I Believe Two Things

The JetBlue blog is a mixture of press releases, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, corporate culture, and occasional bragging. It won some major points on February 11th, when JetBlue canceled its flights in the Northeast in advance of the latest big storm to hit the region.

With the forecast calling for icy conditions throughout the day, we decided to cancel flights rather than wait-and-see with our customers in the airports.  Why?  Because on the suckiness scale, getting a call that your flight is canceled while you’re still at home, at a hotel, or at your family or friend’s house is a lot better than getting up early, going to the airport and waiting for hours with the possibility of flight cancellation to come. Still sucks. Just a little less.

I liked in particular this explanation for why aircraft are out of position at the beginning of the day:

That would work if we could park aircraft overnight in the cities affected by weather, but we try to avoid that.  Ice would build up on the wings overnight and it would take hours to deice all of the aircraft we normally start the day with at New York’s JFK, let alone Boston, Washington’s Dulles and the Mid-Atlantic cities.  So we put those planes in warmer weather ports for the night to get them to the frozen North first thing in the morning the day after the storm, then start the operation from that point.

I love logistical challenges like this, and I’d probably enjoy figuring out how to reposition aircraft in this manner to have the least impact on operations.  I don’t envy the planners who have to endure (albeit indirectly) the ire of stranded travelers who are entirely too willing to blame their airline for the weather, though.

Jim Denevan carves enormous art pieces in the sand of deserts and beaches.  On a canvas that nature is prepared to wipe clean with wind or water the moment it’s been filled, he creates artwork so large it can only be appreciated from the air (at least in a lot of cases).

One basic example is this pattern on a beach with a tiny person poised in the center:

Other pieces are abstract, simple, or just daunting.  My favorite has to be this one.

Google’s “auto complete” recommendations are getting increasingly absurd, even if they do conform perfectly to real people’s searches.

Today, when I wanted to find a good place to sell my 12-channel audio mixer, I started my search with the word “sell” and Google jumped in with a few ideas for what I might need.

Things People Sell Online

Naturally, “sell textbooks online” and “selling on eBay” are popular search choices.  “Sell gold” has also gained popularity recently, to the point that airports and train stations in Germany have vending machines selling gold wafers.

“Sell WoW account” is a bit surprising (perhaps World of Warcraft is losing popularity as people can no longer afford the monthly fee), but it’s “selling virginity” that’s most striking.

Some careful, “strictly business” research suggests much of this searching is related to Natalie Dylan (a pseudonym), a Sacramento State graduate student who last year auctioned her virginity, having allegedly gotten bids up to $3.8 million.  Fox News is, of course, outraged.

Local CBS affiliate KOVR-TV quoted Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch where the auction will be held, as saying:

Natalie is a very smart girl. All she wants to do is get her master’s degree in family and marriage counseling and be a psychologist.  She’s selling her virginity to accomplish that.

Adding a punchline at this point would only spoil the pure beauty of that statement.

I’ve always felt that the only thing missing from the world was a house made entirely out of legos.

A couple years ago, I went with a friend to Wildcat Mountain in New Hampshire, which offers visitors the unusual opportunity to leap from a mountaintop, suspended from a zip line, soar through thin air (and in my case, a stiff breeze) down the mountain, and then bounce off a tension spring at the bottom.  Staff at the time said everyone reaching the bottom laughs aloud upon hitting that spring, and we were no exception.

I notice, however, that the residents of Los Pinos, Columbia aren’t laughing when they invoke a similar zip line suspended 1,200 feet over a river as part of their daily commute.

(via Kottke)

The only thing that could possibly make Hulu better has just arrived: Hulu Desktop!  (Yes, it comes in Mac.)

I love that the only menu option in the entire application is “Fullscreen.”

On the other hand, I’m somewhat disturbed by this sentence, which appears in the license agreement exactly as written here (including the capitalization):

THE HULU SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE HULU SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

Unfortunately, I moonlight as an controller for nuclear-powered aircraft carrying patients on artificial respirators, so I’ll really have to limit my usage to only one or two shows per shift.

This has to be the best job in the world:

We stopped by the giant piano the last time I visited FAO Schwarz with my girlfriend, but quite apart from being unable to play a rhapsody of any nationality on a piano of ordinary size, we refrained from trying upon seeing the line of patiently-waiting children, who surely deserve to act child-like more than adults do.

Plus, I imagine if I’d tried, there stood a reasonable chance I would also have had to leave alone.

I detest “fast food” (even having never seen Super Size Me) so Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality is particularly interesting to me.  The site shows side-by-side pictures of how food looks in advertisements and how the same food looks in reality.  Absolutely nobody will be surprised to learn there’s a difference.  In fact, I was rather surprised a couple pairs look so similar.  Wendy’s Chicken Club might even look a bit better in reality with its melted cheese than in the advertisement.

I’m delighted to see that the only entries that look acceptable in reality are from the two establishments I might consider actually eating (including Subway, where I now eat regularly).

(via Lifehacker)

I wanted to write a simple post, inspired by the article about Craigslist I just mentioned, with a simple link to a film trailer.  It’s called The Girlfriend Experience, and tells the story of a high-priced call girl.  The trailer is vague, but intriguing.

However, I accidentally searched “Girlfriend Experience” on Google instead of Hulu.  Oops.  Some results were… let’s just say “not about the movie.”  Others were, though, and I opened a blurb Lane Brown wrote for New York magazine about the same trailer.  It quips:

Be aware… her apartment appears to be located near a popular hangout for street drummers.

Funny.  Then I read the first comment (by a first-time commenter):

Holy Mackerel! The drummer is Shakerleg! He drums entirely with his hands. He’s incredible. Google him.

Let’s follow that advice (after admiring the complete sentences and punctuation) and Google the man.

You can start by watching him on YouTube.  It’s quite good.  You can even buy his CD from iTunes or CD Baby.  You evidently cannot read about him on Wikipedia.  Even the Internet has its limits.

I stumbled upon a site called World’s Famous Photos, which starts out just enthralling and slowly becomes agonizingly depressing.

You might first get drawn to some particularly iconic historical photographs, like Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima or “Tank Man” in Tiananmen Square.  You might peek in on the lighter fare like the cover of Abbey Road or V-J Day in Times Square.

But in the end you won’t be able to avoid the September 11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the wars, famines, fires, protests, and genocides that a century of photography has recorded and that now sit arrayed before you on your computer screen just waiting to be absorbed.