Fun with charts

Google forms puts out nice charts. A little coloration, and, BOOM! All sorts of statuses. No rhyme or reason.

Adverts

Yeah, there's ads on the page now. When I had spent $0 on the website, I figured I shouldn't try to make money off of it. Now that I have to cover my costs (so far, $10.16 for a domain—if some miserable cretin hadn't taken the .com, I'd still be free and clear. I'm not bitter at all. Don't click that link. Just mouse over it.

MSP report

I just wandered around MSP checking it out. Here's the folly of security:

3 checkpoints: No naked machines installed
2 checkpoints: Installed and in use
1 checkpoint: Installed and not in use (roped off)
1 crew only: No machines

They didn't seem to be preparing to install the machines at the non-machine checkpoints.

Does this make any sense?

200!

Over 200 status posts in three days. Keep 'em coming, we'll work on making it as close to real-time as possible.

Form!

Thanks to the Googles (what would we do without you, Larry, Sergey et al?) there's a nifty form on the home page which should make it super easy to submit statuses. And which should make it slightly more automated for me to update things. Which is great, because it has to be better than doing it all manually. (Yes, email and twitter will still be acceptable!)

I bet the form would even work from smart phones; I might make a standalone version for them. Later.

As seen on …

I should probably post a separate page but I haven't added a second page yet and why start now (plus, I'm on a bus, mfer, don't you ever forget, and don't have too much battery, and this is quicker):

James Fallows (Atlantic.com)
Lifehacker
Digg
Consumerist

Kinda cool.

Squatting

Someone (well, thanks to InstaTrace we know it's Homer Simpson of 732 Evergreen Terrace … our pledge enforcement van will be on its way—oh, wait, I mean, thanks to whois we know it's studio3k.com of Ocala, Florida). That's okay, because I jumped on tsastatus.net and it forwards now. Maybe Studio3k is trying to protect the URL for me since I wasn't jumping on it because I had, oh, 200 statuses to post. Or maybe studio3k is a ninny.

Observations

• Except for some pilot sites (TUL) very few small airports have the scan machines. Since, you know, no one ever started a terror-related trip at a small airport, like, say, PWM.
• Larger airports have scanners, but seem to use them sporadically, if at all.
• Airports with scanners often have ways to avoid them.

Site down?

I hope it's not. But it is (for now) on a home web server, and while it's pretty fast, it does have limitations. Like being hosted on a 8-year-old iBook with an iffy power supply. So, patience.

Pilot tells the truth—TSA gets mad at pilot

The TSA is really on top of their game.

http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/88014.html

Notes from 12/27

12/27: I went skiing all day and have 67 emails to post. And, oh god, the Twitters. Will work on it. Thanks! And, yes, I am hoping to make this more user friendly soon (i.e. search/sort by airport or date &c.). Lots of interesting information coming in though. I love the internet. Thanks to the person who pointed out the typo of "incidates" which has been fixed, too :)

Also, please remember to include the date you flew in updates.

Okay, I've alphabetized the list.

And I might need a fifth status: scanners installed and in use, but it's possible to avoid them. If I do that, I'd add blue, so that we'd have the good old Homeland Security Threat Level color scheme. I must do this. I have.

I also added quotes from contributors.