Shorter Excerpts (From A Work In Progress)

imnotthatkindofgirl:

jheath:

needcaffeine:

laughingsquid:

Fliers Still Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

it’s to limit distractions, as far as I can tell. So that in an emergency they can be properly directed. (but who’s to say the emergency won’t happen mid-flight when you are using them?)

Kind of. The key word is “stow.” Power down and stow. This prevents your iPhone or laptop from becoming a 200mph projectile slamming into the heads of those in front of you in the event of an unexpected deceleration, which is much more likely on take off or landing than in cruise. Why don’t we have you put them away in turbulence? Well, we probably should, but people would disobey it even more than they already do on take off and landing, and being how the flight attendants are seated there’s no one to enforce it. Also, the forces experienced during turbulence are usually vertical as opposed to horizontal forces in a runway excursion so at worst it flies up and only hits you. You’re not going to sue us for hitting yourself in the head with your own laptop. Also, if you’re sitting in the front of the plane and you get a phone call or a text message sometimes I can hear interference in my headset. It’s not going to make the plane crash but it is annoying and lets face it, my job is annoying enough as it is.

I have always been super diligent about powering down and always worry about turning on a phone, even in airplane mode because I never knew how they may interfere, etc. Now that I know it has everything to do with flying projectiles, I might relax a little.

Projectiles my ass. There’s no iPhone or iPad or eBook reader made that weighs even half what a copy of Infinite Jest (in paperback) weighs. And yet dangerous projectiles like this are sold in every airport!

(In the past I’ve had “take off” songs ready on my iPod as well, and somehow the plane took off with my tiny mp3 player running.)