During the launch of the latest Soyuz to the space station Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko calmly looked at an iPad.  Other than the cramped confines of the Soyuz capsule, and their space suits, they looked like business men discussing their presentation while flying economy class.  

Yet for years due to nothing but fear of new technology one could not use a laptop, cell phone, or tablet on a commercial flight. Supposedly having more computers on planes which for a long time have been highly computerized would've been too much.  The ban on using such devices on planes was, in hindsight, similar to the notion of banning GMO's.  The only reason to fear GMO's is because they are thought of as relatively new.  When GMO's are as old as domestication.  Don't get me started about how modified good old all American corn is.

At least we are still going into space as a species.  Fear hasn't stopped us from doing that yet.  It is not the way we thought we would be doing it by now...it is not exactly flying a Pan Am space shuttle... but it'll do. 

Soon I will be flying to Baltimore for the annual meeting of the American Physical Society to present my approach to Quantum Gravity and it's results.   There are a number of ideas similar to mine, in some ways, being presented there.  Ideas like conformal coupling and the Higgs field and that black holes are not really singular when both relativity and quantum theory are accounted for.   This will be the first time I have flown in a while.  It is good to know that playing angry birds during take off will not crash the plane. 

If anyone wonders about the capitalization of iPad at the start of a sentence it seems that both iPad and IPad are acceptable