Another TSA Outrage

Another TSA Outrage: "

A friend of mine sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter.

——–

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

"

How to Install Android on an iPhone in Six Easy Steps [Video]

How to Install Android on an iPhone in Six Easy Steps [Video]: "

If you've got an iPhone, are a little bored with iOS, and you're interested in moonlighting with Google's Android operating system, you can dual boot Android and iOS side-by-side on your iPhone in a few relatively simple steps. More »

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Make a Yearly Habit of Visiting Your Google Dashboard [Google]

Make a Yearly Habit of Visiting Your Google Dashboard [Google]: "

Even those who work at Google are often surprised at what they find when they visit their Google Dashboard. It's a good idea to check in on what Google has on you regularly, for reasons both tinfoil-esque and practical. More »

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Virgin's TiVo - first pic

Virgin's TiVo - first pic: "

Virgin Media's own little teaser for the TiVo. (Thanks to Nial and Johnny for the links)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/VirginMediaHighDefinition

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Police called to suspicious package: it was an Amazon order

Police called to suspicious package: it was an Amazon order: "A man in Hudson, Ohio called the police to report a suspicious package on his doorstep. When the officer arrived, he noticed the 'AMAZON.COM' printing on the box and asked if the man had recently ordered anything from Amazon:

The man reportedly said 'Why yes, I did.'

The officer told the resident his order had arrived. The resident then said he was comfortable opening the box. The officer then left the scene, according to the report.

Police News: 'Suspicious' box turns out to be Amazon delivery
(via Consumerist)

(Image: Amazon Cardboard Boxes, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from akiraohgaki's photostream)

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Would Facebook + Email = Gmail + Google Me? [NetworkEffect]

Would Facebook + Email = Gmail + Google Me? [NetworkEffect]: "

Facebook this Monday is reportedly set to announce a “full-fledged webmail client” with integration of Microsoft Office Web Apps at a press event the company is holding in San Francisco.

As displayed by its policy of declining to give Google a way to extract user email addresses–which Google called it out on last week–Facebook is clearly worried about Google extending its excellent Gmail product with a rocket booster of emails imported from Facebook for a competing social tool. The timing of all this is coming to a head as the companies seek to release products before the end of the year.

So, is a social network that adds email better or worse than an email service that adds social?

Put another way, if you had to give up your Facebook or Gmail, which would go first?

An email service from Facebook would almost certainly have novel social features and the company’s trademark opt-out viral hooks. The Facebook emails will supposedly include @facebook.com addresses (and probably be the unique usernames that people have set up through Facebook’s vanity URL program). They would also be integrated into other Facebook products along with Office.

Meanwhile, a social product from Google, if done well, is one of the only things that could knock the young Facebook out of its dominance in the category. So many people today already depend on Google (you may have heard of its search product) and trust its brand.

Will Facebook email have Gmail’s hallmark feature, conversation threading? Will some young people who only use Facebook and texting for communication even notice a difference? Will Facebook finally release a better calendaring tool alongside email? We’ll let you know as soon as we find out.

By the way, this comment from Facebook platform tech lead Mike Vernal explaining why Facebook doesn’t want to export email addresses to Google (even though it already sends them to Yahoo and Microsoft) looks a bit different four days later:

Email is different from social networking because in an email application, each person maintains and owns their own address book, whereas in a social network your friends maintain their information and you just maintain a list of friends. Because of this, we think it makes sense for email applications to export email addresses and for social networks to export friend lists.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

"

1,000 Years of European History -- An Animated Map

1,000 Years of European History -- An Animated Map: "

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Guardian Style: not controversial, and not many exclamation marks! | Mind your language

Guardian Style: not controversial, and not many exclamation marks! | Mind your language: "

A new edition of the book that Jon Snow describes as 'in a class of its own'

The new edition of Guardian Style has just been published in the UK (American readers will have to wait until 6 December), and already Amazon is offering a 'Used - Like New' copy for just £30.48 (tip: you can buy a new one for £15). Perhaps the optimistic seller was the customer whose review ran: 'If you have ever wondered why the writing in the Guardian is often so appalling, here is your answer. The irritating tone of this guide is snotty and pompous; embodying a kind of Guardian speak faux-piety poorly disguising smug complacency.' We decided against using that quotation on the jacket in favour of one from the broadcaster Jon Snow, who was kind enough to say: 'If you love words, work with them, or simply toy with them – for me Guardian Style is in a class of its own.'

Like its predecessors, the book offers guidance, to our journalists and – we hope – a wider readership, on how to use English to communicate clearly and effectively. This edition, the first for three years, reflects changes in public life (changes of government in Britain, America and elsewhere) and in journalism itself, particularly the astonishing growth of digital media. We now publish our material in every format from printed newspaper to iPhone app, from blogpost to podcast, from millions of words in our Data Store to 140-character tweets: this edition of the book includes the Guardian's social media guidelines and blogging tips, as well as an introduction to the mysteries of the holy grail known as 'seach engine optimisation' – how to increase traffic to your website by ensuring that your content shows up prominently in Google and other online search engines.

If this all sounds a bit serious, we have aimed to provide an enjoyable read rather than a dry style manual. The book includes entertaining and useful contributions from leading Guardian and Observer writers such as John Crace, Ben Goldacre, Hadley Freeman, Simon Hattenstone, Marina Hyde, Simon Hoggart, Simon Jenkins, Lucy Mangan, George Monbiot and many more.

To give a flavour of the new edition, here is a selection from the 3,500-plus entries: A-F today, with more to come in further blogposts over the next week or so.

antidisestablishmentarianism

no hyphens (not recommended for use in headlines)

band names

Bands take a plural verb: Snow Patrol are overrated, the Young Radicals' You Get What You Give was the best single of all time, etc. Try to include diacritical marks if bands use them in their name, no matter how absurd: Maxïmo Park, Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, etc

'big society'

described by Simon Hoggart as 'surely the vaguest slogan ever coined by a political leader. Nobody knows what it means.' Until they do, keep it in quotation marks

brilliant

'a word applied indiscriminately by the Guardian to anything new, no matter how ordinary' (tweet from a reader)

climate change terminology

The term sceptics covers those who argue that climate change is exaggerated, or not caused by human activity.

If someone really does claim that climate change is not happening – that the world is not warming – then it seems fair enough to call them a denier

coalition government

Con-Lib if you are being polite; Lib-Con if you are a sceptic; Con-Dem if you want to be rude

controversial

is overused, typically to show that the writer disapproves of something ('the government's controversial free schools scheme'); like 'famous', it can be safely removed from news stories to allow readers to make up their own minds

curate's egg

Used nowadays to mean good in parts ('this was a curate's egg of a match'), the expression originally, and more subtly, meant to deliberately gloss over the truth – the curate was trying to spare his bishop's feelings, or perhaps his own embarrassment, when served a bad egg, by saying: 'Oh no, My Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!' (cartoon in Punch, 9 November 1895)

Dalek

takes initial cap, whether used literally (as in referring to Doctor Who), or figuratively (as in describing, say, your boss)

Eskimo

a language spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Note that it has no more words for snow than English does for rain. The people are Inuit (singular Inuk), not Eskimos

exclamation marks

Do not use! (As Scott Fitzgerald said, it is like laughing at your own jokes)

faith schools

may be called religious schools without fear of divine retribution

families

word favoured by politicians to make them sound caring and concerned ('hard-working families'), which doesn't mean we have to do so, as in this 2010 Guardian splash headline: 'Families face nuclear tax on power bills'. As a reader pointed out: 'So don't older people, single people, etc, face the same tax? ... the implicit attitude [is] that those not part of families are of secondary significance.' Quite

finalise

as long as complete and finish survive, and human beings with breath in their bodies to utter them, there will be no need for this word

Guardian Style (3rd edition), published by Guardian Books, is available with a 25% discount from the Guardian Bookshop

• Language
• Science
• Jon Snow

David Marsh

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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If other industries were as evil as the record companies

If other industries were as evil as the record companies: "

Cracked.com member AceJustice is featured in the site's photoshopping contest that asks members to imagine, 'If Other Industries Were As Evil as the RIAA.' I love AceJustice's entry, as it illustrates one of my favorite DRM metaphors, useful when people ask why I think it's important that we be allowed to run 'unapproved' software on our phones and tablets: 'Would you buy a toaster that limited you to buying your bread from a single vendor?'

If Other Industries Were As Evil as the RIAA

(Thanks, Zefyr!)

• Sound-copying technology and countermeasures, 1890-1978


• FTC gets an earful from the public on DRM, practically all of it ...


• Microsoft Zune spec ad finally gets the metaphor right


• Nina Paley passes Netflix DRM and thousands of dollars


• XKCD explains the baseball metaphor for sex


• Pig and the Box anti-DRM kids book in a new edition

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New TiVo-Powered Virgin V+ Box to Support Network Streaming?

New TiVo-Powered Virgin V+ Box to Support Network Streaming?: "Earlier in the year, the UK’s Virgin Media announced a partnership with TiVo for a new set top box, set to be launched at some point in the future (likely 2011). Details on the new model have been thin on the ground, but rumours are starting to emerge on the box that, according to one source, “is set to make SkyHD look like a toy”.

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Google Gets Feisty, Kicks Data Portability Fight With Facebook Up A Notch

Google Gets Feisty, Kicks Data Portability Fight With Facebook Up A Notch: "

As I’m sure you’ve learned by now, Google recently blocked Facebook API access to download Google contacts. Facebook hacked around it, and Google subsequently issued a statement that they were “disappointed”. Facebook Platform engineer responded in the comments of one of our blog posts about the slap fight.

And now, take a look at what Google is telling users who want to download their Gmail contacts’ information and import it into Facebook:

Click the image for a larger version, or read the full notice here or below:

Trap my contacts now

Hold on a second. Are you super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out?

Here’s the not-so-fine print. You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends. So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out. We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Although we strongly disagree with this data protectionism, the choice is yours. Because, after all, you should have control over your data.

Of course, you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts.

This public service announcement is brought to you on behalf of your friends in Google Contacts:

[_] Register a complaint over data protectionism. (Google will not record or display your name or email address.)

[_] Proceed with exporting this data. I recognize that once it’s been imported to another service, that service may not allow me to export it back out.

Select one or more options. Cancel and go back

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