And I've argued from the beginning that anecdotal stories do not trump scientific studies, which has always clearly been my point - so why are you even responding to me? If you agree, then just say so.

There are MANY MANY MANY more sane ways to deal with this. Device certification, for example, would handle the issue. Having the ability to DETECT devices onboard that are emitting dangerous signals would be another. Hell, I'd expect you to, I don't know, want to see that more than a ban, since, as many people have already said to you - people are constantly using these devices and leaving them on every flight that goes up. Don't you think we should actually enforce the ban, you know, the one that was supposed to be temporary while studies were conducted to determine if there really was a problem?

I still, by the way, say that my right to read a friggin' book is more important than your right to exercise your unreasonable fear. Especially given more sane options to resolve the potential, and unlikely, issue.

If you are going to change your argument so that you agree with mine, can you just admit it so we can all go on? After all, you have been arguing that anecdotal stories trump scientific studies. I disagreed. Now you are saying, but, well, there are scientific studies mentioned in the article that are more recent than the old ones. Duh. That's what I've been saying all along - there are currently scientific studies being done on the subject - so why should we legislate over anecdotal stories that are at best, questionable? As in, "not likely to be true"?

Argue against the analogy all you want - my inability to use a Kindle during takeoff, when the Kindle has zero emissions during use, because you are scared because some guy told you a story about a time when some unnamed device caused some sort of issue in a situation completely unrelated to, you know, the situation in which I'm actually using the Kindle - well, that's just silly, at best. And that is the actual reason why people are looking at your posts and thinking that you are a slight bit more than a little crazy.

Are you unaware of the fact that scientific studies are currently, and have been in the past, conducted on this subject? Is that where your confusion is coming from? Because if you are, and you are still offering this argument, I seriously don't understand how you could go here.

Would you consider the following analogy better? Perhaps if someone said that they have personally experienced their car's brakes locking up, and they believe it is due to the anti-lock break system. And it's the only car that's ever had that problem. And extensive testing and research was done in order to see if anyone could reproduce the problem. And thousands and thousands of people could be effected - even possible leading to deaths! But nothing can be found - zero effect. And theoritically, the effect is impossible. And the scientific community continues to study the subject, but tell the car manufacturer and the government that they shouldn't stop people from going ahead and using the car. Should the car be taken off the road?

If not, why? If so, WHY? The anecdotal evidence in the airplane interference is about as full of crap. The situation isn't only similar - it's pretty much the same - and both have actually happened. Do you have any understanding as to why so many people are reading your statement and thinking you are a bit crazy?

Really? So, some idiot who has an anecdotal story (which, by the way, I can counter with my own, absolutely true, idiotic anecdotal story), should take precedence over scientific research, because scientific research once failed to predict a problem? Why bother with science at all then? If that's the value of a scientific study to you, then perhaps you should be campaigning against science. While using a handheld device during landing isn't all that crazy important to me, basing laws on anecdotal evidence that directly contradicts scientific findings (and massive amounts of other anecdotal evidence) is dangerous - and that IS important to me. I absolutely refuse to ignore B.S. like this, just because someone says it's for the children.

Here's the problem with this reasoning. Much work has been done to prove a connection using scientific methods. The answer? Nope - not a problem - but let's keep looking, because, as you said, this is dangerous and important. And you say "Screw the science - anecdotal is good enough - cause it is dangerous!" Well, I'm sorry, but just because a friend of mine swears that genetically altered food contains arsenic because he got sick once, and was told he had food poisoning after eating an apple, doesn't mean it's something to freak out about - even though food poisoning is dangerous, and yes, it's possible he could have died.

Whoops - I see this has already been answered ad naseum. Please ignore my post as you should. That's all - thanks.

According to the tweets about the incident, as it happened, if we've got a stealthy, quiet super-secret high-tech helicopter here, then I think we might have overpaid for it. Check out the article, and then read the tweets: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/05/02/osama.twitter.reports/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Come on guys! It's Asok the Intern! He has super powers! And he's humble! And he's an engineer! And he's a comic (well, in one)!

Hey, that means we can pay this off in only 7 years! No problem!

If this is the exciting tech for 2011, I have to admit - I'm a bit depressed. Luckily, we rarely know at the beginning of the year what'll actually be big the next year. More tablets, gaming phones, and processors really just isn't that exciting, however.

I'd prefer that laptop users be required to sit in the BACK OF THE CLASS. I don't really care if they are squandering their money playing some sort of game or watching porn. I want to be able to pay attention to the lecture, not have to try to ignore some action packed flashing laptop monitoring that keeps lighting up in between me and the instructor. I don't pay the money I pay to go to school and police other students. I'm there to learn - if they aren't, it's not okay to expect me to pay the price as well for their disinterest.

On subject, however - I have no problem with laptops in the class. The sounds of clicking and typing really aren't that distracting, and it can be very helpful to a lot of people. And honestly? Sometimes I DO need to grab my laptop and ignore the lecture for five minutes while I fix something at work (I own a small business, I'm often the only one that can do something without using an expensive on-call consultant). And that should be fine - as long as I am being respectful and not disrupting the education of the other people in the class - the education they (or someone) is paying good money for.

I know that normally, this being Slashdot, you can say "read the..." and know, with confidence, that you are scoring a well deserved point - even if you didn't bother to do so yourself. Sorry, bud, but let's look at that source article. Here are some choice quotes:

"The purpose of the study is to compare the crash experience of two different types of vehicles; it is not to make national estimates of problem size. The small sample size used in this study remains as a limitation towards conducting further analysis. Incidence rates provided in this report should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size. Future analysis using larger sample size would provide better estimate of the problem size."

"This analysis was conducted on a total of 8,387 HEVs and 559,703 ICE vehicles that met the selection criteria. A total of 77 and 3,578 pedestrians were involved in crashes with HEVs and ICE vehicles, respectively. A total of 48 and 1,862 bicyclists were involved in crashes with HEVs and ICE vehicles, respectively."

Okay, so some important questions that need to be answered, and are not (I mentioned some of these in my first post):

1. How many people were hurt?
2. Were people being distracted by something at the time of the accident?
3. Are there any other external factors that were controlled for? (the list of controls are extremely poor, including things like location, and time of day, but not weather, ACTUAL lighting conditions, busy-ness of the location, time of week, etc.)

Point is, the study authors recognize their study is crap - they suggest a good study be conducted based on their evidence - that's IT. There isn't anything here to base a stupid new policy on. This is why politicians are rightly made fun of. This is why reasonable people sneer at shit like this, and get pissed when it actually passes. "Think of the pedestrian" you say - well, I say "Think. Period."

No. And really? What accidents? What factors are taken into consideration? Will people get used to cars that aren't so loud, and thus hear the tires and the sound of movement? Or does it even matter, since half the people are running around with their iPods blasting as loud as they can be? This article is B.S. - it doesn't address even half of the concerns, situations and problems. And it's a rehash that's being repeated every two or three months like someone has some sort scheduled gagging session. "Legislating car noise - news @ 11" x infinity

Your post is great, and generally true. The only problem is the first sentence: "No, it's not silly at all." The problem with that sentence is it seems to be in response to my question. If that is the case, then either you didn't bother to back up that assertion, or you feel the rest of your post DID back up that assertion, which it does not. It says nothing about whether or not it's silly to assume that a government agency, which marked these documents as secret, will say "Oh, we didn't mean those to be secret - you can show these things, but, if you don't mind, not those." That is absurd. Your post, on the other hand, gives good reasons for posting information ANYWAY, once it's been looked over, when that information is decided to be something that shouldn't be secret, by the reader of that information. That has nothing to do with the question/response that I laid out.