Prop Chips at Airport Security - Your Worst Nightmare?
Humanoido
Posts: 5,770
BIG PROPELLER BRAIN ATTEMPTS AIR TRAVEL
CAN IT BEAT AIRPORT SECURITY?
http://humanoidolabs.blogspot.com/2012/03/big-brain-air-travel-consolidaton.html
Your Worst Nightmare or Not?
But how do you take the beast from the cradle and pass it through the ultimately tough and sometimes ruthless regime of Airport Security? Just look at one scenario - armed guards with machines guns and trigger happy fingers, vicious attack and "something sniffing" police dogs, impatient wild card people in menacing uniforms making unreasonable judgements with authority to make you bend over backwards, laws not necessarily beneficial to your luggage or the value of your personal effects or even your life, and damaging XRAY Radiation machines harmfully accumulative to health. What madness! Even babies can be indited, flight banned and ear tagged as terrorists in a system that readily and easily makes horrendous mistakes that make you the brunt of the dire consequences.
Wearing white gloves, they reach for ultimate unspoken levels of frisking your body in private places, meanwhile you endure the ultimately high levels of stress that's generated in going through these nightmare check points. In fact, they poke, prod, upset your luggage, go through your underwear, confiscate what they want, and upset you. They invade your privacy, take your photos, make your personal information available, and even take your temperature! They own you and all your personal property and they know there's no timely expeditious alternative to air flight. Your stuck.
To make matters worse, trying to take something unusual out of a Communist Nation can make matters prohibitively complicated and harrowing. Will you be brought up on charges and serve out your life's remainder in confinement waiting for the rope? New Propeller technology, hundreds of processors, thousands of wires, towering electronic microprocessor boards - stuff that looks like a giant big blue bomb, and literally everything that is not allowed out of the country will make you sweat bullets! It becomes your worst nightmare.
Follow the link to see what happened and how it was handled. Opinions, views, actual experiences, and information by Humanoido in relation to the Big Brain Project. Disclaimer
CAN IT BEAT AIRPORT SECURITY?
http://humanoidolabs.blogspot.com/2012/03/big-brain-air-travel-consolidaton.html
Your Worst Nightmare or Not?
But how do you take the beast from the cradle and pass it through the ultimately tough and sometimes ruthless regime of Airport Security? Just look at one scenario - armed guards with machines guns and trigger happy fingers, vicious attack and "something sniffing" police dogs, impatient wild card people in menacing uniforms making unreasonable judgements with authority to make you bend over backwards, laws not necessarily beneficial to your luggage or the value of your personal effects or even your life, and damaging XRAY Radiation machines harmfully accumulative to health. What madness! Even babies can be indited, flight banned and ear tagged as terrorists in a system that readily and easily makes horrendous mistakes that make you the brunt of the dire consequences.
Wearing white gloves, they reach for ultimate unspoken levels of frisking your body in private places, meanwhile you endure the ultimately high levels of stress that's generated in going through these nightmare check points. In fact, they poke, prod, upset your luggage, go through your underwear, confiscate what they want, and upset you. They invade your privacy, take your photos, make your personal information available, and even take your temperature! They own you and all your personal property and they know there's no timely expeditious alternative to air flight. Your stuck.
To make matters worse, trying to take something unusual out of a Communist Nation can make matters prohibitively complicated and harrowing. Will you be brought up on charges and serve out your life's remainder in confinement waiting for the rope? New Propeller technology, hundreds of processors, thousands of wires, towering electronic microprocessor boards - stuff that looks like a giant big blue bomb, and literally everything that is not allowed out of the country will make you sweat bullets! It becomes your worst nightmare.
Follow the link to see what happened and how it was handled. Opinions, views, actual experiences, and information by Humanoido in relation to the Big Brain Project. Disclaimer
Comments
The device certainly could have been viewed as a timed detonation device for a series of four bombs (everything in the configuration could easily be switched to do that), but was really intended to control the daily cycle of cooling his pigs on his very rural pig farm that are cooled by a system that uses bio-gas from the pig s**t to drive large fans that are powered by a second hand Nissan 1800cc engine. Since they don't have electrical service at the pig farm, they could use the 12VDC battery on the Nissan engine to automate the system.
No problem regarding the electronics getting though departure, through Hong Kong in transist, or customs upon arrive. I guess it is just in, around, and out of the USA that makes airport people paranoid.
But I did have a problem with China Airlines cancelling my inbound flight as no one else was going into Chiang Mai, Thailand at time. After all, people were shooting at each other. So, I was shifted over to a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, then flew into Bangkok, and a domestic airline to Chiang Mai. What was supposed to be a two-three hour flight took roughly eight to ten.
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On another; earlier flight to San Francisco via Hong Kong, my wrist watch broke the day before departure. So I tossed a battery operated alarm clock in the suit case to keep time on arrival. That was a big mistake. After 16 hours in transist, I arrive in SFO - but my luggage was still in Hong Kong. Apparently the powers that be removed the suitcase and put in in a 'bomb quarenteen' at the end of the runway for 24 hours before sending it on. The luggage arrived the next day. So DON'T put ticking clocks in your luggage (yeah, my battery alarm clock did tick). It might be best to remove batteries from everything you pack.
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By the way, don't leave packages unattended at your local post office.
I worked for a company that was doing a bulk mailing of Christmas cards to all its clients and my boss had me take three rather large boxes of cards to the local post office for mailing. I have to carry them one by one from the car while he double parked. On the second trip back into the post office I was confronted by a rather hysterical postal worker about never leaving 'unattended boxes' in the post office. Apparently this particular worker had suffered one too many close calls.
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In sum, it might be best if you find other means of shipping electronics where items can be clearly declared and identified. We now have 'toner cartridge' bombs and other creative stuff.
Then there was the flight to SFO via the Phillipines about 5 years BEFORE Sept 11th where they searched everyone boarding for a mysterios liquid of 100cc or more. Apparently, they were looking for nitroglycerin as Al Quaida had sucessfully bombed a Phillipine Airline flight that was headed to Japan. As I said, it was about 5 years BEFORE! in early 1996. The lesson I learned is that the cheapest fights are usually the most dangerous and somebody knows something you don't.
And yes, I do wonder about how G.W. Bush missed 9/11 since we new Al Quadia was taking down airplanes so many years before.
Good points. Much of the paranoia in traveling stems from my experiences traveling into and out of the USA. Asia has gone relatively smooth. However, always remember to remove all batteries from your electronic devices. They can xray and if no batteries appear, there's less reason to become worked up over it.
The point about the size of the airline is valid. This time I switched from China Airlines to EVA for better luggage perks and there was absolutely no question asked about the Big Propeller Brain sleeping inside the center of the check-through luggage. Plus, I ended up with unlimited leg space and the ultimate seating, and the largest plane I have ever traveled on which led to the smoothest flight. The pilot was a master of his craft.
But the part about technology (and money) going out of China remains a complication. If you do shipping and declaration, expect never to see your electronics again. It's better to hire a large well known shipping company that does volume business with the China government and Customs as they already pay the fees up front.
Size matters. This time I checked with a smaller shipping company (bad idea) and they cited you can only take 7 clothes items in all the boxes or face fines, penalties, citations, and even jail time. The man was frantic about this. Plus they were going to check each item in the box, essentially unpacking it. The larger shipping companies said ship what you want as long as it's not hazardous. I went with the larger shipping company and expect to see the boxes in 3 to 4 days.
However, this is ok for parts that are not high priority but for something priceless like the Big Brain and related one-of-a-kind machines, I would only put the items in airline luggage. Note, do not put these items in carry-on. I remember the time I put my beloved Penguin robot into my carry-on bag. The bag went into the xray machine and took a while to come out. I had to do explaining with a translator that it was a hobby robot. In the end, they were smiling and laughing.
I have treatment with dignity and respect, like a human being, in Asia. I cannot say that about the USA. In the USA they took my wallet and dramatically dumped the contents on the dirty floor! Then they laughed and said, "go pick that up!" They treated me like a terrorist simply because I was returning home from my trip in Asia. Then they forced me to go collect my check-through luggage and bring it over and take everything out in front of everyone. When I tried to put it back together, they told me to "get the hell out of the way" and shoved me. Following that, I had to put up with a lengthy (and horrendous) interrogation by two USA agents with guns. That was the good treatment - the poor Asian man next to me was being abused in worse ways. I could hear them yelling at him and he was getting pushed around. His English was not good and they were taunting him. Next thing I saw they escorted him away somewhere. I don't know who was to blame for this, the USA government, airlines, President Bush, the agents, or all the above.