So what does "really secure" mean? What's acceptable--or more to it, what is an acceptable expenditure of capital, both in cash and in irritation?

What are the paragons of the "really secure"? People always reference Fort Knox. Is Fort Knox really secure? The gold depository indeed is very difficult to infiltrate, very difficult to steal from. But is it impossible? Or for that matter, would it be impossible to destroy or scatter? A small-scale nuclear weapon could sublimate the entire deposit. The security of Fort Knox makes it very unlikely it will be compromised, that's all. Just as a jail makes escape very improbable, the population squatting around it very unlikely to be accosted by inmates. But not impossible. There's no impossible except in mathematics and physics.

So how rare can we make attempts on air transport? Well, since 2001 there has not been a civilian death due to terrorism on commercial aircraft. There have been two noteworthy attempts, both foiled by a mixture of equipment malfunction, bomber incompetence, and fellow passenger vigilance. Most flight-safety wallahs will tell you disasters happen not because of a simple malfunction but because three, four, or five different systems all failed. The fail-safe, the redundant fail-safe, the alternate computer were all rendered useless. Terrorist attacks can happen when similar strings of failure happen in the security apparatus. You can make them rarer but at cost.

Already commercial flights are unflyable. The airlines' penny-pinching clamps down on checked baggage, so everyone tries to drag through as much carryon as they can, which is exactly what the TSA discourages. To get from one city to another by plane, I have to show ID, I have to forego anything as basic as a regular bottle of shampoo, toothpaste, or mouthwash. Forget razors. They've already figured out what infinitesimal space can accommodate 99% of passengers with less than 1% risk of DVT and press us in to fit. My wife can't even come through security to see me off.

What else can I give up? Perhaps I don't need luggage. Everyone can simply buy new clothes at the destination. Hotels will stock up on toiletries and surcharges. Everyone will doff their shoes in the terminal; airports will be like Japanese houses. Slippers on the plane and whatever you can scavenge at your destination. Go through metal detectors naked. Well, they've got machines that do that essentially anyway and they want to roll them out. Each person spends five minutes with a Bruce Willis look-alike who asks for aspirins and grills you about your destination. "Our records show you visited Aunt Millie just five months ago--what is your real agenda here!?" Special papers for transport. Each seat with seatbelts only releaseable by the captain or designated air marshal. Nothing bad could come of that. No more paper--paper cuts, you see. Tickets carried on USB drives with a USB fee added.

Just what would make you feel safer? "Really secure" can't happen with commercial air transport because there are too many people. Millions of people, every day, getting on and off planes. If you've got a couple billion dollars in gold locked up in one place, you can make it real secure. Esp. if you have a tank division nearby. If you're talking tens of thousands of flights and millions of people, day-in-day-out, it can't happen. Not without denying every single one of them basic human decency. A few attempts will get through, and will hopefully get foiled. The terrorist masterminds, who are always working on something to hit us where we least expect it, aren't likely to be targeting planes anyway. Their plans already worked, people are already terrified and cowed.

The worst thing is that horrible processes and institutions outlast their exigencies. TSA will be around doing the same or worse crap fifteen years after there are any credible threats to commercial air. A whole generation is ruined on air travel, and we're still not building anything else to compete. Trains, anyone? Fuck it, I'll just drive to Cali next time I'm bound there.

This is the genus of consumer-friendly innovation net neutrality would kill. Do we really want that?

The Olivetti has worth because of its link to a physical product. I wouldn't value the PC or Mac of an author as much because it was only a general-purpose machine that happened to be used as a literary tool by virtue of the software on it. And I wouldn't pay anything for a decades-old binary image of Emacs. When writing on computer, the text becomes its own thing, it transcends the physical. In some ways, I dislike it because of that. I really enjoy the physical link with the text I get when writing with pen, when clacking on a manual typewriter, or otherwise. The advantages of text sublimated from the physical are great--better storage and search, versioning, editing, independent control of presentation, logical layout, etc. But it makes the tool used to make it less interesting, more mundane, more merely processing. The Olivetti, like my Pelikan, are precision tools purposely made for writing. In this way they become the paraphernalia of the writer, the adjutants of his talent. You pay for that connection. With stuff like this it's always the connection that's important. Beige boxes--even flashy Macs--don't have it.

Especially, I can't help but point out, in our respective fields, which more than any other subspecialties ought to know better.

Yes! I was hoping someone else knew about Halstead.

There are rumors afoot of further ACGME restrictions--I'll not hold my breath. Had to sit through a lugubrious luncheon with the department Chair who bloviated for a half hour on how dangerous and misguided reducing resident work commitments is; although his unkempt moustache merely twitched with annoyance when I pointed out the Annals of Internal Medicine study published in 2008 showing reduced morbidity and mortality among medical admissions since the first round of ACGME restrictions went into place.

Where are you in your medical education?

Use LaTeX and Gobby.

Neurology residency. Not as bad as surgery, or for that matter neurology just ten years ago, but I'm regularly awake for 36-38 hours six times per month.

I have to take care of patients in that time. Think of the neurosurgeons, who are doing *brain surgery* in that time, often every third night.

American medical education is fucked up.

Made worse by UK statute giving the police the authority to order the disclosure of encryption keys or the decryption of encrypted data.

Yay fifth amendment and subsequent interpretations equating disclosing cipher keys with self-incrimination!