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Sci-fi Writers Join War on Terror
yoyoq writes "Homeland Security is looking for suggestions from sci-fi writers. "Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers."
Here's a suggestion: 9-11 could have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door."
It's also good enough to fly the plane into the nearest skyscraper, once you disable/disrupt/jam/take over the legitimate transmitter and know the protocol and encryption keys.
I think you need to read up on what makes explosives (including gunpowder) go boom, actually. Hint: They do contain their own oxidizer.
I did 3 hours in a queue at Heathrow 4 weeks after the stupid liquid nonsense.
"Take your shoes off please."
What did the Swiss do : tell everybody to fly armed !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
i know this may sound stupid to americans, but over here in germany, our grundgesetz (equivalent to your constitution) says that it is illegal to weigh one live against another - so you can't shoot down a plane with 1 innocent guy in it, even if you could guaranteed save 1000 people by doing so. the bundeswehr is only allowed to do so, if the death of this one innocent guy is also clear (the plane will definitely crash, killing all aboard) - just the suspicion isn't enough. and i like that law - i could be the one inside.
An explosion is the result of a solid (or sometimes liquid) material being converted into a gas in a confinded volume. In most cases, the conversion has to happen faster than the gas can leak out of an enclosure. Most explosives are comnustable material that's been mixed with an oxidizer so it burn really, really fast. Without the oxidizer, oxygen can't get to the combustion fast enough and the gas escapes, turning the BOOM into a POP. Since there's an oxidizer present, these types of explosives work quite well in total vacumns, and yes, gunpowder falls into that group.
In other words, your gun will fucking work without oxygen, you moron.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I suggest you take a look into the Air France flight 8969 hijacking in December 24th, 1994. The purpose of that hijacking was to fly the aircraft to Paris and blow it up at a very low altitude, possibly with the Eiffle Tower as a target.
"Good science fiction writers...?"
You must not be familiar with Niven and Pournelle!
As for "a bunch of wild directions" both are grounded in their science. SCIENCE, not wild ideas. Both are adept at looking at on-the-edge break throughs and figuring out the impact it could have on society. For instance, there has been increasing news reports about the sale of the organs of political prisoners in China. Rich people can get whatever they need for a few tens of thousands of dollars. Of course it's all illegal but that is no problem when there are corrupt officials. All of this is no surprise to those of us who read Niven's work in the 1970s. He called them "Organ-leggers."
Oh, and Pournelle has also been a successful computer columnist for many years. His "Chaos Manor" column was one of the best things in Byte magazine. Do check out his Chaos Manor Reviews at http://www.chaosmanorreviews.com/ and his Chaos Manor Musings at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/index.html.
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
I am simply astonished at the flat wrongness of this assertion:
Murders with firearms (98-2000):
South Africa: 31,918
Colombia: 21,898
Thailand: 20,032
United States: 8,259
When you count murders with firearms per capita, the US falls to #8. When you count all murders, with and without firearms, the US falls to #24.
Wow, really? I thought he was a big supporter of the poor.
If he's out there killing poor people, I better not vote for the guy after all.
"Now," she thought, watching the dolphins adjust their bowties, "might be a good time to up my medication."