September 1, 2008

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Flight hackers guide

September 1, 2008 in Places, Travel | 9 comments

I fly a lot, and I’m delayed a lot, including now, sitting in the terminal at Santa Barbara (waiting to take a redeye that will land me in Boston at dawn tomorrow). So I’ll take a few minutes to share some of what I’ve learned along the way.

First, dig . Not the best UI, but a very handy resource. It was via FlightAware that I found that my plane wasn’t only “delayed” (as the board said at the airport), but that the plane that would become my Denver flight was still on the ground in San Francisco, and would be an hour and thirty-seven munutes late taking off. Since I only had an hour layover in Denver, I had to seek alternatives.

Second, and . Since the Long Tail fills in blanks that the airlines miss, I was able to get a seat with extra legroom on the United Airbus 320 I’ll be taking tonight.

Third, if you’re waiting on line, call the airline and get business out of the way while you’re idle. I was able to do that in this case, and it was a merciful break for the passengers queued up behind me.

Fourth, dig AviationWeather.gov. All the links are interesting and rich with informative maps. There’s even a space weather link. Handy if there’s an aurora going on and you’re flying a route within sight of a magnetic pole. Here’s an example, complete with Space Weaher screen shots.

It’s the Mind, stupid

September 1, 2008 in Ideas, News | 3 comments

George Lakoff:

  …the choice of Sarah Palin as their vice presidential candidate reflects their expert understanding of the political mind and political marketing. Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster. It must be taken with the utmost seriousness…

  …the Palin nomination changes the game. The initial response has been to try to keep the focus on external realities, the “issues,” and differences on the issues. But the Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what Democrats call “issues,” but about the symbolic mechanisms of the political mind — the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can’t win on realities. Her job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in dominating political discourse.

Either it’s nuts or political jujistu of the first water. And even if it’s the former, it could turn into the latter. Obama and the dems can’t wonk their way to victory, even if that’s their nature. (And it is.)

Power Trip

September 1, 2008 in Business, Geology, Life, News, Past, Photography, Places, Politics, Travel | Comments closed

(Note: this post was made mistakenly as a page, and didn’t go up at first. Now it’s here. Thanks to commenters for the help.)

I’ve flown over these coal in New Mexico and Arizona many times, but never checked to see what was up with them. Or down. Or choose your direction.

Turns out the one above, a giant W in the Arizona landscape, is the Black Mesa Mine, and it has been mothballed since 2005 when the destination of its coal (via an unusual route), the Mojave power plant, was shut down. The Kayenta Mine is still running, as are the other mines I saw off to the east around the Four Corners areas.

Coast-to-Coasting

September 1, 2008 in Photography, Places, Travel | 2 comments

I’m flying back to Boston today. Weather looks bad for shooting over the West. It’ll be dark over the rest of the trip anyway, though sometimes I get some good city shots at night.

Flying out here on the 19th, I sat on the sunny side of the plane, which never makes for good shooting, but I still got some decent shots of Gloucester Bay, Mt. Blanca in Colorado’s Sagre de Cristo range, Great Sand Dunes National Park, center-fed farms (such as the one above) in the San Luis Valley, the San Juan River running through a hogback, Shiprock, the painted desert, the Black Mesa Mine, the Kayenta Mine, the Grand Canyon, salt evaporators, Mt. San Jacinto, Mt. San Gorgonio, mountains of coastal southern California and Los Angeles freeways. Some are good. Enjoy.

It’s gonna get gooier

September 1, 2008 in News, problems | 1 comment

Steve Lohr in the NYTimes:

  That challenge, legal experts say, is one of several for trademark policy and practice in the Internet age. Instant communication, aggressive business tactics and an unsettled legal environment, they say, mean that trademark disputes on the Internet will increase in number and intensity...

  The new areas of conflict, according to legal experts, include trademark owners trying to assert their rights to stifle online criticism of their products, and to stop trademarked brands from being purchased as keywords in Internet search advertising.

For example, live mesh.

Value subtraction

September 1, 2008 in Business, News, VRM | 8 comments

, which has amazingly bad PR chops, has done it again. Comcast to Place a Cap on Internet Downloads, headlines the NYTimes story. An excerpt:

  Until now, Comcast had not defined excessive use, but it had contacted customers who were using the heaviest amount of broadband and asked them to curb usage. Most do so willingly, the company said. The ones who do not curb their usage receive a second notice and risk having their accounts terminated.

  Although the 250 gigabyte cap is now specified, users who exceed that amount will not have their access switched off immediately, nor will they be charged for excessive use. Instead, the customers may be contacted by Comcast and notified of the cap. The company did not say how 250 gigabytes was selected.

  According to Comcast, a customer would have to download 62,500 songs or 125 standard-definition movies a month to exceed the caps,

So then, why bother? Why give customers one more reason not to use Comcast?

For what it’s worth, at our apartment near Boston I have a choice of Comcast, RCN and Verizon FiOS. I use FiOS because I get 20Mb of symmetrical service from a fiber optic line to the house, minimal technical restriction (they block port 80, but so does everybody) and rock-solid service. Far as I know Verizon doesn’t care how much data moves in either direction from my house. Comcast doesn’t compete with that. At least not yet.

All they did with this move is give me one more reason not to switch.

Case of the missing post

September 1, 2008 in Blogging, problems | 7 comments

Maybe one of ya’ll can explain to me why this post I put up last night does not appear in the blog. Nor does it appear among my list of posts in the WordPress admin dashboard. Yet clearly it exists. Strange.