Mobius Day One: Travelling Fun

[Jason Dunn]

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. :D <!> As I <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=10903">reported earlier</a>, 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.<br /><br />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: <i>they’re completely insane</i>. 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<br /><br />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:<br /><br /><b><span>People Are People</span></b><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br /><b><span>It's a Cruel, Cruel World...</span></b><br />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>[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.]</i> <br /><br />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…<br /><br /><b><span>Dell Axim Battery Life Rocks!</span></b><br />The Dell Axim battery life is as impressive as always. I’ve used it to check my email three times (using <a href="http://www.fido.ca">Fido GPRS</a> and <a href="http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com">GPRS Monitor</a>), browse the Web and do a site post, chat on IM a little, check times and weather with <a href="http://www.mobimate.com">WorldMate</a>, and I’ve been listening to music for the past four hours off a CompactFlash card. No battery warnings yet!<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><b><span>Pocket PC UI Quirks</span></b><br />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.<br /><br /><b><span>I Need Some Sleep</span></b><br />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?<br /><br />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.

[snowlion]

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.

[Janak Parekh]

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

[Eos]

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

[Wes Salmon]

I called SAS a few days ago to see about upgrading my ticket and they quoted me over $7,000 US. Just crazy.

[Master O'Mayhem]

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 :)

[Bob Anderson]

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!

[EHenry]

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:

[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.

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.

[Janak Parekh]

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.
8O You've never flown? How do you visit other parts of the US, let alone other countries? Very impressive, I must say. ;)

--janak

[Crystal Eitle]

The other $500 is likely the union labour charge to close that little drape. :roll:

Don't I wish! I used to work as a flight attendant (hence my screen name), and unless you've been at one airline for 20+ years, you don't make any money. I loved my job, but $13,000 a year wasn't enough for me to live on. (Well, it was, but only just barely).

the flight attendants warn people that they should remain in their assigned seating so as to not unbalance the plane during flight.

Yep! Scary, but true. This only really applies during takeoff, though.

Man, I miss flying. It's one of my favorite things in the world.

[Jason Dunn]

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.

It wasn't as big of am imposition as I probably let on when I wrote that two days ago. I had my laptop, and was able to head the movie in mono, so I figured I'd just let her sleep. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. :)

[Evee Ev]

jason...were you actually reading a real book....like, on paper?

[dean_shan]

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.
8O You've never flown? How do you visit other parts of the US, let alone other countries? Very impressive, I must say. ;)
There is nothing wrong with that. I once went seven years without leaving my home state.

[Evee Ev]

dude! you live in alaska! that's perfectly normal! :D

[Brad Adrian]

Unbalance the plane!?!?!? That's absurd! They just want people to remain in their seats so it's easier for them to keep track of where people are. That's not a bad reason, either, so they need to just be up front about it.

[Crystal Eitle]

I thought it was absurd too, at first. I mean, how can people weighing 100-200 lbs unbalance an aircraft weighing several hundred thousand pounds? But the pilots told us it mattered, and if the plane wasn't full of passengers, we usually loaded from the back first. Same thing with luggage.

Maybe they were lying to us because they didn't want us to tell the passengers the truth either! I don't know. There's a lot of dissimulation that goes on in the airline industry.

[dacs29]

Oh, the pleasures of flying. :D

Since I live in Germany, but go to college/university in the United States, I go on about four roundtrip flights per year. While I absolutely do love flying, the last couple times I've flown have been complete nightmares.

Also, there's such a difference between airlines even in coach class. A few years ago I flew from Paris to JFK on Singapore Airlines and I was very impressed. Each seat has its own personal television screen with movie channels and a SNES built into the phone for international phone calls. Then I fly with Northwest and the seats are very small and there's only a few large movie screens scattered throughout the cabin. So I guess, the airline really does matter.

And one more thing, how can you not live in your state for seven years?? I don't even think I could spend more than a few months in my respective country without leaving. :D

David

[Elad Yakobowicz]

There is nothing wrong with that. I once went seven years without leaving my home state.

I'm pushing 4 years this coming summer.

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

Because many other people aren't :( Although I'll admit there are much more reasonable methods of checking copyright that wouldn't require a CD. Then again, you can't blame companies... I've heard stories of people that have gone to Costco and ripped open boxes so they can steal the key codes.

[Duncan]

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.
8O You've never flown? How do you visit other parts of the US, let alone other countries? Very impressive, I must say. ;)

--janak

Since he lives in Kansas - surely he just needs to wait for the next tornado? :lol:

Re: people not leaving their home state - many people don't venture out of their home countries/states for many years at a time (or perhaps never) and the US is only really a union of states - so not too surprising that someone might have stayed in their home state...

[Janak Parekh]

8O You've never flown? How do you visit other parts of the US, let alone other countries? Very impressive, I must say. ;)
There is nothing wrong with that. I once went seven years without leaving my home state.
I never said there was anything wrong ;) I've gone years without flying as well, but eventually... :)

Duncan - the US is tighter, unionwise, than you imply. Sure, there are states and state boundaries, but it's commonplace to cross them and there's no checkpoints or anything.

--janak

[Duncan]

Duncan - the US is tighter, unionwise, than you imply. Sure, there are states and state boundaries, but it's commonplace to cross them and there's no checkpoints or anything.

I wasn't suggesting that travelling between US states is hard - more that since each state is largely self-governing with its own infrastructure and everything present (and the states are mostly pretty large) I can see that people who don't live near state borders may easily not leave the state.

Obviously the US has become much more of a unified whole over the years - but each US state still has much more in common with a country (in its political makeup) than (for example) a county in England.

Mind you there are people who are born, live and die within one town or city.

[Crystal Eitle]

Also, there's such a difference between airlines even in coach class. A few years ago I flew from Paris to JFK on Singapore Airlines and I was very impressed.

I second that. Being a passenger on Singapore Air was one of the more delightful flying experiences I've had. Excellent food, impeccable service, individualized entertainment system with 15 different movie channels plus Nintendo, all of this in coach class.

[Pony99CA]

Duncan - the US is tighter, unionwise, than you imply. Sure, there are states and state boundaries, but it's commonplace to cross them and there's no checkpoints or anything.
That comments about checkpoints isn't quite true. For example, drive I-10 between California and Arizona and they have an agricultural checkpoint. You don't always have to stop, but sometimes they ask if you have any fruits or vegetables.

Steve

[Pony99CA]

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:
Maybe that charge is to keep them from going bankrupt. :-D

Seriously, I wish there was a "super coach" class that would have the larger seats of business class without the other amenities (food, drinks, etc.). I'm 6'2" and would gladly pay $100-$200 extra for a round-trip, cross-country flight for that.

I just thought of another option -- an "a la carte" seating option. You could pick the seat you wanted (regular or larger), the meal service you wanted, the drink options you wanted, and the airline would price that accordingly.

Steve

[ctmagnus]

I just thought of another option -- an "a la carte" seating option. You could pick the seat you wanted (regular or larger), the meal service you wanted, the drink options you wanted, and the airline would price that accordingly.

Steve

Yeah, but then they'd have to implement a database for that. And then the prices would really skyrocket! :jawdrop:

[Rob Alexander]

Also, there's such a difference between airlines even in coach class. A few years ago I flew from Paris to JFK on Singapore Airlines and I was very impressed.

I second that. Being a passenger on Singapore Air was one of the more delightful flying experiences I've had. Excellent food, impeccable service, individualized entertainment system with 15 different movie channels plus Nintendo, all of this in coach class.

Yeah, Singapore Airlines is the best I've ever flown on. Everything is first-rate, and their business class lounge (in Singapore) is head and shoulders above most. I definitely would not pass up a chance to fly with them again.

[Rob Alexander]

Seriously, I wish there was a "super coach" class that would have the larger seats of business class without the other amenities (food, drinks, etc.). I'm 6'2" and would gladly pay $100-$200 extra for a round-trip, cross-country flight for that.

United has such a thing, called Economy Plus. It's not exactly luxurious, but it's much better than their regular economy. Of course, poor old United may not last out the year, but I think some others are trying the same idea.

[Kati Compton]

Or try to get seated in an exit row for more space.

As for planes with individual screens - it also depends on the plane you get. I've flown in a 777 via United and they had the individual TV screens, but that's pretty rare. More often I end up on a 737 which has shared screens.

[Janak Parekh]

That comments about checkpoints isn't quite true. For example, drive I-10 between California and Arizona and they have an agricultural checkpoint. You don't always have to stop, but sometimes they ask if you have any fruits or vegetables.
Hmm, not when we last crossed the border a few years ago... or maybe I didn't notice. In any case, 99% of the roads don't have checkpoints for standard passenger vehicles (as opposed to trucks). Happier? :D

--janak

[Pony99CA]

That comments about checkpoints isn't quite true. For example, drive I-10 between California and Arizona and they have an agricultural checkpoint. You don't always have to stop, but sometimes they ask if you have any fruits or vegetables.
Hmm, not when we last crossed the border a few years ago... or maybe I didn't notice. In any case, 99% of the roads don't have checkpoints for standard passenger vehicles (as opposed to trucks). Happier? :D

Much happier. :lol:

Seriously, I remember that checkpoint there when I drove cross-country with a friend in 1979 and it was there when I visited my brother in Arizona last Thanksgiving. :-)

Of course, your general point is correct -- most interstate roads don't have any checkpoints. Imagine how expensive that would be. I wonder if all inter-country roads in Europe have them.

Steve

[Jason Dunn]

jason...were you actually reading a real book....like, on paper?

Yes, I read paper books a lot. None of the books I like to read are in eBook format yet, and even those that are available are priced insanely. Paper books are, for the most part, more convinient for me - I can leave them in specific locations for reading (ie: bedroom) rather than taking my Pocket PC with me everywhere in the house.

I believe in the idea of eBooks, but it has a lot of maturing to do...

[Pony99CA]

Paper books are, for the most part, more convinient for me - I can leave them in specific locations for reading (ie: bedroom) rather than taking my Pocket PC with me everywhere in the house.
Wait a second. You had your wedding vows on your Pocket PC, but you don't take it everywhere in your house? :-D

Steve

[Jason Dunn]

Wait a second. You had your wedding vows on your Pocket PC, but you don't take it everywhere in your house? :-D

That's correct. :lol:

[Janak Parekh]

8O

Blasphemy!! Time to give Jason the boot! ;) :lol:

Steve - do you carry your iPaq+Dual PC in your iHolster around the house all the time?

Oooooh. I just got a great poll idea for the front page. Stay tuned.

--janak

[Steven Cedrone]

8O

Blasphemy!! Time to give Jason the boot! ;) :lol:



Coup de’tat??? Oh no!!! Jason please retract that ebook statement!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Steve

[Hyperluminal]

THE PROLETARIAT WILL RISE AGAIN!!!

err, uh... :wink:

[Pony99CA]

Steve - do you carry your iPaq+Dual PC in your iHolster around the house all the time?
Well, I don't carry the iHoster all the time. :-)

Seriously, if I have my iHolster on, then I do take my iPAQ with me. If my iPAQ is in the cradle in my bedroom, I may not disconnect it if I leave for a minute or two. If I'm leaving for a while, I'll more than likely take it -- you never know when the urge to play Emerald Hunt or Pocket Euchre will strike. :-)

Steve

[Jonathon Watkins]

Good Poll Janak!

I now take my Axim most places - I really like my new Belkin leather holder with belt clip. :mrgreen: