Online news in 1981
From an old news report — it used to take about two hours to download an electronic newspaper with connections fees of five dollars per hour. Oh, and the newspapers weren’t in it to make a profit.
On not overreacting to terrorism
Terrorism existed before 9/11, an interesting read from a pilot about the current state of security theatre at airports. Read the first few paragraphs and try to imagine that happening today and what the reaction would be.
In the 1980s we did not overreact. We did not stage ill-fated invasions of distant countries. People did not cease traveling and the airline industry did not fall into chaos. We were lazy in enacting better security, perhaps, but as a country our psychological reaction, much to our credit, was calm, measured and not yet self-defeating.
You might also consider the illustrious words of Philosoraptor regarding terrorism and security.
The decade in photos
The Big Picture has a good collection representing the decade in news photography.
Warlock consult
British police consulted a warlock in regards to mysterious horse mane braiding. Honestly, I don’t know what’s weirder: seemingly random horse braiding, or the fact that the police consulted a warlock.