Ironic mistake on TSA Blog
 

So I was looking at the blog today, reading about how, although it doesn't affect safety, the math errors in the radiation testing reports were "unacceptable" and that the contractors will be held accountable or something like that.

Then further down in the blog is this:

########################################
One year of naturally occurring background radiation: 300 millirem.
Annual recommended limit to the public of radiation from man-made sources: 100 millirem
Chest X-ray: 10 millirem.
Flight from New York to Los Angeles: 4 millirem.
One day of natural background: 0.1 millirem
Drinking three glasses of water a day for a year: 0.045 millirem
One backscatter X-ray scan: Approximately 0.005 millirem.
#########################################

I guess in apparent attempt to really drive home the point that naturally occurring background radiation will kill you long before the nude-o-scopes, they chose to represent this figure as both a daily and yearly number.

But something tells me that 0.1 times 365 does not equal 300. As a matter of fact, it seems like they're off by a factor of around 10. Which is ironic, since that's pretty much what the unacceptable contractor reports were off by.

Let's see how long this hangs around on the blog. Then we can probably get a good idea of how long TSA will let math errors persist in other parts of the organization.

J

Fixed Tonight about 30 minutes ago...
 

...with no explanation:

:rolleyes: "Math. It's soooooooo hard."

The very first comment (and a few others) pointed this out but it took four days for BB to round up enough people with all their fingers and toes to redo the calculation.

But coming from an organization that's a little fuzzy about whether 3 = 3.4 or not, an organization that said it's too complicated to deal with ounces (liquid) AND ounces (avoirdupois), an organization that believes $4700 might just be more than $10000, are we surprised?

"Yeah, Mom, I failed math again, but it's not like I'm ever going to use it in the Real World!" Betcha BB did really well in creative writing class, though. ;)

Blogdad Bob use to visit FT. He has disabled his stats page here so no one can see how often he visits.

Wow, I didn't read the comments before posting.

Bob writes at the bottom: "Thanks, I was just checking to see if you guys were reading... :)"

I honestly suspect that what really happened was Bob copied all the higher-ups on the first comment, with something like this:

"Hey bosses, does this dude know something we don't? Is 0.1 whatchamajigits per day not really the same as 300 whatchajigits per year? I guess he could be right, but I'm pretty sure we're right because this is what my bosses wrote in their memo to all of us..."

Then he waited around for the email to bounce between administrators until it happened to land in the inbox of the IT guy who was hired on contract to teach them how to use email. And he responded:

"you guys are idiots"

Then the correction was promptly made.

The whole thing reminds me of the time I tried to take a snowglobe with a diameter of 0.75 inches through security. TSO said:

"Snowglobes aren't allowed because they contain liquid"

I replied "The thing obviously has less than 3.4 ounces of liquid in it"

TSO: "Maybe, but we have no way to tell for sure, so I can't let you bring it through".

I was going to launch into a quick explanation of the volume of a sphere based on its diameter, but figured, "screw it".

TSO got a nice snowglobe.

I guess we know just how often this thread is read by TSA personnel, don't we?

They read it here as soon as it was posted, and probably in their comments.

It took them all day to find somebody who was able to actually do the math to verify it so they could correct it.

Decimals and all that. We know from the opt out day they can't do fractions and decimals.

:p Now that is funny. You are so right but it isn't just a TSA thing - try it with change at Target.

In all honesty though, had you put it in a quart size ziplock you would have been ok.

I like how they compare apples and oranges there.
1 year worth vs 1 scan
If they did 1 years worth vs 104 scans (weekly travel, 1 scan per direction) that would be more apples to apples

Unfortunately, the TSA website lists all snowglobes as prohibited items.

So you're probably right. :confused:

That's what I ended up finding out as well. It wasn't expensive, but it was neat...kind of like a pencil-topper but with tiny gold flakes in it and a real glass globe. It was literally small enough for me to swallow, if not for the base.

More like a big marble really.

So I wonder if they outlaw all snowglobes becasue they truly believe that there's no way to really tell how much liquid is in them? Surely if it was a liquid volume thing they could just have a restriction on diameter.

3.4fl oz is just over 6 cubic inches, which means that a snowglobe with a diameter of 2.26 inches is kosher.

To be safe, they could just say no snowglobes over 2 inches.

But then that means measuring, so maybe it can't work...

Your talking about an agency that is so unprofessional that they refuse to update signage that states 3.0 oz is the maximum container size for LGA's.

Then expecting front line TSA employees to be able to determine that a marble size snow globe holds less than 100ml of liquid is really asking a great deal.

You have to remember the screeners educational levels.

Actually the very first comment on the posting mentions the error.

And that's dated 12 March.

It took them over 4 days to find someone to do the math....:rolleyes:

Maybe an administrator should re-enable it and lock him out of disabling it again. See how he likes being forced to play by someone else's rules.

Doubt that will happen but it does clearly demonstrate how TSA would rather be seen as spying on the public rather than having a dialog with the public.