The Inquisitr » airplanes

$32G’s to rent plane’s business section for a dog

Steven Hodson — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:39:00 +0000

I am a dog lover but even this is stretching things a little too far if you ask me. The idea of being willing to rent out the whole business section of a plane for a four hour flight just so you favorite pooch won’t suffer the trauma and anguish of flying cargo is just plain silly. It would seem though that for an Israeli it was a small price to pay to have her dog next to her for the flight from Paris to Israeli.

The woman identified as Rivka, told the Channel 10 television network Wednesday afternoon, she could not bear the thought of her eight-year-old boxer dog being placed in a cage in the cargo hold of the plane for the duration of the flight.

"He is my baby, and I asked El Al to rent out the business section and paid $32,000 to ensure my dog, Or (light in Hebrew), would be able to sit next to me for the entire flight," she told the television.

Source: UPI :: Woman flies business class with pooch

I wonder if It’s A Dog’s Life was the in-flight movie?

You might want to think twice about flying

Steven Hodson — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:16:47 +0000

In the United States on any given day there are approximately 87,000 flights criss-crossing the country and the world. Generally the feeling is that for the most part flying is fairly safe but if the information out of this year’s Defcon hacker conference is true we might want to think twice about that assumption.

While Righter Kunkel was careful not to give the specifics he did show how easy it is to affect air traffic control, jam radar, or even stop planes from taking off. It takes a little bit of prep work in order to pull anything like this off but once you have gotten yourself a fake id, a doctor’s aviation certificate, and a student pilot card you can log into the FAA’s pilot registration site.

This is where the fun starts because at this point you can submit your flight plans which then will have the system treat you as a trusted user. Now this is the theory part but if you were to submit an extremely large number of flight plans you could overwhelm the system.

…. essentially a denial of service attack. That could bog down the whole system. Kunkel said the FAA itself has said that some of its networks are improperly linked. He found that one system uses Telnet. Kunkel said he wouldn’t talk about the significance of that fact, but the implication was it could be used to launch a cyber attack.

The FAA found in its own report, issued in May, that there were 763 vulnerabilities in 70 web applications that are used internally at the FAA. It’s a damning report, Kunkel said, but the FAA says it is working on fixing some problems, including some fixes that will go into place by February, 2010.

Source: VentureBeat :: Defcon air traffic control hacker: Excuse me while I change your aircraft’s flight plan

Not exactly re-assuring is it.

Why is there a tank in your garage?

Steven Hodson — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:30:00 +0000

I realize that home protection is a pretty big business with everything from bars on the windows to lockdown safe rooms.There are companies that will sell you the most modern of security alarm systems that are monitored 24 hours days just so you can feel a little safer.

However I don’t think that any of those ideas come even close to having a great big huge tank sitting in your garage for all the world to see. Never mind the AK-47 you have hiding behind the front door or the claymore mines littering the hallways. These all pale in comparison to that big gun pointing in your direction.

Now if a tank isn’t up your alley you could always go the route of having a fully fueled jet plane to chase their asses with.

Of course if you are more the type of using a vicious animal to keep unwanted guests away you could try this option out for size

No of course between you an me we both know that none of these are real but rather some clever artwork done on weather resistant tarps that you can attached to the front of your garage, all courtesy of Style-Your-Garage.com

Gotta admit though they could be kind of fun to hang up and see the reactions of people as they walk by.

Amazing Air Traffic Simulation

Duncan Riley — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:43:38 +0000

The above video shows a simulation of actual air traffic worldwide over a 24 hour period. I’m not sure on the origins of the video, except that it originated on this site that isn’t in English, but it’s one of the coolest videos you’ll see this week.