Update: Sissy Willis has her own take on these matters and what went down. But check out the comment from "be" about all the incidents in the neighborhood where the first suspicious packet was found. After reading that, is it unreasonable to think the police would be on extra high alert in that area to anything out of the ordinary? Even if it only looks like a kids toy?

It seems that Turner Broadcasting wanted to do a little advertising... but kinda forgot to clear it with the proper authorities.

Turner Broadcasting plans to take responsibility for the "hoax devices" that were found at several locations in and around Boston Wednesday that forced police bomb units to scramble throughout the area.

Wow - big of them to take responsibility for something they did. I wonder if they think they'll get off easier if they say "hey, sorry about that".

"The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force,'" Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of Cartoon Network, said in a statement.

Now let's just stop a moment and do something novel... like... THINK.

In an age where terrorism is a word in common use, leading the nightly news and headlines of nearly every newspaper - DAILY. Many people went through the process of putting this together and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON had enough qualms about whether or not this might be a bad idea to stop it! No. One. It's astounding.

Not to mention...

How are WE the people in and around these cities supposed to "know" these devices are harmless? By osmosis? Does it give off good vibes as we pass by? Does it speak to us and say "I'm harmless"? Does it look innocuous?

Here's what this stunt did to Boston...

"Emergency deployment teams were sent into the center of the city immediately upon these reports. There were significant shutdowns of not only highways, but rail traffic with the MBTA," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "Several of the devices do have common characteristics, but it is too early to say how many are connected."

The first device was found under Interstate 93, and the state police bomb squad was called and detonated the package in Sullivan Square just before 10 a.m. Officials said it contained an electronic circuit board with some components that were "consistent with an improvised explosive device," [emph mine --ed] but they said it had no explosives.

Several hours later, Boston police said the department received four calls, all at about 1 p.m., reporting the devices. Officials responded to at least nine locations, including the Boston University Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge, the McGrath O'Brien Highway in Somerville, Harvard Avenue in Brighton, a location near the intersection of Stuart and Columbus streets, a location near Washington and Water streets and under the McCarthy Overpass in Somerville, according to Davis.

Some advertising campaign... using major overpasses and bridges. Gee, if you were a terrorist, isn't that the type of target you're looking for? They had to have done this without any permission from the City of Boston. If the city had known about it, the police would not have needed to respond to the reports because they would have known it was bogus.

I was listening to the Sports Talk guys earlier, they were talking about Boston's stringent controls on advertising. Being in the radio business, they know all about the legalities of where things can be advertised in Boston and there is no way Turner Broadcasting would have been given permission to run this campaign. It just wouldn't happen. Ever.

This means, some people at Turner did it all on their own. It means they bypassed their legal department. (at least one hopes they bypassed it!) One assumes the thinking was, any adverse reporting will increase viewership of their show, thus offsetting any fines many times over. Swell.

Then there is this minor point...

The company said that they have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

As mentioned earlier in the article, that's ten cities, and Boston is the only city they were spotted and considered suspicious. That should scare everyone in the other nine cities.

Also, I'm not buying the two week thing. I'm willing to bet those devices haven't been in Boston very long at all. The tunnel collapse last summer has made the Boston area more sensitive to the structures people drive on and under - there is more scrutiny here than in other cities. Although it is possible the people who are supposed to be checking things have been slacking off (wouldn't be the first time). Yes, they might have been missed for a while, but two weeks isn't very likely.

In any case, there is no excuse. I'm quite sure Turner has many lawyers on staff that could have stopped this at any time. They all know the legalities of advertising via billboards or other methods in cities, it's not a free-for-all and it's very stringent (especially in these large cities).

The fact that they chose to pursue this method... small electronic devices... with no okay from the cities involved is the act of idiots.

These are the people from whom we are receiving entertainment.

I think I'll read a book.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 02:25 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Here.

Let's hope the power of the blogosphere works even a little to help out the Sgt.

Posted by: Teresa in Military at 05:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm wondering if it should be called "Curse of the Egomaniacs" instead... Yes, Yes, more in the extended section. more...

Posted by: Teresa in Television at 07:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It's time to work on my blog roll again. Yesterday was another wonderful meeting of the New England bloggers. This time hosted by Jill who has the most delightful 1920's era home. (as I've mentioned before, I LOVE old houses, I just don't know if I could ever live in one because of the upkeep involved). There was gorgeous woodwork, lovely wood floors, along with an excellent builtin china cabinet in the dining room. All with that lovely patina that comes from age giving it a mellow look. Quite delightful.

Even more fun was (owing to my husband being far more observant than I am as my eye passed right over it) finding that she and I both own identical Lane "Hope Chests", both of us having it handed down by our mothers. What are the odds?

There was excellent food, much wine and beer (even some gin was spotted) to complement the wide ranging discussions - from politics to the Bible to Broadway musicals. It was a rather larger gathering than usual.

The lovely Sissy and the most excellent though blogless Tuck, Miss Kelly with her delightful husband, Sol (the mastermind behind all these gatherings), Neo-neocon (who always manages to make it despite a quite long drive involved), Harry (who has missed the last few - so it was wonderful to see him again), and Mitch (who left a bit early, but did manage to get there for a while), this rounds out the group of "bloggers I've met before".

New this time a few more delightful bloggers were able to attend, I'll be adding them to my sidebar soon. Jeremy and Cara of Who Knew? and Daniel in Brookline along with his lovely wife.

Once again, if you ever have the chance to attend a blog meet, don't miss it. No matter the topic, there is always an opinion, much discussion, and lots of laughter. It's a wonderful way to spend the evening.

Update: for some reason I keep thinking I've missed a blogger in my list... with my memory being approximately on par with that of a flea lately, it's very likely that I did miss a person - If so, please forgive me and drop me a comment or email to yell at me.

Posted by: Teresa in FUN at 09:09 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I've been so busy I never got around to throwing out a link to one of the excellent stories Blackfive posted a few days ago. How can you resist a story that starts like this...

100 Tangos 'Pining for the Fjords'

...because they're, well, dead. Flat-lined. Deceased. Fini. Whacked. Crispy. Kicked the bucket. Taking the dirt nap. Expired. Bought the farm. Bereft of life. Meeting their 72 Virginians (say hi to Jefferson for me!). Now residing in a pine condo. Bit the dust. Smoked. Croaked. Pushing up daisies. Adios, @$$holes...

Go read it - you haven't seen it prominently on the MSM. And you won't because it's a story about our guys winning a battle. God forbid we actually give them any credit for something like that, not when we can concentrate on any soldier getting hurt.

That might be because they (the MSM) are all thinking like Jon Carry. They want the Iranians as friends... from the Hot Air story:

Kerry criticized what he called the “unfortunate habit” of Americans to see the world “exclusively through an American lens.”

How could we be so plebeian as to think our country is worth any consideration at all. Matt is angry beyond words... I can't blame him.

He said this while seated next to the former CEO of one of the world’s foremost terrorist states, which as we speak is working on building nuclear weapons, bankrolling Hezbollah’s efforts to foment civil war in Lebanon and Hamas’s exterminationist jihad against Israel, and supplying Shiite militias with IEDs to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

If you aren't reading Blackfive daily, you're missing the real news of the war.

Posted by: Teresa in Military at 07:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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At just about the last minute, I had to pull out and missed last year's milblog conference. This year the date is fast approaching and I won't miss it this time (barring a catastrophe). Here are some of the details:

Set for May 5th, Andi has the website up and running. Check this for details as they become available.

Last Thursday, Andi had this announcement:

Some of you have already made your flight and hotel reservations. I wanted to let you know that we're very close to securing a venue and we're hoping to offer a block of rooms at the site of this year's conference. You may want to hold off on booking your hotel until I have more information, which will be very soon.

Excellent. I plan on taking the train down because I've never done it before and I think it will be fun. I need to check schedules again and make sure that works - otherwise I'll fly down.

One of the reasons I was unhappy about missing last year's conference was because this lady was making the trip. Since she's in Hawaii, I didn't know if she'd be able to make it for another get together.

Now it with a little help, maybe she can get there.

And if anyone knows of cheap airfare to Washington, D.C., let me know. I'm starting to look into making a trip out for the MilBlogging conference in May but our finances are tight right now so I'm looking for ways to a.) minimize costs and b.) raise funds to avoid having an impact on our budget.

If you can help her out - click on over and drop her a comment.

I've been remiss on all my blogging lately because things have been so busy - I need to start at least pointing to some of the great Milblog posts out there if I can't come up with some posts of my own.

Next focus - getting my act together to go to DC in May.

Posted by: Teresa in Military at 10:04 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It seems that someone is jamming satellite signals over in Europe.

Paris-based satellite company Eutelsat is investigating "unidentified interference" with its satellite broadcast services that temporarily knocked out several television and radio stations. The company declined to say whether it thought the interference was accidental or deliberate.

They give no indication what kind of programming was jammed, maybe it was a CSPAN like deal and someone got tired of watching politicians blathering.

Theresa Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information think-tank in Washington DC, US, says there have been cases of deliberate satellite jamming in the past, but it is hard to see what motivation there would be in this instance.

"It's really puzzling to me," she told New Scientist. "If it was accidental, why would they be so secretive about saying what the source was and if it's deliberate, you've got to wonder why – it just seems to me to be an odd target, unless someone's ticked off at the French," she says.

Considering the tremendous number of things that could be causing the interference, I can't imagine why she's so puzzled. She did name off a few reasons for the jamming, but I'm willing to speculate on a couple of other reasons.

It might be a test. After all, if you want to jam signals and you build equipment to do just that... you need to test it out. First to see if it works, next to see if you can be traced while doing it. What easier way to test it than on some innocuous television programming.

Or it could be that someone within the organization screwed up big time and knocked them off the satellite. In order to cover this up, they aren't going to say anything. It's possible they might be fined or something for messing up the signal themselves. Or whoever is spending money to advertise with them or support them - might ask for a refund if it was disclosed that they did it themselves.

The second scenario seems far more plausible. As always - follow the money and you can find most all your answers.

I think we should keep an eye on this. Just in case it is someone who hates the French. Can they be taken off the air altogether? Only time will tell.

Hat Tip Instapundit

Posted by: Teresa in WebTech at 07:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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At what point does it permanently attach itself to your ear?

Posted by: Teresa in Ummmmm at 07:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Last week my emergency brake froze in the "on" position. I use this brake all the time because I drive a car with a manual transmission. This means, if you stop and want to get out of the car while it's running, you put it in neutral and use the emergency brake - or it will roll away. (and unlike in Chicago, we have a few hills around here to help the process along).

The weather last week was rainy and nasty at the beginning of the week, then it turned to freezing with some icing and a little snow. My car (which lives in a garage - although it's an unheated garage) ended up having the brake frozen in place. It wasn't immediately self evident because the handle went down and the brake light went off.

I thought at first the transmission was being a bit sluggish because... hey - it was cold! But after driving for about a mile, I realized that - oops the brake was stuck. This put me into a panic thinking I was going to wear away the brake pad totally. I had something similar happen years ago - it wasn't pretty and that one wasn't my fault - it was something the mechanic did when he made a mistake and turned something the wrong way - but I digress.

I ended up driving a total of 4 miles before I was able to get back home and switch to the dreaded mini-van for the rest of my daily errands. That's because we live in the land of "no place to turn around". By this time I could smell the brake pad (which is quite hideous).

I called the place we have the car serviced. They couldn't take it until yesterday. Nearly an entire week driving the van (yuck!). In the meantime, beloved husband - who is pretty handy with cars - was able to thaw out the brake cable and release the brake. This means I could drive it to get the service done, didn't have to have it towed.

So I get the call - you know, the one where you have to start writing large numbers on checks... my small excursion did very little damage - whew! But, we had asked them to check the rest of the brakes while they were at it. Turns out the front brakes were were shot - along with the rotors. Then they found a coolant leak while looking at the front brakes. Ah well, such is the lot of being a car owner.

They repaired everything, I dashed out to pay them large amounts of cash, grabbed the key and continued on with all the stuff I had to do until my husband got home and we could go pick up the car.

This turned out to be pretty late... about 9:30pm. I get in, start up and hit the road back to the house. It's about an 8-10 mile drive plenty of time for the car to warm up. Unfortunately, although the engine warmed up... the heater did not. I had the thing cranked to the max and the air only got luke warm - my hands were freezing.

This morning I called and told them what had happened. Turns out they hadn't been very careful and there was air in the system somewhere keeping me from getting heat in the car. They asked me to bring it back, which I did... only to find that the emergency brake had stuck in the "on" position again.

I get there, tell them about the brake issue too, they gave me a loaner for the day (a very nice SUV - that's so honkin' big it scared me to drive it). A couple hours later I get the call... yeah your brake cables need replacing, they apparently have hit the limit of what they will do in their lifetime. More dollars go floating by my eyes. (beloved husband says that emergency brakes are tricky things - sometimes they work very well and last forever - other times they fall apart early and often... it's one of those things)

Now, the car is back. I think the emergency brake works, I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning, I have new front brakes - which is a great thing and most of all - I have HEAT! Considering we actually got cold here (finally)... my hands are very happy.

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 01:56 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Wow...! I hate that kind of stuff... before Arthur changed me [it can be done] I traded cars in every two years so I didn't have to deal with anything of that nature...
But isn't it frightening? I had brakes lock up a couple years ago and had to call 911 there was so much smoke...

Glad you have heat... your Weather Pixie reports 12 very cold degrees...

Posted by: pam at January 25, 2007 02:55 PM (l6NIn)

2 aww crap. Glad it's taken care of.

Posted by: caltechgirl at January 25, 2007 03:03 PM (r0kgl)

3 Yeepers! Glad it all got fixed - breaks are kind of important!

Posted by: Richmond at January 26, 2007 08:28 AM (e8QFP)

4 Glad you got the heat working... I saw that Boston was below zero the other day, and thought of you.

Posted by: T1G at January 27, 2007 04:57 AM (fqP6X)

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I started on my 5th set of Invisilines today. The dentist gives them to me in sets of 3 so I have to go in every 6 weeks to pick up the next set. Set #4 and this set have been much tighter than the first 3 sets were. The first day of wearing these two sets, I had to work a bit to get them on my teeth correctly.

I've also noticed that there are differences in finish between sets. Some sets are smoothly finished and others have some rough edges on them. This set has edges and I have a feeling I'll end up with some sore spots after wearing these a few days. Annoying, but doable.

In other news I got new contacts at the end of last week. They upped the bifocal part so it's at the highest it can be before I have to switch and go to glasses full time. I like these - they're very comfortable and I can see small print again. The last prescription wasn't quite strong enough - I could do my computer work just fine (I use an 18 inch monitor and up the fonts), but menus in restaurants, newspaper print, small print on anything was difficult. Now I can see most everything - YAY!

I'm also getting new lenses in my glasses. I only wear the glasses at night after about 10pm when I take out the contacts. The place I go to get my eyes done, doesn't do 1 or 2 hour service - it's over a week to get the replacements. I thought it would be okay since I don't wear them much. But have such a routine, I can't seem to get the hang of not having glasses available.

I'm leaving the contacts in until I go to bed - but I forgot to take them out one night! Didn't even realize it until the next morning. That's because, unlike the other contacts I've been wearing - these don't seem to dry out so my eyes don't get gritty in the evening. When I don't stick to my routine, I forget they're there! Very odd. I've worn contacts for years and this is the first time that has ever happened.

I won't complain. It's nice to have contacts this comfortable. I just don't want to end up hurting my eyes by leaving them in too long. It's always something.

My blog sis Sissy is looking into Lasik - so she's having fun with glasses too.

Now I have to get back to work.

Posted by: Teresa in It's The Teeth at 05:16 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Grau rises again! Now all he has to do is import all his old stuff and... well, at least he's blogging again. Yay!

I'm sure he's got some hilarious posts just waiting to hit the blog. I copied a couple of my favorite posts when I was afraid he'd disappear altogether. Now he'll be adding ever more excellent life observations. It's a great thing to find out at the end of a long day.

Now go say Hi!

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 07:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Our office is in the midst of a complete move to a new building. Ah the joy, can't you feel it in the air.

The good part is, we can completely revamp our network which has needed an overhaul for a while. The bad part is, this is all a royal PITA. At the moment we are straddling 2 networks. Half the stuff is in one place, half in the other. Parallel processing is the order of the day - to check out results on the move. So things not only are being run once - but twice - then results are compared.

Today - oh ever more joyfulness - my email has failed. *sigh* Things are stuck somewhere and it's very likely a route change... so my work email has been down all day. I can just imagine the number of emails queued up ready to unload on me when my boss tracks it down

Sadly, I don't know what he changed regarding the email server. I don't know if the messages are blocked on the old server or the new one and all that fun stuff. Also, to make things more fun - my boss was gone for the day to the new office getting a vital server up and running. Because there are time constraints that was more important than my email.

In the meantime I'm trying to help people get up and going on the new systems. Walking through set up procedures on several different types of systems - all of them work differently, of course. We're moving files like mad. Finding out things like forgotten logons, forgotten library files needed to run things, forgotten... forgotten... forgotten. Nothing seems to transfer cleanly and many things didn't have a parameter type file associated with them (because of being older systems) and the information has to be reentered.

The scary part is that we are a small company - very small. I can not imagine doing this on a large scale basis with hundreds or thousands of employees. Holy smokes that would be brain meltdown time! As it is we're doing far better than I expected. Now all we have to do is hit the deadlines. I'd cross my fingers, but I need them for typing.

Posted by: Teresa in Ho-Hum at 01:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Okay, I know, there are those who don't like 24... so I'll put this in the extended entry if you don't want to read it. more...

Posted by: Teresa in Television at 07:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Maybe I should just stop watching... I saw roughly 30 minutes, including the end, which was the best part IMO... but the bald bad guy is Jack's brother? Geez... that just irritated me.
And, yeah... we all reached the same conclusion about Jack's 'nephew'...

Posted by: pam at January 23, 2007 04:35 AM (l6NIn)

2 I completely missed coming to the conclusion about Jack's "nephew" until one of my commenters pointed out to me that he looks just like Spawn.

Posted by: Denny at January 23, 2007 06:38 PM (auASn)

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Well, let's see, Richmond tagged me with the latest meme wending its way round the blogs and so I guess I have to stop and think... geeze!

Okay - here goes

1. My: You’ve heard the saying “I’d give my right arm for”. So, what would you give your right arm for?

I can't think of a single "thing" I would give my arm for. To save someone else would be worthwhile. But not to acquire some sort of item or even vast wealth.

2. Me: What’s one word that describes how you want people to see you?

Intelligent.

3. Meme: If you could be any blogger, which blogger would you be? and why?

I'd like to be Lileks because he has such a wonderful way with words and he finds so much laughter and fun in everyday life.

Now I'm supposed to tag 3 people... so how about Jill, Quality Weenie, and Rave. I'll have to let them know after 24 is over.

Posted by: Teresa in FUN at 03:41 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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It's late now, earlier I was getting a "friutcake" error when I tried to get to the blog login page... Pixy kindly fixed it.

So now I'll just post a short congratulations to the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. They will be heading to the Super Bowl in 2 weeks.

I was happy to see the Bears beat the Saints - although Rex Grossman looked very bewildered for most of the game. Apparently, even with the bewildered look - the good Rex showed up to play today. YAY!

I'm just glad we won't have to listen to the news media drone on and on and on and on and... (well you get the idea) about New Orleans and Katrina. It would have been unbearable.

As it is, they're making a huge deal over the fact that the first African-American coaches are leading Super Bowl teams... *sigh* I want to know who the hell cares what color their skin is, they are talented coaches and deserve to be there with their teams. It will be a long 2 weeks as always.

The Colts and Patriots, as was expected, went down to the wire. It was probably the best game played so far in the playoffs. This doesn't bode well for the Super Bowl. If the playoffs are outstanding the SB usually sucks pond water. We'll see. Maybe they'll have some good commercials this year to liven things up. That would be a switch from the last few years.

Posted by: Teresa in Sports at 07:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Heh. I'm all about the commercials during the Super Bowl as it is... :-)

And *tag*

Posted by: Richmond at January 22, 2007 04:42 AM (e8QFP)

2 Heh. I'm all about the half time show wardrobe malfunctions... and the chicken wings.

Posted by: RedNeck at January 22, 2007 07:27 PM (a6pA8)

3 The local (Chicago area) news showed a clip of Lovie Smith commenting on the 'first time 2 black coaches are in the Super Bowl' line... he said, Yeah, this is a first, so it's getting noticed, so "in the future, it should go unnoticed, and I look forward to that day."

Well said, I thought.

Posted by: Allan at January 23, 2007 09:28 AM (GT9eg)

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According to Pixy Misa and his latest State of the Munion report, he will be beta testing the new Minx blogging system starting in February. Yay! Can't get here soon enough.

You will need to change your templates - Minx templates are completely different to Movable Type ones - but I'll be around to help out with that.

Template editing... here I come! I'm very tired of the comment spam meltdowns that the current system has to endure. Bring on the Minx!

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 03:40 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Only the hard drive will know for sure.

Although I bet Chloe could persuade it to give up all its secrets, it claims resistance to Jack-like forces.

Posted by: Teresa in WebTech at 06:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I liked the "blood-resistant keyboard".

Posted by: pam at January 17, 2007 11:14 PM (l6NIn)

2 Wow. Sounds like it would even be tough enough to survive WxMan!

Posted by: Richmond at January 18, 2007 08:38 AM (e8QFP)

3 Heh! Speaking of, can you believe what they did to Curtis?

Posted by: Andi at January 19, 2007 05:45 PM (OzAse)

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And that doesn't describe any airport security line I've seen in a long time.

There's a new scanning machine being tested at the Orlando airport. One wonders if they did any sort of lab testing before bringing it to the airport party.

ORLANDO — Many air travelers who were screened Tuesday by a revolutionary new machine aimed at letting them keep their shoes on through airport security got an unexpected surprise — they had to take their shoes off anyway.

I'd be very happy if they would let us all keep out shoes on. I am always disgusted to take off my shoes and walk across any airport floor. All I can think of is - what might these people be carrying on their feet... ICK!

Steven Brill, whose Manhattan company, Verified Identity Pass, operates the ShoeScanners, said 52% of hundreds of passengers using the machine Tuesday morning had to remove shoes. In about a third of the cases in which travelers were told to take their shoes off, the ShoeScanner couldn't do an electronic scan for weapons because people moved their feet, he said.

52%! Less than half went through without extra hassle! Raise your hand now, who would have passed this machine from the initial phase into the live testing phase? So far the machine is receiving failing marks. I wonder if a former teacher is passing this machine to make the company feel better about itself.

It doesn't say what they mean by "people moved their feet". Were people jumping on this thing? How long does it take? Well, we find out at the bottom of the article...

"It doesn't make much (time) difference," said Bob Halcrow, noting that even with a one-minute shoe scan, there was no line at the Registered Traveler lane.

One Minute! An entire minute! This will never work in a regular security screen setting - never. For one thing, having watched many people, I can say for sure that most of them will not be able to stand still for an entire minute. Not to mention that an entire minute is far far far too long for the number of people they are trying to move through security checkpoints.

If you've ever been to the O'Hare cattle call that is the check in for the Main United Terminal - you may begin to get a hazy idea of how ridiculous this length of time is! Hundreds of people - snaking through the system to get on their planes. Or put it this way... 30 people - 30 minutes - and that's not counting the change over time between people when one person gets off the scanner and the next one gets on. How many machines would be needed to handle hundreds of people per hour?

Oh yeah, they have another issue too.

Brill's company submitted the machine last year to the TSA for approval. General Electric's GE Security, which makes the $200,000 machine, hoped it would detect explosives and distinguish between metal commonly found in shoes and metal that could be a weapon, said company product manager Daniel Mahlum. The company is trying to upgrade the machine so it can allow passengers to wear shoes that contain harmless metal.

Many shoes sold in this country have metal in the sole to give it endurance. So far this machine can't tell the difference between that metal and a weapon. This means a built in failure group already.

Notice two little words in the paragraph: hoped and trying. These two words, plus the time length of the scan tell me immediately - this thing ain't ready for prime time. It's a lovely thought, but anyone in the TSA that approves these machines for regular use should be fired immediately.

I'm glad they're trying to do something about the shoe issue. OTOH, this is a big step backward, even if it is with shoes on.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 08:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Sgt. Rob (formerly Drill Sgt Rob) has a request direct to you from Iraq.

Don't let him down.

Posted by: Teresa in Military at 07:00 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Okay that's enough 24 for the week... really it is. I think 4 hours in 2 days is too over the top even for me. Especially when Jack doesn't get to beat the crap out of someone or Chloe doesn't get in a great take-down snark. (sorry, but breaking up a fight between Morris and his boss doesn't count)

The show is a kind of alternative "what if"... although I don't think the people writing it have any firm grasp on basic laws of the US and what the President can do or can't do. They seem to invest him with Emperor-like control when that is just not the case. I begin to wonder if they even know...

In any case... Jack did not get to beat up anyone tonight - he barely got a few shots off. Where's the action? Apparently that begins next week. The previews for that show look excellent.

The nuke scenario is playing out the same way the nerve gas scenario played last season... detonate one - Jack now has to find the rest. Well, fine, I just want to see Jack take out the bad guys...

The family that was taken hostage by the kid terrorist... I had to wonder what the father thought would happen - did he think at all? Did he even stop for 2 seconds to consider that they'd just go ahead and kill his kid once he'd handed over the box he was sent to deliver? Did he stop at all to think about why terrorists would want the box so very badly? It couldn't be for anything good - so why would they let any of them live once they had what they wanted? Geeze. Writers seem to think all of us peons out here are incredibly stupid. (although these people were the touchy feely liberal wanker types... so maybe stupid is right)

If they hadn't shown scenes for next week - I probably wouldn't even have watched after the first 4 hours. It's been an exercise in how to write an extremely depressing story...

Jack killing Curtis - this was wrong totally wrong. If they wanted to write him out of the show - that was not the way to do it. I don't care if they wanted to present a moral quandary - find some other way to do it.

However, next week looks like it will be a step way up - we'll see. Jack is in the show... but he's not back... not yet.

Posted by: Teresa in Television at 06:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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