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There are a lot of ways to say NO! Here are some of them
Forget five-star luxury… because a new hotel in Switzerland promises nothing.
It’s the Null Stern Hotel, which means “Zero Star Hotel,” and it’s built from an old Cold War bunker. As Ed Mazza writes, it has no windows and only two bedrooms to be shared by up to 14 guests.
There are advantages to staying in this old bunker. In addition to save you from a nuclear attack, it will also protect you from the latest reality television: The one TV in the place only shows surveillance footage.
The hotel was designed by The zero-star Frank and Patrik Riklin, twin brothers and artists who want to call attention to the fact that Switzerland has more than 250,000 fallout shelters… and they’re still building more.
Boing Boing partner John Battelle was on a WiFi-enabled flight last night, and wanted to say bedtime-goodnight to his kids using videochat. Lots of parents tuck their kids into bed over video when they’re far from home. What gentler, more loving example of the power of the internet could there be? Nope. A United Airlines flight attendant told John that this was prohibited because terrorists could use this to coordinate attacks.
So what’s a curious guy to do? To the Internet! Which is exactly what I did. Responses starting pouring in. Including one from a pal at the State Department, who echoed my basic goal: To use video chat to tuck my kids into bed isn’t a crime. Or at least, shouldn’t be.
The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits “two way devices” from communicating with the ground. However, the PLANE HAS WIFI. To combat this, not unlike China, United and other airlines have blocked Skype and other known video chat offenders. Apparently, they missed Apple iChat. Oops.
An FAA guidebook says inflight video chat is to be discouraged because it can be annoying to seatmates, but that’s very different than banning something because it’s a terrorist weapon.
Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/11/is-inflight-videocha.html