure 38 Studios from its headquarters in Maynard, Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

Using his bully pulpit as both governor and chairman of the Rhode Island Economic Devlopment Corporation (RIEDC), a quasi-public agency whose mission is to promote business in the state, Carcieri pushed hard for 38 Studios to receive a $75 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan.

Each loan guarantee must be approved by the Rhode Island legislature, and when the votes were cast in 2010, only one lawmaker voted against it. Rep. Bob Watson (R-Greenwich) noted “a lot of red flags” in a “very risky” deal that was “too fast, too loose, and frankly, a scandal waiting to happen.” Watson added “more often than not, politicians are very poor when it comes to making business decisions.”

Comic book capers of expatriate Americans

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:17

Wendy McElroy on Superman’s renunciation of American citizenship:

How do you know when the content of a nation’s character is bankrupt? One way is to examine the dynamic symbols that embody its character and which shift in reaction to circumstance. These symbols are often found within literature and other cultural expressions.

In last year’s Action Comic #900, Superman declared an intention to renounce his US citizenship. The Man of Steel explained, “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy. ‘Truth, justice, and the American Way’ – it’s not enough any more.” Many readers were outraged because, despite being an illegal alien in the most literal sense, Superman epitomized the American Way.

[. . .]

As it happened, Action Comic #900 was issued only days before the killing of Osama bin Laden. Afterward, there was a surge of general patriotism and of sharp criticism directed at Superman. The comic book publishers retreated faster than a speeding bullet. The mainstream media and elites were once again able to settle comfortably into the notion that only villains, cynics, and the irredeemably selfish would abandon US citizenship for a global identity.

And, yet, people on the street then and now sensed that something else was going on. When Forbes ran an expat article, an obviously knowledgeable commentator wrote that leaving America was not […] fundamentally about taxes for most people. “[T]he larger issue is the complete betrayal by one’s country in an attempt to gouge for money to make up for the horrific [US] debt…It is high time…Americans learn that the country they grew up in, no longer exists. The ‘American exceptionalism’ that we were taught to believe in, needs to be seen for what it has become, an excuse for the government to do whatever it wants with no concern for the consequences. ALL Americans lose in this process.” The United States has become what it used to denounce – a fascist police state. To love America (the ideal), you must now leave America (the reality) — either physically or spiritually.

It is wise to do so quietly because the very hint of ‘going expat’ can drive some people into fury. In his article “Citizenship is a problem to be solved,” Phil Hodgen addressed the ‘furious’. He admonished them, “Put down your pitchforks. The point of…an article like this is not to answer with ‘You’re right!’ or ‘You’re wrong!’ The point of the article…is to explore the ideas. There are some important concepts here that transcend taxation…

Irish newspapers want to be paid when you link to them

Filed under: Business, Europe, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:20

Ireland is an odd place, if this little brainstorm from their newspaper industry is any indication:

This is not a joke.

I have started with that clarification, because as you read this you will find yourself asking “Is this some kind of a joke?” I thought I would be helpful and put the answer right up at the start, so you can refer back to it as often as you require.

This year the Irish newspaper industry asserted, first tentatively and then without any equivocation, that links -just bare links like this one- belonged to them. They said that they had the right to be paid to be linked to. They said they had the right to set the rates for those links, as they had set rates in the past for other forms of licensing of their intellectual property. And then they started a campaign to lobby for unauthorised linking to be outlawed.

These assertions were not merely academic positions. The Newspaper Industry (all these newspapers) had its agent write out demanding money. They wrote to Women’s Aid, (amongst others) who became our clients when they received letters, emails and phone calls asserting that they needed to buy a licence because they had linked to articles in newspapers carrying positive stories about their fundraising efforts.

These are the prices for linking they were supplied with:

1 – 5 €300.00
6 – 10 €500.00
11 – 15 €700.00
16 – 25 €950.00
26 – 50 €1,350.00
50 + Negotiable

They were quite clear in their demands. They told Women’s Aid “a licence is required to link directly to an online article even without uploading any of the content directly onto your own website.”

The rational response here is to honour their request … by pretending they’ve dropped off the internet altogether and never linking to any of the Irish newspaper websites.

January 2, 2013

Don’t let your BMI scare you (too much)

Filed under: Health, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:47

A quick reminder that the Body Mass Index (BMI) is more a convenient mathematical trick than an actual healthy weight guideline:

In a finding that could undermine many New Year’s resolutions, a new government study shows that people who are overweight are less likely to die in any given period than people of normal weight. Even those who are moderately obese don’t have a higher-than-normal risk of dying.

Being substantially obese, based on measure called body mass index, or BMI, of 35 and higher, does raise the risk of death by 29%, researchers found.

But people with a BMI of 25 to 30 — who are considered overweight and make up more than 30% of the U.S. population — have a 6% lower risk of death than people whose BMI is in the normal range of 18.5 to 25, according to the study, being published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

People who had a BMI of 30 to 35 — considered the first stage of obesity — had a 5% lower risk of dying, but those figures weren’t considered statistically significant.

In other words, a few extra pounds are not going to threaten your life (a lot of extra pounds might). In the western world, few of us have the kind of jobs that require much in the way of physical exertion and we also have both relatively low food prices and much greater access to calorie-dense food. Our parents tended to have jobs that required more physical effort and their access to food was not as great as ours (they were less wealthy overall, and didn’t eat at restaurants or fast food joints as often as we do). Two otherwise positive trends that combine to produce a less-positive result on the scales.

Earlier discussion of the limitations of BMI as a guideline here, here, here, and here.

Oh, this is ironic…

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Media, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:01

Several years ago, I got the only takedown notice I’ve ever received. The person objecting to me posting a short quotation of hers (with full attribution and link to the original) is now in the news herself:

An Ottawa wine writer used reviews from other writers on her website without properly crediting them. And as if that’s not ripe enough, a U.S. online wine magazine says she requires some wineries to buy a subscription to her website before she’ll review their wines.

Call it a tempest in a wine bottle. Writer Natalie MacLean has uncorked a debate about journalism etiquette and ethics online and touched off an oenophilic flap that’s produced underlying acidity and a bitter aftertaste in the usually genteel subculture.

“It’s all very tawdry,” says wine writer Tony Aspler. “The wine writers’ community is very close and collegial. To have someone behave this way, to take reviews and not attribute properly, it’s not done.”

MacLean, who writes at nataliemaclean.com, says she was surprised when Michael Pinkus, president of the Wine Writers Circle of Canada, objected to her use of others’ reviews. She got legal advice, she says, and has now gone back through past postings to fully attribute the reviews. She denies that wineries must pay to subscribe to her site to get reviewed.

“It’s been extremely painful,” says MacLean, named the World’s Best Drink Journalist in 2003 at the World Food Media Awards. “I’m more than happy to discuss the issues, to focus on the facts, but this has gone well beyond that. There’s been a lot of personal attacks. You can look for yourself on the blogs.”

So the person who objected to me quoting her was actually engaged in ripping off her fellow wine writers without attribution? That made my day.

December 31, 2012

Using the term “Mother Gaia” unironically

Filed under: Environment, Media, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

In the Globe and Mail, Gordon Gibson discusses the “Church of Green”:

Religions have certain characteristics. They consist of a body of belief based on faith (as, for example, in God). This faith is not to be challenged, distinguishing religions from other belief sets. Scientific theories, for a counterexample, must always be questioned. Not so with religion. Unwavering faith is the hallmark.

Religions of the sort decried by Mr. Bouchard have high priests who can speak ex cathedra and gain immediate belief. David Suzuki, Al Gore and Amory Lovins, among others, have this otherworldly gravitas. They have their religious orders. Just as there are Jesuits and Benedictines, there are Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

Religion has an enormous usefulness to many individuals. But there’s more. Religion is, by its nature, absolutist. Because it embodies the Truth, one should not deviate. Of course we all sin, but deliberate tradeoffs are not permissible. It’s not allowed to do a little bit of evil to become a little bit rich, and especially not great evil for great wealth.

Such absolute rules can work fine for individuals. They can do as they wish and take the consequences. It’s where religion is imported to govern the doings of the collective — of a society — that the trouble begins.

[. . .]

Now, no one could argue against the need for great weight to the natural environment. The difficulty comes in agreeing — or not — to tradeoffs. If we take an absolutist position, we humans are rather bad for the planet, so we should all do the decent thing and stop having children.

This was Mr. Bouchard’s point. His issue in Quebec was “fracking” to produce natural gas. The current “religion” in Quebec is that fracking is bad, just as in B.C. pipelines are bad. Among true believers in both cases, absolutism reigns. The badness is self-evident; the projects must not proceed. You can’t trade a little evil for a little wealth — there must be zero chance of harm.

December 30, 2012

The Gross National Happiness hoax

Filed under: Asia, Economics, Government, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

Remember the brief flicker of media interest in replacing the Gross National Product measurement with something called Gross National Happiness? It didn’t seem to catch on, which is fortunate, because the poster child for GNH is Bhutan:

Mainstream economists and almost all national bureaucracies around the world use measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP) to measure and track economic activity. These measurements are evidence-based. Hard data is aggregated and analyzed to come up with a picture of a national economy that is accurate and reliable. Based on such data, sound economic and development policies can be formulated. Not so for the Kingdom of Bhutan — a country ruled with an iron fist by its northern-based Buddhist Drukpa monarchy and elite with a transparent façade of democracy designed to obscure the true state of affairs in that country.

Having engaged in a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against its Lhotsampa minority of Nepalese origin from the mid 1980’s to the early 1990’s, Bhutan’s leadership prefers to use the amorphous and malleable measure of Gross National Happiness (GNH) to claim that their citizens — at least the ones that were not forcibly evicted from the country — are among the “happiest” in the world. Being a wholly subjective measure that utilizes no quantifiable data, GNH has been creatively utilized as a propaganda tool by the Drukpa leadership to project an image of Bhutan as a country of smiling Buddha’s. Little do most outside observers know the dark underbelly of this seemingly innocuous portrayal. It willfully ignores the history of ethnic cleansing and institutionalized racial intolerance against Lhotsampas inside Bhutan that continue unabated to this day.

[. . .]

With its record of ethnic cleansing and intolerance, it is morbidly amusing to hear propaganda that Bhutan is some sort of mythic “last Shangri-La,” a land of harmony and peace. Nothing could be more removed from the truth. The charade of ushering in a constitutional monarchy in the last few years and the ascension of the charismatic 31-year-old Oxford-educated King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk has led to a fresh burst of official Bhutanese propaganda expounding the unique nature of their happy people and of Gross National Happiness in general.

Hugh Trevor-Roper on the “invention” of Scotland

Filed under: Books, Britain, History, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:33

In the Telegraph, Adam Sisman reviews a book by Hugh Trevor-Roper (an old article from 2008, but still of interest):

Trevor-Roper was repelled by Scottish nationalism’s appeal to atavistic tribal loyalties. He knew that historical myth, however innocently concocted, could have unforeseen, even pernicious, consequence; the romantic fantasies of Goethe and Wagner had fired the imagination of the Nazis.

Trevor-Roper believed that ‘the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth’, and he took it upon himself to address some of these myths in this book, largely written in the 1970s, but set aside while still in draft. His former pupil, Jeremy Cater, has skilfully edited the text and has added a useful foreword.

The Invention of Scotland identifies three overlapping myths that have shaped the self-image of that proud nation.

The first is the political myth of the ancient Scottish constitution: that pre-medieval Scotland had been governed by a form of limited monarchy. Time after time this anachronistic notion has been torpedoed; but after a while it has always resurfaced. To this day, the Declaration of Arbroath is brandished by patriotic Scotsmen as their equivalent of the American Declaration of Independence, albeit written in the 14th century.

[. . .]

The third myth is that of traditional Scots dress, which Trevor-Roper shows to have been got up, largely for commercial purposes, in the 19th century.

The kilt was devised by a Lancashire industrialist as a convenient form of dress for his Scottish employees; while the clan-based differentiation of the tartans was the invention of two brothers calling themselves the Sobieski Stuarts, who in 1842 published their Vestiarium Scoticum, an elaborate work of imagination which served as a pattern-book for tartan manufacturers.

[. . .]

A chapter entitled ‘The Coming of the Kilt’ traces what Trevor-Roper calls ‘the Highland takeover of Scotland’. In the 19th century ‘the apparatus of Celtic tribalism’ would be assumed by the Scots aristocracy, ‘those whose ancestors regarded Highland dress as the badge of barbarism, and shuddered at the squeal of the bagpipe’. The apotheosis of this tendency would come when George IV paraded in Edinburgh wearing a kilt of ‘Stuart tartan’: disguising himself, snorted Macaulay, ‘in what, before the Union, was considered by nine Scotchmen out of 10 as the dress of a thief’.

December 28, 2012

You’ve all seen marching bands, but have you ever seen a dancing orchestra?

Filed under: Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:07

Movement and Music: University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

H/T to Paul Wells for the link.

Colby Cosh: the hunger strike

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:49

In Maclean’s, Colby Cosh explains how hunger strikes should be run and why there are some serious concerns about the ongoing hunger strike in Ottawa:

For a hunger striker to appeal for personal funds — in this case, for contributions to a bank account that has her boyfriend’s name on it — distorts the perceived integrity of the enterprise and throws its basis into doubt. Supporters of the hunger strike are placed in the position of mere financial promoters, no matter how intensely they leer at the striking individual. To make matters worse, we’ve been confronted with a visible disagreement between two spokesmen for Chief Spence. The only source of personal statements from the chief is her Twitter feed, and she does not even appear to have complete control of that. Does she have a single designated spokesperson to exercise authority in the event she falls unconscious or becomes otherwise unable to communicate? Who is it? Is she taking the advice of a physician and having her health monitored? This is an important issue if she intends to forestall permanent physical harm in the hope that her demands will actually be met at some point.

Of course, if the demands aren’t in earnest and the whole thing is no more than a publicity ploy, there is no danger to the Chief and we can ignore the theatrics. In the meantime, give till it hurts, I guess?

December 27, 2012

“We had no idea how to handle them without offending our agonised liberal consciences”

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

George “The Great Moonbat” Monbiot has an unscheduled trip down memory lane:

A group of us had occupied a piece of land on St George’s Hill in Surrey, 70 miles from where we now sat. In 1649, the Diggers had built their settlement there, in the hope of establishing a “common treasury for all”. Our aim had been to rekindle interest in land reform. It had been going well — we had placated the police, started to generate plenty of public interest — when two young lads with brindled staffordshire bull terriers arrived in an old removals van.

Everyone was welcome at the site and, as they were travellers, one of the groups marginalised by the concentration of control and ownership of land in Britain, we went out of our way to accommodate them. They must have thought they had died and gone to heaven.

Almost as soon as they arrived they began twocking stuff. A radio journalist left his equipment in his hire car. They smashed the side window. Someone saw them bundling the kit, wrapped in a stolen sleeping bag, into their lorry. There was a confrontation — handwringing appeals to reason on one side, pugnacious defiance on the other — which eventually led to the equipment being handed back.

They wound their dogs up, making them snap and snarl at the other occupiers. At night they roamed the camp, staffies straining at the leash, cans of Special Brew in their free hands, shouting “fucking hippies, we’re going to burn you in your tents!”

We had no idea how to handle them without offending our agonised liberal consciences. They saw this and exploited it ruthlessly. Eventually the police solved the problem for us. Most of the cars parked at a nearby attraction had had their windows smashed and radios stolen, and someone had followed their lorry back to our site. As they were led away, my anarchist beliefs battled my bourgeois instincts, and lost.

Remember this next time you hear about a drone strike on “suspected militants”

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:39

Matt Welch rounds up the actual events which were originally euphemistically described as a successful strike against “suspected” al Qaeda militants:

What enables such state-sanctioned murder? One crucial ingredient is highlighted in the next paragraph:

    Quoting unnamed Yemeni officials, local and international media initially described the victims of the Sept. 2 airstrike in al-Bayda governorate as al Qaeda militants.

Follow that link to the Sept. 2 Reuters article, and you’ll see this loaded lead paragraph:

    Five suspected militants linked to al Qaeda were killed by a U.S. drone attack on Sunday in central Yemen, in what appears to be stepped up strikes by unmanned aircraft on Islamists.

Note that “suspected” only modifies “militants”; Reuters treated as fact that the charred bodies were “linked to al Qaeda,” and part of a broader campaign against “Islamists” who don’t qualify as being “suspected.”

This isn’t just linguistic nitpicking of journalismese; this is how you midwife propaganda — straight from anonymous government sources who have a huge incentive to legitimize targeted death-dealing against undesirables, and unadorned with the kind of protective skepticism that such ultimate power (let alone fog of war) so richly deserves.

December 26, 2012

“Quentin Tarantino finally comes of age as a filmmaker”

Filed under: History, Media, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:04

While I doubt I’ll catch this in the theatre, Kurt Loder makes this sound like an interesting film:

With Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino finally comes of age as a filmmaker. Tarantino’s brilliance as a writer and craftsman have always been clear. But even his last picture, the Holocaust revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds, was overwhelmed by his geeky obsession with vintage genres (in that case, old war movies). When he showed us a group of Jews huddled in a basement being shot through the floorboards above, but declined to go below and show them actually dying (it might have clouded the film’s comedy), he shortchanged the movie’s putative subject.

With Django, the director has brought off a perfect marriage of style and history. He has appropriated the universe of another beloved genre, the spaghetti western (in particular Sergio Corbucci’s brutal 1966 cult film, Django), and set within it an unsparing tale of American slavery. The movie is outrageously funny, but it’s also unflinchingly committed to a full exploration of the horrors of its subject. Where many movies about black bondage are diluted by liberal hankie-wringing, this one feels fueled by a black rage that still simmers today. It might be the most savage cinematic depiction of slavery ever made.

Some early reviewers have expressed dismay about the movie’s extensive deployment of the word “nigger.” (“It’s a nigger on a horse,” says one marveling cretin as a black man rides by on his mount.) It’s hard to know what to say about such a reaction, except to point out that, hey, it’s a movie about slavery.

What we gain in accuracy we lose in romance

Filed under: History, Media, Science, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:27

What am I talking about? Digital maps:

It’s not often that maps make headlines, but they’ve been doing so with some regularity lately. Last week, tens of millions of iPhone users found that they could suddenly leave their homes again without getting either lost or cross. This was because Google finally released an app containing its own (fairly brilliant) mapping system. Google Maps had been sorely missed for several months, ever since Apple booted it in favor of the company’s own inadequate alternative — a cartographic dud blamed for everything from deleting Shakespeare’s birthplace to stranding Australian travelers in a desolate national park 43 miles away from their actual destination. As one Twitter wag declared: “I wouldn’t trade my Apple Maps for all the tea in Cuba.”

There was one potential bright spot, though: Among the many mistakes found in Apple Maps was a rather elegant solution to the continuing dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku islands. Japan controls them; China claims them. Apple Maps, when released, simply duplicated the islands, with two sets shown side-by-side — one for Japan, one for China. Win-win. (At least until the software update.) Call it diplomacy by digital dunderheadedness.

As some may recall, it was not so long ago that we got around by using maps that folded. Occasionally, if we wanted a truly global picture of our place in the world, we would pull shoulder-dislocating atlases from shelves. The world was bigger back then. Experience and cheaper travel have rendered it small, but nothing has shrunk the world more than digital mapping.

[. . .]

There is something disappointing about the austere potential perfection of the new maps. The satellites above us have seen all there is to see of the world; technically, they have mapped it all. But satellites know nothing of the beauty of hand-drawn maps, with their Spanish galleons and sea monsters, and they cannot comprehend wanderlust and the desire for discovery. Today we can locate the smallest hamlet in sub-Saharan Africa or the Yukon, but can we claim that we know them any better? Do the irregular and unpredictable fancies of the older maps more accurately reflect the strangeness of the world?

The uncertainty that was once an unavoidable part or our relationship with maps has been replaced by a false sense of Wi-Fi-enabled omnipotence. Digital maps are the enemies of wonder. They suppress our urge to experiment and (usually) steer us from error—but what could be more irrepressibly human than those very things?

Update: And the Apple Maps fiasco has them leading most of the tech world’s “Top 10” lists for mis-steps, fumbles, and self-inflicted wounds.

There really could be only one pick for the number-one spot on this list. The Apple Maps fiasco has done more to hurt the company’s image than anything else this year, leaving their reputation — and those of some of its supporters — in the dust.

At the start of the year Apple was riding high. The loss of cofounder Steve Jobs had been handled better than many in the industry had expected, and Tim Cook looked like a safe pair of hands to take the company forward. Apple was on its way to being the most valuable in the world in dollar terms, and was beating the competition like a red-headed stepchild.

[. . .]

When iOS 6 with Apple Maps launched, there was initially little fuss. Apple’s policy of only letting friendly reviewers get advanced access to kit held up well, and virtually none of Cupertino’s chosen few even mentioned the mapping function in their glowing reviews of the new operating system. But then users actually tried it out and the results were plain to see.

Apple’s Maps app simply didn’t work correctly. Sure, it could get you from point to point — just about — but the level of detail included was poor and mapping information was frequently wrong. The list of cock-ups grew day by day as people realized that the application just wasn’t fit in any meaningful way.

Even the Australian police warned against using it for fear of getting lost in the desert.

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