Nothing like a few aborted landings to get the blood flowing in the morning!
Year: 2009
Visualizing the Credit Crisis
I noticed this video making its way through the blogosphere and thought a few comments could be made regarding the content.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3261363[/vimeo]
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
The video does a great job of simplifying the current banking crisis into understandable terms but it may be a little too simplified. What the video fails to point out is the government enacted legislation used to make banks give out more loans to higher risk borrowers all in the name of lower housing costs.
What happened next was squarely on the banks, the selling of the sub-prime mortgages to investors and investment banks but as borrowers started defaulting on their mortgages, investors started losing money, sending us into the tailspin we are in now.
I like the video, I don’t like fact that it focuses on investors only.
This Week’s Links | February 20, 2009
This week’s links are a real hodge-podge!
- Single Google Query Uses 1,000 Machines in 0.2 Seconds – A neat look inside of Google search. To use that much processing power in such a short time span is unbelievable.
- Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0 – If the allegations of Yelp using its ability to change results for reviews to sell services are true, shame on them.
- Delta to Close 170 Gates – As a side product of the merger with Northwest, Delta will be closing 170 gates across the country. The airline landscape in the U.S. is about to look a lot different.
- Easy Poached Eggs – This one is random. We have fallen in love with Eggs Benedict, which requires poached eggs. We’ll be experimenting with them tonight.
- Slice of Stimulus Will Go to Faster Trains – Not enough money to buy a high-speed train though. So we continue down the same path we’ve been on before, one that is plagued with a nonchalant attitude toward the power of rail.
- A Prayer for Archimedes – A long lost text shows that the mathematician had begun to discover the principles of calculus; Long before Newton and Leibniz.
Mistake Fares – Where Do You Stand?
On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, Continental Airlines published a mistake fare from Seattle to Tokyo-Narita for a price of $590 after taxes. The fare was a “B” fare, a type that earns 150% elite miles. By taking red-eye flights, the ticket could be routed through Houston, giving it the earning power of 25,551 elite miles (essentially locking in Continental’s lowest tiered status for a flier). For Continental, this was a rare event, a severely under priced ticket on a business heavy route is not something that they do very often, but for other airlines, this type of thing is common. So mistake fares beg the question, is it ok to buy these tickets knowing that they are mistakes?
I’ll be honest, I bought one of the Continental flights to Tokyo. The thought of passing up the miles was just too hard to bear, but late last night, I made the decision to cancel the ticket and use the money to buy a camera. The length of the trip was the main reason I cancelled because the trip would essentially be me on a plane for close to 48 hours. Also, if I am going to Tokyo, I would like to spend more than a day there exploring all of the sights and I just could not pull that off with the fare.
Where do I stand on mistake fares? It is a little bit of a tricky question, because on one hand, the airline made the mistake and I simply caught it. If I walked into a store and was sold an item for $10 and left but the manager ran after me to tell me that the item was actually $100, I would probably not be too happy and would want to keep the item for the price I paid. On the other hand, if I knew the item was actually $100 but let the clerk charge me the wrong amount, I think there is a moral dilemma. Which is why I am torn, we see these fares as mistakes but the average traveller sees a great price on a trip.
There have been a few cases recently where airlines have refused to honor tickets where they had made a mistake, the one that has plastered the internet is the case of Swiss Airlines publishing a $0 Business Class fare and refusing to honor it. Eventually, Swiss honored some of the tickets, but I have to wonder if they were a little jipped here. The guy that is mentioned in the article knew that the price of $0 was not right, but went ahead and bought the ticket. Yes, Swiss should be on top of their game when publishing fares, but should we not expect our fellow man to have some sort of moral fortitude?
I am not completely convinced either way, but I would like to hear what you think! Leave a comment letting me know where you stand.
This Week’s Links – February 13, 2009
I thought I would try something different and post links that I have bookmarked during the past week. I will try to do this every Friday.
- Branson: United or Delta Will Pull Out of Australia – Richard Branson seems to think that United Airlines will be forced to pull out of operations in Australia. I doubt this will happen as it is a huge moneymaker for United’s cargo business.
- Sen. Stabenow wants hearings on radio ‘accountability’; talks fairness doctrine – Is this a waste of time? I seem to think so. It is a slap in the face of free speech.
- For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened – Indulgences were one facet of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Why is there no emphasis on grace?
- The Once and Future E-Book: On Reading in the Digital Age – Though I am drawn to the Kindle for its portability, holding a physical book while reading is still one of my favorite things to do.
- Continental Airlines Flight 3407 Crashes in Buffalo – There is a lot of speculation going on about icing and what brought down the plane. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those onboard.
Those are the links for this week, though I may find something interesting during the day and add it here.
Belgium – I’ll Be Back
My laziness has subsided and the majority of pictures from my trip to Paris and Brussels have been uploaded.
I started on January 15, 2009, with a flight to Newark, New Jersey to meet-up with my friend Steve for our flight to Paris. The Boeing 777 was nearly empty, with passengers only in every other row. This gave me a chance to stretch out and make a bed for myself, leading to some decent rest before arriving in Paris.
Because of amazing tailwinds (upwards of 200 mph), we arrived in Paris in five and a half hours, leaving us to stand in the immigration line for an hour before it opened. A quick trip to Gare du Nord train station to lock up our bags and we were off to explore the city. Notre Dame was the first stop, complete with a self-guided tour. There is a lot of begging that takes place outside on the steps of the cathedral with young girls coming up to tourists asking “Speak English? We need money”.
The next stop was the Louvre and the Arc de Triumphe, both of which are a little underwhelming but interesting. However, I was fascinated with the efficiency of the Paris Metro, especially when I compared it to the system in Brussels (more on that later). In Paris, the trains were on time, for the most part clean, and the system maps were easy to understand.
After the Louvre we decided that our time was limited if we were to catch our high speed train to Brussels, so we made our way back to Gare du Nord, grabbed our bags and hopped on the Thalys, the high speed option to a bunch of different destinations in northwestern Europe. Going 180mph through the French countryside was an experience with closeup objects going by in a blur. The trip only lasted an hour and a half and by 6pm we were in Brussels.
Brussels has life. Not the kind of life you see in Chicago or San Francisco where it is abuzz with busyness but the kind of life where people are cordial and everyone seems to enjoy each other and the city in a pleasant manner. There is a big tourist element and some of the local businesses prey on travelers and their wallets. I noticed my back pocket being brushed a little more than usual, though, I know this is a problem all over the world. The other type of preying I saw was restaurant owners/workers doing a kind of bait-and-switch where they offer great specials outside just to lure customers in, then change prices once the people are seated. My understanding is that the Belgian authorities are attempting to eradicate this behavior and maybe in the near future it will be complete history.
The beers in Belgium deserve their own paragraph, not only in a literary sense but by demand of the taste buds. I do not think I tasted a single bad beer, every single one was pleasing to the palette in their own way. There were a few that I did not prefer, but not because they did not have flavor. All beers brewed in Belgium are required by law to have their own glass, so walking into a pub in Belgium is a lesson in glassware. The bartenders have also mastered the art of pouring beers dependent on their type and each have their own artful way of getting the beer from the bottle to the glass. My favorite beer while there, Chimay, was dark with a fruit and nut after flavor and it lacked the bitter undertones that make dark beer so difficult for people to handle.
The Brussels public transportation system is a complete opposite from the beer. It might be the worst public transportation system in the world, ranking right up there with the BART in San Francisco in terms of platform smells. There are maps of the system everywhere, the only problem is, they are all in different languages and none explain that some “trains” are in fact, buses. So, you walk into a subway station thinking you are catching a train, when in fact you have to be on the surface catching a bus. Not a user friendly setup.
Overall, Brussels is well worth a visit. From beer to food to sights, the city has a lot of them and there is even more outside of Brussels, including Brugge and Antwerp, which are rumored to be wonderful cities.
To see more pictures from Paris, Brussels, and the flights, click here.
Blagojevich on Letterman
I am dumbfounded; Maybe more than Dave. He may be a liar or he may not know the truth, I’m going with liar.
Out of Office: Job Loss in the Age of Blogs and Twitter
Out of Office: Job Loss in the Age Of Blogs and Twitter. As the country and the world digs itself out of financial issues, will time on people’s hands lead to a surge in new technologies and ideas? I think so.
Lend Me Your Questions (Continental Questions That Is)
This coming weekend, February 6-8, Continental Airlines is hosting a large party, tours, and Q&A sessions for frequent fliers, regardless of what airline a person flies on. The event has already filled up and sounds like it will be even better than last year, which I also attended.
The event is a great opportunity to meet with Continental employees, including the CEO, CFO, and COO, as well as a lot of the front line people you see everyday at the airport. Questions are asked and answers are given in a very straightforward way.
So, I’ll open up the floor to any questions you have. Just post a comment or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to get your question answered by the appropriate person!