I had an open question for the powers that be here at Making Light. I've been thinking it might be both useful and fun to put together a writers index of the Making Light Archives. I did something similar with the Miss Snark Index over at the Wyrdsmiths blog. I wanted to make sure it would be all right with the folks here before I started the project.

I'll be more than happy to answer questions on what I'm thinking about doing, but I'm going to be away from the internet for most of today, so it'll be a bit before I get the chance.

I'm thinking specifically of the writing related posts here because that's what the Wyrdsmiths blog is aimed at. I should have another index, one of the Wyrdsmiths blog, up in a few days as a second example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'm not yet sure about how or if to note specific comments within threads because I haven't really looked at the details yet. Also, if I do this it's going to take at least several months and I'll probably post links to threads as I go over at Wyrdsmiths as I did in my best of Miss Snark series which began here.

So, what do you think?

Posted September 22, 2007 11:39 AM by Kelly McCullough

Autumn now comes, and we must not recoil
from welcoming the changing of the year
and the sharp clarity of morning air
as mind and body cease at last to boil.
I take a moment from the weekend's toil
to think about the things for which I care,
a simple moment that I need to spare
a sort of lubrication with sweet oil.
None of the days to come will be pure joy
but I look forward to a working time
when all that happens has an upward trend;
time and experience do not humour cloy,
another bell will have a clearer chime
and every year comes down to a clean end.

Posted September 22, 2007 11:46 AM by Fragano Ledgister

“But what have machine-breakers to do with the Raven King?”

That never fails to sound like the riddle that the bartender asked Thursday Next. Or with which Schmendrick stumped Rukh.

One of these days I will actually read Jonathan Strange... and the world will surely become a brighter place.

Posted September 22, 2007 12:20 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Boston police panic again.

Posted September 22, 2007 12:41 PM by Jon Meltzer

Walt Crowley has died.

Not a friend, so not going in my LJ, but a strong and informed influence on a generation of PNW activists.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:11 PM by JESR

Nicole @3, I dunno about the world-benefits of reading Jonathan Strange..., as I started reading it in the spring, and gave up about a third of the way through. And my world is definitely a brighter place for not continuing to slog through it.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:26 PM by oliviacw

The Boston cops' techno sense reeks,
in a town widely famed for its geeks,
their pulse rates go higher
when they see a loose wire,
they're much more at home with antiques.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:28 PM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Ursula K Le Guin admires Jeanette Winterson's new novel The Stone Gods in a review for the (UK) Guardian, but takes issue with Winterson's apparent reluctance to acknowledge that she's writing science fiction:

It's odd to find characters in a science-fiction novel repeatedly announcing that they hate science fiction. I can only suppose that Jeanette Winterson is trying to keep her credits as a "literary" writer even as she openly commits genre. Surely she's noticed that everybody is writing science fiction now? Formerly deep-dyed realists are producing novels so full of the tropes and fixtures and plotlines of science fiction that only the snarling tricephalic dogs who guard the Canon of Literature can tell the difference. I certainly can't. Why bother? I am bothered, though, by the curious ingratitude of authors who exploit a common fund of imagery while pretending to have nothing to do with the fellow-authors who created it and left it open to all who want to use it. A little return generosity would hardly come amiss.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:31 PM by Gag Halfrunt

JESR @ 5

I don't care if they broke the mold when they made Walt Crowley; send a team back to find all the pieces and we'll see if we can glue them together to make a few more like him.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:35 PM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Gag Hlafrunt @ 8... Yes, they now use our genre, but the taint is still there. As it used to be said, if it's SF, it can't be good, and if it's good, it can't be SF.

Besdies, 'they' may not realize that they ARE writing SF because, in their minds, SF is only about starships, blasters, weird aliens, that stuff. Would they consider A Canticle for Leibowitz to be SF?

Posted September 22, 2007 1:37 PM by Serge

Nicole @#3, oliviacw @#6: I got seriously bogged down in JS&MN about a third of the way into it, so I picked it up on audible.com and listened to it during my daily commute (for, like, a month). It's a loooong book, dry, and it seems filled with pointless wandering, but it's eminently worth taking the journey. I was torn between enjoyment and boredom for a lot of it, but by the last third I was completely entranced, and now I find that I love the whole thing...it's one of those books that stays in your head forever, and keeps you company.

That said, I know that Little, Big is a favorite of Patrick's and many others, and is in that same category of big, meandery book, filled with moving prose and so forth, and people say "just keep going, you'll be glad you finished it." I finished it, and YE GODS how I hate it. It's stuck in my head and I just hate it. Whereas for the first third or so, I really loved it. Sigh. So just because the right people (or the wrong ones, if you count me) tell you something is worth finishing doesn't you necessarily should.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:46 PM by Mary Dell

Bruce Cohen @9- Walt Crowley (along with Stephanie Coontz and the Seattle 9) was my hero when I was a teenager; I used to take Greyhound to Seattle to buy The Helix, which didn't always make it as far as Olympia. For the last forty years he's been a voice for specificity, for knowing the details of history and the environmental data which lead to good social decision making.

Posted September 22, 2007 1:50 PM by JESR

Fragano, that was very nice, but is one allowed to recoil from autumn if one's baseball team has executed a collapse over the past week and fallen out of contention for a playoff spot? This after being picked to win its division in the spring?

No, East Coasters, I'm referring to the Dodgers, not the Sox.

Posted September 22, 2007 2:27 PM by Linkmeister

Linkmeister, well, you could be talking about the Mariners.

Although since the preseason predictions had them last in the AL west I'm almost OK with the late August free-fall.

Posted September 22, 2007 2:29 PM by JESR

Linkmeister #13: Thanks. I have to say that I don't follow baseball (except what my local NPR station reports on the Braves), but autumn has other pleasures and rewards.

Posted September 22, 2007 2:32 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Kelly, a topical index is the sort of thing that we ought to be able to create automatically, if we (the various authors) had been making better use of Moveable Type's category and tag features. Sadly, we haven't. I'm not sure if anyone but me is using tags, and that feature probably didn't even exist when the blog was first set up.

I suppose, ideally, that there ought to be a way to take the index categories you create, and import that information back into the blog database, so we can use it when creating new posts.

Only, that would constrict us to a category system, when I'd much prefer a tagging system!

Posted September 22, 2007 2:50 PM by Avram

Y'all probably know about this already, but I thought this video of Benjamin Bagby reciting Beowulf to the accompaniment of a 6-string lyre was pretty cool:
http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/video/index.html

Posted September 22, 2007 2:59 PM by Janice in GA

Again with the "hoax device,"? You'd think some court ruling about intent (because a hoax is a form of fraud, one has to be trying to fool people) would clarify that.

What I found interesting is the photo of the MP-5 machine pistol/submachine gun (I like the MP-5, it's probably, even with it's flaws the best of that class of weapon).

1: Yahoo did a poor job of IDing it. I'm pretty sure the HNK is an eggcorn of H&K (Heckler und Koch).

2: That's a suppressed version, so if the cop starts shooting people are going to be less clear on what's happening. Yeah, it might reduce panic elsewhere at Logan, but the people in the splash zone are going to be less likely to hit the deck.

3: He has a seoond clip attached, so he's loaded for bear.

Across the board it seems to be overkill. IMO, someone with a pistol is just as effective at stopping someone who has a visible bomb strapped to their chest; because hitting them half a dozen times isn't going to be that much more effective than hitting them twice.

And pointing anything at them is about as effective as pointing anything else.

If you just wanted to take them out, a scoped rifle, in moderate caliber (say 30-30) will to that better then either a pistol, or a submachine gun.

Doltish behavior, all around.

Posted September 22, 2007 3:05 PM by Terry Karney

Definite overreaction to a 9volt battery and some LED's. The media is a bunch of suck ups for continuing to call it a "hoax device".

We've become afraid of exposed wire, basically.

I would wager that if someone walked into an airport talking on a cell phone with the cover taken off so that people can see exposed wire and a circuit board, you'd have yet another overreaction.

It has nothing to do with the size of the device. This was a 9 volt battery, some LED's (i.e. tiny), and an "electronic breadboard" which is a quarter inch thick, three inches wide, and maybe 7 inches wide. (A breadboard would be standard equipment for a freshman electrical engineer, but is common in high school science classes. On sale at Radio Shack.)

It has everything to do with our training from Hollywood about what bombs look like. Things with wires going all over the place. And if you cut the right one, you can disarm the thing. And if you cut the wrong one, it will instantly detonate. But that's the main component of our bomb silhouette training: wires.

Never mind that the shoe bomber guy had explosives and a fuse he was trying to light with a match. Never mind that the 9-11 guys didn't even HAVE a bomb. They had box cutters, there were several of them working as a team, and most importantly, they were on a PLANE, not at a fricken airport.

As a species, we've lost our damned minds.

As for the MP5, a shouldered weapon is going to be more accurate than any handgun, so there's that. Don't know why they have a suppressor on it. And I'm not a big fan of the double clip idea. Overall, thumbs down.

Posted September 22, 2007 3:49 PM by Greg London

Courage Vow.

Posted September 22, 2007 3:50 PM by Greg London

Looking at what happened.

The person at the counter over-reacted.

The cops reacted poorly. One cop, with back-up was all one probably needed. Observe her and then respond.

Examine the widget.

Let her go.

Because, from the cops' POV, they were told there was someone with a bomb. To not react to that, at all, would be irresponsible (after all, were I to spot something bomblike, I'd want it looked at).

When I was in college someone called in a possible bomb.

The campus cops called the LAPD bomb squad. The cordoned off that part of the parking lot, examined it while Al Reddick, the cop who was watching all this, and I joked about the idiot kids who got closer everytime the bomb squad went close to it. We put as much stuff between it, and us, when that happened).

They decided it wasn't a bomb, and took it away.

End of story.

Posted September 22, 2007 3:51 PM by Terry Karney

What is your opinion of the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez?

A brilliant leader who represents the opressed and defies imperialism
An antidemocratic despot looking to take over Latin America
A populist leader who uses oil to fuel an unsustainable program
A sign of growing resistance to capitalism
He's just some guy
No opinion

"Revolution is the main trend in the world today ...."

Well, maybe not so much as some might think?

Posted September 22, 2007 3:56 PM by Constance Ash

In another few hundreds of years, I suppose we will be hearing how Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and all come back to us in times of travail. Now might be a good time.

Posted September 22, 2007 3:59 PM by Randolph Fritz

Greg:

I'm of a mixed mind on the MP-5. I like it. I appreciate that it's more accurate (it's damned accurate).

But I also appreciate that cops are not always the most rational of actors. I know they are lousy shots ((despite regular training).

I recall a case in Compton, 2 cops, each emptied the best part of 2 clips (14 rds per clip), at a distance of about 7 yards (the range they train for). They hit the guy something like 5 times, total; between them.

So giving a cop the option to go full-auto... color me nervous.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:03 PM by Terry Karney

Greg @ 19... As a species, we've lost our damned minds.

I think something else is going on. When an incompetent - whether an individual or an organization - gets sloppy and really fucks up as a result, it tends to overcompensate. Makes life annoying for the rest of us, mind you.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:09 PM by Serge

Greg London @#20:

I prefer the Litany.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:14 PM by Mary Dell

I just read that Chavez has ordered the time zone of Venezuela changed to a weird half-hour zone with very little advance notice; this has the worldwide timekeeping and software development communities up in arms because it messes up all the software that doesn't have that strange new zone as an option.

On another subject, a Wikipedia ArbCom case is now in progress about the whole silly "BADSITES" thing. This site is being mentioned among others.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:19 PM by Dan

Fragrano @ #2, boil? Dissolve, perhaps. (OK, so despite the Canadian television coverage most of the UK remained unflooded, but boyoboy was it wet: my garden was a rippling sheet of water from edge to edge more than once.)

Posted September 22, 2007 4:23 PM by Nix

Re: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell

I'm going to stick up for this novel here (no spoilers):

Yes the first third is slow-paced, and the focus character of that third is throughly unlikeable, but there were still some wonderous sights to see (scenery, worldbuild, turns of phrase: see Uncle Jim's extended quote, for example, although that particular passage occurs around the middle of the novel).

The pace of the novel picks up starting with the second third of the novel, and I finished the last third of the novel in a rush. I had read the first 2/3rds as my commute reading over 3 months or so, but by the start of the 3rd section of the novel, I really wanted to know what happened next ASAP, and finished the rest of it in an evening. I felt all that slogging (though I think it wasn't that much of a slog, YMMV) in the early going does get rewarded in the end.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:33 PM by Bernard Yeh

Terry, I'm with you on the whole thing about the MP5, but I think there are semi-auto-only versions for Police use.

Full-auto would be plain stupid in any likely terrorist situation, but expecially when the targets are so outnumbered by the innocent.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:37 PM by Dave Bell

Re: @29

Dammit, then I misspell the title and mis-attribute the host who opened the thread...

Norell -> Norrell

and

Uncle Jim -> Patrick

(sorry)

Posted September 22, 2007 4:39 PM by Bernard Yeh

#19: I agree. Why aren't the media filing stories along the lines of "college student arrested for wearing a breadboard with a few LEDs"? It would, at least, make it clear that no one in power reactedly reasonably here.

Like Terry @21, I think if all the cops hear is "someone with a possible bomb," they have to investigate. However, like the last time TPTB in Boston over-reacted, it seems like they're distorting events all out of proportion to justify their over-reaction post hoc. I have to wonder what it is about Boston, specifically. (Logan is my closest airport so I'm not casting stones from afar.)

#25: People with a responsibility to protect the public are behaving as if they've just gotten a chain letter about people who have their kidneys stolen at parties. Yes, they're pretty certain the story is a total hoax, but what if it's true? They view the negative consequence of perpetuating a false story to be less than the negative consequence of not perpetuation a true story.

Apparently, Boston law enforcement would rather make unjust arrests and baseless charges than allow the possibility of letting any terrorist succeed. (I believe Cheney referred to something like this as the "1% Doctrine.") Never mind that they can prevent terrorism without making unjust arrests and baseless charges.

I mean, at the end of the day, we are not safer because they arrested an MIT student for wearing a breadboard. It just says shows that they are not competent to evaluate what is, or is not, a bomb.

The antedote for this, as we all know, is to refuse to be terrorized. Margaret Cho points this out in one of her concert CDs to great applause, so I figure it can't be that controversial an idea. OTOH, we, as a society, seem to be much more comfortable with the running scared thing. (I found the people commenting at BoingBoing suggesting that the fault lay with her for wearing a breadboard rather sad. We can argue over the wisdom of her action, but to decide how she was treated was some inevitable result really is blaming the victim.)

If I were in the mood to blame the Bush administration, I'd say that, to some extent, the leader of the country does set the tone. Imagine if Winston Churchill had behaved like George W. Bush.

[Note: I used to comment here as JC, but the email address I use here always had my name in it anyways. So, I've decided it's less confusing just to use my name, and not actually any less anonymous. OTOH, my name is so generic that I'm not sure it matters. At VPX, the first thing Cory said to me was that he knew a (non-genre) writer in Toronto named John Chu.]

Posted September 22, 2007 4:42 PM by John Chu

#27: I think I've read that Chavez has seen sense and delayed his new time zone because people like the BIPM complained. But it really shouldn't be a big deal for the software industry. Countries change their time zones, or daylight saving, quite often (Sri Lanka changed from UTC+6 to UTC+5:30 last year) and any good software should be able to accommodate Venezuela's change easily. Microsoft already has a hotfix out, and so do some other vendors.

Posted September 22, 2007 4:59 PM by John Stanning

Oh, and Egypt changed its daylight saving time with only two weeks' notice, for this year only, to make life easier during Ramadan which started on September 13th. Nobody complained that I heard; hotfixes appeared in time.

Posted September 22, 2007 5:06 PM by John Stanning

John Chu @ 32... I'd say that, to some extent, the leader of the country does set the tone.

To say the least. Mind you, setting up a climate of fear served Chimpy quite well for a few years, thus helping him and his gang to get away with shit, but people are finally waking up. I hope.

Posted September 22, 2007 5:08 PM by Serge

On the bright side, at least the Boston police stopped to find out if she was really carrying a bomb before shooting her in the head, unlike London's finest.

Posted September 22, 2007 5:15 PM by Iain Coleman

Since the student in question was a former private school student out here on Maui, there's been quite a stir of interest, including quotations from former classmates and teachers, all along the lines of "she's brilliant and this is silly. Ok, she was dopey to wear that, but get over it!"

And yeah, the Boston cop or airport authority who said "it's a good thing she behaved or she might have ended up in the morgue" infuriated me.

Posted September 22, 2007 5:20 PM by Linkmeister

John Stanning @#33:
The cost involved in changing DST here in the US was enormous.

"Windows has a hotfix" means "every machine at your company that runs windows has to be touched. Many have to be rebooted, causing outages for your users. Non-windows machines have to be corrected by hand. You have to write new software for that odd appliance under that VIP's desk. The time clocks that you depend on for trading will need to be hand-synchronized at 2 am by a 3rd party consultant here on-site. All of the apointments in your exchange calendars will have to be re-written using a risky process developed on-the-hot by microsoft. This change to the calendar is not compatible with the equivalent blackberry update, so there will be a three-week period where your Managing Directors, must avoid creating or accepting appointments on their blackberries. You get to explain this to them. Etc. etc etc."

At least, that's what it meant for me and my teammates....

Posted September 22, 2007 5:25 PM by Mary Dell

Joining in with thinking this Logan incident is beyond the pale. Has the fascination with terror moved up to the level of Sturgeon's fable "Mr. Costello, Hero"? I fear it's true. How can we move past the Costellos?

Posted September 22, 2007 5:54 PM by Tom Whitmore

Tom Whitmore...

Lou Costello?
"A-a-a-a-a-bbott!!!!"

Posted September 22, 2007 5:57 PM by Serge

OK, so who's on next?

Posted September 22, 2007 6:04 PM by Dave Bell

A typical Friday night in our house:
------

(loud crashing sound from second floor)

Wife: "What is your daughter doing, she's supposed to be in bed?!"

Me: "Why do you seek knowledge that can only bring you terror, despair and doom?"

(another crash, with several thumps)

Wife: "Are you going up there or not?"

(sound of door opening upstairs)

Daughter yells: "Daddy, can I have your sword?"

Me: "No way am I going up there, who knows what she summoned this time..."

Posted September 22, 2007 6:32 PM by Lance Weber

#36: I fear that if she had been nonwhite or Middle Eastern looking, they would not have waited.

Posted September 22, 2007 6:39 PM by Jon Meltzer

Terry wrote: " IMO, someone with a pistol is just as effective at stopping someone who has a visible bomb strapped to their chest; because hitting them half a dozen times isn't going to be that much more effective than hitting them twice."

True, but there could be multiple perps, not just one, and they might have guns, not just a potential bomb. It wouldn't make much sense for the cops to wait for an exact threat description before leisurely selecting the ideal armament for a situation. At least they didn't break out a 5.56mm electric minigun.

Speaking as a guy with breadboards and LEDs in his possession, I'm willing to give the cops some slack on this case. She supposedly had putty or play-doh (color unknown) in hand, which makes it rather different from just wearing a breadboard with LEDs, or hanging cartoon character signs.

The PD get credit from me for not going nuts, shutting down the airport, filling it with a thousand extra cops, strip-searching everyone on the premises, and billing the student for the overtime. That's what I would have expected after the Mooninite incident.

Seems to me she's just a slightly odd, smart MIT student with exceptionally poor judgement.

What really disturbs me is the treatment of what was written on her shirt as something noteworthy or suspicious. "Course VI" (her major, I guess) and "socket to me" which strikes me as just some hardware hacker in-joke.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:08 PM by Jon H

#43: Star Simpson does look non-white, but not Middle Eastern. Based on the way she looks and the fact that she's from Hawai'i, I assume that she's of (partly?) Native Hawai'ian or Japanese ancestry.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:16 PM by Gag Halfrunt

"I mean, at the end of the day, we are not safer because they arrested an MIT student for wearing a breadboard. It just says shows that they are not competent to evaluate what is, or is not, a bomb."

It's reported that she had putty with her. Are you saying our security guards should be able to do chemical analysis by sight alone?

That's a pretty high standard. Ridiculously high.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:19 PM by Jon H

Also, the "wanted to stand out on career day" just seems lame, given the crap craftsmanship of the device. Any bright 6th grader could put her shirt thing together, with a few parts from Radio Shack and instructions from the internet. Soldering isn't even required.

It's about as impressive as if she'd brought a laptop to career day running
10 PRINT "YOU SMELL!"
20 GOTO 10

I'd frankly expect better from an MIT student, especially considering the wonderful workshop they have access to.

Apparently she can do far more interesting work, but that shirt's just crap.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:33 PM by Jon H

"The cops reacted poorly. One cop, with back-up was all one probably needed. Observe her and then respond."

I'm sure if the cops and the person at the counter had your perspective from the future, they could make a cool, reasonable response like that.

Also, it's not like educated college girls have never engaged in terrorism - the Baader-Meinhof people, for example.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:44 PM by Jon H

Thing is, she is lucky to be alive--but saying that shouldn't be a condemnation of her behavior. I, too, am lucky to be alive due to circumstances beyond my control. I'm fairly certain most of us can think of a time or two in our lives when other's mistakes brought us close to doom.

What I get furious about are the people who say of Star, "She's lucky to be alive," as though of a person who dosed up on alcohol and cocaine before driving 100 mph up Speer Ave, when they should be saying it as though of a person who was walking down the street minding her own business when some gangster shot at her because he thought she was wearing his rival's colors.

(And I'm just saying it because I feel better for saying it, is all. I know I'm preaching to the choir, and I'm not correcting anyone or accusing them of ambiguity. I'm just letting off steam in a particularly Type-A way.)

Posted September 22, 2007 7:55 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Everyone knows that all bombs have blinky-lights on them. Therefore anything wtih blinky-lights on it is a bomb.

They're that way in the movies and the movies never get it wrong.

Posted September 22, 2007 7:56 PM by James D. Macdonald

I don't know if this has come across here, yet, but a friend sent me the link and I found this little "agent pitch" sketch hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0

Posted September 22, 2007 8:05 PM by A.J. Luxton

It seems contradictory to say of Star's device that it was something that any 6th grader could construct, and yet a cop would have to have magic future vision to calmly assess its threat value before pulling a gun on her. It's both trivially accomplishable AND a clever bomb-resembling device that cops oughtn't to be blamed for overreacting to?

Or is your argument that cops ought to be expected to pull guns on 6th graders with Radio Shack projects? 'Cause I don't think I can agree with that.

Posted September 22, 2007 8:21 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Or, if creating a bomb-resembling device that can fool a well-trained cop into overreacting with lethal force is so simple as to be trivially accomplishable by any 6th grader with Radio Shack parts, then clearly the situation is not such that cops with lethal force is a good solution. Perhaps we should be shutting down Radio Shack. Or dismantling commercial air travel. Because false positives are inevitably prohibitively frequent. Because things that can reasonably be expected to fool cops into pulling a gun on someone are freakin' omnipresent.

Why *have* cops if all they can do is threaten and maybe kill any random 6th grader displaying blinking lights and/or exposed wires from Radio Shack? Unless we can train them to accurately assess threat levels, trust them not to overreact to someone's science project, they are making the situation worse even if there are terrorists in among the 6th grade science fair offerings. The police become the terrorists.

I prefer Terry Karney's way of thinking about this, personally. I prefer to think that competence in law enforcement is not impossible. I prefer holding cops responsible for grotesque overreactions than resigning myself to a world in which the dead person is held to blame if those overexciteable poor dears shoot someone for wearing DIY blinking-LED jewelry.

Posted September 22, 2007 8:32 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

So the elementary school science teachers who (around 1980) taught us kids to make basic circuits with "C" batteries, tiny light bulbs, switches, and masses of brightly colored and infinitely tangled telephone wire (to keep costs down, materials were reused from former classes), attached with wads of masking tape inside shoeboxes, were actually teaching us how to make IEDs. The mind boggles.

Of course, it was a progressive elementary school.

Posted September 22, 2007 8:36 PM by sara

Jon H @46: Are you saying our security guards should be able to do chemical analysis by sight alone?

No. But, after that chemical analysis comes back negative, and it turns out that she has a plausible explanation for wearing such a device, and her statement that she wears it regularly is supported by independent witnesses (as happened, according to another site I read about this on), then the charges against her should be dropped. Immediately. This hasn't happened yet.

Posted September 22, 2007 8:36 PM by Jules

Come to think of it, I did build a device with blinky LEDs and loose wires in sixth grade, and someone did tell me they thought it looked like a bomb. (It was actually an "electronic thumb" prop for a book report I did on The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

Posted September 22, 2007 8:48 PM by Wim L

YASID request-- one of the pix at the "Challenging Nature" particle has half-reminded me of a story which may've been written by Ted Sturgeon and iirc was in an anthology edited by Judith Merrill (yeah, I know that really narrows things down):

A young man climbs over a wall into the grounds of a vast estate. Initially, he'd been led there by a friend who wanted to show him the mosaic-tiled pool, which they dubbed "the old swimming hole", but this time on his own, he nearly drowns. He's pulled out by the resident heiress (iirc her first name is Sylva?), who instantly falls in love with him. Shortly after their wedding, he's diagnosed with lethally advanced choriocarcinoma.

She arranges for all of his budding teratomas to be artificially gestated in case any of them turn out to be fully developmentally viable. Before he dies, she gets him to recount every single detail and memory of his life so his prospective clones (though I don't think the word "clone" was actually used) can have his entire upbringing replicated to duplicate his original personality as well. Once everything is in place, she has herself put into cold storage to be thawed back out when the clone is the right age; the very end of the story confronts the reader with the possibility of unknowingly being that clone.

I riffled through two Sturgeon anthos in the library this afternoon and didn't find it in either of those. Does anyone recognize this story and know the title?

Posted September 22, 2007 8:50 PM by Julie L.

Constance Ash #22: Hugo Chávez Frías seems to be the first and fourth.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:36 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Nix #28: I live in Atlanta, where, this summer, it has got very hot. Very hot. Last summer the rubber feet on my office phone melted. My office building now has working air-conditioning. 'Boil' is the word. Adding extra letters to my name, btw, may make me laugh.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:39 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Chavez: Dictator trying to make himself El Permanent Honcho by the salami method (one slice at a time.) Plus ungood.

As for the JS&MN category, who's read The Ladies of Grace Adieu?

Posted September 22, 2007 9:48 PM by Tony Zbaraschuk

That text about the machine-breakers reminds me of a library book about the popular perception of the Luddites (vs the reality) which I only had time to read the start of before I had to return it for someone, probably more interested than I, who'd requested it. Against technology : from the Luddites to Neo-Luddism by Steven E. Jones.

I struggled through the first large portion of JS&MN despite the fact that I couldn't find *anyone* to sympathise with, because it had lots of sparkly bits. I'd then just got to a part where I was consistently enjoying the story and, mid-sentence, discovered 16 or 32 pages were missing. Fortunately the store I'd bought it from, though I no longer had the receipt, were happy to exchange it for a copy which did have all its pages; and then I loved the rest of it (though I'm still pondering the ending - I think it'll feel better on a reread, knowing that it's coming like that).

To Fragano, from Down Under:

Spring is begun, and we must now uncoil
from the warm shelter of dark winter's lair
and blink in sunlight; take it as a dare
to greet anew the fern's unfolding foil.
Up work the seeds through the indifferent soil:
the flowers, the weeds alike are rooted there,
and I must sort among them for my share
of thyme's sweet scent and summer's juicy spoil.
There is no end to bindweed's subtle ploys,
or dandelions embedded deep in grime,
yet daffodils rise over all and grin;
I plant anew the shoots a frost destroys,
and gather bright camellias where they climb --
and with such hope shall each new year begin.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:52 PM by Zeborah

Dave @ #41:

What doth inhabit the secondary position.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:55 PM by Michael R. Bernstein

Constance Ash #22: Hmmm, there doesn't seem to be enough of a variety of anti-Chavez options in your poll.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:58 PM by Earl Cooley III

Fragano, are you on LJ? I've seen a couple of comments on LJ-posts by denizens of the fluorosphere by somebody using an accountname that could be a shortening of your name--initial+surname.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:59 PM by Dave Bell

Tony Zbaraschuk @#60:

As for the JS&MN category, who's read The Ladies of Grace Adieu?

I've read the title story in the collection and liked it quite a lot, although it might not be as cool if you haven't read JS&MN. I'm working my way through the collection and so far it's precisely what I expected...lovely, elegant tales, no adrenaline. It's as if some of the footnotes in JS&MN had been spun out into proper stories.

Posted September 22, 2007 9:59 PM by Mary Dell

Zeborah #61: That's wonderful! Thank you.

Posted September 22, 2007 10:04 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Dave Bell #64: That would be 'fledgist', and that would be me, yes.

Posted September 22, 2007 10:06 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Xopher...

You were right. What about? I just finished watching Doctor Who's episode blink and it is one of the best time-travel stories done as a TV show and/or movie.

Besides that, I was amused that the first commercial break start with a proud announcement that the episode was sponsored by the people of the United Methodist Church.

Posted September 22, 2007 11:06 PM by Serge

Nigerian scam letter of the week:

"Dear beloved, My name is Rahman Sarif, A Bahrain national,I have been diagnosed with Oesophageal cancer .It has defiled all forms of medical treatment..."

Posted September 22, 2007 11:32 PM by George Smiley

Starkle starkle little twink...

Posted September 22, 2007 11:32 PM by JKRichard

Fragano, #67, huh. I never thought that was you! I thought it was someone either with birds or arrows. And I suppose you may not know that I'm mjlayman.

(A new batch of house finch fledglings today! The third for the summer, which is rare. Usually we just get two.)

Posted September 22, 2007 11:34 PM by Marilee

Julie L. @ 57: Oh jeez, I know the anthology and the story, but I can't remember the title. (Gur jbzna vf gur qrfpraqrag bs n fynire jub qrpvqrf gung jrnygu vf rivy orpnhfr bs gur rail vg vafcverf va bguref, naq fb vf qrgrezvarq gb uvqr uvf jrnygu?)

I think there's another story in the same collection about a Native-American who is part of the team that does the initial survey on a new world. He is convinced that the local herd species is sentient, though not verbal, and tries to convince the company that owns the planet of the fact. They ignore him, saying that he's just projecting, and proceed to to commit enviromental genocide. Does that sound familiar? The title of this story has something about "sun" in it.

from the Le Guin review of Stone Gods: "particularly when Spike succeeds, as I think no other detached head has, in having sex. "

Clearly, Le Guin has not been watching the new Doctor Who series.

Posted September 22, 2007 11:37 PM by Heresiarch

Clearly, Le Guin has not been watching the new Doctor Who series.

Or Re-Animator.

Posted September 22, 2007 11:48 PM by Tim Walters

Terry@24: Given a choice between semi-auto 9mm and semi-auto 30-30, I'd rather see the cops at airports carrying 9mm's since odds are they'll be firing near crowds of people. And I think a 30-30 has more penetration than a 9mm, although I'm a little rusty.

Cops certainly shouldn't have full auto weapons. The only time cops will run into needing full auto will be in a hollywood terrorist plot.

Every shot should be an aimed shot.

Posted September 22, 2007 11:57 PM by Greg London

Serge@25: When an incompetent - whether an individual or an organization - gets sloppy

Except that I've been reading plenty of comments on other blogs about this where commenters are saying the cops did the right thing or didn't do enough. Someone commented that since it could have been a bomb, the cops should have shot her on sight.

So, it isn't just an organizational thing. There is a rather large swath of people who have lost their minds, enough, I think perhaps, to say it is a species thing.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:02 AM by Greg London

Greg London @ 74... The only time cops will run into... the only Time Lord?

Posted September 23, 2007 12:06 AM by Serge

No, no, Serge, he meant Timecops.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:08 AM by ethan

Mary@26, the problem I have with the Litany is that the first line is "I must not fear", which is an impossible demand. Of course we fear. The thing is to still act rationally in the presence of fear. There have been times where I've been driving a car or flying a plane, or whatever, where I felt tremendous, ohmygodimgonnadie fear, and still kept at the controls.

I've had visions of fireballs playing through my mind as I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing to land in an emergency. Of course I will feel fear. The point is that if you freeze up because of it, you'll auger in and die. But really, I see little difference between that and someone succumbing to fear and letting their civil rights auger in and die too.

I don't want to tell folks that they must not feel fear. I think that would be impossible. But I would like to see people separate their fear from their decision making process. That at least has some slim chance of making it.

I don't know why, but I'm noticing a rather morbid subprocess going on in the brain that's trying to tally up all the close calls I've had in my lifetime. I can think of about a dozen incidents where death was a possibility.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:18 AM by Greg London

Greg @ 74 and Terry @ 24:

A pistol is what you use to fight your way to a long gun.

We do not, of course, know what trigger module is in that MP5. It could be plain semi-auto. Most likely, it is selective-fire with a choice between semi-auto and 3-shot burst. It is *highly* unlikely to be full auto. And yes, 9 mm penetrates less than 30-30 (assuming conventional ammo), and yes, it is VASTLY more controllable than a pistol would be. Many studies indicate that for typical police shootings, much less than 50% of the rounds end up in the target. This means that much more than 50% of the rounds stop somewhere else. In this respect the MP-5 is a much safer weapon than a pistol. The suppressor allows the operator to not lose his or her hearing. Weapons fired indoors are LOUD. Although I dislike the police-state like aspect of having cops walking around with submachine guns, in purely rational terms the officer carrying (and trained for) the MP-5 is far less likely to cause collateral damage than the more typical officer who's carrying a .40 caliber Glock, if they face the same circumstances.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:23 AM by George Smiley

ethan @ 77... How could I forget that, not only did Timecop star the Muscles from Brussels, but it was also directed by Peter Hyams. Be still, my cinema-loving heart.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:24 AM by Serge

It strikes me that the only thing the Wicked Terrorists need to do in order to sneak a bomb onto an airplane is refrain from sticking blinky-lights on it.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:46 AM by James D. Macdonald

Mary @26, Greg @78:
Then there's Martin's wonderfully concise Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Posted September 23, 2007 12:52 AM by S. Dawson

About the fake bomb incident - I know it's going to sound a bit snarky, but did she have a minute of thought beforehand that someone might misintepret her toy? It doesn't excuse the overreaction of the cops, but still.

Posted September 23, 2007 1:18 AM by Steve C.

Serge @ 68

You'll be happy to know that the Torchwood episode that was on last night on BBC America (DirectTV) has an equally good take on acausal loops of a slightly different sort. Good stuff.

Posted September 23, 2007 1:41 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Hey all,
How would you write "I'll sue!" in Latin?
Thanks in advance.

Posted September 23, 2007 1:50 AM by J Austin

Bruce Cohen @ 84... Alas, we get BBC America only occasionally here in Albuquerque, due to their having to accomodate all those religious channels where people tells their viewers that they must send money, which will give God the incentive to fix their bad hair. It's either that or creepy bishops.

Posted September 23, 2007 1:53 AM by Serge

Heresiarch @72: (Gur jbzna vf gur qrfpraqrag bs n fynire jub qrpvqrf gung jrnygu vf rivy orpnhfr bs gur rail vg vafcverf va bguref, naq fb vf qrgrezvarq gb uvqr uvf jrnygu?)

Yes, exactly! "Thou shalt not covet, nor cause other people to covet..."

Offhand, I don't recall the other story you mentioned, but it may've simply bounced off me at the time. Or it may've been a different antho. When I try to remember any more details, all I get is a sensory blur of a dark blue cover, a faint scent of mildew, and the very bitter taste my fingertips picked up from the paper. Between that detail and a childhood story from one of Lang's [Color] Fairy Books about a king who was poisoned by a pre-treated tome, that was the exact point at which I stopped licking my fingertips to turn pages.

Posted September 23, 2007 2:17 AM by Julie L.

"It strikes me that the only thing the Wicked Terrorists need to do in order to sneak a bomb onto an airplane is refrain from sticking blinky-lights on it."

On the other hand, if we decide that anything with blinky-lights is just good natured nerdy fun, then they just have to stick blinky-lights on it.

(In this case, though, I expect she would have attracted the same attention if they were unblinky capacitors and resistors displayed in the same fashion.)

Posted September 23, 2007 2:29 AM by Jon H

"It seems contradictory to say of Star's device that it was something that any 6th grader could construct, and yet a cop would have to have magic future vision to calmly assess its threat value before pulling a gun on her. It's both trivially accomplishable AND a clever bomb-resembling device that cops oughtn't to be blamed for overreacting to?"

Er, yes.

If the goal is to have an impressive display for career day, and you go to MIT - that being the key to my point , then you don't want to have some messy bit of breadboard that a sixth grader could put together.

If you're a ham-handed terrorist, then you may be satisfied with something that will work, even if it looks like crap. You're not trying to impress anyone with the wire wrapping skills.

"Sloppy and easy" aren't synonymous with "harmless".

Also, just because the wires and lights are visible doesn't mean that there couldn't be hard-to-see wires running into holes in the shirt to concealed explosives. No, that wouldn't be logical, but logic isn't really the strong point of people who go around bombing things.

Posted September 23, 2007 2:48 AM by Jon H

I think the canonical weird piece of actual bomb apparel would have to be the one from the pizza guy/bank robber in Pennsylvania - the one where the guy claimed to have a bomb under his shirt which was locked around his neck. All that was visible was a steel collar contraption and a lump under his shirt.

Turned out he wasn't lying, and before the cops could figure out what to do, it blew up and killed the guy.

Now, if someone shows up at the airport with a similar getup, i suppose the cops could just assume it's a steampunk art project or some kind of weird cosplay, but I think that would be a bad decision.

Posted September 23, 2007 2:57 AM by Jon H

And exactly how many people are there going around bombing things in America, with or without blinky ights?

Here's the fact: If someone wanted to bomb anything at all, that person would succeed. The bomb might not work, but it would get to its intended target.

The entire TSA and Department of Homeland Security could be disbanded tomorrow with a net increase of actual terrorist acts in America of, oh, zero.

Posted September 23, 2007 3:02 AM by James D. Macdonald

George Smiley @ 79

All very good points and true, but...

It is *highly* unlikely to be full auto

True if we assume the police officers' superiors to be competent and that those officers haven't disobeyed their orders. Remember that standing orders for the Ohio National Guard on that day in Kent was not to load live ammunition. The orders were disobeyed, and a squad of inexperienced classroom soldiers got rattled and opened fire. I'm expecting this to happen in an airport anytime now.

And if they're not full auto, why did that officer need a 30 round clip?

in purely rational terms the officer carrying (and trained for) the MP-5

My experience is that police officers are rarely properly trained for their normal tasks, let alone special tasks like stopping bomb-carrying terrorists in crowded airport terminals. Portland is not a very large city, and we get at least 3 or 4 incidents a year with the city police alone where inadequate training, or poor fire-discipline indicating bad training gets some civilian killed or seriously injured. And the incidents that I hear about from other cities, indicate similar problems. I simply do not believe it is necessary, for instance, for four New York City police officers to put more than 50 9mm rounds into 3 or 4 suspects, and I don't believe that that amount of fire meets their fire-discipline guidelines. One of those cops fired 31 times, going through 2 clips, and they were all shooting at a single car (whose occupants appear to have been unarmed, but that's a different can or worms).

Posted September 23, 2007 3:05 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Julie L. and #57:

I was pretty sure that story was in the collection The Golden Helix, but I've just been to the basement and fetched it. Doesn't seem like it matches any of the stories there.

A hunch set me to googling.

The story you want is "When You Care, When You Love." It's in the book Case and the Dreamer and it also appears in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction #25. It's the beginning of a novel Sturgeon never finished.

Posted September 23, 2007 3:08 AM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

I wonder how likely it would be to have security hassles if one went to the airport with this chemical formula printed on a t-shirt.

I think I will leave that experiment to others.

Posted September 23, 2007 3:11 AM by Bruce Arthurs

Bruce Arthurs @ 94

Putting on my snark hat, I'd bet that it would be moderately likely to get you stopped and questioned, but probably less likely than if you were wearing a tee shirt with the differential form of Maxwell's Equation on it. "Pull this one aside, he's got arabic on his shirt."

Posted September 23, 2007 3:16 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

The Sturgeon story people are looking for is called "When You Care, When You Love". Happy to be of service.

As for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I loved it from the very first page and wished it wouldn't end. This is a rare reaction to a book for me.

Posted September 23, 2007 3:18 AM by David Goldfarb

Shoot! Bill beat me by 10 minutes.

Posted September 23, 2007 3:21 AM by David Goldfarb

As well as the technical advantages of an MP-5, there's an intimidation element. A thirty-round clip makes you look ready to fight a battle and, for good or ill, that's the image of Hollywood terrorism (The most recent Tom Clancy novel I read had such a sequence in a shopping mall.)

It's not so reassuring to the people who are aware of the weaknesses in US Police forces.

Posted September 23, 2007 4:09 AM by Dave Bell

As well as the technical advantages of an MP-5, there's an intimidation element. A thirty-round clip makes you look ready to fight a battle and, for good or ill, that's the image of Hollywood terrorism (The most recent Tom Clancy novel I read had such a sequence in a shopping mall.)

It's not so reassuring to the people who are aware of the weaknesses in US Police forces.

Posted September 23, 2007 4:09 AM by Dave Bell

Out here in Western Australia, an mandatory enquiry is under way into the actions of a police officer who drew his pistol, shot and killed a man on an isolated country road. The cop was alone, and had pulled a motorist over after receiving a report that the car had driven away from a filling station without paying. Unknown to the cop, the motorist was wanted in Victoria for a double murder, and had already served time for armed robbery.

The bloke pulled over, knowing that the cop was a long way from back-up. He got out of the car, seemed co-operative enough, and waited until the cop turned to check his licence plate, then attacked him from behind, but bare-handed. The cop sustained concussion, two black eyes and a broken nose, and fell to the ground. He didn't have his pistol out, but he then drew it and fired twice. Both bullets struck his assailant in the torso, and the second one killed him. The weapon was the standard police issue .38.

Two points occur to me. One, if the bloke had had a gun, the cop would probably be dead. Two, the cop did very well indeed under the circumstances to hit him twice in two shots. Of course there had to be an enquiry. The results are not in yet.

Posted September 23, 2007 6:38 AM by Dave Luckett

Greg London @#78: I know that courage is different than lack of fear, and it's a quality I focus on a lot in life. Of course it's impossible to have no fear, but I like the litany for its bravado--in the book Paul uses it not as a criticism of himself for having fear, as a way of wrestling his fear into a manageable state when he needs to be brave. It's an incitement to courage.

I don't recite the whole thing to myself, but "fear is the mind-killer" has been a useful mantra for me on many occasions. Fear is a function of the animal self; courage is one of the blessings of reason.

Posted September 23, 2007 7:18 AM by Mary Dell

Has Wikipedia always had a donation request at the top of the page? I see it rotates through various versions.

"Make a donation to Wikipedia and give the gift of knowledge!"

"Help us provide free content to the world by donating today!"

"Help us improve Wikipedia by supporting it financially."

Also, I notice that "Gom jabbar" has its very own article, with no challenges about notability or citation, and Dune is not one of its references. I guess it's ok to chronicle every detail of something as long as it's not a critical communication medium like usenet. Of course, some wanker editor will probably read this comment and go pounce on the thing.

Posted September 23, 2007 7:30 AM by Mary Dell

Fragano @59, I have consistently misread your name for at least two years and only now note the absence of a second `r', sorry.

The power of the mind when it knows what it's looking at, even if it's not...

Posted September 23, 2007 7:49 AM by Nix

#72: ID request for a story that isn't "When You Care, When You Love" (as already identified) but was in the same collection....

That sounds like Robert Silverberg's "Sundance", so the collection is probably the Silverberg/Greenberg The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980, aka Great Science Fiction of the 20th Century 1987), which contains both.

Posted September 23, 2007 8:09 AM by Dave Langford

It seems to me that the main issue here is the enormous rarity of terrorists. Since terrorists are apparently less than one person in a million traveling on airplanes, almost anything you do to detect them will find dozens or hundreds of "false positives" per terrorist. So you need a very careful, gentle procedure for handling possible terrorist incidents, knowing that nearly all of them will be false alarms.

Posted September 23, 2007 8:23 AM by albatross

Julie L., Bill Higgins: Aha! "WYC,WYL" was also published in Great Science Fiction of the 20th Century, which also contained "Sundance," by Robert Silverberg, which was the story that I was thinking of.

Jon H @ 89: "Also, just because the wires and lights are visible doesn't mean that there couldn't be hard-to-see wires running into holes in the shirt to concealed explosives. No, that wouldn't be logical, but logic isn't really the strong point of people who go around bombing things."

That's convenient, how we can assume that our enemies are just precisely the exact blend of dangerous and stupid that happens to justify cops treating anyone with unorthodox accessories as a terrorist.

Besides which, is anyone actually arguing that the correct response to this was total inaction? No. Mostly, I hear people saying that it might be nice if the Boston police were capable of some response level between sitting on their asses and throwing teenagers in jail under ridiculous pretenses.

Posted September 23, 2007 8:38 AM by Heresiarch

Dave Langford @ 104: Oh, hey there. A lesson on the importance of refreshing the page before you post!

Posted September 23, 2007 8:43 AM by Heresiarch

Suicide bommbers do not usually advertise their existence, so the rule of thumb on any openly worn piece of kit that might, if you squint, look like a bomb, is that it probably isn't a bomb.

Of course, from the point of view of the cops, overreaction is always better than not reacting, as one bomb attack can ruin your whole career while harassing innocent citizens has no influence whatsoever...

Posted September 23, 2007 8:44 AM by Martin Wisse

Marcel Marceau has died, and now the rest is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Posted September 23, 2007 8:48 AM by Dave Bell

On MP5s, the UK police unit for aviation security, SO18, has used MP5s modified to single-shot only for a while -- 2002 at least, and presumably before. There's a picture here. No suppressors, though.

Also, as I recall, the cops who shot de Menezes dead on the Underground used pistols. Of course, they were undercover, so concealable weapons were their only option.

On Star Simpson, the so-called "putty" was in fact paint on the hoody meant to be lit up by Simpson's improvised electronic device. If it had been explosive, there wouldn't have been enough there to blow her nipples off, let alone destroy a plane. Calling it "putty" is a clear case of managing the information flow, or as we ordinary peons call it, "lying".

Posted September 23, 2007 8:56 AM by NelC

Marcel Marceau has died, and now the rest is silence.

Am I alone in hoping he left some famous last words?

Posted September 23, 2007 9:19 AM by candle

Marilee #71: I don't think I'm a fledgling or a fletcher. 'Fledgist' was the truncation of my name used as a handle by UCSD on my e-mail account when I was a graduate student. I rather liked it so I've been using it as a handle ever since.

You're in Etlanna, I think?

Posted September 23, 2007 9:22 AM by Fragano Ledgister

JESR@14:
It is an ancient mariner, and he stoppeth one of three.
"Well, the Mariners never were any good on defense."
(from a New York contest, quoted in their collection-of-contest-results Maybe He's Dead.)

#44: just a slightly odd, smart MIT student with exceptionally poor judgement
How many layers of tautology is that?

#57ff: I would swear I saw "WYC, WYL" in Sturgeon is Alive and Well -- but I also would have sworn I had a copy, and it's not on my shelves to check.

Dave@100: It's true there are cases when a cop is actually attacked; however, there are also a lot of cases where a cop uses a massive excess of firepower despite a lack (or severe shortage) of indicators suggesting it.

#22&ff: Chavez talks a line that appeals to the ~left; but considering that he previously tried a coup without the leftist speeches, I don't trust him to mean anything he says. I particularly don't trust the way he's leaning on broadcast media and now schools; you may call them tools of the establishment if you wish, but he already has a bully pulpit to shout them down from. And when even Putin is willing to surrender titular power, the idea that he alone must rule for another decade-plus strikes me the wrong way.
    The fact that the U.S. is behaving stupidly toward Chavez doesn't make him right; it just makes his worst demagoguery more swallowable locally. The fact that Huey P. Long did some good for many people doesn't mean he should be emulated.

Posted September 23, 2007 9:36 AM by CHip

Nix #103: It happens, alas.

Posted September 23, 2007 9:38 AM by Fragano Ledgister

#46:It's reported that she had putty with her. Are you saying our security guards should be able to do chemical analysis by sight alone?

Well, are you saying that once they determined it was play doh and that she had no intent of anything even remotely dangerous, they should arrest her and charge her for a so-called "hoax bomb" anyway? Exaggerating positions works both ways.

I note that you conveniently missed the section of my (admittedly long) comment where I said that the police were absolutely right to investigate.

Posted September 23, 2007 9:40 AM by John Chu

Candle #111: 'Non'. (Quoting Marcel Marceau's one statement in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in which he had the only speaking role.)

Posted September 23, 2007 9:41 AM by Fragano Ledgister

A silent rhyme
For the late mime?

Posted September 23, 2007 9:48 AM by Serge

#106:Besides which, is anyone actually arguing that the correct response to this was total inaction? No. Mostly, I hear people saying that it might be nice if the Boston police were capable of some response level between sitting on their asses and throwing teenagers in jail under ridiculous pretenses.

Precisely. The reason why I hate having this discussion is that the position in your second sentence consistently gets misrepresented as the position in your first sentence. I realize that this is because it's much easier to knock down "the police should just sit by and do nothing with bomb threat reports" than "the police should learn what proportionate response means and not arrest the innocent, or clueless." This, however, doesn't make the misrepresentation any less annoying.

Moreover, the misrepresentation doesn't do a thing towards actually making us safer. Ultimately, I think some assurance of safety is what we all want.

Posted September 23, 2007 9:50 AM by John Chu

Marcel Marceau:

Six pallbearers put forth their utmost efforts to walk against the relentless opposition of hurricane-force wind, burdened by the crushing weight of an imaginary coffin ...

Posted September 23, 2007 9:56 AM by Dave Langford

Jim@81: to sneak a bomb onto an airplane ... refrain from sticking blinky-lights on it.

And hide any wires. Wire is the blackest magic to some people. What is the ring of power but a piece of really conductive gold wire made into a loop? And if you throw it in a fireplace, does it not blink red lettering at you?

The only thing I haven't figured out is how he replaced the 9 volt battery. Sauron must be using some really good energy storage technology. Oh, wait, maybe he's using microwave energy to transmit energy wirelessly to the ring. And a side effect on anyone wearing the ring while he's remotely powering it: heating of the ear canal causes the wearer to hear phantom voices.

Posted September 23, 2007 10:15 AM by Greg London

I wonder if there's been any reaction from the gargoyle/wearable computing community to the insanity in Boston?

Posted September 23, 2007 10:20 AM by Earl Cooley III

Tony #60, re Ladies of Grace Adieu: I've read it. Loved it. Want more.

Jim @ #81, not only that, the only thing they have to do to paralyze the entire transportation system is drop a few thousand at Radio Shack and hire some angry middle-school kids.

Posted September 23, 2007 10:20 AM by Lila

For those not familiar with electronics, the MIT student had a breadboard with LED's strapped to her back. A picture of a generic breadboard is here.

That picture shows how breadboards normally look when they're being used. Stuff plugged into them. Wires hanging everywhere. The board acts as the physical support to hold everything together and as a convenient way to attach components to each other electrically without soldering. The main advantage to this is that when you screw up, you just unplug a wire, and plug it in the correct way, and you're up and running.

As it happens, that generic image of a breadboard looks a lot like the MIT student's breadboard here.

You can buy them at Radio Shack. here is one they sell for four dollars. You can buy 20 assorted LED's from Radio Shack for $3. You can get a bunch of precut, prestripped wires from them for $7. Throw in some resistors for a buck or two, and a 9 volt battery, and you've got everything you need to cause a government organization to piss itself.

The Chicken Little response I keep hearing is she should have known not to wear this to an airport. The reasoning is that since airports are known terrorist targets, she shouldn't wear anything that might worry the trigger happy cops with submachine guns. In fact, some argue that she should have been shot in case it had been a real bomb.

OK.

Except if you extend that logic, then you must take the list of all possible and potential terrorist targets, and then tell everyone that they shouldn't do anything to scare the trigger happy cops with submachine guns at any of those places either.

Anywhere on a public road. Any large skyscraper. Any government office building. And p