How To Turn Terrorists into Honest Folk

The North American aviation transportation industry in conjunction with the airline industry has figured out something very important. Something that I think we can all learn from. Something the rest of the world can learn from. Something criminal justice systems can learn from. They have figured out how to turn terrorists and criminals into honest people in a very short time. In fact, they can do it in about an hour.

How do they do it? What's their secret? Easy. Just take any terrorist or criminal and put them on a flight. Any commercial aviation flight with a security screening area near the beginning and a baggage claim at the other end.

Not getting it? Don't worry.  You don't have to understand it. I don't understand it entirely. But they do.  I just know it works. It must.  Because they do it.

If you've taken a flight from a major aeroport in North America in the last few years, you've experienced it. When you check in for your flight, they ask you all kinds of questions like "Have you left your luggage unattended?" before you can get to the next step. If you manage to convince them you're okay, they send you onto the next phase: the security screening.

This is the part where, in the interest of equal treatment, they assume everyone is either a terrorist or a criminal - even public servants and airline employees. (I've been both and I still get the treatment.) They scan you with technology of questionable safety in order to see through your clothes. It doesn't matter that these screeners miss obvious things like guns and 12 inch steel razor blades. The point isn't to find anything. The point is to treat everyone equally - like criminals/terrorists. Neither the TSA nor the CATSA have ever caught anyone anyway.

If you make it through that part, you get to get on a plane - if your i.d. checks out. Some of these flights have air marshalls on them, so the criminals and terrorists aren't fixed yet.  But the plane takes off and goes to its destination.

Then a miracle happens. You land! You leave the plane! You go to baggage claim! Suddenly everyone is a saint! You just walk up to the carousel and take a bag! It doesn't matter if it's your bag. There's nothing stopping you from taking a bag at random. You might as well. Chances are, someone else's stuff is nicer than yours. At the carousel you're on the honour system.

An hour ago you were being searched like you were going to a maximum security prison, and now you're on the honour system. Like I said earlier, I don't fully understand how the flight acts like some sort of baptism that washes away your criminal intent, but it must. Otherwise, you'd have to claim your bags like you claim your coat at a coat-check: no ticket, no jacket. If you can't be trusted at the coat-check, but you can at the baggage carousel then it must mean you're more trustworthy and honest at the baggage claim. I'm not sure how it all works. Maybe it's an effect of altitude?

A Case For Piracy

In Today's Article a Case For Piracy is made. Well, it's not so much a case for piracy as it is an explanation of how the TV/movie/music industries are screwing customers. Those hassles can be avoided by going online by getting content "illegally".

If you poke a bear with a stick for long enough, can you blame the bear for turning around and mauling you?

Someone Should Make a Move About This

I've blogged a lot about the obscene behavior of the music industry as it relates to pirates. The major four labels (which own a whole lot of smaller labels) sue sue sue anyone, regardless if the targets are alive, employed, own a computer, are of a decent age. The idea of big business suing individuals sickens me. So I boycott all non-independent record labels. I encourage you to do the same.

But what of the television and movie industries? While the movie industry is evil, is that a reason enough to boycott? At first, you may think so. But if you do your homework to find out if any company you may support has a history of evil, you'll soon be living on your own barge in international waters, living off of whatever you can grow.

In Today's Article we see 6 things the film industry doesn't want you to know.

Summary:

1. Using clever accounting tricks, movies that gross large can net nothing. The guy in the original Darth Vader costume has never been paid for The Return of the Jedi because that movie hasn't made a profit in 30 years.
2. They extort movie theatres - which is why a popcorn and a pop can cause you to have to take out a second mortgage on your house.
3. Movie review quotes taken wildly out of context.
4. Redefined copyright laws to go from protecting an artist and his works, to protecting the studios' profits for years and years to come.
5. Because the studios get more money from pay-per-view DVD sales, rentals don't make as much money, so they charge video rental places (like Blockbuster, Netflix, and your corner store) insane prices for rental editions of movies. A DVD that costs you $20 at the store, costs a rental place more like $100.
6. While stories can be copyrighted, ideas can't. Studios routinely reject scripts, only to turn around and write another script based on the same idea so they can control IP rights.

So, there you have it. Six reasons the movie industry is a cesspool. I don't know how that relates to the television industry. Is that enough for a boycott? If so, there's a lot of worse industries one should boycott to be consistent. If not...I don't know. Gotta think about it some more.

I'm boycotting the record companies because they're suing their customers. What about movie studios? In this case, it's mostly the independent studios that are suing. In fact, here's an article that talks about that. Their practices seem to be similar to those of the music industry. The first story is about a blind man being sued for downloading porn. You think they might have gotten the wrong guy? In the end, instead of trying to prove his obvious innocence, he settled with the studio.  It's cheaper and easier and keeps his name out of the papers.  And it's basically extortion.  Now that should be illegal!

Bountiful's Brilliant Students

According to Today's Article students in Bountiful BC "...[are] among the highest ranking on the 2011 Fraser Institute Report Card.

Bountiful Elementary-Secondary scored a perfect 10 mark."

I guess it's easy to do well in school when you have fourteen moms helping you out.

Successful Starving Artists

Longtime blog readers will know how much I love the music recording industry. While I believe in supporting the artists, and I have no problem supporting those who bring the music to me by way of recorded media, like CDs - theoretically. I do have a problem when big business sues the little guy. Especially when the little guy is homeless, or a grandmother who's never owned a computer, or a little girl, or a dead person, or someone other than Bill Gates. It just seems so wrong. Espeically when the evidence of the wrong-doing is weak and easily faked. I used to buy a lot of CDs, until the lawsuits started. Now I boycotte. I only buy music from independent labels.

Then I stumbled across these articles.

• http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml
• http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091119/1634117011.shtml
• http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love

It turns out that buying CDs don't really support the artists that much anyway. Read the articles to see the actual math, but a typical artist gets about $24 for every $1000 of record sales.   If you buy a CD for $10, the artist gets 24 cents.  The system seems designed to keep the artists down, while making the record execs rich. When the industry sues you for allegedly downloading music, they're not fighting for the artists. They're fighting for themselves.

Sleepers vs. Non-Sleepers

A couple of weeks after moving into my new apartment, there was a power-outage that lasted from 10:30 at night to about 4:30 in the morning. It was July. I live on the top floor. My room got very warm very quickly.

During the power outage, my apartment was very quiet. Sort of. There are two types of noise: white noise, and non-white noise. I normally sleep with the air conditioner and a fan on. The building's ventilation system makes a certain amount of white noise. That was all silenced. Now, I could hear all the non-white noise, such as people talking in adjacent units, cars driving by on the streets, dogs barking in the distance, etc.

I didn't get to sleep that night until about 4:30 AM. When I told this story to the McQueens Robin laughed and said I was the only person she knew who wouldn't be able to sleep at night during a power-outage. I tried to explain the difference between white noise and non-white noise, and how I can sleep with white noise, but not non-white noise. She didn't buy it. Jack suggested that there seem to be two types of people in the world: sleepers and non-sleepers, and sleepers will never understand non-sleepers.

Sleepers are people that go to bed and sleep. They sleep because they want to sleep. Or because they're comfortable and tired. I was a sleeper when I was a teenager.  Actually, most teenagers are.

A non-sleeper can't just go to sleep. They need certain conditions to be in place. During the day, I am a sleeper. At night, I'm a non-sleeper. In the day, I can sleep while sitting upright on a noisy, hot, crowded bus with my head against the bouncing window. But at night, I need everything to be just so.

So I started contemplating the difference between sleepers and non-sleepers, trying to develop a theory as to what makes one one and not the other. Then I stumbled across Today's Articles. It turns out that science already has answers.

When you're awake, your brain produces high frequency brain waves. As you fall deeper into sleep, your brainwaves lower in frequency.  Every now and again, while sleeping, a spurt of higher frequency waves are produced. Those spurts are called "spindles". The scientists found that people who produce more spindles don't get woken up as easily as those who produce fewer spindles.

Unfortunately, the question of "how do I make my brain create more spindles?" remains unanswered.

Did You Wash Your Hands?

Anyone who knows me knows how I am about washing hands. I become aware of when I touch something that will cause me to have to wash my hands before touching food. When I'm eating at a function where hand-shaking is required, I shake with my right hand, and handle food with my left. When I have breakfast in a restaurant, pick up my toast with my left hand, and use my right hand for things like the Ketchup bottle, or the salt and pepper shakers - which are rarely washed.

In Today's Article, we get another hand-washing hint. If you wash your hands, and put them below an air-dryer, and rub your hands together it actually brings bacteria out from the pores in your hands, increasing the overall bacteria count on your hands from when you just finished washing your hands. The next best thing to do is not rub your hands.

But the best thing to do is to dry your hands with a paper towel. Using a paper towel allows you to turn off the tap without touching the tap that you touched with your dirty hands, and you can open the door without touching the handle.

What About Singing In The Shower?

A while ago I blogged about an auto-body shop in Britain that turned up their radio loud enough to be heard by the public. They were sued for copyright infringement.

I thought, and still think, that's ridiculous for the following reasons:

• The very nature of radio broadcasts are public, not private. This is not a fuzzy statement, as one commenter said. Radio waves are fluctuations in the electro-magnetic spectrum which exists all around us.
• Radio signals are easy to convert into sound signals. Spock can do this with egg cartons and tin foil.
• Radio signals aren't encrypted.
• If you own a radio station that plays music, you've (presumably) paid for the right to play that music over the airwaves on your frequency. The rights to the music have been purchased.
• Playing music over the radio is a promotion device. It promotes the album, the band, and any concerts, etc.
• If you own a radio station, you likely want as many people listening as possible, not as few as possible.
• If you're a band trying to sell albums and concert tickets, you likely want as many people listening to your music on the radio.
• As a radio listener, I don't buy the right to listen to the radio.  The right to listen to any station it can pick up is implied. By not encrypting the radio signals, it's implied that if I own a radio, the radio station wants me to listen to their station.
• At the risk of beating a dead horse: if you own a radio station, concerning what goes over the air, you have NO expectation of privacy.

Anyway. Suffice it to say, I think they went too far with that.

Then I read Today's Article! This time, the British equivalent of the RIAA told a shop to turn down their radio because it could be heard by the public. *spits on floor* So the store did. But one of the shop workers liked music. If she couldn't listen to the radio, she'd make her own music, Gosh Golly Darn it! So she sang to herself as she stocked the shelves.

She was then contacted by the PRS and told she needed a performer's licnese to do that! A performer's license for singing to yourself while you work! Well, you'd better fine me too! I listen to my iPod at work, and sometimes, I hum along with the song I'm listening to.

I shouldn't have to explain why this is ridiculous, but after the last time, I think probably will.

At least in this case, the PRS realized they were being donkeys, and sent her an apology, along with a bouqet of flowers.  How nice.

United Breaks Guitars, and Looses Luggage

Remember that guy (Dave Carroll of Sons of Maxwell) whose guitar was damaged while travelling with United Airlines?

In Today's Article Dave was flying "to Colorado Springs to give a keynote address at a customer-service and social-networking conference, and also to perform his hit, United Breaks Guitars." The only direct flight he could get was with United Airlines. When he got to Colorado Springs, he found that United has lost his luggage.

I'm not sure if this is more sad or funny. It is ironic, though.

Hands-Free Phone Law in Ontario

If you were driving down the road, talking on your cell phone and there was a clown on a unicycle, do you think you'd see him? Would it make a difference if you used a hands-free phone?

Probably not, according to today's Article.

The reason is obvious to those who know anything about attention. You can only really pay attention to one thing at a time. We multitask the way a computer does, but we're not nearly as good at switching from one process to another. The problem is not that you're holding something in your hand. The problem is attention.

If you think the problem is holding something in your hand, try this. The next time you're driving, try holding something in your hand. Heck! Try holding your phone in your hand without using it to talk. There shouldn't be significant degradation in your driving skills. (This may be hard for you to measure. Most people don't notice the degradation in their driving skills when talking on the phone, fiddling with the radio, or polishing off a 2-4.) In fact, if you have an automatic transmission in your car, you can regularly drive with one hand.

Furthermore, if driving with only one hand was as unsafe as driving drunk, then everyone who's either missing an arm or hand shouldn't be allowed to have a drivers licence.  And anyone with an unusable hand, due to injury or something, should lose their licence until they recover.

I guess the biggest problem would be for people who talk with their hands.  If they're holding their phone with one hand, and gesturing with the other, then they're not steering their car.

So, if the problem isn't having something in your hand, but attention, then why are we passing laws that say "It's okay to be distracted when you drive, as long as you're not distracted while holding something in one hand."?

Hot Chicks -> Dumb Men

This may come as shocking news to you, but according to Today's Article, men actually get stupider in the presence of beautiful women. But, attractive men don't have that effect on women.

Jeez!  I could have told you that!  And I could even have told you why....as long as their wasn't a beautiful woman near by.

United Breaks Guitars - Part II

A few weeks ago I blogged about a guy who's guitar was broken while flying with United Airlines.

As an update: He was offered compensation for his guitar, but he turned it down. He wanted to go ahead with his songs. He wrote the second one and posted the video on YouTube. Here it is:

It seems, according to today's article he, Dave Carroll, has now gone to Washington DC to talk to a hearing on airline passenger rights.

Someone Stole My Idea!

It seems someone has stolen my Coffee Cup Art" idea!

Actually, check it out. This guy is pretty good. We share a medium, but our style is completely different.

I Hope This Class-Action Suit Really Takes Off

If you fly Air Canada much, you may be aware that a few years ago, Aeroplan announced that if you didn't use your points, or add to them in the span of a year, you'd lose them.

Ouch. That's worse than the time Bell Mobility announced that they would be charging for incoming text messages.

That's just bad business. I'm a believer in the free market economy. May the best businesses prosper, and may the worst business go under!

Instead of going out of business, bad businesses can also suffer at the hands of our legal system when they drive a knife into the backs of their clients. According to today's article, that's whats happening to Groupe Aeroplan Inc. Some people are launching a class action lawsuit against Groupe Aeroplan Inc..

Way to go, gang! Stick it to the man!

United Breaks Guitars

When I lived in Toronto, I worked for two airlines: Air Canada and Air Transat. I did the same job for both airlines. Most of the work consisted of getting luggage onto and off of aeroplanes. As a pilot wannabe, working there was awesome.

There was a huge difference working for the two airlines. At Air Transat, Fragile stickers meant nothing. Soon after I started working there, someone asked me why I wasn't throwing a guitar case like I did for the rest of the baggage.

Me: It's a guitar. It's easily damaged.

Him: Is that your guitar?

Me: No.

Him: Then why do you care?

I heard that line many times about many fragile items. One day, someone was bringing crates of olive oil back from overseas. Each crate had a Fragile sticker on it. The guys were just put them on the belt-loader like other baggage: with no care as to the fragile state of it's contents. The crates started falling over, breaking open and spilling olive oil all over the place.

Passengers in the terminal saw this and started taking pictures and making gestures to us. A few of the guys made some other more obscene gestures to the passengers.

I've seen the people riffle through passengers bags, helping themselves to whatever they wanted. I saw blatant damaging of office equipment.

Always lock your luggage.

Air Transat was like a company run by Jr. Highers on their way to Juvie.

Actually, I should clarify. I didn't actually work for Air Transat. I worked for a company called Haycott Services that was partially owned by Air Transat. Haycott was contracted to work on the ramp, and do cabin service for Air Transat. I always say I worked for Air Transat because nobody knows what Haycott Services is.

Haycott Services was like a company run by Jr. Highers on their way to Juvie.

When I started at Air Canada, I would hear things like "Woah! Be careful with that! It's Fragile!" Air Canada was a dream. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had. Air Canada was a company run by grown-ups.

One of my favourite bands, Sons of Maxwell, had an incident with United Airlines. One of the singers/songwriters, Dave Carroll, saw the ramp guys throwing guitar cases around as they were offloading the aeroplanes. When he got his guitar back, it was broken. United Airlines wouldn't acknowledge any wrong-doing or responsibility, and wouldn't pay for any damages.

So, Dave Carroll wrote three songs, and made a video out of one and put it on YouTube, seen here:


Way to go, Dave! It's really sad. It also doesn't help the rest of us when we get screwed over by a large organization. Most of us can't write and perform great songs with videos to stick it to the man. In a way, Dave, you're doing this for all of us. Everyone who's ever been jerked around by an airlines is behind you.

There should be two more videos coming. The idea is to get people to vote for their favourite. He wants to get one million hits in one year. This video came out 4 days ago. As of writing this, it's already up to 1 351 943 views.

Apparently, Dave is in talks with United to right the wrongs. I'd imagine part of that settlement will include Dave discontinuing his United-bashing. That would be somewhat unfortunate because he's a great songwriter. I love how this song doesn't cloud the message with metaphor. "United Breaks Guitars". Pretty simple, basic, and obvious. No hidden messages there. An English teacher's nightmare.

Of course, he'll probably only be offered the $3500 from United. But these videos will put him and Sons of Maxwell on the map, so to speak. He's going to get a real jump in fame due to these videos.

When I went to see Sons of Maxwell in concert, it was pretty small and intimate. At the end of the concert Dave announced he'd be at the CD table. So I went over and talked with him for about five minutes. How cool is that! When was the last time you went to a concert and got to talk to the musicians afterwords?

If Sons of Maxwell significantly increase their fame from this incident, then the next time I see them in concert, they might be too big to be able to talk to them. :( There'll be too many people.

Just kidding. I'd rather see them get the fame they deserve. I wish them (Dave Carroll and Sons of Maxwell) all the best.

You Can't Help Yourself Because Your Self Sucks

According to today's article, Self-Help books that tell you to repeat mantras like "I am a lovable person" do not work for people with low self-esteem, (LSE) and only marginally work for those with high self-esteem (HSE).

I suspect they don't work for those with LSE because as they're chanting those they're thinking about how they're not true. It brings to the forefront of their minds how much of a lovable person they're not. Then they feel worse.

I suspect the reason a great many other self-help books don't work is that people who read them don't actually put them into practise. Reading a book won't fix your life. Doing what the book says might. Years ago I read The Wealthy Barber - a small, easy to understand, book about finances. I have yet to do anything suggested in that book.

Will Ferguson wrote a novel called "Happiness" about a self-help book that actually works. Everyone gets rich, looses weight, follows their dreams, and embraces the things they can't change. Hilarious.

BTW: Today's title is one of the best lines from the movie School for Scoundrels with Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder (a.k.a. Napoleon Dynamite).

Phone Scam

Today I want to talk about two phone scams. The first one is where someone calls you, lets the phone ring a couple of time, and hangs up. You see the number on the call-display. Even though you don't recognize the number, you decided to call it back. The number turns out to be an adult entertainment line in a foreign land.

If you call a number back, without knowing who it is, just because it shows up on your call-display, you deserve the $1000 phone bill that goes with it.

The second phone scam is a much more serious and widespread one; one which you may have already fallen victim to. I know I have. It's called "Paying for Text Messaging."

I remember once upon a time, texting was free. The technology was already built into the phone system. It seems the phone companies noticed that people were texting and they decided to make a quick buck out of it.

I'm with Bell Mobility. They charge me $3.00/month for unlimited incoming text messages, and 30 outgoing messages. Any outgoing messages beyond the 30 is 15 cents per message.

How much does it cost the phone company?

According to this article, "Srinivasan Keshav, Canada Research Chair in tetherless computing at the University of Waterloo, told lawmakers probing text messaging rates and the state of competition in the wireless telecommunications industry that the maximum cost of a single text message "very unlikely" exceeds 0.3 cents."

The author of this article, calculates how much texting costs compared to talking on his cell phone, assuming data transfer costs the same for each method. The talk-plan he assumes ($40 per month for 400 minutes) costs about $1.75 per Megabyte. Texting, at 15 cents per text works out to $786.43 per Megabyte. If texting were charged at the same rate as talking, it would be 0.33 cents per message, which is about what Srinivasan Keshav calculates.

What can you do about it? All I can think of is to get a Skype account, or some other Voice Over IP system and start making phone calls that way. If enough people do this, then the phone system as we know it will die.

My answer requires Net Neutrality to be in place. Otherwise, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will just charge for emails and instant messages. They might do that anyway, so it's important that we get Net Neutrality laws in place to prevent that sort of behaviour.

We Could Make Beautiful Music Together

According to Today's Article the same gene that correlates with musical ability "codes for a receptor for the hormone arginine vasopressin and has been linked with bonding, love and altruism in people." The thought is that people who are good at music are also good romantic partners.

I have nothing to say about this except "Fascinating!"

Carcinogenic Toothpaste

What kind of toothpaste do you use? Currently, I use Colgate Total. Colgate Total has everything. It protects against cavities, tartar, plaque, gum disease, etc. It's supposed to whiten your teeth too.

But it might also give you cancer.

Colgate Total is one of the few, if not the only, toothpastes that contain an anti-bacterial called Triclosan. It's supposed to protect against gum disease. But, according to today's article, when triclosan mixes with water, it creates chloroform gas. In small quantities, it won't do anything immediatly. Over time it can build causing health issues, including cancer.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Merry Xmas!

As a fan of the show Futurama, I often pay homage to it by calling Christmas "Xmas." Christians, who don't watch Futurama, miss the reference and think I'm insulting them and Christ by taking Christ out of Christmas. Once upon a time I thought that too. I thought that the X was crossing out Christ from Christmas.

Then I started studying Greek.

It turns out that the Greek word for Christ starts with the character "chi" (pronounced with a sound that doesn't exist in English). The letter "chi" is written like the English "X". So, writing "Christmas" as "Xmas" is more of a short form. According to Today's Article, this has been going on for centuries. In fact,t he letter "chi" came to represent the word "Christ". The word "Christian" could be written "Xian".

Just like I suspected. This article just confirms it.