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Airline Delays Flight Over Passenger's Suspicious Math Equations (usnews.com)
Earthquake Retrofit shares this article from the Associated Press: "An Ivy League professor said his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the math equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist... He said the woman sitting next to him passed a note to a flight attendant and the plane headed back to the gate. Guido Menzio, who is Italian and has curly, dark hair, said the pilot then asked for a word and he was questioned by an official... "They tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strange things on a pad of paper..." He was treated respectfully throughout, he added. But, he said, he was concerned about a delay that a brief conversation or an Internet search could have resolved. "Not seeking additional information after reports of 'suspicious activity'... is going to create a lot of problems, especially as xenophobic attitudes may be emerging."
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
We need to ramp up reverse retaliation on stupid people 100x fold to stop shit like this
I hope they billed the idiot for the inconvenience, expense and defamation...
... I hear the passengers thought he was with the Al-Gebra network - and he was holding potential weapons of math instruction.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
here
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
So what chance has someone like Frederick Forsythe working on a manuscript in the plane? That's not mere math equations we are talking about but complete terrorist plots. Why does it even matter what some bloke is writing on the plane? It's not like the paper is going to explode into flames and take down the plane. If you want to deal with a report of suspicious writing (what nonsense), there is no point in not waiting until arrival in order to ask him things.
There's no shortage of kids in school that will tell you math is terrifying...
Oh no! Italians doing math?! They're only supposed to cook pasta and things. That's definitely out of character if you base it solely on cartoonish stereotypes.
..Unless he divided by zero.
That would create a NaN, and everything that touched it would also became a NaN, thus the passagers, plane fuselage, engines, ground...
Sad. Next they will be accusing mathematicians of the black arts.
...Osama is high-fiving Satan under a "Mission Accomplished" banner.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
And the scared passenger didn't want the professor to fly under false (mathematical) terms.
To be fair, Professor Menzio (if that is his real name) was using Arabic numerals.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No American can conceive of anyone doing their own taxes, much less a differential equation; so the guy must be a terrorist!
This has become a trend in American life: the culture of stupid.
Started with Sarah Palin, who couldn't even name a newspaper she read and people readily accepted that, and it carries on today, with Trump spouting platitudes and messages of hate (many self-contradictory) that wouldn't stand a few seconds of rational though. But he says them with the right anger tone and that's all it matters.
Next time it will be us geeks&nerds being detained because we are editing some code on our laptops.
Say no to hate, say no to ignorance.
At least this story brought us the caption "We can't fly on together with suspicious maths".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...
Well, it looks like the movie "Idiocracy" is a documentary.
Ignorance is good while knowledge is elitist.
We should at shame them. And it goes for religious beliefs too. It's one thing to believe in a god - even though historical evidence shows that it was made up by people - but it's another to ignore or dispute scientific evidence because your book of myths says something different.
What if, and I'm just saying, what if he had been writing his mathy stuff and using METRIC UNITS!
This would clearly identify him as being a foreigner. And furthermore, he spoke English with an accent according to the article. Why would anyone learn to speak English with an accent unless they were, in fact, a terrorist?
Once exposed, he was no longer able to carry out his nefarious plot.
I say that woman did stop his plot. Kudos to you, plot-stopping heroine.
While this story might seem funny at first, it quickly becomes sad. Also very inconvenient for a few hundred people who sit on the plane and get delayed beacuse of an idiot. Lots of people would say better safe than sorry, but this is much more than that: usually ignorance won't hurt many people, but it can reach a point where it will make the lives of the rest of the population a living hell.
As a sidenote, such stories made me to really think about what I want to read on to/from-US planes, for many years now. Back in the days I mostly read technical stuff, papers, articles, but slowly I switched to "simple" novels with no math and no images. Might be crazy, but I just don't want to be the cause of some idiot delaying the flight - which, as we can see, happens from time to time.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
She must have really hated math class back in school. Today's Word: moron
/. Dissent will not be tolerated. Think like us or perish.
Because its possible that just writing could bring down a plane?
FTA: "Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."
You have published (even with a link), broadcast (hey, worldwide access), rewritten (there's a summary) and redistributed (some parts are copy&paste) the news!
Wait, what? If you comply with that copyright, then there wouldn't be any to inform about, meaning there's no news at all. High five for AP stupidity!
There is some entertaining detail missing from the US News story that you can find in Washington Post. Here is their description of how the encounter started:
The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” – but something about him didn’t seem right to her.
Blonde jokes and 3, 2, 1 ....
I hope they billed the idiot for the inconvenience, expense and defamation...
Everyone here keeps blaming the idiot who made the complaint but what about those who investigated it? It's well known that there are idiots out there so when someone comes forward with words to the effect of "I think the person next to me is a terrorist because they are writing something I don't understand on paper." the correct response from the authorities should be to ignore it because they are clearly talking to one of those idiots. If they don't exercise some judgment as to which complaints are credible and which are just nuts then there is a good chance real terrorists will be able to use this to distract them.
... xenophobic attitudes ...
No. The problem is that the woman who raised the issue is a moron. Does she think "math" is magical and that someone could down a plane by scribbling out an equation? Even if he *was* a terrorist, quietly doing math on a notepad isn't dangerous or illegal - even by TSA / DHS standards. I can only hope that this woman doesn't breed or vote.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It sounds to me like they said, "Ok, we'd better check this out." Then they spent a few minutes, confirmed that everything was fine, and were on their way. Not a problem.
Yup, and if you RTFA a bit more carefully, you'll see that the flight was actually delayed because it had to return to the gate to let off the woman who had complained, because she was feeling ill. At the end of the day, the professor writing math got to stay on the plane, the woman who complained about it didn't. Damn, that doesn't make such a good headline, does it?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I found a picture of the Italian-American professor in question: he has a beard, and don't Islamic terrorists all have beards? And he was making squiggly lines and whatnot on a piece of paper which just has to be that squiggly language terrorists speak, isn't it? So the guy must be a terrrorist, obviously! /sarcasm
The real crimes here are the crimes of blind-fear-driven ignorance, stupidity, and bigotry. Mister Menzio should consider suing the woman in civil court, and asking for damages in the amount of One Public Apology (preferably read at a press conference), his legal fees, plus one dollar.
Seriously, folks, it's bullshit like this that makes me ashamed to be an American.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
So much for women's intuition.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
"Oh my lord, he's doing encryption!
It's Perl, run!!!
Table-ized A.I.
We constantly blare over the PA systems, "If you see something, say something ..." and scare the population to no end with "all suspicious packages will be removed". We install jersey barriers in airport drop offs. So she saw something and said something. After training the population to be afraid of every passing shadow why expect them to exercise common sense or expect them to be reasonable?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
At a plush central school district office, plus a half-score of vice-principals, resources directors, etc.
When woman asked what he was doing he said he was doing Al-gebra for an AL-gorithm.
Having someone make a report of this nature is a 100% predictable consequence of telling every American it's important for them to be on the lookout for we're-not-sure-what. Even in the absence of bigotry, there is still going to be a certain amount of noise in the system due to ignorance and straight up hallucinations. Maybe the leaders who proposed "see something say something" understood the consequences, but it hardly matters now; at this point all business owners can do is to get better at eliciting enough detail from the reporters and quickly confirming that it isn't anything to worry about.
Spending less that the most underfunded.
Are there a lot of people who think that our educational spending is done efficiently, especially with respect to the task of providing a certain level of education for as many children as we can? Or are resources squandered? Are we overspending on a tiny fraction of students who will never reach a "normal" level?
It's certainly not a simple matter that "Spend more money and we fix the problem."
Or put another way: How much would be *enough*? The most persistent answer is simply "more".
The answer to his equations is obviously 42. What's the big deal?
So, it was an economist writing down a differential equation over a tray table.
An economist -- yeah, as an engineer, it would have been my ethical duty to report this to the authorities.
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' Isaac Asimov
You would think that there might have been someone on the flight deck who could tell the difference between algebra and Arabic writing. I'll rephrase that, I wouldn't want to fly a plane where anyone on the flight deck couldn't tell the difference between algebra and Arabic writing.
Does the article specific if he was a social derivative, an economic derivative, or a physical derivative? Geez, some are so sensitive to change over a few variables. Clearly the antidote is better integration.
I think the woman was too embarrassed to continur the flight.
FACE THE WRAITH OF THE PASSENGERS for delaying the flight for stupid reason.
Karma police
Arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
Have gnu, will travel.
There are dumb people everywhere. What's more worrying is that the cabin crew -- the people charged with the safety of their passengers -- were unable to deal with a simple situation and had to call for outside help. Were they also too dumb to gauge the danger posed by some scribbles on a piece of paper?
I kind of agree with the woman - everyone who has taken diffy q's knows they are evil!!
This actually seems like the most fair response possible. The passenger next to him was an idiot but the airline having a chat with him is the most reasonable response to said idiot. .
Even if he was writing in Arabic, and was writing about something bad ... WHAT IS THE DANGER. I mean, it's a fucking pencil and paper. It's not like he's writing with his blood, or scrawling REDRUM in the bathroom mirror (and even then, not so much a threat). If the guy had something with wires and blinking lights in his coat... OK maybe a potential threat, but what in the hell could this person have being writing that in any way represented a threat to passengers.
Was it magic stationary? You know the type in fantasy novels/movies where what one person writes another person sees? No, wait, because that shit isn't real.
No threat. No potential of threat. The biggest threat is the stupidity of all involved in this type of crap.
Does she think that terrorists hop on planes and then live-blog their intentions dead-tree? What sense would that make?
Maybe she thinks that terrorists board the plane first and then work out the physics required to sabotage the flight en-route.
Or does she think that math itself can be used to control airplanes from the passenger seat?
I guess this is the increasingly less rare intersection of ignorance, abject stupidity, and irrational paranoia. I'd be pretty angry with this passenger for being so stupid, let alone delaying the flight and wasting fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Error: NSE - No Signature Error
> the plane headed back to the gate
Proof that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Stachel
Hindu, originally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Adopted by the Persians, then adopted by by the Arabic world, then adopted by Europe. But invented by Indian mathematicians.
The idea that one could statistically model the visceral nightmare that is the job-hunting and job-acquisition experience today... a fantasy blackboard world where the job-seeker and employer come together in some process of uptake that is as regimented and predictable as molecular and cellular interlocks... the idea that 'flows' of jobs and jobless can be modeled like packet flows...
I'm sure the math is first-rate but the precept has this familiar spherical cow flavor...
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
This isn't xenophobia. This is ignorance. There's a difference.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To a chapter from MIB he was obviously an Alien...
my understanding was they're western Arabic numerals.
the eastern Arabic numerals being closer tied to their indo origins.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
There are many situations where you want to read an article on your smartphone, but don't want everyone in the room to hear from loud ad. And you shouldn't have to remember to go change media volume before clicking on what you thought was an "article", not a video.
Not to mention all the false revenue generated by clicking the video to bring up a pause button button ending up counting a click through to the advertiser before deleting that tab...
Really? What kind of shitty terrorist would be doing the math for his attack after he's already on the plane? What could he be calculating at that point?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It means I'm probably a terrorist.
Maybe he was just trying to work out all of the fees he was charged for flying. :)
Well, she WANTED off the plane,
Well, depending on which version of the story you read either she was taken off the plane because she was ill or her "illness" was entirely due to her concerns about the professor.
The Washington Post seems to think that the way of investigating an accusation of terrorism is to google the person's name (probably more reliable than the TSA but not much). Or maybe they should have publically interviewed him in his seat on the plane (for the entertainment of the surrounding passengers)?
Incidentally, I see that the Washington Post is keen to point out at every opportunity that the prof was "curly haired", "olive skinned" and "foreign-sounding" without providing a shred of evidence that this was relevant to anybody other than the woman who complained (and even that is speculation, although it sounds likely). In particular, note how the journalist has weaved these words into their account of the interview with the security guy to make sure that we associate the issue of race with the "interrogation" (and don't question their headline that claims the prof was "ethnically profiled") - that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do spin. "Some sort of agent" is a great one, too.
...and if you read to the end of the Washington Post article you'll find the root of the narrative: yes folks, it was all Trump's fault!
Now, if Trump sat next to me on a plane writing scary notes about building walls and banning Moslems, I'd probably feign illness and demand to be let off myself, but I don't think he can be held single-handedly responsible for every instance of casual racism or ignorance in the USA.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Something similar to this actually happened to me once in a trade show, where i was a vendor. First some cops showed up, then i was questioned with some other officials. The reason was, because I was making little coils using copper wire for an experimental electric car. They told me to stop what i was doing, that, some other vendors scared of my playing with copper wire. I felt, like I was in a classroom. What a stupidity.
Math is a tool for a professional, a hobby for some others, and good for brain development in general. Since it is not illegal to sing, to whistle, to dance, to play games, to talk, to kiss, to write, to eat or drink etc. in public, it is not illegal to do math, either. It may look awkward or suspicious to stare at a computer for long hours, to sit on the same bench everyday, or taking pictures of a building for its architectural style, or texting in public etc. but they are all within our liberal rights. Public safety is important, but, there is a price which is paid by everyone when fooled, no matter that person is an ignorant or a sophisticated one. If you don't understand, don't panic. Just show some respect for other peoples' rights.