Reader on the airplain - is it electronic device or not;)

[NatCh]

Heh. Reminds me of a story. It's totally fictitious, as it happens, but it makes a good point:

This is an extract of an National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster and US Army Lieutenant General Reinwald about sponsoring a Boy Scout Troop on his military installation.

End of the interview

So, yeah, you're potentially a murderer, so are we all, but there's a big difference between a danger and a threat. To use an illustration from the story: a gun by itself is just a dangerous tool, but a gun someone is pointing at you is an actual threat.

[pruss]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Okay. So you're supposed to turn it off...


HOW?!? The Sony Reader doesn't turn off. It merely goes into standby.

The CPU is generally halted in standby mode, and this may well reduce any communications interference potential.

I assume that on e-ink devices, the CPU is in a halt state when one is reading, too. So it may be that if one is reading only one page, without changing pages, the device can be counted as off. But flipping pages causes a redraw, and that involves the CPU, and hence involves potential interference. How much interference? Nobody really knows for sure. But when so many lives are at stake, and the cost to one of putting the device away for a while is so low, surely the right thing to do is clear, even if the risks in fact are low.

[NatCh]

Someone tested it, and figured out that the Reader draws about the same current whether it's "on" or in "standby" -- the detailed results are posted around here somewhere ....

[BettyE]

I fly about 150,000 miles per year. I don't use my Reader when electronic devices are to be off. Just turn it off. Do you trust Sony's EMI testing so much? (It is a self-cert.) Most of you don't even trust them to charge the right prices for books.

Even if it makes no difference, is it such a big deal to turn it off for a few minutes? How about the anxiety of those around you?

Betty

[NatCh]

Oh, I agree with you, BettyE, turning it off is just not that much to ask, and if there's a chance it makes things 'safer,' I'm willing to comply. I haven't been traveling much, for some years, but I'm about to start having a monthly trip back to Houston as part of my telecommuting thing. I plan to turn it off as requested, and catch up on the sky-mall listings.

[UncleDuke]

i just keep reading, if they ask me i just fold the flap over it and stuff it in the pocket in front of me, after that they never question it again

i fly too much but less than before nyc-la-nyc-la-nyc-la-nyc-la i feel ike a ping pong ball

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by UncleDuke

i just keep reading, if they ask me i just fold the flap over it and stuff it in the pocket in front of me, after that they never question it again

i fly too much but less than before nyc-la-nyc-la-nyc-la-nyc-la i feel ike a ping pong ball

Please don't ever fly on a plane I might be on. I don't want to go on a plane with someone who really cares so little for his life and the lives of those around him.

[tribble]

Oh my god JSWolf, thats pathetic.

Dont you think this would call terrorists on the plan, who enter the plane with a bag full of phones and pdas and ereaders, and they would turn them all on at once during takeoff, and there would be nothing anyone could do?

I mean come on, you arent allowed to bring fluids or a nail file aboard, because of the danger (or was it threat??), do you think they would allow you to take something as dangerous as an ereader or the like aboard if there was the slightest real change, that that device could bring down the airplane?

[Adam B.]

I couldn't resist...

[MustardJeep]

Why does this thread remind me so much of that old simpsons episode?

Barts on a plane playing with a handheld

A steward ask him to turn it off

No problemo <click> it turns off

<Cut to outside of plane>

As the plane is falling out of the sky everyone's yelling "Turn it back on, Turn it back on"

He does, and the plane levels off.


Not to downplay it, anything with a battery really should be off just to err on the side of safety. But it takes an active BT or WiFi transmitter to even just manage to effect some of my hardware.

But then again I drive where ever I need to go, never could get past the fact that jumbo jets are aerodynamic bricks.

[donovanh]

A bit of background reading:

Quote: "Some level of electromagnetic interference to aircraft systems is theoretically possible not only from active radio transmitters (such as mobile phones, small walkie-talkies, or radio remote-controlled toys), but also from unintentional emitters (such as ordinary radio receivers, computers, and in fact virtually any nontrivial electronic device)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_...c_interference

Here's a quote from when the Mythbusters looked into the mobile phone ban:

"While certainly not a rigorous scientific study, the Discovery Channel television program MythBusters examined the "myth" that mobile phones are banned aboard aircraft to force passengers to use the airline's inflight phones. They concluded that this is "busted." Their tests caused no interference to a small airplane's avionics, but did so to unshielded equipment. They concluded that interference could occur aboard an aircraft if the shielding was not working correctly."

YMMV,

D

Edit: I wonder.. is the reader a "nontrivial device"?

[JSWolf]

How hard is it to keep your reading device off for the time it takes to take off and level out? If you can't do that, then there really is a problem. Maybe you're obsessive compulsive and need to see a psychiatrist.

[tribble]

Originally Posted by donovanh

Edit: I wonder.. is the reader a "nontrivial device"?

Probably not, but the plane definately is

They concluded that this is "busted." Their tests caused no interference to a small airplane's avionics, but did so to unshielded equipment. They concluded that interference could occur aboard an aircraft if the shielding was not working correctly."

Either thats a typo or incongruent.

And for all you people who love rules, dont be afraid, i probably wont be sitting on a plane with you. And if i am, dont worry either. Since my iLiad is WiFi capable, i will gladly turn it off during start and landing, and if only so my neighbour doesnt get scared.

Nevertheless i think its a stupid rule and i dont believe that a nontransmitting device can bring down any standard aircraft. I remember when i was sitting in an airplane during descend, and while looking out of the window seeing flames burst from the turbine. I guess that was alot more dangerous than if all the people aboard where reading on their ereaders.

I guess i am just not so scared anymore. Can happen to people who deal a bit with statistics

[HeffeD]

Originally Posted by tribble

I guess i am just not so scared anymore. Can happen to people who deal a bit with statistics

Ah, this explains a lot!

Statistics often lull people into a sense of misguided complacency. You may find a book called, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb interesting...

Statistics aren't anything to place your trust behind. The "highly improbable" happens more often than you'd think. People have died or lost everything they owned by relying on "statistically proved" methods. There's no such thing as a "sure thing" no matter how long it's been studied statistically. How well do statistics stand up against catastrophic mechanical failure? They don't...

It's just common sense folks. No matter how misguided you feel the rule to be, since it's flat out impossible to test everything, erring on the side of safety makes the most sense when lives are at stake. Do you really want to be the one to discover the chink in the planes armor?

[RWood]

The correct translation of the rule is that the airlines have a bunch of old and nonstandard equipment that they should have replaced years and years ago but are still using that react to frequencies outside their "correct" operating range.

Even my wristwatch could be classified as "non trivial."