KIDS? ON MY PLANE?

ITEM [via BoingBoing]: TSA officials at SeaTac detain and search a 5-year-old kid whose name turned up on its no-fly list.



Obviously, the trouble was that the kid had the same name as some grown-up. But you have to wonder at what kind of mentality it takes to look at the name, look at the kid and instead of thinking, “Obviously a case of ‘same name as’, let him pass,” you think, “I’d better check him out – them terrorists are clever little fuckers.”

SOME BACKGROUNDER

1. This isn’t even news – the no-fly list has had babies on it since at least 2005.

2. The no-fly list also has dead people on it, and Ted Kennedy, but not the names of actual dangerous terrorists, because that’s classified.

3. Getting off the no-fly list is really, really not easy, though now it only takes maybe a month, rather than forever like it used to. And actually they don’t remove yr name, they just add you to another list that says, “This particular Robert Johnson is okay.”

No fun,

This is dF

PIMP MY UNIVERSITY

ITEM [via io9]: Guess what they’re building over at Hong Kong Polytechnic?

This.



It’s called the Innovation Tower, and it was designed by London-based architect Zaha Hadid – who apparently really liked those scenes on Coruscant in the Star Wars EP1-3 movies.

That’ll be $51 million, please.

Naturally, I like it – provided the end result actually looks like that. I’ll have photos for you in 2011.

Architect of negativity,

This is dF