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For example, according to the TSA, the 11-inch model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, but the 13-inch model must be removed. There's nothing in
by akamaka 14y ago
For example, according to the TSA, the 11-inch model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, but the 13-inch model must be removed.
There's nothing inherently unscientific about this rule. Presumably someone has calculated the volume of explosive that's worth checking for, and then another person has translated that into simple, practical rules that can be quickly taught to a large number of border agents.
- smokeyj 14y agoThen they should be checking volume, not the monitor size.
- mseebach 14y agoBecause carefully and individually checking the volume of each and every MacBook Air that comes through makes a lot more sense than realizing once and upfront that there are two major versions of the MBA, and the 11" one is below and the 13" is above.
- jsight 14y agoI think his point is that this rule is applied very generally. Eg, a 11" MBA is ok, and 13" MBA is not, but a 11" Netbook that happens to be extra thick is also ok.
- glesica 14y agoSure there is, but not necessarily (only) in the way that was originally implied. Science, generally speaking, involves observation and inference. A scientific approach to airplane security would therefore (to simplify greatly) involve looking at what has happened in the past to inform our decisions for the future. In the past (2001), terrorists attacked airplanes using tactics and weapons we were unprepared for. It seems reasonable, then, to think that if there is another terrorist attack on an airplane it will follow this pattern: it will use tactics and weapons we are unprepared for. So checking 13 inch Macbooks more closely than 11 inch Macbooks (assuming taking the thing out of its case actually does anything) just means that terrorists should find ways to put a sufficiently-powerful bomb in an 11 inch Macbook in order to be successful. Our approach, therefore, is completely unscientific because it assumes that terrorists today will continue to use the tactics they used yesterday, or were planning to use yesterday, when we know from observation and inference ("science") that this is not the case. Note that there have been several attempted attacks since 2001. None have been successful, and none of them, not a single one, was foiled, even partially or with assistance from, TSA. Each of these attempts exploited a weakness in the TSA processes. Seems like the terrorists are better at "science" than the TSA are.
- akamaka 14y agoWhat you're discussing is strategy (the choice of where to deploy resources in a conflict). Some might argue that science can be applied to conflict, but Clausewitz for example makes a convincing argument that strategy is not scientific and will never be.
- r00fus 14y agoOr what about 2 11" MB Airs? Surely that's equivalent volume to one 13". The arbitrary rules may help people gaming the system, but are completely exploitable when scratching even a bit below the surface. It's a fucking farce.
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoThe simple fact that there are "fancy numbers" involved or even if some schmoe did a fancy calculation using "rithmetic" doesn't mean there's any science going on here. Is an 11-inch Macbook Air sized amount of thermite drastically less interesting than a 13 inch one; I mean come on. It's clear that many of these things are completely arbitrary, especially those distinguishing between laptop and tablets.
- ImprovedSilence 14y agokey word: "Presumably"...