Flexible Planet Blog

Airport Security Presents: Whole Body Imaging—Millimeter Wave of the Future (or, The TSA Wants To See More of You)

Our friends at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have a new device to help better detect dangerous objects passengers might sneak on flights. Using “millimeter wave” body imaging, the TSA can see what’s under any passenger’s clothes. Luckily, the machine being used is large enough that the traveler has to step inside it. (I fear the day technology reduces it to the size of those creepy x-ray specs you see on the backs of comic books.)

According to this CNN article, this type of security is secondary to the usual metal detectors we’re so fond of. Only after the initial screening process will randomly selected people be subject to the wave machine (that name makes it sound relaxing, no?). Anyone reluctant to try the machine can opt for a pat down instead.

When Authors Go Bad--Lonely Planet Author Lied About Book

When it rains, it pours…

This morning, I was searching for new and soon-to-be-released travel books on Amazon in order to present timely book reviews on this blog, and I came across Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics, and Professional Hedonism by Thomas Kohnstamm. Perfect, I thought, not released yet. I can be one of the first to get it and review it. So I added it to my cart. I even clicked on the author’s name to see what else he had written. Several books, including some Lonely Planet guidebooks. OK, a credible writer, I suppose.