04-03-2003, 01:44 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Mobius Day One: Travelling Fun
The Mobius articles I'm going to be writing and publishing over the next several days are a combination of reports on the Mobius conference and a travel diary, with a lot of personal commentary. It's a little different than previous show reports, more "stream of consciousness". Still, I think it makes for a mildly entertaining read.  As I reported earlier, the first leg of my journey was a little odd, seeing people in masks walking around the Toronto airport. When you see someone else in a mask, and you don�t have one, one though crosses your mind: �Either they�re crazy for wearing that, or I am for not wearing one.� When I boarded the flight from Toronto to Paris, the first thing they did was hand out a blurred photocopy of a health hazard form where it stated that because I was coming from a location with known SARS occurrences, they wanted to have my contact information in case there was a reported outbreak on my flight. Translation: if other people get sick, odds are, so will you, and we think you�ll want to know. That form was a little sobering.
Jumping back a few hours: when I arrived at the Calgary airport, I discovered the �secret� of why Air Canada (and most airlines) are slowly going bankrupt: they�re completely insane. Since Microsoft was paying for my flight from Calgary to Paris (and back again), I thought perhaps I�d upgrade myself from UltraEconomy SuperCheapCoach Class (or whatever they�re calling it now) to MegaLegRoom BusinessUltraSuper Class. Having the extra space, and more importantly, a place to plug my laptop in (potentially) would be worth a couple hundred bucks to me. The smiling ticket lady told me the price of upgrading my flight - $5500 Canadian. 8O
I thought she was kidding, or quoting me the price of a full fare, booked on the same day (and thus insanely expensive), but no, this was only the upgrade price. Both the flight from Calgary to Toronto, and from Toronto to Paris, had open seats in business class. It�s not like it costs the airline any more fuel depending on where I�m sitting, so I can only assume that the costs for a business-class in-flight meal are somewhere in the $5000 range. The other $500 is likely the union labour charge to close that little drape. :roll:
People Are People
Being on an airplane for a long-haul flight is an interesting exercise in human sociology. The flight from Toronto to Paris was sparsely populated � perhaps only one quarter of the seats were filled. The natural tendency of people on and airplane with open seats is to move to them � ideally no one wants to be sitting next to anyone else. I can�t blame people for that � airplanes are designed for people four feet tall and 50 pounds. I feel like I�m in an alternate universe when I�m on most planes, in which I�m some sort of mutant not designed to fit comfortably in any part of the aircraft. Take one part accountant, one part sadist, and you have the vertically-challenged aeronautical engineers who designed planes.
But back to the human sociology: the flight attendants warn people that they should remain in their assigned seating so as to not unbalance the plane during flight. Fair enough � I�m not an engineer, so I won�t argue. Yet as soon as dinner is over and the first wizardly wiggle of Harry Potter comes on the screen, people bolt for open seating. Before you can blink, people are draped across three seats. And as the lights go down, most people put their seats into the �recline� position. At this point, it becomes obvious that the cruel midget engineers I mentioned above are also luddites: it�s impossible for me to use my laptop if the person in front of me has dropped their chair back.
Fair enough, I�ll just move to one of the seats where someone isn�t comatose. I kid you not � within three minutes of moving to a new seat, someone else has moved into my seat. Keeping in mind that the seat right next to it is full of my gear, and that it�s pretty obvious someone is sitting there and perhaps only in the bathroom, this person has now been in my seat for the past 45 minutes. It�s not a big deal, but I have to wonder what someone like that is thinking.
It's a Cruel, Cruel World...
I�ve already chewed through an entire novel, so out came the laptop for some fun. I�d like to take this opportunity to invoke that �curse of a thousand fleas infesting your nether regions� thing on the software developers who think it�s a great idea to require the original CD-ROM as part of the copyright protection scheme. My laptop has an extra bay where I can use a CD-ROM reader or an extra battery, but not both at the same time. In order to install WarCraft III, I needed to have the CD-ROM in the bay. From a 90% full battery, by the time it was finished installing, I was down to 54%. After ten minutes of game play, 35%. Another five minutes, and I was at 10% and unable to continue playing. The full install was 583 MB, so I struggle to understand the necessity for CD-ROM to be required in the drive for anything other than copyright reason. [I�ve since discovered that once the game is started, I can eject the CD-ROM and plug in the second battery � it really is just for authentication, not any practical purpose.]
But if I�ve already entered the serial number in during install, why not assume that perhaps I�m a legitimate customer who has done his part to support the software industry, and not force me to suffer through idiotic scenarios like the one above? I don�t imagine this is that unusual for the average laptop owner, especially considering that spare batteries cost so much. I really should have invested in one of those big flat battery packs that I�ve seen Dale Coffing use. Those Centrino-based laptops are looking better and better every day�
Dell Axim Battery Life Rocks!
The Dell Axim battery life is as impressive as always. I�ve used it to check my email three times (using Fido GPRS and GPRS Monitor), browse the Web and do a site post, chat on IM a little, check times and weather with WorldMate, and I�ve been listening to music for the past four hours off a CompactFlash card. No battery warnings yet!
Speaking of doing the above on a Pocket PC, at some point during this trip I hope to find the time to write up a rant on Pocket PC performance issues. I can�t believe how sluggish my Pocket PC becomes when I�m downloading a Web page, checking email, and trying to do IM chats at the same time. Am I being overly ambitious? Perhaps, but what's the point of a multi-tasking operating system if it can't execute flawlessly? Slowness should come from the lack of bandwidth for those tasks, not watching screen redraws line by line. And heaven forbid if you�re trying to listen to music at the same time as anything else � it�s going to skip at least once.
Pocket PC UI Quirks
I just ran across a design quirk with Media Player and reminders. I�m listening to some music, and the screen was turned off via Media Player�s screen blanking feature. I have that function mapped to a hardware button on my Dell, and Media Player�s default setting for button mapping focus remains unchanged (ie: button mappings will only work if Media Player has the focus). A reminder just triggered, so I pressed the hardware button to turn on the screen to see what the reminder was. Nothing happened. It seems that even when the screen is off, reminder windows steal the focus away from Media Player, making the only solution to turn the power to the device off and bank on again, which of course interrupts the music. Not a very elegant solution! While it�s important for the reminder window to have focus in most scenarios, it would be nice if there was recognition of the screen being off and stealing focus not being a good idea.
I Need Some Sleep
At the moment �Hurricane� is playing, but the headphone adaptor I need for stereo sound with my headphones is under the sleeping body of the person who�s in my seat. Don�t you just love air travel?
I�ve now been in the air for six hours, and as we fly into Paris dawn is breaking on April 2nd. It�s quite beautiful to see the sunrise breaking on top of the clouds rather than below them�end of day one.
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04-03-2003, 02:34 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 62
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i've always found the pricing for business/first class tickets nonsensical.
i understand the relationship between demand and pricing. not many seats -> desirable seats+meals+service -> higher price. and let's say $5000 is a free-market price and some will pay.
now if i was in the airline industry and had some sense, the pricing would decrease as it neared the flight-time. a $1000 in hand is better than nothing and an empty seat.
but of course some see a loop-hole for curruption here - people waiting till the last second to buy or upgrading friends etc - that's fine...you wait till the last second you might not get a seat. the ticket person upgrades a friend - that's ok - he still pays the minimum.
or another being within 48 hrs of a flight - put the biz/first class tickets on ebay with a minimum premium.
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04-03-2003, 02:46 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Re sluggishness: that might be the PXA250 at work.  I find running those three apps not to be too bad on my 206MHz StrongARM...
And, re Media Player; this is why I have the keys always remapped in my music player program. It's also worth mentioning my music program is "smart" and will unblank the screen if I get a reminder or anything like that. WMP, IMHO, is a mediocre music player. 
--janak
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04-03-2003, 02:54 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 21
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As a frequent flier - you couldn't say it better.. :lol:
Man..you just remind me of my latest flight to the Comdex in Vegas....thanks G. that the CeBit was/is only less than halfway.
Next November I should seriously consider the Concord and Brittish...
Please continue amusing me..
With best rgds.,
Saar
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04-03-2003, 03:04 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 139
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I called SAS a few days ago to see about upgrading my ticket and they quoted me over $7,000 US. Just crazy.
__________________
Wes SalmonSoftware Test EngineerMicrosoft Mobile and Embedded Devices
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04-03-2003, 03:22 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 289
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Welcome to Corporate International travel. I fly to Europe and Tokyo alot. If we fly intenational our booking agent books us business class due to company mandate. I will take the business class on the 14+ hour flight to Tokyo but i will ususally fly coach on th 7 hour flight to London or Dublin and save them money. I learned to tolerate a full flight in the middle seat next to large individuals. Although there is NO WAY in hell that i could do it for 14 hours
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04-03-2003, 03:25 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 338
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Great story Jason!!!
Keep 'em coming. I think you should travel more often just so that you can share with your loyal readers some hilarious situations!
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04-03-2003, 03:54 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 11
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Ah yes, air travel...
So I travel transborder (Canada - US) a fair bit but over the last few years I've had the "pleasure" of flying to Europe a few times.
First of all - WHY ARE YOU AWAKE??? Geez, you get there at 6 AM or so and you barely have enough time to sleep, at least on Toronto-London. Sleep my friend.
Second - to the person sitting on your stuff - wake 'em up! It's their own damn fault. Toss the polite Canadian stuff.
Third - pricing. Airline pricing is designed to encourage you to book ahead. The problem with letting seats go cheap at the last minute is that this will encourage people to wait until the last minute to get cheap seats. The insane prices are the airline's way of telling you "you should have done this two weeks ago". They want to make sure the plane is full as far in advance as possible.
Also, I think they want to discourage upgraders. A full J class ticket (first class) Toronto to Paris has got to be less than $5500.
On the other hand, if you're a frequent flier it's not hard to get upgraded. I've flown Air Canada transatlantic in "executive first" (their rather weak business class cabin) on fairly reasonably priced tickets. Something like 1 or 2% of the passengers on Air Canada generate a large chunk of their revenue so they tend to butter those people up and stuff everyone else.
Anyway, welcome to the wonderous world of air travel! :roll:
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04-03-2003, 04:02 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 360
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First off I will say I have Never Flown! Hopefully one day I will get the chance, but I can only imagine it is like being on a Grey Hound bus only in the air.
Second, Jason we all know you can cop some attitude if pushed. Personally it would have taken me a whole three seconds to get my seet back.
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04-03-2003, 04:10 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by JMountford
First off I will say I have Never Flown! Hopefully one day I will get the chance, but I can only imagine it is like being on a Grey Hound bus only in the air.
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8O You've never flown? How do you visit other parts of the US, let alone other countries? Very impressive, I must say.
--janak
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