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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also hilarious that the limit is the very metric 100ml, and not some even number of freedom units like 3 or 4 fluid ounces, like Jesus, George Washington, and bald eagles would have wanted.

UK uses the metric system. Why would anyone expect UK to follow the imperial system in $CURRENT_YEAR?

The UK uses an odd mixture of both depending on context.

The use of "100ml" in airports is because using "3.519 fl oz" would be confusing to far more people. Even within the UK we use metric for small liquid measures like this (smaller liquid measures end up being weird stuff like "teaspoons" or "tablespoons").

And this isn't just because the UK uses a different fluid ounce to the US (100ml is 3.519 UK fluid ounces and 3.3814 US fluid ounces).

Anyone under the age of about 60 in the UK would had metric measurements taught to them at school as it became a mandatory to teach it in 1974. Many schools would have been teaching it already, and probably lots since the currency changed in 1971 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day).

The youth of today (as seen through the lens of my kids) are very metric, often defaulting to distances in meters and kilometers. Miles only seem to be used idiomatically, e.g. "he lives a few miles away".

I'm completely happy to switch between all of them not just because of my UK education covered them all, but I've lived for more than a year in the US, the UK and some European countries.

There are still plenty of examples of mixed measurement systems in the UK though.

Canned/bottled drinks are marked in ml, but a lot of that is due to the proximity to the EU and the previous ties to it. Open drinks are often sold in imperial measures (pints, etc) although spirits moved from fractions of a gill (imperial) to metric (25ml for a single, or 50ml for a double) in the mid 80s.

Of course the UK and US pints are different sizes (568ml and 473.176ml). Not just because the fluid ounces are different sizes as noted above, but also because the UK has 20 fluid ounces in a pint and the US 16 (of its) fluid ounces in a US pint.

For driving distances and speeds are based on miles, but for pedestrian distances you'll see a mixture of miles/yards or km/meters. Restricted heights (e.g. low bridges) or widths are covered in both feet/inches and meters given the number of European freight drivers on the roads here.

Occasionally you'll see some nonsense where a sign has displays both, and where the actual distance to something might be shown as "400 yards" it had almost certainly been rounded up/down to that whole number to make it simpler on the sign, but when it is converted to meters the converted value is used, so you see odd things like:

" Whatever it is 400 yards 365 meters "

(The UK traditionally used "metre" but that usage is quite rare now and we've mostly moved over to using "meter" like the US does.)

I'm surprised that the UK and US don't have different length miles (the US did have a different length "foot" but the "Survey foot" was discontinued in 2023).

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#302
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America

What's the actual reason then?

Locking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#303
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater. TSA Chief Out After Agents Fail 95 Percent of Airport Breach Tests "In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat-down, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to an undercover agent's back. In all, so-called "Red Teams" of Homeland Security agents posing as…

I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5 minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might w…

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#304

there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind. The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else? The recent advance that is letting this h…

Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?

Super Mario 64 airport security speedrun strat

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#305
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta love the TSA. They serve no real purpose, but its a monster too big to kill, staffed by people who desperately cling to the notion they're doing something important. They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that), they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber), they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple met…

The grunts working for TSA on the floor at airports aren't desperately clinging for the notion that they're doing something important, or working towards some lofty, noble, and/or altruistic goal. It's just a job. They're principally motivated to do this job by the promise of a steady paycheck and decent benefits -- the same motivation that most other people with steady paychecks and decent benefits also have.

In my experience many of them do feel like they're doing something important, and some seem principally motivated to do the job by the promise of being able to bully travellers.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but where I live, we do.

I've traveled all over Europe and North America and have taken a lot of trains. Not once did I have to remove my shoe, scan my baggage, or had any kind of liquid restrictions.

Concerts and things like sporting events in the US typically require any bags to be clear and only be of a certain size. They may also be checked. No outside liquids are typically allowed (mainly to avoid alcohol). Usually people are at least wanded to prevent weapons, but sometimes metal detectors are setup.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airport prices in the UK for recreational travel work like so: Flight from London to Barcelona: £16 Bottle of water past security: £5 Train to airport: £26 Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: £7 A person who wants to get the advertised flight at the advertised price has to be very careful.

Yeah it’s got out and out criminal at this point. Not sure why we should accept a £6.40 charge to drop someone or collect someone from an airport when that’s the actual function and necessity of using an airport. I got charged £100 at COUNCIL OWNED Manchester airport for picking up a friend who accidentally had put themselves in the drop off zone rather than the collect zone. Just completely vile and disgusting corpo…

Are you saying they fined you for picking someone up in the drop off area? If so that's pretty wild. It's all just traffic at the end of the day.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#309

This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…

Well, I watched the video of some former Delta Force officer, who said that you can sharpen your credit card to make a deadly weapon out of it. Let's ban credit cards in the airplanes.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#310

This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…

In Zurich, you can buy Swiss army knives in the secure zone.

That's ok - 6cm blades are allowed. You can also carry it in a cabin luggage anyways.

realistically any broken glass bottle can be used as a blade.

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