Adding to the list that make the TSA go a bit giddy are Futuristic design awards it seems.
Juraj Hlaváč had won an Apple Designs Award at the recent Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco for the educational game called “Bobo Explores Light” developed by his company, Game Collage.
The award itself is a small silver cube that glows from within akin to the picture below.
Cute and Futuristic eh?
However, this was enough to make the TSA go slightly bananas when they saw this when Jurji begun the trip back to Seattle.
In his own words:
The backpack went through the x-ray machine and (the award) showed up as containing a perfect, black square.
The guy watching the screen from the x-ray machine called for another guy, and another guy, and pretty soon there was small crowd scrutinizing the image. The backpack came out, I sheepishly admitted to being the owner, and I was taken aside. When the TSA folks pulled the cube from my bag, it glowed.
Whispers passed over the crowd
That’s what you not call “a good start” in my book.
Jurji was taken aside by the TSA staff who after some explanation, rescanned the award on its own, with the cube glowing as it went in the X-ray machine, and glowing as it came out, drawing in a crowd in the process.
Well, those of you with PowerBooks/iBooks/Macbooks/Air’s/Pros will know what your scree does when its on – the Apple logo glows – and the award was cleared as safe to travel.
Eventally Jurji was allowed to pack his glowing cube up and go and catch his flight.
So remember, don’t take any glowing cubes through a TSA security point as it tends to spook them.
At least I’m not writing about the TSA’s “few bad apples”. Others are making the point pretty well for me…
Sometime, it’s enough to make you want to stay at away and take a (home) advantage of the situation
Several months ago the Omaha airport was evacuated at the behest of TSA. There was a local science fair and one of the students decided to carry their project on board. It turn out TSA evacuated the airport because “they didn’t know what it was and had never seen one before”. They never said it was a threat!
When they finally reopened, I asked every TSA agent I came across what happened. Their supervisor must told them not to say a word; they had fear in their eyes as if they would lose their jobs if they said what really happened. The full story finally leaked in the local newspaper.
It doesn’t have to be a threat…. just something they’ve never seen before. Ignorance was in full display that day.
@tjcabq – TSA is full of bible thumpers?