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U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

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Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#171

Post by captainmuon »

gambiting wrote: post #59
captainmuon wrote: post #21

Who enforces that ban? It's a bit sad that the European countries will go along with the ban. If they were a bit more confident, they could say "nope". Or give out a directive that every passenger must be sternly reminded that Laptops are banned, and they the (EU) security personel shall turn a blind eye. Europe doesn't have to go along with every crazy idea, it is (at least still) stronger than it thinks.

Uhm that's not how it works. US can enforce a regulation saying that any aircraft entering US airspace cannot have laptops in the cabin and if an airline wants to fly to US they would have to comply with that regulation. FFA can easily impose fees and bans for airlines which don't comply. Basically US has full control over their own airspace and can control what enters it - just like EU does with their own airspace.…

Sure, but the EU or any country can make these terms unenforceable in their airports. Sign a law stating that circumventing such a ban cannot be punished for example.

You can also play a negotiation game. Ban something ridiculous in return. Then say "we lift our ban if you lift your ban, and reduce import tariffs on X by 2%". Then the other party says "we'll reduce it by 1%, and you agree to this line in this treaty, and we'll only ban laptops over 1.5 kg"... and you have a deal. That's how bilateral negotiations go. And I think many commenters believe that this laptop ban has at least partially economic motivations.

I wish the EU had more balls and self confidence when it came to such negotiations. This is very tangential, but I think Germany in the EU, the EU in the western world, and the west (North America+Europe) in the rest of the world don't realize how well off they are, and how much power they still have.

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#172

Post by arghwhat »

zild3d wrote: post #164
arghwhat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding that there are differences is one thing, knowing what they are is a whole other. Unless you know anything about those areas, you're still going to simply think "China". I'm not saying they'll refuse the idea of differences. Maybe this is a cultural thing, with Australians generally having better geographical understanding than Scandinavians? Up here in Scandinavia, China and USA are both just large coun…

I think you are correct that most (Americans at least) don't know any cultural differences between Chinese cities unless they have a personal tie to knowing them, such as business or relationships. And yet I was still taken aback when you described how little you know about California. I had assumed being on a site like ycombinator, which is arguably the most famous startup incubator, based in sillicon valley, the mo…

Those were the companies I was referring to. I apologize if my sarcasm wasn't clear.

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#173

Post by [deleted] »

zild3d wrote: post #164
arghwhat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding that there are differences is one thing, knowing what they are is a whole other. Unless you know anything about those areas, you're still going to simply think "China". I'm not saying they'll refuse the idea of differences. Maybe this is a cultural thing, with Australians generally having better geographical understanding than Scandinavians? Up here in Scandinavia, China and USA are both just large coun…

I think you are correct that most (Americans at least) don't know any cultural differences between Chinese cities unless they have a personal tie to knowing them, such as business or relationships. And yet I was still taken aback when you described how little you know about California. I had assumed being on a site like ycombinator, which is arguably the most famous startup incubator, based in sillicon valley, the mo…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#174

Post by arghwhat »

skissane wrote: post #170
arghwhat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding that there are differences is one thing, knowing what they are is a whole other. Unless you know anything about those areas, you're still going to simply think "China". I'm not saying they'll refuse the idea of differences. Maybe this is a cultural thing, with Australians generally having better geographical understanding than Scandinavians? Up here in Scandinavia, China and USA are both just large coun…

I would have thought most educated Australians understand the difference between "red states" and "blue states", and would identify California as a "blue state" and Alabama and Tennessee as "red states". (The "red state"/"blue state" terminology only dates to the 2000 election, but the reality it refers to is older than the label.) California is on average politically much more left-leaning than Alabama/Tennessee, an…

My family and friends are all university educated as well; a combination of teachers, physicists and an artist (holding multiple degrees, that damn oddball). I am myself not university educated. Started working early instead, which paid off in my case. All of "us" have visited the US at least once. I am excluding the older generation from the mix, but they would generally know even less about the US.

That information should give you an idea of what kind of person I am observing when I make the claims about the knowledge of a "normal" Scandinavian. I am of course not claiming that no Scandinavian knows more than this.

From the US, we have media coverage of the presidential elections, but apart from the commentator track while votes are being counted, they only really talk about the candidates, never the country itself. Other than that, we have the usual bloopers reel that is US politics, but "Trump does XYZ" doesn't tell you much about the internal dynamics of the country either. On the Chinese side, I don't actually recall seeing that much in local media, but we would hear if something drastic happened... I guess. Now that I think about it, I don't even think local media had coverage of the huge protests in Hong Kong when mainland started changing the rules, but I may be wrong.

Between Brexit, Syrian emigrants, internal Scandinavian dynamics, and the rest of the Europe, we have plenty of politics to satisfy our relatively small thirst for political drama.

As for its popularity, US is basically laughing stock these days, although progressively moving into the "oh god, they're pulling us down with them, aren't they? fuck" area. There's a small number of people that think the grass is greener on the other side, but they're the minority by far.

As for China, people know Tibet, and they know the Dalai Lama, but they won't know that China is effectively terrorising Tibet. They certainly won't know anything about its special status as an autonomous region in China, and I seriously doubt that they know anything about Xinjiang. My spouse is Chinese, and I'm therefore far from an outsider and kept relatively well updated on current news from Shanghai and HKSAR, and even I know nothing about Xinjiang.

It's not all blank, though. Some may remember what happened in Tiananmen Square, even if they only remember the tank.

As a closing shower thought: Maybe some of the reason that we see US as one thing comes from how we're used to much more drastic cultural differences? If I drive for an hour, I'm not simply crossing a state border, but I'm in an entirely different country with entirely different culture and language, and depending on the direction I drove in, it doesn't even have to be in EU. This is much more drastic than the differences between American states. Consider the differences between Italy and Poland, vs. Texas and Alabama (similar distance). While not necessarily an explanation, this might be part of why the US seems like one blob to us.

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#175

Post by arghwhat »

dplgk wrote: post #141
arghwhat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you told me you were "Californian", I would give you a really weird stare, think for a moment, and then reply with "Oh, American?", while wondering if you thought California was a country. And even then, very few will know the cultural difference between, say, California and Tennessee or Alabama. Just like an American might think of China as one thing with one culture, we generally view USA as one thing with one c…

What about new york?

We know New York. We have movies and stuff.

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#176

Post by arghwhat »

ethagknight wrote: post #145
arghwhat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you told me you were "Californian", I would give you a really weird stare, think for a moment, and then reply with "Oh, American?", while wondering if you thought California was a country. And even then, very few will know the cultural difference between, say, California and Tennessee or Alabama. Just like an American might think of China as one thing with one culture, we generally view USA as one thing with one c…

Total anecdote, but I'm from Tennessee and went to Auburn University (AL), so I guess I'm exactly that, but when I travel abroad (Europe, Middle East, Ukraine) I always tell people "I'm from Memphis, TN" and, almost invariably, the response is "oooohh! Elvis!" It's a fun conversation starter, providing a humanizing connection beyond 'America'.

Ah, yes, Elvis. Everyone knows Elvis.

It's actually quite relevant - You can be absolutely sure that people know the connection between Elvis and Memphis, but they're just names to most people, and unless Memphis is full of Elvis replicas (well, it probably is), they'll know nothing about the city or the state from that bite of information.

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#177

Post by inferiorhuman »

daemin wrote: post #125
inferiorhuman wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seatback displays? Many airlines (the US3 at least) are moving towards the WiFi+bring-your-own-device model.

The ones that you fly long distance with, like say from Europe to Australia.

The US3 (American, Delta, United) are moving towards BYOD even on long haul. Some foreign carriers are as well.

http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1358839

Re: U.S. To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights from Europe

#178

Post by grey-area »

pdkl95 wrote: post #133
grey-area wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a video of a lithium battery fire in a cargo hold, as you can see it causes an explosion and swiftly a fire that burns the entire compartment. If you imagine every checked in bag containing a laptop, you'd get a similar effect if you rig one to catch fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd0EzQaEiZQ

Note that the video claims it's 5000 Li+ batteries. It's hard to tell from the video, but it looks like it was ~4 boxes filled with only the batteries. Even a large pile of laptops (no bags) would have a hard time making the explosion[1] in the video. If you separated each battery+laptop into separate bags , the density of Li is so low a single battery burning/exploding may not even reach the other batteries. [1] obv…

Yes I guess it would only contain a few hundred laptops if they force all into the hold. I imagine a fire is quite possible though from a rigged laptop (or just an accident) and impossible to put out, unlike a fire in the cabin.
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