Red's Place

In a hurry, but this is an interesting report.

Brits online 50 days a year. Hmm, I suspect I'm waaay ahead ;-)

So the terrorists have won, over us, the airline passenger, again. We've now been forced to leave any liquids behind, and to not take any hand luggage except a clear plastic bag containing our wallet, keys. Prescription sunglasses have to be taken out of the case (err, and get scratched) if taken on board.

No electronic devices - ie, no iPods, no digital cameras, no electronic entertainment.

So a 10 hour flight without an iPod, or for the younger reader a GameBoy. Hmm, perhaps I'll ask my airline for a refund.

Yes, we need to be safe, but to what cost? Sometimes it seems we have to be so safe that we cannot do anything anymore. Perhaps we should just close down air travel.

Full packing advice is here, including bizarrely the fact that if your car-key has an electronic remote built in, you have to put this in your hold luggage, but non-remote keys are ok. Guess there is a slight risk you can get the battery out and use it to create a spark. Sheesh.

Yes, the conspiracy to ensure I'm as stressed as possible before any holiday, including having to work stupidly hard to get some stuff setup in half a day today. If you use Windows, please ensure you have updated your system, if not sure go HERE now and install everything marked critical and reboot. Then repeat, as even the US Government are warning how nasty this could be.

It seems the airline/airport chaos of yesterday is still ongoing. Hand/Cabin baggage is completely outlawed, everything has to be in your checked luggage. That'll really break the shopping malls at Heathrow & Gatwick - how will Dixons sell you a video camera, or even some 35mm film if you're not allowed to take anything on board except your provided clear plastic bag containg your wallet and tickets? Perhaps Dixons can sue the Government for loss of trade.

I can see the restriction on taking liquids onboard becoming permanant, annoying if you just wanted to take a couple of bottles of Volvic or evian for a long flight though, but bearable. But banning electronic devices, and car keys with built in remotes, to cabin baggage is insane, unless you equally ban digital watches.

Wendy Grossman's column goes into more detail, but the best summary of this over-reaction was from Jerry Pournelle yesterday:

The TV is filled with stories about the end of the airline world as we know it. Can't bring toothpaste or baby formula on an airplane. Can't bring books or magazines if you are flying from England. God knows what they think of traveling with a cane. No laptops.

I hope it is consolation for all those who are trying to go about their business and standing in 9 hour lines to get on airplanes without a water bottle or a book or a magazine. We should all feel good about how generous we are. The consolation is about all we will get for doing all this. But we have diversity, and that's really neat, and we all ought to be proud.

The cynical would think its an underhand plot to provide a reason for ID cards, except working in the IT industry, I just know the systems would never be reliable to make it work. All the negatives, without any positives.

Have a good weekend, think mine is going to be spent working out what I'm going to say to my line manager at the end of the month!

A little tidbit from Wired tonight... Death to Caps Lock - quite amusing.

Also the Onion has a great parody of Wikipedia, just use any information gained from a Wiki with appropriate levels of distrust. Remember Fox Mulder - Trust No One!

And, in a you've seen it already moment.... BA halts all flights from the UK

Apparently London melted last week, according to some inept programmers :-)

I might have posted a fragment of this before, but I think this lyric fragment describes me:

So don't presume to know shit about me,
'Cause I don't know myself from one day to the next,
And I don't pose perplexities purposely.

This is a fantastic article about how difficult it actually is.

Perhaps our politicians think they are Jack Bauer in 24, or perhaps Samuel L Jackson!!

We're doomed....

Todays not been a good day.... first I manage to break a glass (full of water I might add) on my desk this morning, the water just missing two PCs, and lots of glass fragments around. Then I have a stupidly busy day trying to answer lots of dumb fool questions.

On my way out of the office I manage to drop my PDAphone combo, which has scratched up the exterior. Pah, and its not yet 6months old. Bah Humbug.

To add insult to injury, I suspect the fall did it, my 1 day old 2gb memory card has failed. Might email suppliers and see if they can change it.

Yes, I'm off on my hols again. First proper holiday (ie, booked off work) this year I've just discovered by looking at my work timesheet. Yikes.

Yes, I've got 3 weeks of work, and I really don't want to go into work tomorrow (Fri), but suppose I must.

Although I'm coming down with a cold, I blame the crap august weather. At least Sept starts tomorrow!