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You CAN use your nook on a plane!
hereticrick
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
I've never posted on this forum, so I hope this is in the right place.
Thought I would just post in response to the strip from April 7, about nooks on planes, just in case the penny arcade guys weren't aware of it (which they probably are, I realize). You don't have to shut off your nook when on a plane. You can set your wi-fi connection to "Airplane Mode" and it won't attempt to connect to anything at all and won't even theoretically/potentially interfere with flight mechanics.
Also, since it came up in the post accompanying that strip: I recently finished Naomi Novik's Her Majesty's Dragon series, and yes, it is totally awesome. Can't wait till the next one in July (or june...I forget). Fantastic series, and one I recommend to customers (I work at Barnes and Noble - hence the nook info).
Thought I would just post in response to the strip from April 7, about nooks on planes, just in case the penny arcade guys weren't aware of it (which they probably are, I realize). You don't have to shut off your nook when on a plane. You can set your wi-fi connection to "Airplane Mode" and it won't attempt to connect to anything at all and won't even theoretically/potentially interfere with flight mechanics.
Also, since it came up in the post accompanying that strip: I recently finished Naomi Novik's Her Majesty's Dragon series, and yes, it is totally awesome. Can't wait till the next one in July (or june...I forget). Fantastic series, and one I recommend to customers (I work at Barnes and Noble - hence the nook info).
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They still tell you to turn off all electronics. My wife and I flew to see my parents a couple months ago, and they made a point to say "turning your devices to airplane mode is not enough, they must be off."
Or maybe the Airports are just paranoid.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The funny part is, while the stewardesses are telling people that - the pilots are chatting on their cell phones. I used to date a girl whose dad was a pilot for American - and he'd call during takeoff or landing all the time.
Electronic devices don't do anything to planes.
No, everything's so shielded that the interference is completely blocked. I'm betting there's probably a slim chance of a cell phone being able to fuck with the plane's instruments if the shielding had a tear somewhere, so they go for the overabundance of caution thing. Also, fuck people talking on cell phones in a plane.. no thanks.
Sorry, I can tell you for sure, it isn't.
Shielding is heavy. Now, there are some counter-examples of that, some (few) aircraft use fiber-optics, and some critical systems are shielded, but that is generally against intereference generated by the aircraft subsystems themselves, and not against external sources. You have to balance weight and cost. (Military aircraft aren't necessarily any better shielded than passenger aircraft, BTW.)
In fact, certain systems can't be shielded against in-band interference. Like the radio (also, some of the instruments are also essentially transmitters or recievers themselves, though I'm not familiar with avionics enough to evalute how many are on the victim table for cellphone bands - if anyone's interested enough I can ask if anyone's bored enough here to answer that). Sit a GSM cellphone next to a speaker. You'll be able to hear it communicating with the cellphone network from time to time. You can often hear than over the aircraft intercom or the radio (according to the pilots I'm sitting next to), which is great if the pilot's say, trying to recieve safety-critical instructions. Also, hearing cellphones chirp all day (time several hundred passergers), and you may never have a period of clear air (or sanity).
On the other hand, general-use processors (like a Nook or a GameBoy or a PC), probably don't even generate enough interference at the right frequency to be above the noise floor, and yeah, it's more a blanket CYA to stave off lawsuits when the victim's families go after the airlines.
Cellphones are a nuisance, both in terms of how they get misued in public environments, and RF-wise, but the airlines don't want to deal with EMI esoterics or empower employees to make decisions on what is or isn't a RF threat. They want a policy they can point to consistently that they can enforce.
So, there's still a place in this world for paper books. Zero interference.
The general gist is, the FAA has better things to do than make sure that every single piece of personal electronic equipment ever made doesn't interfere with every single piece of airplane electronic equipment ever made, and there is a significant difference between the amount of potential electronic interference that could arise from one person using a device on a plane compared to three hundred people using their devices on a plane.
A blanket policy also stops passengers from saying "How come that guy is allowed to keep his thing on, but I have to turn mine off?"
And, as a side bonus, it helps make sure people actually pay attention to those mandatory safety demonstrations that, even though they're almost worthless because you are almost guaranteed to die in the event of an "emergency landing", are still mandatory.
That said, what airline were you flying on that didn't allow you to use a Nook at all? I always use my PSP, laptop, etc. on planes, once we're in the air. How is the Nook any different?
For added fun, slip their names to the FAA and watch them lose their licenses.
Pilots aren't allowed to do anything except fly the plane when flying a plane.
Like use their laptops and fly past their destination by almost an hour? Yah.
And those guys, wait for it...lost their licenses. :P
The example here is before takeoff anyway.