It’s pretty clear that we’re now living in a society that’s dominated by fear, not unlike Midgar in Final Fantasy VII or City 17 in Half-Life 2. A Los Angeles “food stylist” (I assume that’s a fancy way of saying chef) was pulled off a flight the other day because someone thought he was “acting suspicious.” What, pray tell, was suspicious about the man? Oh, you know, his tattoos… → Read More
Good news for iPad-owning travelers: the Transportation Security Administration says that you won’t have to remove Apple’s magical and revolutionary device from your bag while you go through airport security. That’s the official word, at least, but I can just picture the helpful staff (…) at Newark or JFK demanding you remove it from your bag anyway. → Read More
Another day, another airport full-body scanner story. It has emerged that the scanners are in violation of Islamic law. Now, before you get all flip and retort, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have microwave millimeter scanners back in the days of Muhammad,” let’s listen to what the people have to say. → Read More
Gather ’round for the time-honored American tradition of pretending to be outraged by something. (If we’re to believe that outlet of populist outrage monger, the Drudge Report.) It’s one of those airport security body scanning devices, this time going on trial at the Salt Lake City airport. The left two images show a woman, while the right two are a man. → Read More
This news from Japan is not really boosting trust in airport security measures not only in that country but also in the USA: Japanese media are today reporting that a South Korean woman entered Nippon last April passing through the biometric immigration screening despite her previous deportation records. → Read More
From the Department of Public Safety and General Preparedness comes this story of one man, a Cisco engineer, and his headline-making ordeal of having his possessions searched upon re-entry to the U.S. following an international flight. (It’s also the story of run-on sentences.) The man, Mohamed Shommo, told the Associated Press that border agents rifled through his digital camera’s… → Read More
What is it about airports that bring out the worst in humanity? Is it waiting in long, arbitrary lines? Is it being forced to reveal to everyone the holes in your socks? Is it the $100 beers at the airport bar? I try pretty hard to be a “good citizen” when I travel: my carry-on luggage doesn’t exceed the maximum dimensions permitted by the airline; I make sure I put all of… → Read More
I don’t have too much of a problem sliding my laptop out of my bag whenever I travel, but to be honest every second that’s taken out of that whole security situation is one more second I could be sitting at the gate playing SNES, so I might invest in one of these special bags. But what makes them so special exactly? → Read More
Remember the X-ray technology from Total Recall? A British company has developed what it calls “ThruVision” — a similar technology that “uses what it calls ‘passive imaging technology’ to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays — known as Terahertz or T-rays — that they emit,” according to Reuters. “Depending on the material… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
