Travel
-
Life after SeatGuru
As a devout window-sitter on planes, SeatGuru was a must-have for avoiding misaligned or absent windows on booked flights. But now it’s gone, because its owner, Tripadvisor, failed to keep it fresh. I didn’t know SeatGuru was gone until I read this story about a class-action suit against United for the airline’s failure to let passengers know when a… Continue reading
-
This is a Test. Or a Taste. Or both.
What see ye? I shot the photo above last night on approach to SFO. My window seat was on the left side of the plane. Tell me where this is, what the two most standout features are, and what was happening in the brigher one at the time. Just for fun. No rewards. I’ll say… Continue reading
-
Friday, June 27, 2025
Modest ambitions. I’ll be on the Immergence podcast (above) this coming Tuesday, July 1, at Noon Eastern time, talking with Nico Fara about The Intention Economy, ProjectVRM, Customer Commons, Personal AI, and using MyTerms to completely flip the script on agreements with websites and services, obsolescing all those annoying cookie notices—and blowing up surveillance-based adtech… Continue reading
-
Flyings
Neither here nor there, yet. At BWI, about to board an SWA flight to IND. There are thunderstorms between the airports and more on the way, but no delay so far. Meanwhile, this gives me chance to talk weather apps. My current fave is Windy, which visualizes winds at all altitudes, real time lightning (with visuals… Continue reading
-
Sunny Vinny Afternoon
I’m here (a short drive south of San Jose) for the afternoon, if any local friends feel like stopping by. Tomorrow it’s VRM Day. Tuesday to Thursday, it’s IIW. See you theres. Continue reading
-
Hear in Near L.A.
Just loving the hang time we got yesterday with Tony after two long flights and one short drive from LAX. Continue reading
-
Los Angeles Fires and Aftermath
Nineteenth in the News Commons series Third on the #LAfires 6:50am Friday, January 10, 2025—I will now shift my blogging about the #LAFires from the kind of continuous coverage I’ve done for the last three days to what we might call coverage of coverage. Or something beyond that: shifting to a new kind of news… Continue reading
-
The Biggest Wow in Indiana
In the summer of ’22 we were still new to Indiana and in an exploring mood. Out of nowhere one afternoon my wife said, “Let’s go check out French Lick.” She just liked the name of the town, plus the idea of taking a half-day road trip under a sweet blue sky and big puffy… Continue reading
-
A Santa Barbara itinerary from ChatGPT
I asked ChatGPT for a three-day itinerary to give visitors to Santa Barbara. Here ya go: Day 1: Start the day with breakfast at the Shoreline Beach Cafe, which has a beautiful view of the ocean. After breakfast, head to Knapp’s Castle for a scenic hike and exploration of the ruins of a 20th century… Continue reading
-
From Hollywood Park Racetrack to SoFi Stadium
Hollywood Park Racetrack is gone. In its place is SoFi Stadium, the 77,000-seat home of Los Angeles’ two pro football teams and much else, including the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater. There’s also more to come in the surrounding vastness of Hollywood Park, named after the racetrack. Wikipedia says the park— consists of over 8.5 million square feet (790,000 m2)… Continue reading
-
Sucky car design trends
On Quora, here’s my answer to What are the worst design trends in modern cars?—updated by our family’s experience with a new Toyota that features even more indicators than the bunch above. Based on that, plus driving lots of late-model rental cars, here’s a list of what sucks about most (and in some cases all)… Continue reading
-
The eventual normal
One year ago exactly (at this minute), my wife and I were somewhere over Nebraska, headed from Newark to Santa Barbara by way of Denver, on the last flight we’ve ever taken. Prior to that we had put about four million miles on United alone, flying almost constantly somewhere, mostly on business. The map above… Continue reading
-
Higher education adrift
In Your favorite cruise ship may never come back: 23 classic vessels that could be laid-up, sold or scrapped, Gene Sloan (aka @ThePointsGuy) named the Carnival Fantasy as one those that might be headed for the heap. Now, sure enough, there it is, in the midst of being torn to bits (HT 7News, above) in Aliağa, Turkey. Other stories in the… Continue reading
-
New York lights
I had a bunch of errands to run today, but also a lot of calls. And, when I finally got up from my desk around 4pm with plans to head out in the car, I found five inches of snow already on the apartment deck. Another five would come after that. So driving was clearly… Continue reading
-
An evacuated view on the #ThomasFire
Here’s the latest satellite fire detection data, restricted to just the last twelve hours of the Thomas Fire, mapped on Google Earth Pro:That’s labeled 1830 Mountain Standard Time (MST), or 5:30pm Pacific, about half an hour ago as I write this. And here are the evacuation areas: Our home is in the orange Voluntary Evacuation… Continue reading
Broadcasting, data, Family, Geography, Life, Photography, problems, ThomasFire, Travel, tv, weather, wildfire -
A miracle of flight
That was the view to the south from 31,000 feet above the center of Greenland a few hours ago: a late afternoon aurora over a blue dusk. According to my little hand-held GPS, we were around here: “11/10/17, 11:48:32 AM” “2.4 mi” “0:00:16” “538 mph” “30072 ft” “283° true” “N70° 56′ 10.4″ W38° 52′ 59.1″”. That’s about four… Continue reading
-
A dark review for United’s Boeing 787
An update on 1 May 2024: Read what Cory Doctorow published today. Pro tip: avoid 787s if you can. On top of what Cory says in that piece, what I wrote here when the 787s were new is secondary stuff, but somehow consistent with how things are done at that company. I had wanted to… Continue reading
-
Some new ways to look at infrastructure
Nothing challenges our understanding of infrastructure better than a crisis, and we have a big one now in Houston. We do with every giant storm, of course. New York is still recovering from Sandy and New Orleans from Katrina. Reforms and adaptations always follow, as civilization learns from experience. Look at aviation, for example. Houston is the… Continue reading