PATRIOT Act redefines “Domestic Terrorism”
Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT expanded the definition of terrorism to cover “domestic,” as opposed to international, terrorism. The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass anyone as a terrorist.
March 14, 2007 No Comments
Learn Spanish in No Time!
Whether you’re a businessperson, student, or traveller, whether you’re brushing up language or just interested in learning a new one, “Dr Blair’s Spanish in No Time” teaches you the skills you need at the pace you want, jump-starting your study with a variety of methods that keep the experience fun, fresh and motivating…
read more | digg story
March 14, 2007 No Comments
Defensive Flying
You are the most advanced fighter in the world. You have the stealth capabilities, advanced radar, state of the art weapons systems and ultra efficient turbofans that allow you to “supercruise” at supersonic speeds. You’ve gone up against the best that the US Air Force and Navy has to offer, taking out F-15s, and F-16s during simulated war games in Alaska.
Yet in moments you find yourself deaf and dumb over the Pacific Ocean on a 12-15 hour flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Japan. Yes, you the F-22 Raptor have been felled by the international date line (IDL).
When six Raptors crossed over the international date line, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Navigation, partial communications and fuel subsystems went offline completely. Any attempts to reboot met with failure.
Thankfully, visibility that day was not a problem. Had the Raptors gotten seperated from their refueling tankers or had the weather been bad there would have been no attitude referance. “The Raptors had no communications or navigation,” said retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. “They would have turned around and probably could have found the Hawaiian Islands. but if the weather had been bad on approach, there could have been real trouble.”
The glitch turned out to be a Y2k like problem in the millions of lines of code. someone made a small error in a couple of lines of code and the U.S. Air Force may have been forced to admit that their aircraft which cost $125 million USD apiece plus had been knocked out of the sky.
Luckily the error was discovered before combat and the problem was fixed with tiger teams in about 48 hours and the airplanes completed their deployment.
“This could have been real serious in combat” observed Shepperd.
March 8, 2007 No Comments
Best Place to Lose Your Wallet
Accidents happen, but knowing our chances of seeing missing items returned has always been useful. Readers Digest magazine conducted a global experiment of sorts to investigate what would happen to our wallets if dropped in different areas of the globe.
What did they do? Readers Digest editors “accidentally” dropped over 1100 wallets filled with approximately 50$ in local currency, along with contact numbers and family pictures in big cities and small towns around the U.S, in Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America.
The wallets were left in telephone booths, in front of office buildings, car parks, restaurants, and even houses of worship.
Malaysia a 20 yr old fruit seller in Kajang, had the wallet returned to the owner.
Chiang Mai, Thailand a mother with two children in tow hastily stuffed the wallet into her baggy pants.
London, UK at the entrance to Fulham Palace, once the residence of the Bishops of London, a woman had her son jump out of the car and snatch the wallet off the street.
Few wallets dropped in Italy were returned, in Lausanne, Switzerland only two wallets were returned (one by an Albanian restaurant owner). In the Hague, of the wallets that were never seen again, one had been dropped before the international court of justice.
In Norway and Denmark every single wallet was returned.
The best place to lose your wallet in the U.S. was Seattle, Washington with a return rate totaling 9 out of 10.
In Canada, Toronto turned out to be the least honest location in the survey.
Reader’s Digest described their study as a real-life test of integrity, rather than a rigorous scientific study. They observed that often people who looked like they could use the money felt compelled to return it, while affluent people did not.
February 12, 2007 1 Comment
Make your Money Go Further
Our monthly reports tell you what countries and currencies offer the best deals. Travel and buy smart!