Little Details

So I have a character who wears her hair in a plait down her back. At some point in the story, she is grabbed by this plait by a creature with sharp teeth. I intend for her to escape, but to have her plait torn. Is it likely that the whole plait would be torn off or more likely that only some of the hair would be removed? I assume there would also be some tearing of the skin, but am I right to also assume that the injuries would not be too serious?

ETA: I'm not sure I will have the hair in a plait after all, since comments (and thankyou for those!) suggest that that would be unlikely to tear enough for the victim to make an escape.

1. A pregnant character is adamant about wedding details. What's the highest spot in Japan (natural + with a view) that she can safely reach that won't harm her child(ren)? link on high altitude and pregnancy; another site said 7000 feet is the cap. I'll guess she's late in the first trimester. Ditching the guests would be a plus in her book, she's above-average physically fit for a Japanese woman, and she has no problem with acrophobia. ....or fences, she says.

2. This is just driving me nuts. In ABC's Monday Night Football (not football, the American one), the long version of the intro music has a distinctive hyper crescendo of violins. Is there a musical term for that?

edit: May we add a music tag please? :)

I have a character who is a professional hacker - By professional, I mean he has hacked several world banks and a military base. What would be some good, avalible programs [I don't mean your average SpyWare] for a person who knows he's being tracked by this hacker to protect himself with? Also, what would be the estimated time for the hacker to crack these programs [If they're crackable at all.]?

Is it, in all retrospect, possible to strangle somebody with your normal PlayStation/PlayStation 2 controller? The person who is getting strangled/almost getting strangled is in farely good health and weighs about 120-130 pounds. [/does not know if that helps but might as well mention it.]

If you take a.... you know, the things violin's are played with [/does not remember the name of them]... and make it somewhat sharper, is it possible to stab somebody through the heart/abdomen and cause some considerable damage? Would said person who was stabbed live? Would they have splinters in their arteries or some other odd medical problem like that?

[EDIT] - I understand you'd probably have to remove the string to stab somebody with a bow, but is it possible at all?

Thank you for the help!

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A lot has been written on Viking ships but not a lot on etiquette aboard. Whenever I think of captain-crew interaction my perception has been hopelessly tainted by Hornblower tales. So what was discipline like on a Viking ship? Say the ship is scheduled to set sail at a certain time and a seaman is late. Does he get punished? Flogged? Is there a Viking equivalent to "aye aye, captain"?
I am interested in life aboard the ships - I have enough pics and schematics of Viking longboats, but very little info on the "human element".
Thank you in advance.