Air travel sucks and would be easy to make better

they actually created something that would allow them to check you without having to resort to these things you complain about but it had its own complaints

Namely you could see peoples underwear a little too well and some did not like that idea

Fly first class, they let most us waltz on thru without that tripe.

Brad you are a CEO, I'm sure you could afford a private charter to where ever you want to go.

 I do.

yeah. security measures are very much a hassle really. although i do understand their intention to protect us all.

Ya gotta love the TSA (Toiletries Security Administration).

Leave it to the government to take a good idea and waste billions screwing it up.  I have to concede, however, that ya never know when that extra half-ounce of Ole Regenerist facial rejuvination cream might blow.

That might have been a bad idea.

Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they won't know me next time I fly.

In both airports (MSP and SEA), I actually had to take off the belt as well, which was a first. I never used to, but the security folk were shouting out the PSAs once in a while. It's the main reason I hate airports. Once you get on a plane it's all good, but going through the airport is ugh!

As someone with a degree in chemistry and a history that has me on a couple FBI watch lists anyway, I can confidently say there is all sorts of stuff you could hide in something like that which you really wouldn't want on a plane.

Aluminum won't set off a metal detector. Neither will magnesium, or rust. If you know what you're doing you could bring down a plane with enough of those three things, and "enough" would be about the size of a D battery. I can think of a few other multi component threats that wouldn't be easy to detect, hopefully the TSA people know what to keep an eye out for.

I've been through six international airports this year. I don't mind the security, it's for my safety.

What I do mind is fat people taking up more than their seat space...

I've flown the most paranoid Israeli airlines in the world... and they aren't nearly as much hassle. More invasive, but less hassle.

I brought back a full bottle of Maple syrup and they took it out of my luggage and questioned me about it. Then they took it off for testing because they considered it low threat and gave it back to me. I mean yes, you can fit all kinds of bad things even in a 3oz bottle.. but a lot of those bad things don't even need the 3oz bottle and could just as easily been in an envelope... or a shoe bomb.

So in general I like the middle eastern security policy. If you don't have ANY reason to suspect them let it go, and if you have any reason you want to test like a random screening or just a hunch.. do a test and make arrests if necessary rather than dumping any would be evidence in an open trash container (conveniently placed in the middle of the airport's highest traffic areas so that if it was dangerous you get the maximum nubmer of fatalities).

Maglev, or magnetic levitation, is a system of transportation that suspends, guides and propels vehicles, predominantly trains, using magnetic levitation from a very large number of magnets for lift and propulsion. This method has the potential to be faster, quieter and smoother than wheeled mass transit systems. The technology has the potential to exceed 6,400 kilometres per hour (4,000 mph) if deployed in an evacuated tunnel. If not deployed in an evacuated tube the power needed for levitation is usually not a particularly large percentage and most of the power needed is used to overcome air drag, as with any other high speed train.

Catching a train overseas would be less of a hassle coz its so much faster

I'll stick with my hugely expensive maglev bed thank you.

Wouldn't you need some sort of magnetic rail for that? One hesitates to think about the upkeep.

You do need a magnetic rail for that. The reason why it's not a total economical failure is because only the one place where the train is currently floating over needs to be powered. So, while powering the whole length of the rail would suck a city dry off juice, it is not really necessary, because only the magnets that are one kilometer ahead the train are being powered up and are turned off as the train 'flies' by.

As for airport security, I understand people may not like it. I understand they may choose other means of transportation above the plane due to these annoyances.
I do not, however, understand people who fail to see why it HAS to be this way.
Sure, 99.999% of the flights wouldn't be interrupted in any way if the security wasn't there at all.
But it doesn't really take a strong imagination to think WHAT IF? 
Think: You kiss your beloved wife as she's boarding the plane to visit her mum and then turn on the TV to learn that your wife is dead. Her organs are blasted all over southern Nevada, because some mentally unstable f%&k wanted to live forever and loaded his laptop with nitro and blew up the plane at 30.000 feet.

Would you NOT be ENRAGED if some suited prick showed up on TV and said
"We are sorry, but with the passenger's convenience in mind all security procedures were cut down. People didn't like their laptops being checked, you know. Also, we've been losing some billions of dollars because of the security being inconvenient. Well, shit happens."

What can be done to ensure safety has to be done and that's it. That's the only way.

Along that line I can't understand those jerks that walk around the streets at night screaming "F*ck the police!".
If I put a bullet through his legs so he can't move and aim at his forehead he will CRY for a police patrol to magically pop out of nowhere and stop me.

People hate what they find inconvenient without ever spending one damn second to really think about it.

Security is important to a point, but even though one can imagine all the ways something can go wrong, one does have to weight the cost/benefits of implementing a lot of expensive (and often ineffecient) security to stop it.  

Let's expand on the WHAT IF scenario for a moment.  The plane example was mentioned already so let's add a few other examples.  What if said wife took the metro instead, and a similar scenario occured.  Or shopping in a mall, or taking the bus.  What would happen if we implemented similar security features in those places.  You have to take your shoes off, and have your bags checked, etc, when you went on a train, or in a mall.  After all, the safety of everyone is paramount, so we should do everything we can to make sure nothing like those could ever happen.  

I will grant you that a bomb going off in a metro train, or in a mall wouldn't cause as many casualties, but they would still cause some, and one of those could be someone's wife, someone's brother, and so on.  But what would the economic opportunity cost be in implementing said security procedures everywhere.  That's something that all too often is not considered, and I guess partly because it can be difficult to nail down the alternatives.  Are the billions that would be spent on such security (not to mention the massive amounts of wasted time that occurs for individuals everywhere to go through them, and time is a valuable resource as well) the best place for that money to be spent?  

Everybody can kill another person. Hell, you can kill fifteen people just by slamming your car into a bus stop.
Let's take all cars from everyone.

Taking my example into such a scale is exactly where your "cost/benefits" becomes extremely unfavourable.

An airplane is a very specific place. You can stop a bus and get out. You can stop a subway train and get out. You can't just stop a plane and get out.
Further - you can immobilize a bus or train and thus render it harmless by itself, to both the people inside and outside. You can't stop a plane.

There's no emergency break on a plane. The passenger has no control over a plane. Plus, crashing with a plane is a safer bet than using the emergency exit in air.

Of all the mass transit systems, airplanes are most dangerous if something goes terribly wrong and it is the easiest to make things go terribly wrong on an airplane.

Also, you're talking about "economic opportunity cost" of applying high security in every public place. There's no "cost" to discuss, there's a level of stupidity instead. You can't check every person in the world if he isn't leaving his house with a bomb in the bag. You just can't.
But you CAN check everyone who's getting on an airplane.
And it's being done.

Like N3Rull said, you don't have to power everything at once. And one more cool thing: The rails effectively don't need maintenance or repairs because they don't wear out: The train flies over the rails and never touches them.

I doubt that security will be much of a problem with any transportation method that can't be flown into skyscrapers.

The USA is actually ideal for the MagLev system (as opposed to Germany which developed that technology): Large cities seperated by great distance. Germany has lots of cities which are near enough to be easily reached by foot or bike.

But guess who won't like to see the MagLev being used in the USA. Yep, those that profit from the alternatives: Planes and Cars. Tough luck for Siemens ... they have a history of bribing the wrong guys.

Lul whut?! Near enough to reach by foot or bike? What, you expect people to walk for a couple of days to reach the nearest city? Quite funny in comparison to the USA, where people are too lazy to walk or cycle to the mall.

Ain't that Tarja on your Avatar?

If I didn't have to take off my shoes or take my laptop out of my laptop case it would improve the experience massively.

Yeah, right. Captured criminals would be that much happier without handcuffs as well.

All sorts of objects, from knives to bombs, have been brought aboard planes in hand luggage (laptop case?) and used to deadly effect a number of times in the past.
If you don't want to open your laptop case, rent a private jet/helicopter. They won't bother.

Oh and if you want to know why they're checking your shoes:

Yesh! that's Tarja.

It also has been proven that you can make weapons out of non-metals, explosives out of non conspicuous materials, cause considerable damage with liquids < 100 ml and if that doesn't scare you then you'll be happy to know that airport security is so arbitrary in some countries that you can just walk in there without being noticed.

You'll never counter all threats, you will only (try to) minimize them, but you can ask yourself if it is worth it.

Your wife can also die when walking your kid to school because some drunk thought he could still drive a car. Actually cars are more likely to kill you than a plane anyway (even if you can stop a car) so you have to ask yourself what the use of it all is. As a diabetic who needs to have some form of carbs with him at all times it's very frustrating to have to throw it all away. And because I'm not rich I fly cheap airlines which means I have to pay an arm and a leg for food inside the plane.

A little common sense would go a long way here. Personally I've stopped travelling because it's simply a pain in the ass.

I've seen grandma's in wheelchair's close to strip searched by folks with towels wrapped around their heads. I'm as much against racial profiling as the next guy but get real.

The TSA has no real effect other than give the *appearance* of safety. I’m willing to give up *some* freedoms if they really do have a positive effect but giving up my rights (and time) for the mere appearance of safety is silly.

You know, I could actually deal with the searching. I carry dangerous stuff with me but that's for my medical condition which I have a pass for, other than that I never did get manhandled so far. The most annoying thing here for me is the time it takes, omg.

However I'm increasingly beginning to wonder about privacy. Apparantly US customs are allowed to copy your entire harddrive of any laptop you carry with you, they want your personal information even before you enter the country and fingerprints are mandatory so I've heard. I'm sure most people will never have to worry about this but I wonder what on earth they intend to do with all that information. As if a terrorist is stupid enough to keep his I'm-gonna-KABOOM-barack-obama plans on his laptop he carries on him.