August 2007 Archives

links for 2007-08-31

Note To Self, Part One Thousand

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When selling stuff on Ebay, make sure that all the words in the title are spelled correctly. Because, after all, who searches Ebay looking for “Apple Aiport Cards” anyway?

links for 2007-08-30

links for 2007-08-29

Mysterious Ways

I’m not entirely sure why some pizza places around New Haven spell it “apizza”.

Also: when one is driving down the freeway at night, and one’s iPod cues up Music in Twelve Parts, one is likely to suddenly find oneself unwittingly in the middle of a Godfrey Reggio film.

links for 2007-08-27

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links for 2007-08-24

links for 2007-08-23

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So, having actually graduated from law school and taken the bar, I find myself as a respectable member of society, what with holding down a paying job and all. For better or for worse, this new position has required me to relocate. Of course, my lease starts on September 1…. and I started work last Friday. For those of you paying attention, that’s two weeks before I get to move in.

The net result is that I find myself camped out in a hotel in suburban Connecticut Sunday nights through Thursday nights. The good news is that there’s free wifi. Actually, it’s not that bad. I get to come back from work every day and find that the bed has been remade and there are fresh towels in the bathroom. It is a little sterile, but I think that I can live with that for the next week and a half. On the other hand, one of the hotel’s major selling points is that it’s right next to the freeway, so perhaps it could use a little more in the way of ambiance.

Work itself has been taken up almost entirely with training so far (admittedly, it has been a grand total of four days). And… well, that’s about all I’ll say public about the my work, other than to say that it’s a one-year position and that I should probably start looking for work for the fall of 2008, oh, about five minutes ago.

Next Stop: 2.5 Kids & A House In The Suburbs.
Anyway, I recently bought a car, seeing as I need one to get around. It’s an impressive little vehicle; among other things, it seems bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside (I think that Honda’s engineers managed to use a little Time Lord technology to make that happen). I do need to name it, though, so suggestions are welcome.

One thing about having a car to drive around Manhattan is you very quickly appreciate the beauty of New York’s mass transit. Going from one end of the island to the other on the subway is much easier and far less stressful than trying to drive around. Of course, it doesn’t help that one of the times I was trying to get downtown on the West Side Highway was while the Deutsche Bank building was on fire. And there’s the little matter than when you’re idling in traffic (as you might be when you’re stuck in traffic because of the biggest fire in Manhattan in years), your gas mileage is zero.

That’s the major news from here; I still have to pack up my apartment and move what I’m going to move sooner rather than later, so my weekends, at least for the foreseeable future, will be spent down in New York, packing throwing stuff out…

links for 2007-08-22

links for 2007-08-20

links for 2007-08-16

Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

As requested, I took a lot of pictures on the trip, most of which can be found at Flickr. I took a whole bunch of photographs on two of my dives with a rented digital camera; if you’d rather look at them all on one page, there’s a tabblo version of these as well. The little digicam also had a movie mode, so with a little help from my friend iMovie:

There is, of course, a downloadable QuickTime version (57 MB): Cousteau.mov

links for 2007-08-15

Been Real Busy-Like

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Killer jetlag, trying to pack, buying a car, etc. But I made a short film about what BKK (aka Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport) is like at 4 in the morning (flash, video, audio):

I’d also like to thank my intrepid guestbloggers for keeping pf.org humming while I was away…

UPDATE: For those who prefer their video as downloadable QuickTime goodness (and, admittedly, with somewhat better quality than Flash video, though given that the source material for this was in glorious 320x240, the quality gain isn’t that much), here’s the film as an 80MB QT movie: BKK.mov

Perhaps Paul’s next long-haul flight will be more enjoyable with the (re)introduction of in-flight ‘net access. The past week has seen a flurry of announcements.

  • American Airlines: Announced a partnership with AirCell to trial WiFi access on their transcontinental 767-200s, starting 2008.
  • Qantas: The Flying Kangaroo will equip their shiny new A380s and not-so-shiny 747s with connectivity provided by OnAir. The A380s will also come equipped with self-service food and drink bars.
  • Lufthansa: The first and largest customer of Boeing’s now-defunct Connexion service is working with T-Mobile to restore in-flight Internet access to their sixty-plus long-range aircraft. Other notable Connexion customers included Singapore Airlines, Korean Airlines, ANA, and JAL.

Of note, this Travellin’ Man witnessed two business class customers on a March 2006 LAX - Frankfurt non-stop utilize the Lufthansa / Connexion service to play World of Warcraft for 14 consecutive hours.

There’s nothing like a little PWNAGE at 35,000 feet, is there?