Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with september11

let it fall down

Potomac Avenue — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:25:44 -0800

What music came out soon (within a year) after September 11 2001 that was uniquely affected, either in perception or creation, by the terrorist attacks? This thread got me interested in whether or not there was a marked shift in cultural priorities or possibilities in the period after 2001, specifically expressed in pop or underground music.

I can think of some, but I'm sure I'm missing lots. This is too generic, and doesn't cover the more underground genres. Also I don't mean stuff explicitly written about War like Neil Young's Let's Roll, or about the attacks like Springsteen's the Rising.

Here's some examples of what I mean:

The Strokes album was a huge hit. Even though it was recorded before September 11, part of the hype leading up to its release was the controversy over the song New York City Cops, but also the fact that they came from Manhatten seemed to give the Fuck You attitude of their record a certain significance.

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was also a breakout hit for them--the cover depicted two towers, and several of the songs seemed tailor-made to address war, faith and tradgedy (even though that record also was recorded before 9/11).

The rapper Fabolous released his first single in December 2001, helped by a video saturated in American flags and positive references to American mainstream culture.

I'm sure there are more within that first year (or so). Right?

How to deal with an intelligent conspiracy theorist friend?

vizsla — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:19:29 -0800

A friend of mine, who is highly educated (married with two kids, accomplished medical researcher), is absolutely convinced that September 11 was a huge conspiracy initiated by members of the US government. She has a detailed complex explanation for everything. She takes it deeply personally when I scoff at her, telling me I should read the evidence before forming an opinion. I see her as gullible and she sees me as ignorant. Is there an analysis available comprehensively somewhere addressing the conspiracy theorists to the satisfaction of the leading academics in the relevant areas (material engineering, aerodynamics, media relations, architecture etc)? How do you deal with people like this? For example, she says that there is no rational explanation for the WTC7 failure and shows me extensively documented websites showing 300 architects who concur giving their explanations. She believes the Pentagon was never hit by a plane and again cites detailed analysis "proving" it could not have been so. Furthermore she believes (more tentatively in this case) that the media was complicit in the conspiracy and faked the images of the planes flying into the WTC buildings using CGI. Apparently the motive was to induce war for various revenue purposes. It's driving me nuts. It strongly offends my own sense of reality. She has an "explanation" for everything and has spent many hundreds of hours researching this. After discussing it with her, she ends up resenting me deeply and I end up feeling sorry for her which makes her resent me even more.

How were cell phone calls completed from hijacked planes on 9-11?

Pastabagel — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:20:35 -0800

9-11 Technology Filter: I have never been able to even get signal on my Blackberry 8200 (GSM) within 10 seconds of liftoff, so how were cell phone calls completed from hijacked planes on 9-11? Specifically, given the prevailing handset, carrier, and tower technologies present in the Boston, NY, and DC metro and intervening areas at the time, and given the flight paths and altitudes of the hijacked planes, how were passengers able to complete cellphone calls to loved ones? On the radio this morning, I heard some conspiracy theorists posit that proof of the 9-11 hoax is that all the evidence of the hijackers comes from cell and AirFone calls from the planes. They claimed that one of the planes was not equipped with AirFones, but that nonetheless descriptions of that hijacking came from passengers calling loved ones and their own voice mails on their cell phones (I don't not remember which plane they claimed didn't have airphones). All I could find online that was remotely coherent was here but it is very light on the technical details which would seem to put this issue to rest conclusively.

Some my questions are as follows:

A. How was it possible to for passengers to complete these calls at high altitudes? Were phones and towers more powerful then? Did they use a different encoding scheme that was more robust? (Analog vs. Digital, CDMA vs. GSM, etc.) The more technical the response, the better.

B. Were any of these calls from passengers recorded? What about the infamous "Let's Roll" (or "let's roll it"?) call? Are the voice mails available online?

C. Is a map available of the flight paths of the four planes that (a) includes their altitude, and (b) includes tower locations from 2001 from the major wireless carriers?

D. Has anyone been able to complete a cell phone call from an aircraft at any time between a minute after takeoff and a minute prior to landing? What carrier and phone?

E. If you have ever worked near the top of a very tall building (i.e. much taller than surrounding buildings and far above the ground, i.e. Transamerica in SF, Sears Tower in Chicago, Empire State or WTC in NY, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101, etc), have you experienced poor service that was explained because of your floors height above the surrounding towers?

F. Do cell towers not broadcast or receive signals from above? I assumed that towers broadcast signal radially and would therefore be subject to the inverse square law. Am I wrong? Are towers in rural areas significantly higher and stronger than towers in urban areas? Why?

Sorry if this is too long or inappropriately formated for AskMe. There is very little I could find about this on the web, so any help would be appreciated, and as I said, the more technical, the better.

Was what we were told about Flight 93 a myth?

brokekid — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:17:53 -0800

Was what we were told about Flight 93 a myth? I thought I had read somewhere that what we were told about the passengers of Flight 93, Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick and dozens of others bringing the flight to the ground was in fact false.

Is anyone aware of this? Or am I mistaken?

Jon Stewart and 9/11

Optamystic — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:21:41 -0800

Can anyone give me a link to Jon Stewart's opening monologue on the first Daily Show episode after September 11?

September 11 article

itchie — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:49:40 -0800

There was an article that came out in a well-known magazine a few years back about September 11. Help me find it. The article was in a popular news magazine (Time, Newsweek) and it had by-the-minute of what occurred that morning, including the individual lives of the people on board that plane (like what times some of the passengerse woke up to catch their flight). An online version of this article would be greatly appreciated.

Where were you when the towers fell?

caddis — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 11:18:26 -0800

Where were you on 9/11? How did you find out what was happening and what do you remember about that day? I was home with the TV and radio off and logged into some work related, non-news sites over the telephone so no one could even call me. Sometime around mid-morning, after the towers had alreaddy fallen, I checked my email and saw a message saying that all corporate travel had been cancelled due to the planes which had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Needless to say, I turned on a television straight away. Intense pain and sadness swept quickly over me that morning.