Posted by scarybarry on May 03, 2004 at 14:54:04:
In Reply to: Coast Guard Proposal posted by Jon on April 30, 2004 at 18:04:41:
I think every dive boat should have DNA scanners. When we first board the boat we present the DM with a piece of our own skin obtained from the nape of our neck with a small scalpel. This is placed into a DNA scanner and our unique signature is saved into the boat's database (and can be stored indefinitely if you are a repeat customer). Then anytime you leave the boat for a dive you just spit into a specially-designed spitoon-shaped scanner which analyzes the DNA in your saliva and matches it against your DNA in the database. This computerized system would then note your time and whether you were boarding or deboarding.
Voila! 100% foolproof individual indentification! (and hands-free to boot!!)
Actually, make that 99%...this system could potentially fail if you had just frenched someone else on the boat in a big make-out session, or if you were really stoned and too dry-mouthed to come up with a loogie.
All joking aside, the point I'm trying to make is that even with all of the most fancy ideas in the world, there is no way you can be assured that this will never happen again. I bet most of these types of occurrences would not happen if the DM actually made EYE CONTACT with the person giving them the affirmative during roll call. I truly believe the system would work AS IS with NO modifications if the DM simply LOOKS AT the person who just audibled during roll call. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but my name rhymes with a LOT of other words in the English language. Someone might say "that is Barry's ice" and I will instead hear "that is very nice" if there is some background noise. However if I am looking right at that person then I will not misunderstand them. (All of the Harry's, Larry's, Gary's, Carrie's, Mary's and Jerry's out there know what I'm talking about)
It is very possible (though not probable) for a DM to mistake some random voice on the boat for "Here" or "Present" or "Yo" or whatever, ESPECIALLY if they view the roll call as a nuisance and rush through it without actually taking the time to acknowledge that they just correctly heard the audible that they were looking for. If this DM said "Dan Carlock" and he THOUGHT he heard "Here" but he wasn't sure, then LOOKED for the voice that spoke up, then this mistake would have been less likely. And if one of Dan's buddies answered "Here" FOR him, well then hopefully the DM would have a glimmer of suspicion once he'd looked at that person twice during roll-call. And if one of his buddies DID speak up as him during roll call, well then they should be booked for attempted manslaughter.