What in the blue ****, AustraliaFollow

Obligatory article link.

I figure it's a better idea for me to post this, and we can hash out that the teacher in question is a fucking idiot before the thread gets failed up with Varus, than for Varus to start the thread and claim that we need to deport all the radical Australians.

Insightful analysis will not be provided in this post, due to budgetary cuts.

Nor do I. I'd have loved to have heard further explanation from the teacher detailing why she went that route, but offhand I can think of a number of possible reasons myself. Sounds like an interesting assignment that would make students tackle the subject matter from an unorthodox position. That's a good mental exercise. It's clearly not an attempt to promote terrorism.

Edited, Aug 26th 2010 1:29am by Eske

That project requires many skills useful in business.

Like assessing a target market, developing a successful distribution method, developing a compelling marketing campaign, setting goals, working effectively in small groups, results based thinking, assessing group response dynamics, population flows, researching the most effective solutions to problems, keeping proprietary information from being leaked, planning ahead, working efficiently with available resources, time management, etc, etc.

I'll get you in touch with a guy at DARPA who is running that market. The original, taxpayer funded version (The Policy Analysis Market) is defunct due to poor publicity, but the core concept is operational. Intrade is a limping, publicly available, version of it.

Silly dubble.

Edited, Aug 26th 2010 7:24am by paulsol

It should have been a two part assignment, where students had to design an anti-terrorist system within a set budget, and then run each students terrorist scenario through it, and see how many forms of attack their anti-terrorist system was likely to pick up.

How exactly is that a challenging assignment? All they have to do is set a few fires, just look what happened last time.

I liked the "it's not something you ask someone to do or think about," when after all that was the point. But yeah, allowance for personal trauma.

Also, has there been a terrorist attack on Australian soil? I know Bali was filled with Aussies, but I'm pretty sure Australia itself has never been attacked...

Anyway, I'm sure lots of things could be taught about terrorism, and one of the best ways to do it is surely to learn how terrorists think. Just one example, but when AQ uses bombs/suicide-bombers, they often set out one bomb in a crowded area, and then another shortly after near the main exit of that area. The second delayed blast is often much more deadly than the first, because of the rush of people and higher density of individuals. I'm pretty sure that the lesson here is that if you're ever unfortunate enough to be near a terror attack, don't run straight for exit if you can avoid it. Stay where you are and wait for the second explosion to go off.

The chances of ever being caught in a terorist attack are ridiculously tiny, so I'm not sure how useful this stuff really is. But it's not amazingly different from the aircraft emergency procedure stuff you get when flying.

I think that one of the underlying assumptions there is that it's impossible to waste someone's time when they're stuck on an aeroplane.

I would think being near the front of the plane would be the safest spot. Not at the front, but near it. The pilots are dead, but past the cockpit, you've got a chance. In the middle, you're dead when the plane splits in 2 and in the back, well, you're just screwed from the bouncing and end over end the rear of the plane will do. The front might just tunnel into the ground and then you crawl out where the rows behind you no longer exist. So, while the exit instructions are useless, as there will be new exits, the tuck your head to your *** bit might be useful.

Just my opinion.

Nah, the best place to be is on the nose, so you can block the ground.



That may be, but how many Airbuses have been flown into the Twin Towers?



The best, and indeed only, aeroplane story I have comes from an experience at Heathrow a few years back. There was this old lady sitting in the lobby, cheerily telling everyone that'd listen that a fortune teller had told her she'd die in a plane crash, and that oh by the way she was going to a suicide clinic.

Pity Guenny wasn't on her flight, really.