Gate to Gate

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Pursuer of happiness. Bon vivant. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Ordinary Times. Relapsed Lawyer, admitted to practice law (under his real name) in California and Oregon. There's a Twitter account at @burtlikko, but not used for posting on the general feed anymore. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

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16 Responses

  1. Glyph says:

    This’d be great, if I could ever afford to fly anywhere again!Report

  2. Marchmaine says:

    Sure… but I want to know where Alec Baldwin goes to get his good name back?Report

  3. Mad Rocket Scientist says:

    None of our personal wireless devices can interfere with an aircraft in any way. It’s all utter nonsense.

    Right up there with people carrying pocketknives on a plane being a threat.Report

  4. Tod Kelly says:

    This actually just makes me mad. What I hear when I read this news is:

    “Oh yeah, it was never really dangerous to begin with. We just prevented you from turning them on because we could. And now that we’re announcing that we officially don’t think having your iPod or iPad on is dangerous, we’re going to make you wait another two months — through the travel-heavy Thanksgiving and Christmas season — before we let you turn them on.”Report

    • Mad Rocket Scientist in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      I never, ever, turn my devices off.

      Phones go into airplane mode, that’s it.

      As soon as the flight attendants sit down, the tablet or kindle or phone is out & I’m reading a books or taking pictures or whatnot.

      I used to design commercial airlines, the amount of EM/RF energy needed to futz with an aircraft in any significant way is orders of magnitude greater than what all the devices on the plane could hope to produce. After all, a modern airliner has to be able to fly through all the stray EM/RF radiation associated with airports, search radars, weather radars, urban centers, and lightning storms. The idea that your little phone can cause trouble is utter horsepucky.Report

    • Vikram Bath in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      It should make you mad.

      What angers me is that I know people who feel like this is a great thing that has been given to them rather than angry that it was something prevented for so long for no reason.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to Vikram Bath says:

        That should not, however, get in the way of applauding the adoption of a rule that makes sense. Sort of like when same-sex marriage gets adopted, except this has to do with your iPad on the airplane instead of a fundamental human right.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Vikram Bath says:

        “…except this has to do with your iPad on the airplane instead of a fundamental human right.”

        Heh… I know some people who’d disagree with that distinction.Report

  5. Mike Schilling says:

    I have a hard time getting excited about no longer having to turn a toy off for ten minutes. (God forbid someone should have to sit quietly and reflect, or introduce himself to the person in the next seat.) And if this leads to cell phones being approved for airline flights, I can only hope that the rules for justifiable homicide are modified accordingly.Report

    • God forbid someone should have to sit quietly and reflect, or introduce himself to the person in the next seat.

      As the introverted person in the next seat… yes, god forbid. I mean, Mike Schilling introducing himself to me would be cool because Mike Schilling is cool. But most people are not as cool as Mike Schilling and should leave the asocial Trumwill alone.

      And let me play with my damn gadgets.Report

      • Having said that, there were two reasons that this made me very mad:

        (1) The ten minutes is just the wrong amount of time. Shorter than that and you sit and wait. Longer and you find something else to do. But ten minutes is that nagging in-between.

        (2) It served no purpose. I didn’t like it before I found out how pointless it was, but it only became an issue for me once I did. It’s having to do something inconvenient (however mildly so) Just Because. Which I respond to even less favorably than I did when I was ten.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        most people are not as cool as Mike Schilling

        Jeez, you have a low opinion of humanity.Report