@MichaelHampton my airline has retired the last 747 in our fleet just days ago. it was 747-400.. but i am always proud that I have been a cabin crew in almost all variations of 747. 100, 300, 400 and SP.. I also was a passenger on the 200 variation..

And another person (along with @chx) is concerned about the intelligence agencies harvesting terrahertz body scans

I'm not quite sure what anybody thinks they would do with these once they had them

(although as GCHQ intercepted Yahoo Webcams, I wouldn't rule it out either)

Like, phone or financial metadata can be incredibly compromising and lead to all sorts of problems for an individual

I don't see what they could do with a kinda dodgy image of your body surface

@CMaster There was an incident where the US Marshals Service collected such images

There have been incidents of airport secuirty staff pointing phone cameras at the screens too

My question is what threat/attack does collation of these images leave somebody open to?

Beats the hell out of me

That's the "executive summary" of the image mind

the image the device itself took (and could, theoretically have stored) is somewhat more err, compromising I guess

Sure, it could construct a much more detailed image. But there's no real reason to do so.

.... And I don't think taking a train from anywhere in Europe to Tokyo is realistic for a business trip.

Not least because Tokyo is on an island...

I think they mean a train to an airport that then flies to Tokyo

I don't know what's done on trains in Europe, but the last time I took Amtrak, there was none of that crap. I walked up to the ticket machine, got my ticket, and got on the train. No metal detectors, no dogs, no bullshit.

Although I'm now wondering about the shortest distance to bridge/tunnel from Japan to the Eurasian landmass

In the UK, there's also none

except for Eurostar, where there's an xray of your bags

I've never seen anything in France or Spain either

but a previous ansewr here said the long-distance Spanish AVE services had a security check

(Spain has had a major train bombing in recent years)

And the really surprising part is that the train didn't blow up and arrived on time!

Looks like the shortest corssings are either Fukoka to Korea

or a 2-step one, from Sapporo to that russian island north of Japan

then from that island to the mainland further north

Then you're in South Korea, with an impassable DMZ to the north

of course, getting to the southern part of the Korean penisular doesn't exactly make for smooth land crossings to the rest of Eurasia

If not for that, I'm sure someone would have built a bridge/tunnel already

I think that would be many, many times longer than any existing Bridge

although I seem to recall that China has been taling about wanting a rail bridge across the Bering Straight

That looks like about 180km or so, including that island

US rail travel just seems uneceessarily slow

@CMaster There's little high speed rail, but there's little demand for it. And except for the northeast, where it's feasible, the distances are vast

There's a difference between highs-peed and "Faster than 60 mph" though

I'm aware that even a TGV isn't going to get you from New York to Denver fast

> Amtrak operates a nationwide rail network, serving more than 500 destinations in 46 states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces on more than 21,300 miles of routes. It is the nation's only high-speed intercity passenger rail provider, operating at a top speed of 150 mph (241 kph) over current infrastructure. More than half of Amtrak trains operate at top speeds of 100 mph (160 kph) or greater. The company has more than 20,000 employees.

OK, apparently I misunderstood

Which is not exactly high speed compared to some of the stuff I've seen in Europe or China

Well, it's comparable to the UK

But it's not exactly trundling along either

There's only one high-speed line here

but most inter-city services operate between 80-120 mph

The line in the northeast that hits 150mph could go faster with some infrastructure changes...which nobody has the billions of dollars for.

Yeah, htere's obviously some infrastrucutre-related issues

when I was in Idaho last year, the train like just kinda ran through the town

But in general, except for the east coast, Amtrak is mainly used by holidaymakers...and the journey is part of the holiday

like, no fencing, not really any formal crossings

In most of the US, rail is not grade separated. Though every crossing is well marked and has warning lights. They may not be easy to spot from the train though. :)

One place I lived growing up, literally had railroad tracks bordering my backyard. We used to play up on the tracks all the time, I'm sure much to my parents' consternation.

Honestly, the line just kinda swept back and forth across the main road at one point

there were lights, and I never saw a train come through in the daytime

The rail bridge near my hotel was routinely used as a footbridge

Well, that does sound a little odd

When I say every crossing, I mean every crossing...like this one on a hiking trail

Hmm,, seems I was wrong about "back and forth - it crosses that major road (rather leisurley), at one point, then another one I drove along a few times a couple of hundred metres away

@HeidelBerGensis "We're all adults here, do I need to declare anything at customs if I go to the toilet while carrying two XBoxes as carry on on a flight to India?"

@MarkMayo If you use them do relieve yourself in Iceland, then yes.

I feel like I'm in /r/StackExchangeSimulator

Longest Bridge over ocean is apparently ~24 miles

@CMaster @MichaelHampton

longest bridge: carscoops.com/2011/07/…

that's insane

I seem to remember reading that the reason there was a channel tunnel, ratehr than a channel bridge

was because they weren't sure it would nbe able to stand up to 3 shipping collisions at once

which their studies suggested wasn't as unlikley as you'd hope

@mts @JoErNanO you both flagged an answer as not an answer, for being wrong

wrong answer is not "not an answer". it's the wrong answer.

Right. For wrong answers, you should just click the "wrong answer" button. It looks like a triangle pointing downward.

@MarkMayo @MichaelHampton How about the delete button?

@JoErNanO The general consensus is that wrong answers serve as a warning to others of what not to do, and shouldn't be deleted unless they're dangerously or maliciously wrong.

"You can carry $50,000 cash through 'nothing to declare'" is dangerously wrong, for instance.

That's why you downvote the hell out of them

@MichaelHampton So dangerously wrong is still not flaggable as not an answer?

@MarkMayo You can't really downvote more than once though.

@JoErNanO you can vote to delete, of course, for example spam ones, and if the community consensus is to delete, that's great. The point is just to not have the mods flagged every time an answer is wrong :)

@JoErNanO I'd use a custom flag for that

dangerously wrong = custom flag

@CMaster while I have no idea what they would with such an image -- how do you know what's actually in the image. Yeah, the TSA sees that strange, useless schematics but do we know what data actually the scanner has?

@MarkMayo Hey hey you volunteered for this job! :P

All jokes aside thanks for clearing that up.

@chx My query is what the privacy threat of anonymous, instanataneous (if admittedly somewhat compromising) images are

yup, to step in when required ;)

I've seen the actual images produced by terrahertz before incidentally - I'm sure the schematics are a result of imgae processing run on them

@CMaster I am not so sure about anonymous, check what I wrote

If they want to put a name on it... they possibly could.

True, it's probably possible to identfy

(they could combine with facial recognition from conventional cameras would be the easiest I guess)

but still, what information does this give the intelligence agencies

what's teh angle of threat to an individual

especially in contrast to say, collection of communications metadata

Addition to

Honestly, it's not my job to come with that crap, they can be quite creative

It doesn't help I grew up behind the Iron Curtain

Well yes. I just don't see what they can do with a kinda blury picture of what you sort of looked like under clothes one day

although as said, they also capture yahoo webcam conversations

I dunno, blackmail over something you try to hide? Snare you with experimental medication? Who knows?

then complained that they mostly just got footage of people having cyber sex

like, what were they expecting? Terrorists holding up crayon pictures of their evil plans to the camera?

LOL yeah

This probably needs to be a question but I want to check before I ask to see it's not spam -- is it OK to directly link to a product? I want to see what people think of checking in reveloelectric.com in a (huge) suitcase, it's 66 linear inches instead of 62.

And of course the battery would need to be hand luggage cos it's a battery :)

I'm not sure the specific product is entirely relevant

you want to check in a folding electric bicycle without specifically checking it in as a bike?

Although I personally don't see the harm in showing a picture/linking to the item in question

yeah, because the bike fee is huge

and it's a major hassle

Like, aerlingus.com/travel-information/baggage-information/… says "Unfortunately, space for bicycles can’t be booked online. Please contact your local reservations office to pre-book in advance."

I'd say go ask

(I know a few people that have shoved bromptons in normal suitcases without trouble, but they don't end up oversize)

Well, since the FAQ says 1’ x 2’ x 2.5' one wonders how accurate that is. I do not yet the bike, the process takes a bit since I am the first in Vancouver to take their financing offer :)

Which is sorta crazy , you need financing for a bike but that's how it is.

You can get finance on pretty much anything these days

I was in love with the Smart ebike when it came out three years ago but I couldn't convince myself to part with 3500 dollars for a 26kg bike...

I've definitley seen finance offered for items of ~£100

@MarkMayo what's your thought's on chx posting a product lnk to ask if he can take it on a plane

Oh shoot, 160+ Watt-hour lithium batteries need to be cargo :(

36V 10.4 Ah, 374.4 Wh

that's definitely more than 160

there goes that idea, I guess :(

I can't say I've ever seen secruity pouring over battery capacities

but then I'm not sure I'd want to chance it either

Yeah, even a boneheaded TSA smurf could possibly see it's slightly too big for a normal battery and I think the scanner shows them as batteries (or least something the scanner can't see through)

It's so far over the limit I'd rather not try

well then let's see travel.stackexchange.com/questions/66539/… whether anyone tried :)

Oh, I just saw in the sidebar there was a Linux debate a few days ago, pity I wasn't here -- I started on Linux practically the same time as Debian started :) It wasn't really on the map for quite a few years and we mostly used Slackware. My first Linux install was from this huge pile of 5.25" floppy disks on a 486 tower PC. Good ole' days :D

@MarkMayo noted, thanks for pointing out!

@CMaster if it's not an advert, I'm not fussed

Mark Mayo, theregister.co.uk/2016/04/11/future_of_firefox_is_chrome is this you?

@chx lol, I was literally reading that article 5 min ago. No, although he's from NZ too :)

Pedants take note!

Hmm

and here was me thinking a Jetty floated

apparently that's just a "floating pier/jetty" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_dock_%28jetty%29

@MarkMayo Where do you think this should be migrated?

@MarkMayo man i have customs and visa question.. not toilet questions ;)

@HeidelBerGensis Liar! Liar!

Pants on fire!

i hate, not have..

Ha!

Freudian lapsus.

Freudian my ass

Does anybody know how to convert backwards from Australia time?

@GayotFow Subtraction?

how?

Or just look at a nice map, e.g. worldtimezone.com

thanks but that doesn't convert backwards

What do you want to convert backwards to?

from london time to australian time

there is a guy in australia

he can call me starting at 2AM london time

which means what in Aussie time?

Well, Sydney is in UTC+10, and not in summer time. London is in UTC+0, and is in summer time. So, that gives us a 9 hour difference

That would be 11 am in Sydney, or 9 am in Perth

Jolly good, many thanks!

Or .. Why in the hell is the middle of Australia 30 minutes offset?

Too technical for me to know

@GayotFow I think this converter might be more of what you were looking for

Expats has a difficult audience.

Put in two answers today. Did some research for both. Got two votes in total.

Makes you wonder whether it might be worth it or not.

Expats is very low traffic. Two votes doesn't surprise me that much.

@MichaelHampton that's perfect, many thanks!

@JoErNanO I don't like to go there

I upvoted your answers, but you shouldn't waste time there. It's crap.

And I have a better rep over there than you do, so I know :)

All those unanswered questions