This is not a Bomb, Boston
Reading about the poor MIT student who was recently arrested at submachine gunpoint on BoingBoing I saw a few comments that interested me enough to write a brief rebuttal. For example, comment #63 by Jacob Davis:
On another note, to everyone saying, “It’s obviously not a bomb, they should have known better!” : that’s really condescending. My mother doesn’t know what a breadboard is. My neighbors don’t. Several of my friends don’t. I’d wager the great majority of the US doesn’t know, for better or worse. Don’t pretend that everyone else knows what you know, especially when you are judging circumstances after being given all the facts at once in hindsight.
See the problem is that security personnel, if expected to guard against bombs and bombers, should be able to positively recognize bombs. Your mother and neighbors are not airport security officers, military police, or Boston police for exactly that reason; they don’t know what bombs look like.
Then there are comments #7 and #8, which feel like the police brutality (they arrested her outside the airport with force) is justified:
Wow, she sure put the “mor[on]” in sophomore! Maybe for her next art project she can run around the airport screaming “I’m Al Qaida! Look at me! I’m Al Qaida!”
I’d have wished the above moron had written “more[on] in sophomore;” it would have bee more funny. That said, there’s nothing wrong with a geeky girl wearing a hoodie with some blinking LEDs. As far as I know (and I think the statistics support me here) no one has ever died or been injured, directly or indirectly, by an LED. And, I fully support her right to voice her political opinions, even in the airport. Unfortunate the climate these days means wearing we will not be silent arabic / english t-shirts will probably get you detained.
I thought MIT students were supposed to be a bit more intelligent than the rest of us. Walking into an airport with an electronic device strapped to her chest ….. a very stupid action. She is lucky to just be in a cell, but I have a feeling a lot of people (including her) will never understand why, this time, the Boston Police are in the right.
This one is begging for me point out that 99.99998% of people walk around airports with iPods tucked around their chest or body somewhere… and I’m not even going to start counting people with pacemakers, who actually have an electronic device embedded in their chests! An electronic device isn’t a bomb, and if you think airport security can prevent terrorism, you’re wrong.
Finally, on a lighter note, Rob Cockerham’s comment #27 takes the cake, and eats it too:
I can’t believe NBC is promoting Bionic Woman like this. What a terrible idea.
Battlestar Galactica Atmospheric Jump Photos: Season 3 Episode 4
The one thing I love about Battlestar Galactica is that it’s so heroic!
Unlike other TV shows, its characters actually care about each other enough to do crazy things, like jump their battleships inside a planet’s atmosphere to deploy air cover. Which results in massively impressive visuals of the Battlestar Galactica herself falling and burning up in atmosphere–where a spaceship probably should never go–in order to rescue her people. Wow.
Apparently nerds around the country found it good enough to digg this movie clip of it on YouTube:
If I captained those ships, I’d have done it a Season and a half ago out of sheer craziness.
Air Force Exposed
Information about the Air Force One has been leaked onto the web by official military sites:
“It is not a good thing” for that information to be in the public domain, said Lt. Col Bruce Alexander, director of public affairs for the Air Mobility Command’s 89th Airlift Wing, Andrews Air Force Base, which operates the presidential air transport fleet. “We are concerned with how it got there and how we can get it out. This affects operational security.”
Information about Secret Service stations and anti-aircraft missile technology is considered especially sensitive. However, in the interest of public freedom of information, I’ve searched google for information about the VC-25, also known as the “Air Force One.” Here’s what I found:
Exploitable delicate areas of the VC-25:
Titled Aircraft Hazards, this document includes a description of where the Infrared Countermeasures (IRCM) unit is located, the temperature and noise levels of its four engines, where oxygen tanks are located in the plane, entry and exit points, emergency engine shutdown controls, and security placement.
Here are snapshots of the interesting slides, a visual guide to the Air Force One VC-25:
Basic facts about the VC-25:
A special transportation report gives a slide with basic information about the VC-25, such as airspeed, dimensions, range, and other statistical snippets. The photo is reproduced below:
None of this is classified, top secret, etc, but it could definitely be used negatively. For more information, please consider the following resources:
