Don't you just love how our society "fights" terrorism? Someone used something to kill someone, so let's ruin that thing for everyone, forever! Also see: air travel. I was a kid in the 90s and so I didn't fly before 9/11, but people say it was a much more enjoyable experience.
Pre 9/11 to now for air travel is the difference between day and night. It's not even close. This pretend, fake security we have today imposes so many burdens and costs on people who wish to travel. The least suspicious would easily think that the changes were meant to federalize a big portion of many people's lives.
Plus they’re not banning mobile phones or computers, and the best way to get something on fire is to shortcut a Li-ion battery - how much energy does a macbook contain.
I think you might be mis-reading the GP's point. It's not that it's a common occurrence for laptops to spontaneously combust, but rather than an adversary could intentionally cause one (or several) to do so.
Yes. Wrap it in some inflammable scarf/coat to get it going. Or find an Android vulnerability and make several phones burn at the same time.
Anyway, it’s no more a risk than guns or water on planes since it hasn’t happened yet; but among this security circus, it’s hypocritical to ban water and not li-ion batteries.
Inflammable and flammable are both adjectives that mean "easily set on fire". They have slightly different etymologies. In the case of inflammable, in- means "into" and is not a negation.
There's a world of difference between "you could assemble by some rube goldberg mechanism a bomb out of 100ml liquid containers" and actual firearms designed for easy long range killing.
