Five years ago on this day, I was taking an Honors Artificial Intelligence midterm exam. I was still puzzling over the last question regarding some variation on a backpropagation algorithm that I wasn’t sure that we covered in class when I stepped off the elevator in Stipes Hall.
There was thirty people or so just stopped dead in their tracks watching the TV that was mounted above the elevators. CNN was on, and they were covering some sort of plane accident that happened at the World Trade Center. My first thought was “wow, that was one hell of a flight miscalculation.” Then the second plane hit, right there live on TV.
It was clear that this wasn’t going to be business as usual. I had to work, so I headed on my normal path through the student union where I found a few hundred people watching the big screen, and several others saying that they just heard that the President of the University had canceled classes for today because of the attack.
Attack? Who could possibly be attacking us with airplanes?
I headed to Sherman Hall to my office and I finally got to see some news coverage that had some details… this was no accident. They had a radio on in the offices around the corner from me, someone stuck their head to say that the integrity of the first tower was failing rapidly and that they heard that people were jumping from the towers. It wasn’t much longer before the World Trade Center fell.
I don’t remember if I finished my shift that day or not, but I went right back to the dorm to watch the news coverage with my friends. It was a terrible, terrible day for this country. It is still so vivid that I don’t really want to watch the rehash of those events that has been going on everywhere. I didn’t see the movie. I don’t really plan to.
Are we safer as a country now? Yes, I think we are. Did we lose some of our freedoms along the way? Yes, probably a few. Did we need to go to Iraq? Who knows anymore, I know I don’t. I do know that five years ago today those 2,973 people that died shouldn’t have. In time, we will bring Osama Bin Laden to justice, but today that shouldn’t be the top billing.
Instead, we should take today to remember and honor those people that died in the process of living their lives and support the people that are out there right now trying to prevent this from happening again. That, and as my good buddy
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Have ya flown lately? Quite frankly, I don’t mind the extra measures. In fact, I feel better flying because of it. It’s nice to know how difficult it is for a person to board a plane just to fuck around like that – just like that dude who was shot in Miami.
This leaves, the only fear of flying comes from accidents; and in that regard, we have a very good track record since then too.
I’ve never flown at all, but I’ve heard from my friends that airports are ridiculous now. I was talking more along the lines of the NSA wiretapping and secret spying on American people, Patriot Act and all that.
Agencies and personel dedicated to such tasks should be allow to do what they need – as long as those activities are directed towards Counter-Terrorism efforts. I have yet to look much into the Cross-Atlantic Plot that was prevented last month; but prevention of such that plot was virtually impossible without monitoring capabilities.
As far as air travel, I’ve gone to Vegas in 2004, San Diego in 2005, and to the Philippines in May this year. Also, I’ll be back out to Vegas at the end of this month. Somehow, it felt natural going through the screening processes; do what was expected and everything’s alright (that sort of thing). Funny thing is – I wasn’t too confident of Manila’s airport because it looked rather dirty and old. Obviously, it was fine going through there as well.
Oddly enough, my biggest surprise security-wise was seeing it at Great America last year.
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