That's an interesting insight. I suppose the logic is that you don't want to plug it into the wall to prove it's a working device, because OMG that might utilize the higher current to set off a bomb. (I see no reason why internal batteries couldn't do the same job, with a lot more control at that, but, TSA logic.)

I wonder how they'd respond to my laptop, which is old enough that the battery is entirely dead, and it's not worth spending $150 to replace a battery in a laptop now worth about $50. It works fine when plugged into the wall, and not at all otherwise. (When I do drag it around, I also take an extension cord.)

Thanks to the plea bargain system, the conviction rate already hovers in the 96% range, at least for the jurisdictions I know about (Los Angeles County for one).

That's an excellent idea! What happens to people who snoop above their clearance, hmmmm?

[Please, ghod, don't just give them a higher security clearance.]

Dogs tend to home in on galvanic reactions and electronics even without training; I natter on about this somewhat above. This is why folks often learn to not leave their keyfob lying on the coffee table.

Now I'm wondering about that in light of the freedom of association. Isn't the gov't compelling membership in a prescribed gun club as a condition of exercising your 2nd Amendment rights?

Remembering that in the era cited, a "woman" was "a girl who had reached menarche", ie. around age 13.

[I don't recall if Jewish law has anything to say about age]

And it would only take once for a bright dog to connect "scent of activated charcoal" with "target". They DO make that sort of association.

As to the various things hunters attempt to disguise their scent, I'm too lazy to look for it right now but I recall seeing a study on the effectiveness of scent-disguising potions and amulets, and the conclusion was that they accomplish about the same as any magical potion or amulet.

See also above where I talk about distinguishing one scent from many, as dogs do all the time anyway.

The fallacy is that the smell of dirty diapers will overwhelm and disguise the scent of the target. The truth is that dogs with good noses (which not all have) are quite capable of sorting out different scents from a multitude (in fact they do this every time they follow ANY scent, since almost everything in the world HAS a scent), and merely covering up the target scent is usually insufficient. Also, they can detect a mere handful of molecules, what any object might naturally ablate. Furthermore, experienced dogs learn that if you lose one scent, you follow an associated scent, in this case the foot track or bodyscent track of the person who hid the bagged target.

I used to live where some prior resident had thrown beer cans around the front yard, but across the years two feet of dirt had blown in over 'em (very fine dirt, very densely packed). I was mystified by the deep narrow holes my dogs were digging, til I realised the goal was an aluminum can, two feet down, which the dogs evidently scented and targeted. (Dogs tend to home in on galvanic reactions and electronics in general, even without training. This is why keyfobs are a fave chewtarget.)

[Pro dog trainer here]

And even if dogs could make explicit statements, dogs are like children in that they want to please -- and that includes telling you what you want to hear. If there's more reward for telling you "drugs and disks in that box" than for finding nothing, you betcha the dog will alert, every single time. Dogs can and do "lie".

[I am a pro dog trainer. That detection dogs commonly produce bogus results a la "Clever Hans" is pretty obvious to me... but evidently not to the people training detection dogs. But it does explain why perhaps the most sought-after detection training prospect is the retriever fieldtrial washout, who has already been extensively taught to take direction.]

Speaking as a professional dog trainer, this does not surprise me in the least. Nearly all "go achieve that goal for me" training is basically cue-taking, whether the object is to find drugs or to find a shot bird in the field. Drug detection is fundamentally the same as a very short range blind retrieve (a retrieve where the dog is directed to an unseen bird). If I "lie" to the dog and send him for a bird that doesn't exist, he'll still go hunt for it, and so long as he's at least occasionally rewarded for the hunt, he'll continue to perform it. Dogs are optimists.

I travelled with a large external hard disk as well, once - which also got taken to one side and swabbed for stuff. Internal monologue: OH NO MY PRECIOUS DATA ... Oh, it's just the possibility of it being a bomb they're worried about.

On another occasion, I had fun with my home-made, Arduino-powered dSLR timelapse gadget - it got thoroughly inspected by the TSA. I'd already opted out of the backscatter X-ray whatsit, only for a swab-for-explosives test to give a (false-)positive. Eek. Cue being taken to one side, where they looked in my bag and found the timelapse-o-tron...

To give the screeners their due, they let me go after a few minutes - after I'd heard their complaints about the potential radiation doses they and the passengers were receiving from the backscatter X-ray thingers, and after I'd provided advice on what sort of camera to look into buying for a budding photographer.

Security fun elsewhere: carrying a plastic bag of loose change through the Eurostar security in Brussels (it basically looked like an amorphous, completely opaque lump on the X-ray) - and a random customs check at a UK airport giving a (false-)positive swab for some sort of illicit drugs. Eek.

Who? a guy who canned a lot of fruits and vegetables. Or so it would appear, even if no relation.

http://www.ivi-intl.com/pdfs/I...

Oklahoma is NOT a quake-free region in the first place.

Now if western North Dakota suddenly started having quakes (since per USGS records, ND has the lowest incidence of quakes of any U.S. state, and what quakes ND has are of the lowest average intensity of any state) ....then I'd listen.

As someone jocularly points out, that should be more or less "east of the Continental Divide" (rather than "east coast") -- because the eastern half of the continent doesn't have big quakes often enough to remind them to build for quakes. They've long since forgotten the massive New Madrid quakes of the 19th century.

And Oklahoma is not a seismic-free zone in the first place. Here's a handy seismic zones chart -- you may notice OK in fact has a region of routine moderate earthquake activity:

http://www.ivi-intl.com/pdfs/I...

(And speaking as a long-time red-zone resident... y'all's wussies! :)

I peeled the quote out of a book many years ago, and it still amuses me no end.

As to folk who might take it more seriously... yeah, it's superstition if you take it literally, but it's really a way of assigning or relieving guilt.

And I've learned that when I find myself thinking in terms of "predicting will make it happen", I had best back up and proceed with care, because my subconscious has spotted something I'm not yet overtly aware of. For that purpose, it is very, very accurate.

As to prevention, I live 1/4 mile from the tracks those fuselages pass along, and MRL is out here doing maintenance and rebuilding once or twice a month, and I see the truck with sensing equipment go by at least once a month as well. Our MT climate heaves the ground and there is no keeping tracks (or roads) in perfect condition, but they do work at it. Places that lack our weekly freeze-thaw cycles have no clue how much damage that does.