I just read Outliers yesterday, conveniently enough, so the chapter is fresh on my mind. While Greenspun certainly refutes a thesis quite effectively, I don't think it's actually the thesis of the chapter he's discussing.

First of all, Gladwell does not at any point claim that American or Canadian pilots are "the best" due to the power distance index--in fact, he doesn't claim that at all. If you look at the book, the U.S. has the fifth-lowest index (lower being "better" for these purposes), behind New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Ireland, and he never says anything in the chapter that even implies that American pilots are best.

Nor does he say anywhere that the power distance index is the primary cause of plane crashes. Indeed, he explicitly says that any accident is caused by 6-7 small mistakes building on one another without being caught--something that could quite possibly be caused by inexperience, as Greenspun notes--but which can be exacerbated by two people in the cockpit unable to communicate in a direct way.

So while I think the article is a useful and interesting theory about differences in rates of crashes (though it should be noted that U.S. airlines do not have an overwhelmingly better safety record than, say, major European ones [1]), it is ultimately another in a series of "hey, let me overgeneralize what Malcolm Gladwell is saying and back it up with minor factual gaffes I found in the book" articles.

[1] http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm

Security whack-a-mole.

Box cutters used in 9/11... ban anything sharp

Shoe bomber... make people take off shoes

Liquid explosive plot... limit liquids and gels to 4oz containers

Guy tries to explode bomb in his lap during the last hour of a flight... no things in your lap during the last hour.

It's comical and tragic.

Summary of below: Since I was not aggressive/assertive and since I was coming up as a female in the 80's, a lot of my life track on the way to becoming a programmer was spent trying to deal with the stigma associated with my desire to do so.

1982-83 (grammar to high school age): My parents bought a word processor in the 80's that you could also program. It had orange letters on a black screen. I picked up the manual and I tinkered with it, typed in a few BASIC programs.

My parents didn't want me in the house playing with it and I wasn't motivated because what I got done was so limited and my imagination could only take me so far at that point.

In spite of that, I went to the neighborhood library to learn more, but there was nothing really there except for books on electronics. I tried to get friends and family to help me but no one could or would. For some reason going to the library I felt the need to hide my interest. I vividly remember hiding in the library stack with a few books on electronics one summer.

I am pretty sure they thought I was weird for having this interest. I was supposed to be doing more "female" things. My mother actively prevented me from doing other geeky things like bike maintenance (too greasy! and not feminine!).

1985 (17 years old): When I got to college, they didn't teach programming in a sane way. We had this book, "Oh! Pascal" and it sucked so hard I dropped the class. But the only work-study job I could get in college was administrative assistant work. They hired me then fired me (I'm not a secretary type), and strongly suggested I work for the computer geeks. To this day I have no idea why they pushed me there. But they had me doing tape back-up and whatnot. I enjoyed it.

1992-1994: When I was about 22 or 23, I got into programming while I was stuck in the Navy. I hated the Navy and they treated me like an idiot so I used my free time to self-study C language programming. Once I got through the course I realized I would have to pass a real university program and I just couldn't take the classes where I was stationed (not available).

1995: I got a career in software sales (6 years of that). I was entered sales info into a Unix box with an Informix database and I got to the command line by accident and started using gopher and usenet and Pine. I figured out how to install Slackware Linux.

I eventually became a sales engineer (1 year of that), then started work in network administration (2 years) which led to web development (Javascript/ASP) and eventually I taught myself Java (about 2001), then C# and now I do C++.

While I was working in network support/administration (hoping to eventually work my way into something better) for a public relations firm in Chicago, one of the PR seniors asked me where I went to school while I was fixing his computer. I told him and he realized I went to the same school as he did (prestigious, expensive midwestern university). He then said, sorrowfully, "It really is a shame then." He meant to imply that I was doing work beneath my capabilities and shouldn't be happy about it.

My battle may be dissimilar from others here. As a black woman I was supposed to be aiming at being a lawyer or business owner, not a software geek. My father worked as a tech in various roles for the phone company and I went home for a holiday a few years ago and I was so proud I got my first real programming job and he responded with "why would you want to do THAT for a living?"

It was at that moment I realized I had been living for approval of others and I felt released to do exactly what my talents and desires drove me to :)

I wish some of our politicians had the balls to stop this paranoid mess and say "No, we can't guarantee 100% safety, learn to live with it".

They are suggesting that the US Government needs to borrow a very large amount of money in 2010. To do this, one of three things needs to occur.

1) Another round of quantitative easing (Fed increases the money supply) This will lead to a dollar collapse, or at the very least, a severe dollar devaluation, which is generally not good for the economy.

2) Fed raises interest rates. With higher interest rates, more people are willing to buy treasuries, and so, there's more money coming in to pay the bills coming due in 2010. Higher interest rates are generally not good for the economy, particularly if it's already sick.

3) US Government engineers a stock market collapse, to send people scurrying to the safety of treasuries (and thereby allowing government to borrow what they need to). Of course, stock market collapses are generally bad for the economy.

So, in summary, I'd say they are predicting that the U.S. economy will have a rough 2010.

I flew yesterday and had an interesting encounter. I accidentally had a small set of lockpicks in my jacket pocket. I'm always VERY careful to completely empty my bag after I accidentally brought a knife into the security area once a few years ago in my camera bag (which they found of course, but didn't give me much trouble about. I always keep one in my camera bag for cutting tape, wires, tree branches in photo shoots, opening packages, etc)- however I didn't check my coat this time as I was rushed. Opps.

Anyway, I took lockpicks through. Of course they noticed them in the x-ray machine. The guy was super nice about it. He was like, "What are these?" and I responded, "Lockpicks. I just have them for practice on stuff and learning, I didn't mean to travel with them. I'm sorry if they are something that is contraband from carrying on airplanes and I totally understand if you have to keep them."

The guy looked a little puzzled. "Like you use to start or open a car?". Now honestly I've never tried picking a car. I've tried picking my motorcycle when the key fell out once, but never a car. I say, "I guess you could, but I've never tried it." I was worried that he thought I was a car thief or something. He then said, "Oh, well I've been having this trouble with my car ignition. Its really lose. I've always carried heavy keys and I think its broken. Do you know anything about fixing it?" He was intrigued and just was curious. Not accusatory at all. I was kinda shocked. He looked at them and said, "They don't look sharp or anything. They should be fine. We let people carry through small scissors which are more dangerous than these because if you break them in two they are two small knives if they are sharp"

He scanned them through the x-ray once more, and handed them to me and was asking a few other questions about good locksmiths in the area to fix his car. I apologized again for the trouble, but he said and this is the important part:

"Look, I used to work for a prison. The security here is a joke compared to real security at prisons. These wouldn't get through there, but we let all sorts of stuff through that would probably get someone killed in prison fights or would be instantly contraband there."

I'd thought about this before, but the bluntness and understanding that he had behind this was a real shock to me. I'd never thought that the airports were secure- but compare them to an actual 'secure' environment like a prison and they seem wide open.

It is truly unfortunate that the higher ups at the TSA don't promote this guy to the top and have the same understanding as him. You're not making a secure place with these practices- you're making placebo.

If we wanted real security EVERYONE would probably need cavity searches and no one could take anything at all onboard. I'm glad we aren't trying for that obviously.

This is the third article in last 24 hours in the top list where the author uses straw man to shove his own view forward by attacking an incorrectly interpreted opposing view. I hope it doesn't become a trend.

Using your nervousness level to gauge if you should go forward is as flawed as you can get. Some of the best achievers in their field--Tyson, Kobe etc.--admit to getting nervous.