@ wikipedia

Following the tragic death by stabbing of an American tourist last week, The Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks now announced it will carry out random inspections of tourists entering some of the main parks in Beijing as of today. Tourists carrying “fruit knives” longer than 8 cm will be stopped for checks. Always good to hear security measures are implemented and as such voyagius has nothing against it. The point is: why check on the tourists? I assumed they were the ones that should be protected. The victim definitively was a tourist and that’s something that can be doubted about the attacker. Apparently he was from Hangzhou, possibly disgrunted and as all migrant workers are dispelled from Beijing and based on his age he might have been a “taiye qingnian”.
Meat knives are not mentioned but I suppose they are prohibited as well so if you intended to take your pig out to one of the parks and butcher it there, I suggest you leave it at your hotel room, at least till after the olympics. As for the fruit knives: one of the few varieties of fruit I can think of that would require a knife longer than 8 cm would be a (water)melon. So if you plan to carry whole watermelons with you when visiting the temple of heaven be prepared for a check.

source: xinhua news agency

@ wikipedia

As an enty for the Nasa Tech Briefs magazine for the “create the future contest“, a Mexican designer presented a very inventive solution for cramped aircraft seat spacing and thus also makes a contribution for prevention of deep vein thrombosis during long flights. The seating/bedding system is designed to individually change the position from sitting to reclining and visa versa. While making better use of the overhead space, the system at the same time ensures there is no extra weight compared to conventional seats and at the same time, taking the cabin design of an Airbus A 380 as a standard, would increase the conventional 555 seat configuration to 594.

Having said this I feel sure that regardless of the outcome of this years Nasa Tech Briefs design competition award (winners will be announced in January 2009), the interest from the side of the aircraft industry and airliners will be aroused to say the least. If the seats would be produced and the A 380 would be equipped with this the A 380 that have been turned over to airlines already will be known as the A 380 1.0 forever. Emirates at least should be informed already, as the Dubai Chronicle already reported on the matter. Patches will be cumbersome and expensive. And if this seating system is at all viable indeed, no doubt the interest of the travel health insurance industry is also aroused: seats that can be turned in a reclyning position in economy class are a dream of this industry that is always looking for transport capacities with legrests or entire seat rows for passengers with leg injuries. So hurray for the designer and the A 380 2.0, even if it is still in Beta.

source: view the entry at the create the futures contest

source: Iceland Review

@ wikipedia commons

Emirates Flight EK 201 from Dubai to JFK had to make an emergency landing in Munich, Germany on August 10th. On board was a 9 year old girl so critically ill that the aircraft had to make this unforseen stopover. The girl was rushed by helicopter to a medical facility, where, sadly enough, she passed away a couple of hours later. Although minor discrepancies exist as to the medical assistance provided to this little patient, this is not the reason for this posting.

The handling of the airbus A 380 requires specific equipment and docking capacities, with which the airport in Munich, having already been the host to publicity visits of the A 380 and future hub for Lufthansa A 380 aircraft,  is equipped. However most (international) airports are not equipped for this mega aircraft yet and this probably reduces the possibilities for emergency landings of this kind of aircraft. Something to think about? So far only Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Emirates fly the A 380. This particular aircraft was only handed over to Emirates 2 weeks ago.

Emergeny landings generally are a costly matter. In a generous mood, the airport decided that the expenses, amounting to an undisclosed  5 digit € figure would not be passed on to the family or the airline. Unusual indeed but the airport can probably use the publicity.

source: tz online (German only)

source: Shanghai municipal government