Idiot TSA does not think MBA is a real laptop!!!

WOW, this is just sad, i mean seriously do these TSA employees have a life? watch tv, or have or use a computer and go on the internet?

from engadget

The TSA has been known to take issue with products designed in Cupertino before, but for one particular traveler, it was Apple's thinnest laptop ever that caused the latest holdup. Upon tossing his ultra-sleek slab of aluminum underneath the scanner, security managed to find enough peculiarities to remove it from the flow, pull it aside and wrangle up the owner for some questions. Apparently, the TSA employee manning the line was flabbergasted by the "lack of a drive" and the complete absence of "ports on the back," and while hordes of co-workers swarmed to investigate, the user's flight took off on schedule. Thankfully, said owner was finally allowed to pass through after some more in-the-know colleagues explained in painfully simple terms what an SSD was, but the poor jet-setter most definitely paid the price for trying to slip some of the latest and greatest under the sharp eyes of the TSA (and cutting it close on time, of course).

here is the direct story http://www.michaelnygard.com/

Steve Jobs Made Me Miss My Flight
March 06, 2008

Or: On my way to San Jose.

On waking, I reach for my blackberry. It tells me what city I'm in; the hotel rooms offer no clues. Every Courtyard by Marriott is interchangeable. Many doors into the same house. From the size of my suitcase, I can recall the length of my stay: one or two days, the small bag. Three or four, the large. Two bags means more than a week.

CNBC, shower, coffee, email. Quick breakfast, $10.95 (except in California, where it's $12.95. Another clue.)

Getting there is the worst part. Flying is an endless accumulation of indignities. Airlines learned their human factors from hospitals. I've adapted my routine to minimize hassles.

Park in the same level of the same ramp. Check in at the less-used kiosks in the transit level. Check my bag so I don't have to **** around with the overhead bins. I'd rather dawdle at the carousel than drag the thing around the terminal anyway.

Always the frequent flyer line at the security checkpoint. Sometimes there's an airline person at the entrance of that line to check my boarding pass, sometimes not. An irritation. I'd rather it was always, or never. Sometimes means I don't know if I need my boarding pass out or not.

Same words to the TSA agent. Standard responses. "Doing fine," whether I am or not. Same belt. It's gone through the metal detector every time. I don't need to take it off.

Only... today, something is different. Instead of my bags trundling through the x-ray machine, she stops the belt. Calls over another agent, a palaver. Another agent flocks to the screen. A gabble, a conference, some consternation.

They pull my laptop, my new laptop making its first trip with me, out of the flow of bags. One takes me aside to a partitioned cubicle. Another of the endless supply of TSA agents takes the rest of my bags to a different cubicle. No yellow brick road here, just a pair of yellow painted feet on the floor, and my flight is boarding. I am made to understand that I should stand and wait. My laptop is on the table in front of me, just beyond reach, like I am waiting to collect my personal effects after being paroled.

I'm standing, watching my laptop on the table, listening to security clucking just behind me. "There's no drive," one says. "And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be," she continues.

A younger agent, joins the crew. I must now be occupying ten, perhaps twenty, percent of the security force. At this checkpoint anyway. There are three score more at the other five checkpoints. The new arrival looks at the printouts from x-ray, looks at my laptop sitting small and alone. He tells the others that it is a real laptop, not a "device". That it has a solid-state drive instead of a hard disc. They don't know what he means. He tries again, "Instead of a spinning disc, it keeps everything in flash memory." Still no good. "Like the memory card in a digital camera." He points to the x-ray, "Here. That's what it uses instead of a hard drive."

The senior agent hasn't been trained for technological change. New products on the market? They haven't been TSA approved. Probably shouldn't be permitted. He requires me to open the "device" and run a program. I do, and despite his inclination, the lead agent decides to release me and my troublesome laptop. My flight is long gone now, so I head for the service center to get rebooked.

Behind me, I hear the younger agent, perhaps not realizing that even the TSA must obey TSA rules, repeating himself.

"It's a MacBook Air."

UPDATE
From http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/11/tsa-works-to-clear-macbook-air-for-flight/

You may recall that MacBook Air user Michael Nygard was recently screened by the TSA (that's the Transportation Security Administration, to those who aren't in the US.) when he went through security with his MacBook Air. It would seem that the good folks manning the X-ray machine couldn't make heads or tail of what they saw on their screen. When Nygard explained that the MacBook Air was, in fact, a computer (and had that assertion backed up by a younger TSA worker) all was cleared up and he was sent on his merry way (though he did miss his flight).

The TSA is working hard to make sure you don't have to deal with this hassle. On the official TSA blog (yes, the TSA has a blog and it is pretty entertaining) Bob informs us now that he is working with Apple to get his hands on a MacBook Air (hey, Bob, just make sure you don't throw it out) for some testing. He wants to run it through one of their screening machines and see if it looks any different than normal laptops. If it does, in fact, look a little odd the image will be sent to all TSA workers in airports so that future travelers won't be bothered.

heres one of the comments to this article i found funny!
derekhardwick said...

"Dear Apple,

Thanks for providing the TSA with an Air for testing.

We're sorry, the Air did not pass our testing process. As a result, it has been confiscated.

Thank you for your cooperation,

TSA"

 

I don't think it's a real laptop either.

 

It's not, its a breadboard.

 

Is any Macbook a real laptop?

That is the question.

 

not really

 

Yeah, that was a really stupid screw up by the TSA.

 

It would make a fine paper weight though... if it were heavy enough

 

Yes, it does happen to be a real laptop.

 

noooo, way to spoil the fun sam.

 

Spoil the fun? Sounds mostly like Apple-bashing on non-Apple territory to me .

But anyhow, this topic is so Apple-centric now, I'm going to move it to its rightful place in the Apple forum.

 

Well there's dell bashing in non-dell territory here too. You don't do anything

 

Where, Crim? If I see it, I try to enforce the rules.

 

sam is a fanboi you know that.

and now that this thread is dissapearing to the apple house, i won't see it anymore......

 

Oooooh, that got Sammy's panties in a twist.

;p

 

My God! I've entered a wormhole!

I stepped into this thread in the Off Topic section, and emerge in the Apple section.

O_O

 

get out now. before you are converted.

oh wait. you are turning into a macboi as well aren't you

sammies panties into a knot more like it

 

Aww come on you guys! The Macbook Air is a laptop. It's just not a laptop with a huge market.

 

it could make a good frisbee i guess...... use the bandsaw to make it roughly round.

 

For anyone....

 

Pretty much. I do have the iPhone, after all.

=P

What else is new.

;p

 

LOL.

 

Usapatriot, that graphic in your signature is evil.

 

I take it you kept swatting at it?

 

I kept trying to get it with my thumb, but it kept moving.

 

The Macbook AIr is NOT a laptop. Its just a frisbee with a handy openable lid. remember this?

 

And can you feel the love tonight?
It is where we are
It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight?
How it's laid to rest
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

{Apologies to EJ}

 

Like one user commented on Engadget - it's a terrorist weapon. It's used for slitting people's throats with that sharp edge of it.

o.0

 

oh yeah, there was also a person who accidentally threw their MBA out because it got mixed up with stacks of old newspapers haa

http://www.newsweek.com/id/120052/output/print
Gone, Without a Trace

There will be a lot of desperate searches for lost MacBook Airs. And can you really blame a guy for losing something called Air?
Steven Levy
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:31 PM ET Mar 8, 2008

When something is thin enough to fit into an envelope, light enough to sit on your lap for a couple of hours without discomfort and so compact that it doesn't even bulge in an airline seat-back pocket, wouldn't it make sense that one could lose track of such a thing? Even if it is a computer?

Yes, it would make sense. Believe me. Please. Because I can't find my MacBook Air.

Can you really blame a guy for losing something that's called Air? True, Apple's new superslim laptop isn't transparent, and while its dimensions are anorexic (a profile ranging from 0.76 inches to 0.16 inches), we're not really talking about a dust mote here. It does weigh three pounds: impressive for a computer, but nowhere near the borders of nonexistence. In terms of utility, though, my MacBook Air (or, more accurately, the review unit that Apple lent me) might as well not exist. Because it's gone. Just another expensive miniature marvel of technology vanished into thin, um, air.

Let's walk back the cat (as the spies say) to try to solve this puzzle. It was a Wednesday morning. I thought I would take the Air to work with me. I was fairly confident of its location—an area of my apartment that includes a couch, a coffee table and a side table. This was also where I leave the white cube that is the computer's power supply, plugged into the extension cord right by the sofa. On that Wednesday, the power cord was indeed in place. But a quick scan did not reveal the presence of the laptop.

So I began a more thorough search. Looking for a MacBook Air, even in a New York City apartment, can be grueling. (Unlike the often-misplaced cell phone, it can't be called so you can locate it by ring.) You have to examine the bookshelves. You have to look under furniture. You have to scan through manila folders—because the Air is barely thicker than the papers inserted in those folders. Basically, you have to tear the whole place apart. Which I did. All I came up with was $6.80 in change and some credit-card bills for which I have already paid late fees. But no MacBook Air.

My next step was figuring out whether the laptop could have been lost—or stolen—at some other location. The last clear image I had of actually seeing it was the previous Friday afternoon, when (name-drop alert!) I was waiting to appear on "The Charlie Rose Show." I had shown the Air to another guest in the greenroom. Then I went to the studio, did the segment, grabbed my backpack and left. (Charlie Rose, who was in the studio the whole time, is not a suspect.) When I later asked the woman who runs the Rose show whether a MacBook Air had turned up, she said no.

I'm pretty sure, but not 100 percent, that after I got home that evening, I didn't take the computer out of the house again. Similar vagueness, I suspect, will lead to a lot of desperate searches for Airs over the next few years. (Most of these hunts, unlike mine, will turn up the computer.) The MacBook Air will not be the primary computer for many of its owners; lots of people need more storage than the maximum 80 gigabytes it provides. For those users, it will be a unit designated mainly for travel. This means that owners may well leave it in a perch that is later forgotten.

If my Air was stolen, I don't expect to see it again. The people at Apple (one of them couldn't stop laughing) do say that if the thief tried to repair it, Apple would identify the unit by its serial number. (By the way, NEWSWEEK is going to pony up the $1,800 for the loss.) Fortunately, because I had never bothered to wirelessly move all my data to the laptop, my personal exposure is limited. As a precaution, I did change the password on my Gmail, and de-authorized my iTunes account. Thus the thief, if there was a thief, cannot watch the two copy-protected episodes of "The Closer" I had downloaded. But I don't think it was stolen: as I noted, the power cord was in my living room, indicating that I'd used it sometime that weekend. It was safe at home—before it disappeared.

So what happened? In lieu of the presence of a poltergeist with techno-lust, I have developed a theory that I first viewed as remote, but now believe explains the fate of my Air. On Sundays in my apartment, the coffee table where the Air sat becomes the final resting place for the bulky New York Times. It is not unusual for other magazines, and newspapers from previous days, to accumulate there as well. My wife, whose clutter tolerance is well below my own, sometimes will swoop in and hastily gather the pulp in a huge stack, going directly to the trash-compactor room just down the hall from our apartment, dumping the pile into a plastic recycling bin. Sometimes the whole mess gets so nasty that I even perform this task myself. Could it be that somewhere in the stack was a Macintosh computer so thin that its manufacturer brags it could fit inside an envelope? I believe so. (For the record, my wife does not subscribe to this theory.)

As humiliating as it sounds, let me repeat: the MacBook Air is so thin that it got tossed out with the newspapers.

Yes, it's still possible the gizmo may have been stolen. Or it may be somewhere jammed into an obscure crevice in my apartment. For now, though, my review unit lays claim to being the first MacBook Air to be discarded by mistake. But, I will wager, not the last.

 

Ouch. I'd say it's time for him to replace his wife with a better (Possibly thinner and lighter as well) model.

 

Lol funny. TSA pfft. well at-least they will be more aware next time.

 

LOL @ the Macbook Air.

 

also on 1st page

UPDATE
From http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/11/tsa-works-to-clear-macbook-air-for-flight/

You may recall that MacBook Air user Michael Nygard was recently screened by the TSA (that's the Transportation Security Administration, to those who aren't in the US.) when he went through security with his MacBook Air. It would seem that the good folks manning the X-ray machine couldn't make heads or tail of what they saw on their screen. When Nygard explained that the MacBook Air was, in fact, a computer (and had that assertion backed up by a younger TSA worker) all was cleared up and he was sent on his merry way (though he did miss his flight).

The TSA is working hard to make sure you don't have to deal with this hassle. On the official TSA blog (yes, the TSA has a blog and it is pretty entertaining) Bob informs us now that he is working with Apple to get his hands on a MacBook Air (hey, Bob, just make sure you don't throw it out) for some testing. He wants to run it through one of their screening machines and see if it looks any different than normal laptops. If it does, in fact, look a little odd the image will be sent to all TSA workers in airports so that future travelers won't be bothered.

heres one of the comments to this article i found funny!
derekhardwick said...

"Dear Apple,

Thanks for providing the TSA with an Air for testing.

We're sorry, the Air did not pass our testing process. As a result, it has been confiscated.

Thank you for your cooperation,

TSA"