INT. AIRPORT SECURITY AREA – MORNING
Typical Monday morning at the nation’s busiest airport (Ohare). People, mostly business travelers, are everywhere waiting…and waiting…and waiting…to get through security screening.
INT. SECURITY SCREENING AREA – CONTINUOUS
Scott (shaved head, 30) is placing various items into the plastic bins, for screening. He drops his sandwich bag of specially wrapped toiletries into a bin, rolling down the conveyer belt. A TSA employee takes notice of the sandwich bag.
TSA EMPLOYEE #1
What the hell is this??
The TSA employee grabs the plastic bag and holds it up. Another TSA employee takes notice and comes over.
SCOTT
Is there a problem?
The second TSA employee grabs the bag and looks closely at the contents through the clear plastic.
TSA EMPLOYEE #2
No, we’re just yelling for no reason what-so-ever. Of course there’s a problem. Your toothpaste is four point six ounces and the limit is three ounces!
SCOTT
Okay…fine. Get rid of it.
TSA EMPLOYEE #2 (ignoring Scott, calling out to another TSA employee)
Hey, check this out. This guy was trying to sneak through security with an illegal-sized tube of toothpaste.
TSA Employee #3, who should be screening the the luggage comes over.
TSA EMPLOYEE #3 (to Scott)
You can’t have liquids in containers that are over three ounces. Did you know that was illegal???
People waiting behind Scott show their impatience.
SCOTT Okay, can you just throw it out, so I can get to my flight?
TSA EMPLOYEE #2
Absolutely not. You need to leave the line and throw the toothpaste out yourself.
SCOTT
I’m not going to leave the line. You throw it out.
TSA EMPLOYEE #3
Hold on, buddy. That’s the rules – we don’t know what could be in that toothpaste tube.
Another TSA employee notices the commotion and comes over.
TSA EMPLOYEE #4
What’s the problem here?
TSA EMPLOYEE #1
This guy was trying to sneak a container of liquids through security that was over three ounces.
SCOTT
I wasn’t trying to sneak anything through security. It was a mistake.
TSA EMPLOYEE #4
Okay, so throw it out and get this line moving.
TSA EMPLOYEE #2
We can’t do that. We don’t know what’s in the container!
TSA EMPLOYEE #1
Exactly! He needs to leave the line and throw it out himself.
SCOTT
It’s GOD DAMN TOOTHPASTE!
A 5th TSA employee, apparently the most senior of these TSA robots, overhears Scott’s agitation and walks over.
SENIOR TSA EMPLOYEE
Why isn’t the line moving? What’s the problem?
TSA Employee #1
This guy, he has toothpaste…it’s too big…
The first four TSA employees give each other nervous glances. The senior TSA looks annoyed.
TSA EMPLOYEE #4 (whispers)
Just throw it out!
The first TSA employee pulls the toothpaste out of the bag and tosses it into a nearby garbage can. The senior TSA employee rolls his eyes and leaves.
TSA EMPLOYEE #1
You’re free to go. Please be more careful with what liquid container sizes you pack. Have a marvelous Monday.
Scott, face red, grabs his bag and runs through security.
Ever wonder where that pick-up line comes from? On a scale of witty pick-up lines it would probably rank a ONE – it’s what people nowadays would call “old school”.
If you’re looking for a historical dig on the origins of this pickup line, you’ll have to look elsewhere. I don’t know the answer to that, but it does lead me to an interesting phenomenon called The Familiar Stranger.
Repetition brings with it, familiarity, especially when traveling. I see the same people on the same flights that I take every week, but I never talk to those people, even though I could pick out their faces in a crowded subway train on any day of the week.
I could tell you particular details about their luggage, how they wait for the boarding, even what reading materials they prefer. Yes, we’re bordering stalker material here.
The question is, do I have a relationship with these people?
The Intel Research Berkeley Lab (a joint venture between UC Berkeley and Intel) is doing a research project on this phenomenon and notes:
The Familiar Stranger is a social phenomenon first addressed by the psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1972 essay on the subject. Familiar Strangers are individuals that we regularly observe but do not interact with. By definition a Familiar Stranger (1) must be observed, (2) repeatedly, and (3) without any interaction. The claim is that the relationship we have with these Familiar Strangers is indeed a real relationship in which both parties agree to mutually ignore each other, without any implications of hostility. A good example is a person that one sees on the subway every morning. If that person fails to appear, we notice.
I’ve seen a person on the subway while going to the airport, again at the check-in kiosk, and again boarding my flight. Imagine that happening a few times – I would notice the pattern, but not necessarily speak to the stranger. Now, if I ran into that same person in some random location, I would feel much more comfortable talking to that person as opposed to a complete stranger.
The blog, Tasty Research, points out:
This phenomenon is explained as a response to the overload of inputs from the environment — perceptual processing takes considerably less time than social processing.
However, I think when you see someone you barely recognize from school a few years later at a department store, it feels like you’re friends because you know each other relatively better than everyone else there.
I always experienced this, but never thought to associate it with a scientific phenomenon. Food for thought.
Inspiration for this entry located here.
It will only cost you 2 million points, which wouldn’t be too difficult for some of you. Just make sure you are taking advantage of every point scheme possible to minimize the your time of real flying.
One catch – this is for Virgin Galatic, an offshoot of Virgin Atlantic aiming for the creation of a space tourism program in 2009.
Like most business travelers, I rarely pay attention to the in-flight announcement. Usually, the hum of the engine is like a lullaby – yes, that is sad – and I’m snoozing before take-off.
I can’t say that I’ve memorized every word of the in-flight pre-takeoff annoucement, but I’m confident that I would know what to do if I ever survived a “water landing”. With that said, I’ve never been very keen on my chances.
But what if the in-flight announcement was not just trying to give you a false sense of security? What would the flight attendant really say? Here’s one writer’s take, courtesy of the Economist. If you’d rather not read the entire article, here are a few choice highlights.
On general safety:
At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.
On life jackets:
Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.
On mobile phones:
Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft’s navigation systems. At least, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.
Gotta love it.
…Maybe? With the Earth’s population growth predictions in-flux, nobody knows, but if you’re in Japan and not extremely claustrophobic, you might want to try a “kapuseru hoteru” or capsule hotel.
From Wikipedia.org:
Guest space is reduced in size to a modular plastic or fibreglass block roughly 2 m by 1 m by 1.25 m, providing room to sleep and little more, although facilities usually include a television and other electronic entertainment. These capsules are then grouped and stacked, two units high. Luggage is usually stored in a locker away from the capsule. Privacy is maintained by a curtain at the open end of the capsule but noise pollution can be high. Washing facilities are communal and there are often restaurants, or at least vending machines, and other entertainment facilities.
If this becomes popular, perhaps we should play closer attention to Neuromancer for other future predictions…or not – William Gibson never predicted the mobile cellphone.
This is an interesting email that lays out the technicalities of transporting the chemicals that the terrorists were planning to use as explosive materials (assuming the news reports correctly identified the chemicals – we’ll leave that up to the blogosphere to verify)
I am not a chemist, but as I stood in a check-in line that stretched out into the airport parking garage, I thought to myself, “Terrorists would see this security line and tell themselves, ‘Oh hell no, I’m not waiting this long in a line for a chance at blowing up an airplane!’” Perhaps that is the TSA super-secret plan all along.
I appreciate the fact that many things are being done for my own safety, but I really do wish we had someone in charge that applied some common sense to airline security.