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Air travel, 1965-style

2009-09-05T19:51:48Z

I just accessioned a 90-page hardcover book that JAL gave to their first-class passengers in 1965. My copy came with the comment card (which refers to HND as an international airport) and pocket guide to various cities (including Karachi, yay). I suppose I'll have to do a full book report at some point, but for now, a snippet from the "Etiquette on Board" section:

Smoking: You may smoke any time except during takeoffs and landings. In consideration of your fellow passengers refrain from smoking cigars and pipes, please.

Milanese streetcar, San Francisco

2009-06-07T06:17:28Z

Milanese streetcar, San Francisco
Originally uploaded by Yamazaki-kun

Got some photos; more to follow.

Hotel wifi at Balticon

2009-05-23T19:39:29Z

The Marriott Hunt Valley Inn appears to have an extremely frakked-up wireless network -- it's assigning client addresses in a completely different netblock from the default gateway. This problem appears to be popping up in Linux for some reason, although my Android phone works fine. The solution:

sudo route add -net 172.30.1.0/24 ath0
sudo route add default gw 172.30.1.1

You will now be able to type a random URL into a browser and click through to teh Intarwebs. THIS HAS BEEN THE VOICE OF THE MYSTER-OPS. WE KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTH FEN.

United's customer service, or lack thereof

2008-11-20T19:46:57Z

Cranky Flier reports on a United talk at the PhoCusWright travel conference. This quote says it all:

Josh had a good question that seemed to be almost an afterthought, but it was important that it was asked. He wanted to know what “class” the airline was trying to be in when it said it wanted to be “best in class.” Were airlines like Singapore and Lufthansa included?

Tim responded that no, they weren’t. They’re only looking at North American carriers. And then he said, “For us to say we want to be as good as foreign flag carriers is overstretching.” Ouch. So they want to be the best of the worst, apparently.

Full article here.

37 days remaining

2008-10-30T23:42:11Z

...until the 2008 Japanese Language Proficiency Test (日本語能力試験). Yes, that means it's scheduled for 7 December. SOAS has charged my credit card, so now it's time to book train tickets and hotel.

And so it begins (again)

2008-09-01T22:08:00Z

Last week, I bought a Mamiya 645 1000S and a few lenses off a contractor at work. Looks like I'm back to shooting film¹ now; although if I'm going to deal with all the negatives of film (no pun intended), 35mm is something I don't ever plan on going back to, other than to run some Velvia rolls on a friend's Canon PC lens. (He's got a 5D, and I'll dust off the old Elan II body for this occasion.)

Unfortunately, while I exposed one roll of Provia 100F and got some good pictures, my shiny new scanner won't arrive until next week, so JPGs will have to wait.

Next on the agenda: Maybe head up to the quarry or Birdlip once it stops raining—which could potentially happen as early as Thursday.

¹Not exclusively, of course — I still like my D300.

Strange AdSense ad of the day

2008-07-06T10:18:00Z

Maytag Cheese

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Technorati Tags: adsense, gigo

UA cuts DEN-LHR flight, but not until after Worldcon.

2008-06-29T20:53:40Z

United is dropping their service between Denver and London, but is delaying the effective date so as not to affect Worldcon. Details from the Denver Business Journal.

Just as I get elite status somewhere, they start going to heck. (I'd much rather be elite on BA, but UA's the contract carrier LON-WAS, and anyhow DoD employees aren't good enough to fly EU airlines under the partial repeal of the Fly America Act, so the trips for work made the decision for me.)

Bill Donovan and the Pointy-Haired Boss

2008-06-12T20:15:09Z

OSS's Simple Sabotage Manual, written in 1994, has been declassified. (Although it looks like it was declassified a while ago and nobody actually noticed.) Definitely the most important business book of the year.

Breaking news: Delta catches a clue

2008-06-07T16:17:47Z

Actually deciding to offer services that customers are willing to pay for. Podcast on an Aviation Week blog.

UK restaurants — ur doing it wrong

2008-06-05T02:49:43Z

Today's dinner, compared with expected price for same in the UK:

Item	US price	UK price
Ribs, rack, 3/4	$15.50	£13 ($26, at least)
Iced tea	$2	£2 ($4, if you can find it)
Iced tea (two refills)	$0	£4 ($8)
Slice of pie	$4.50	£4.50 ($9)
Tax	$1.30	£3.50 ($7; included in above prices)
Tip	$5 (20%)	£2.50 ($5; 10%)
Total	$28.30	£27 ($54)

Twitter, I call you out.

2008-05-30T23:33:53Z

お前は、もう死んでいる！

At MCO, waiting to get to MDW, and the airplane that was supposed to depart 95 minutes ago hasn't yet arrived. Twitter's completely hosed, but at least teh Intarwebs are free here.

Balticon, first day

2008-05-24T04:07:34Z

I was running around too much to actually attend anything, but I got a few good pictures, like so:

(Update: This photo isn't all that sharp if you blow it up to 8x10, which shows you that while a 70-200 f/2.8 VR is a very fine lens, it's not a good substitute for a macro.)

ORD fun

2008-05-22T16:40:46Z

I don't normally care to pay for internet access, but Boingo has a $9.95/mo for 3 months plan with no contract, and the Hunt Valley Marriott is included. So $10 for six days, and then I cancel -- I can live with that.

AA gives WN a big leg up

2008-05-21T21:27:19Z

Second-hand via Fox News, also seen from madfilkentist, confirmed on AA's website. AA is now charging for all checked baggage within the US, USVI, PR, and Canada. Stock recommendation: increase weighting of WN in your portfolio.¹

¹Legal disclaimer: This recommendation has been pulled from somewhere looking only at this one story and is for rhetorical purposes only. I don't think I ever looked at a time-value plot of Southwest's shares, don't know what the PE is right now, and would have to look up the symbol. (Okay, I just did, and it's LUV.) So don't blame me if you take me literally and lose all your money.

Bank holiday errands, Texas-style

2008-05-05T21:41:26Z

I did not visit the following US military bases in the UK today:

Stavanger¹, Menwith Hill, Feltwell, Molesworth.

Still too much driving. And I should've just gone to Lakenheath directly and saved myself the time of stopping at every base on the way bar Molesworth.

¹ Yes, some might argue that Stavanger is a) a NATO base and b) in Norway, but 501 CSW supports it.

Iron Man — a brief review

2008-05-01T22:46:17Z

You get the comic-book unobtainium power source for free. Cell phones in SCIFs are so cliché now it's beyond dumb. And the Verizon Wireless phone working in Backobeyond, Afghanistan is just lame product placement.

...but could we please just go to DoD IG next time we spot super-spiffy weapons being illegally transfered to random Afghani warlords? It's not as if the perps won't dance the hemp fandango for that.¹

But if you crank up the suspension-of-disbelief-o-meter, especially during scenes involving military stuff ("We have an AWAC (sic) and a Global Hawk in the area."), it's definitely worth watching.

¹ Yeah, if the Marvelverse actually contained lawyers, Major Rhodes would be in a world of hurt for pretty much acting as an officer of Stark Industries.

Britsh Airways INFOSEC -- ur doing it wrong

2008-04-18T13:47:32Z

Here begins a lesson on information systems security. The photo below is of a shiny laminated piece of A4 chained to a customer service position in LHR T5 North Terminal. I'm standing where a customer would stand were the desk actually staffed.

We see that:

BA is using a group password. No audit trail. Oops.

Said password is easily available to people who aren't looking to see how horribly T5 is messed up.

Here endeth the lesson.

Photo backlog

2008-04-14T22:21:22Z

Got my pictures from July's visit to the Udvar-Hazy Center sorted; I just need to fix the white-balance and run most of 'em through Noise Ninja. In the meantime, a preview:

G1G0 becomes G1G1

2008-04-03T23:44:41Z

Got my OLPC laptop, and I bought Photoshop CS3 last week, so the obvious thing to do...

A custom animated startup screen. The background and progress bar gradients are a bit dithery on the device itself, but it otherwise looks pretty cool.

It's interesting what you can buy from Amazon these days

2008-03-24T23:57:37Z

Nostalgia of the day

2008-03-15T00:35:10Z

Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In?

You belong in Starship Troopers. Your idea of a good time is bouncing across an alien battlefield blasting the foes of humanity into extinction.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Tracfone Wireless v Thomas et al.

2008-03-11T22:48:38Z

Some stories on various blogs reported a judgment against the defendant, who was allegedly unlocking Tracfone prepaid handsets and reselling them for a profit.

Since there's no information about whatever reasoning the judge used, I had a look in PACER -- turns out it's a default judgment, so not much to go on other than whatever theories the plaintiff's attorney decided to claim, which appear from some cursory skimming to be a shrinkwrap license and DMCA.

The case is 3:07-cv-01495, Tracfone Wireless, Inc. v. Thomas et al. If anyone's interested in not racking up $5 to their PACER account, you can grab my copies:

Basilisk implementation

2008-02-05T22:23:07Z

From KOVR comes today's implementation of a David Langford short story:

It looks like a normal flashlight, but Homeland Security has paid close to a million dollars for it. It can stop you right in your tracks.

Denvention

2008-01-14T21:36:26Z

I won't be making it to Boskone this year—somewhat tight on vacation given other commitments. Will be doing Balticon (because I'll be in DC a few days afterwards for work, and they're paying the airfare) and Denvention.

The good news: UA will be flying nonstop LHR-DEN. The bad news: $1400 for regular economy, $1800 for a B-class economy ticket that will let me use some miles to upgrade. Hopefully we'll start to see some downward movement in two or three months.