I Hope Phil's Ass Is Feeling Alright...

Sorry, I couldn't resist...



All snark aside, I'm really glad Apple had their mini press junket on tuesday.  Such a direct mea culpa is staggeringly uncharacteristic for the company, but it was sorely needed among their pro customers.  (Of which, at least according to the Schedule C in my tax return, I still count!)

As others have said, actions speak louder than words, but these words were exactly what they needed to be.  They also helped to explain Apple's recent actions - or lack thereof - in a way that rang true.  I have no trouble believing Apple would bet big on a radical new design, confident in their read that the pro market was moving to dual-GPU systems, only to find that their design couldn't accommodate  the real ways that hardware developed, and that they had backed themselves into a corner when they tried to plot future revisions.  Every company makes mistakes, and this is exactly the kind of mistake Apple would make.

It also should cement (if there was any doubt) the 2013 Mac Pro's place in computer history as the G4 Cube 2.0.  Heck, 10 years down the line the trash can will probably be a collector's item of sorts!

With as much work as they have ahead of them completely redesigning a modular and frequently-upgradable Mac Pro, the wait certainly isn't going to be easy.  But I'm excited to see where this leads...

The Trump Bubble

I've held off on posting much about my thoughts post-election.  I've never really tried to hide my political leanings here, but I didn't really seek to make it a focus of this blog.  (Heck, I barely post here anyway!)  But while much of this opinion piece is fairly emotionally charged (and hey, I get it!), I thought this ending passage summed up a big part of my reaction pretty well:

I have plenty of sympathy for typical Trump voters. (I exclude the alt-right and other menaces to the public good, such as Rudy Giuliani.) I have written about cultural dislocation and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations. Clinton talked about the glass ceiling, but too many American workers — or former workers — had to contend with a cement one: jobs that were gone and not coming back. We in the bubble understand. Truly, we do. 

But I will not concede that a greater wisdom exists in what is known as “flyover country.” It has voted for a charlatan, a blinged ignoramus who has promised the past as the future. Trump, who lives in a gilded bubble of his own, cannot reverse automation, replace robots with people or blunt American businesses’ compulsive search for the cheapest workforce. 

[...] What I cannot understand is fellow bubble dwellers who tell me, with an air of impeccable condescension, that a vote for Trump was such proof of their own superior wisdom that it eclipsed all doubts about his qualifications, his temperament, his honesty in business and his veracity in speech. These people live in a bubble of their own. It is one that excludes the lesson of history and the demands of common sense. It will burst.  

- Richard Cohen, 'Real America' is its own bubble

Re: Social Media Revolution

My father is the General Manager of WDUQ-FM, the NPR-affiliate public radio station at Duquesne University. Over the last few years, he's been bombarded by people in his business worried about "what's happening" with social media, and where traditional media fits in. A few minutes ago, he e-mailed me a link to this video, noting that he'd "love your reaction to this."

Here's my reaction (posted on my blog, for that extra kick of "meta"-ness!):

Personal computers have been used to improve communication almost from the beginning. Even a lowly, non-networked IBM PC with a word processor and a spreadsheet improves the efficiency of crafting office memos and accounting reports drastically over that of a typewriter and a ledger. Networks made computerized communication faster, and spread it farther. The internet kicked things into high gear.

The biggest mistake people make when talking about digital communications, is in calling things "revolutionary." Technology as a whole is the poster-child for evolutionary thinking. Unfortunately, to the uninitiated, there appears to be more going on than that, because the rate of evolutionary advancements taking place also increases.

Perhaps the biggest advantage held by people my age, who grew up with all of this well into full swing, is our ability to take it in stride. Sure, we use facebook on a many-times-a-day basis, but we don't fawn over it. Already, we usually give it little more thought than previous generations did to how many times a day they used the telephone. (Though, like them, we do still retain the ability to, once and a while, marvel at how ridiculous it is that you can actually do this. Tech is cool.) We don't analyze how each new innovation is going to change the entire world and the nature of humanity - we just use it. If it works for us, we keep using it. If we get bored, or it doesn't seem interesting to begin with, we move on. Are there downsides to this approach? Certainly. But I do think we have a more level-headed appraisal of things.

I think growing up in the nineties has tended to create a perspective that is difficult to impress anymore, when it comes to the internet. "Things are suddenly happening twice as fast and in twice as many ways as before? Ok... this is supposed to shock me? It's been that way for most of my life."

The internet, like people of my generation, is a product of the nineties, and in many ways still operates like it. On a recommendation from my girlfriend, I recently read Douglas Coupland's Microserfs. It was lauded as a portrait of a cultural microcosm specific to its time and place, but honestly, I didn't find the world all that different from the one we live in today. "Dot-Com" start-ups have been replaced by "Web 2.0" start-ups, but the tale is largely the same.

One more thing about my generation - having lived through the "Dot-Com Era," we have grown to truly loathe transparent buzzwords. Seriously. "Socialnomics (tm)" actually made me cringe.

I'm not sure where exactly I'm going with this, (commentary on the stream-of-consciousness web I find so little unnerving about?) but I've already ranted for much longer than I intended to, so I'll leave it at that.

Also: I've always liked that Fatboy Slim track. (also a product of the 90's...)

Twitter Isn't Cool (at least not traditionally)

It's something of a truism in technology: teens and other "Young People" discover a new technology, embrace it, weave it into their lives... and then the over-35 crowd eventually comes late to the party, desperately trying to "monetize" a phenomenon they don't even understand. This basic fact is so well known, so undisputed, that many companies now actively seek out the next big thing, not just to cash in, but because they're desperately afraid of becoming "irrelevant" if they don't get hip with all that jazz the kids are talkin' about these days. Nobody wants to be a square!

But there's a problem with this new mentality - the "real world" is now so hell-bent on calling out the next internet fad, that they keep jumping the shark before it even learns to swim! Tortured metaphors aside, the bandying about of the term "Web 2.0" to describe anything and everything is endemic of this trend, and it's latest casualty is Twitter.

To hear some tell it, Twitter is the communications medium that's going to change the world. Everyone needs to get on it right now, or they will lose all connection to the younger generation and, as naturally follows, the world.

Funny thing about that; As Ars Technica reports, there are more Twitter users over the age of 55 than under 25. If you're shocked right now, then you've bought into the hype.

It really shouldn't come as much of a surprise that my generation hasn't really latched on to Twitter. I mean let's face it; I just graduated from college. I've been using Facebook for 4 years now, and AOL Instant Messenger for the better part of a decade. Most of my friends are in the same boat. Do we really need another status message to update?

Now, I'm not knocking Twitter. It's intended purpose is pretty limited in scope, but it does it well, and simplicity is often a good reason to use a tool. And I know I'm going to end up getting an account myself at some point, if only to keep in touch with a far-flung friend who's embraced it wholeheartedly. (Of note: There is only one such friend. Most of them use Facebook.) But I'm not excited about Twitter, the way I initially was about, say, Facebook. And I know very few people my age who are. In fact, I know many more who are openly disdainful about it, including my girlfriend, as well as a few friends from college jokingly threatening to disown each other for getting accounts. (Naturally, these threats were made on Facebook...)

I guess my point is... stop trying to make grandiose statements about technology that "Is The Future". The evolution of internet culture has plainly taught us two things: It makes little sense, and it does what it wants.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen = Biggest Second-Weekend Drop in Michael Bay's Career

I saw an opening-day midnight showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Like many I was, shall we say, less than impressed. Other similarly disappointed friend noted ruefully that it would still probably make boatloads of money. This is true. For a film like this, the audience is more or less built in. It can't not make money.

However, that night I also claimed that if Team America: World Police came out next year, they wouldn't be singing about how much Pearl Harbor sucked anymore. I predicted that once the build-in audience had done their duty, and word spread about how bad it was, we would see the largest second-week slump in Michael Bay's career.

Called it.

Transformers 2 had an opening weekend gross slightly shy of $109 million. The second weekend saw that figure drop to a bit over $42 million, for a week-to-week change of 61.2%, placing it currently ranked #252 on Box Office Mojo's list of the Biggest Second Weekend Drops - the highest of any Bay-helmed movie.

(Also worth noting: Those figures only count the actual weekend part of the first weekend. They do not include the more than $91 million made on that previous Wednesday and Thursday. If those were included, the drop would be even more severe)

Steam Still Bugs Me Sometimes

When Half-Life 2 came out in 2004, I had a healthy level of teenage nerd-rage going over the fact that it required Steam, Valve's online content-delivery platform. Over the years, Steam has matured into something I can live with, and even like. (Using Steam Chat to launch into a game of Left 4 Dead is delightfully seamless.) I bought HL2 at retail because I insisted on having a pretty box and physical CD's if something went wrong, but every Valve game I've bought since (and a few others) has been an online purchase through Steam.

However, sometimes it still bothers me, like with the problem I ran into a couple days ago. I think I've narrowed it down to a freak network issue, but nonetheless: No matter what has gone wrong technically, I see no justification, none whatsoever, for ever showing a user this message:



...regarding a locally-installed game!

Thrust Head-First into Reality

Two weeks ago, I graduated from Syracuse University.  I am no longer a college student.

The transition was a bit delayed since I didn't actually move out of my apartment until last Friday, and then zipped off to Albany with Christine for the weekend.  I returned to Pittsburgh monday night, and am only now starting to get settled back into the house it no longer feels appropriate to call "home."

So now I'm on my own.  A college-educated, presently unemployed, adult living in his parents' house.  It's a perfectly expected and nigh-inevitable situation, but a sobering one nonetheless.

I have no idea why I'm writing this so formally.  I guess I just have some need to make it sound as important/scary as it feels right now.

In any case, here I am, trying to figure out how to make the transition and find some sort of job in my desired field, nebulously-defined as that is right now.  I have a few possibilities:

1. Leverage my old contacts from my internship last summer to try getting more PA / low-level production work.
   
2. Try to get into a post-production / visual effects house in Pittsburgh.  I've found a handful online, and this is definitely more what I'd like to do.  But I have no idea if I'm qualified enough, and I definitely don't have any "ins" anywhere.
   
3. Start my own shop or do freelance videography.  I've thus far been unsuccessful in using my past unpaid and not-for-profit work with WDUQ and the LWV to springboard into additional work, and all conventional wisdom suggests that trying to start up a post house without first having experience working in one is a bad, bad idea.  (Not to mention, I obviously don't really have the capital to do it properly right now.)
   
4. Throw my hands up in the air and just try to get any kind of job.  Best Buy, GameStop, Arbys... something, anything with a paycheck.
   

Of course, the other option I haven't mentioned yet is looking outside of this city for work.  Particularly, the standard-operating-procedure for my peers in my major to make a pilgrimage to New York, or especially Los Angeles.  For one thing, I'm not really enamored with the popular idea of moving to a very expensive city with the one-in-a-million hope of landing a fortune once you get there.  I'm also unsure I'm comfortable with the amped-up professional politics that seems to go hand-in-hand with working in either city.

But there's no denying the other reason.  It's true that my short-term life goals are now no longer just about finding a good job.  I want to find a job that not only allows me to enjoy myself, make a living, and start my own life... I also do not want to go on living about 500 miles (or more) from Christine.  She has a job in Massachusetts lined up for the summer, but come September her future is as uncertain as my own.  Pittsburgh is a city we both like, and has a relatively strong showing now in both film production (for me) and theater (for her).  It seems to be our "best bet" at the moment.

So that's where I stand.  I still haven't decided which of those bullet points is the best option at the moment, so right now, I'm going to try working on things that I need to do for any of them.  For now, that includes doing the necessary "phone interviews" with the Newhouse career center to complete their job search program and gain access to the alumni database, taking advantage of as many non-paying production stuff as falls my way so I can build my "professional" experience, continuing to do post work on my own to gain more familiarity with the tools (before graduating I picked up Lightwave 3D with my academic discount, so I can get back into that), and probably most importantly:  finish my demo reel(s) and my website, as they are liable to be my calling cards for most anything I might do.

I don't know where I'm going, but I need to get there soon...

Media and Technology: An Interests Showdown for Obama

Last tuesday, like most people at Syracuse, I watched elatedly as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.  It was a historic moment any way you slice it, and all eyes are on Obama now as he attempts to live up to the hope over 66 million of us placed in him last November.

There's been no shortage of news speculation as to how he will handle one pressing issue or another.  However, being me, I've been wondering about another angle.  Perhaps not the most important or pressing, but one which greatly interests me.

Aside from the pomp of the ceremony itself, two things about President Obama's inauguration day struck me. First:  the new website at WhiteHouse.gov, which went live before he had even finished taking the Oath of Office.  Second:  The star-studded "Neighborhood Ball," hosted by ABC, which kicked off the string of events he and Michelle danced at.  These two events stood out to me because they highlight two "interest groups" among which Obama has strong support;  the wired world of the internet, and the glitz and glamor of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Barack Obama ran what is widely hailed as the most technology-savvy campaign in history.  With the small but passionate exception of Ron Paul supporters, the "internets" as a whole loved him for it, and looked forward to a presidency that understands and embraces new technology.  So far, signs that Change has come to the members of the executive branch are good.  The new White House website is every bit as fancy as the Obama team's previous online works, and having a weekly video podcast of sorts sounds like a great way to engage the populace.  Later in the week, we heard about the complaints staffers have been voicing over the archaic I.T. infrastructure in the White House - a lament all to familiar to any geek who has found themselves thrust into the bureaucratic technology morass that typifies most established institutions (50 meg mailbox quota for Syracuse students' e-mail, anyone?).  Heck, even the fact that the president fought to keep his Blackberry shows that he's a new breed of president - one who "gets" technology.  Let the Tubes rejoice!

However, the "Neighborhood Ball" I saw tuesday night on ABC demonstrates Obama's clout with another group: the entertainment industry.  During the campaign, one of the first widely-talked-about attack ads from McCain was directed at Obamas "celebrity" appeal.  His life up to this point reads like an Oscar-winning screenplay, and like most Democratic candidates, he had his fair share of supporters among the Hollywood elite.  That ABC would get together with chart-topping recording artists to throw the first of his presidential balls further proves Obama's appeal among the entertainment industry,

Clearly, both groups are looking forward to a plethora of wonderful changes our new President will bring.

One problem though:  These two groups are currently at war.

Media piracy is one of, if not the biggest issue facing the content creators in the film, television, and music businesses.  It is also at the forefront of the freedom-loving culture of the Internet.  Media companies view tech-savvy consumers as criminal scum, and brilliant programmers worldwide take pride in cracking every new protection scheme the entertainment industry can come up with, either out of belief, necessity, or (I suspect most of the time now) out of sheer spite.

In the last decade, this issue has become the defining conflict for both sides, and both no doubt would like to look to Obama as their savior.  I'm very curious as to how he will navigate these waters, not least of which because I often find myself straddling the same fence.

Why Does Apple Have Such a Good Rep? This Might Be Part Of It...

It's no secret that Apple usually gets some of the highest marks for customer satisfaction among computer makers in places like Consumer Reports. But why is that? The value proposition is about the same these days, objectively anyway. And Macs certainly are just as capable of having major hardware mishaps as other manufacturer's machines - especially now that the Intel transition is complete and everybody basically uses the same guts.

So why do people love on Apple so much? A pretty GUI and elegant OS architecture don't make Customer Service any better. So what gives?

I offer this anecdote:

A couple weeks ago, my trusty, almost 3-year-old PowerBook G4 started having a few issues. Namely, Kernel Panics, the UNIX-y equivalent of the infamous Blue Screen of Death. Now, if your PC bluescreens, you just cuss Bill Gates (or Steve Ballmer, your pick) and reboot. On a Mac, if things manage to go this wrong... it means there's something wrong!

Long story short, some troubleshooting of my own narrowed it down to the RAM, and specifically, the actual RAM slots in the logicboard (Mac-parlance for laptop motherboard) as opposed to the sticks themselves. Bummer. Fortunately, this problem cropped up two weeks before my extended AppleCare warranty was set to expire. So I made an appointment and brought the machine in to the local Apple Retail Store, where the guy there confirmed the problem, checked with me to make sure I had everything backed up (I did) and shipped the machine off to the nearest Apple repair center. Zero cost to me, because it was all covered under AppleCare.

It was away for about a week, mainly because they don't keep a ton of spare parts for machines as old as mine on hand. The next week, I get a call.

"We have the machine back here... but it's failing our standard diagnostic test. It says here there's a problem with the VRAM. Now, it does boot, so if there's an immediate need for the machine you can come and pick it up, but I'd just as soon send it back and have them re-replace the logic board."

Ok, so that's kind of crazy... but hell, my AppleCare is expiring soon so yeah, by all means send it back until it gets a clean bill of health.

Another week passes, and I get a call.

"Ok, so the machine is still failing the diagnostic. So... there's two options I'm authorized to give you, but I think I know which one you're gonna take..."

I'm listening.

"First, we can order yet another new logic board, have it delivered here to the store, and install it ourselves to make sure it's done right, and hope that fixes whatever the issue is."

Or...?

"Or... we offer you what's called a CRU Exchange, which would be the closest replacement machine that is not lower spec'ed than your current one."

...meaning?

"You'd get a MacBook Pro."

Needless to say, I went with option 2! So in a nutshell, my computer started acting up, and now - at no cost to me whatsoever, - I'm going from this:

PowerBook G4 15.2-inch
1.67 GHz PowerPC G4
2 GB PC2700 DDR RAM (upgraded from 512 Meg originally)
120 GB ATA hard drive (upgraded from 80 GB originally)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 - 128 Meg VRAM
2x DVD Burner

To this:

MacBook Pro 15.4-inch
2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 RAM
120 GB SATA hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT - 128 Meg VRAM
8x DVD Burner

... Sweet. For comparison purposes, this is my current "gaming rig" PC tower:

AMD AthlonXP 3200+ @ 2.2 GHz
1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
160 GB ATA hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 non-ultra - 128 Meg VRAM
DVD... reader.

In short, once I get this new machine (in a week or so.... whatever, I can wait) I'm going to be very interested in seeing how 3D Mark scores match up once I make a WinXP partition (ah, the convenience of Intel chips!).

In conclusion, if you ever wonder why Apple's customer loyalty is so high - stuff like this is a big part of it. Oh, and if you ever get a Mac, particularly a laptop.... get AppleCare!
Update: Corrected the spelling of "CRU." Apparently it stands for "Customer Replacement Unit." Pretty straightforward.

We don't need tighter gun control laws. We just need to ENFORCE the ones we have...

I've seen talk around the 'net saying the Viginia Tech shootings clearly demonstrate the need for tighter gun control laws in this country, since Cho was able to walk into a store and purchase the gun he used to kill 32 people. Now, I am by no means an NRA "More guns = less crime because we can shoot the bastards!" sort of guy, but I've never been for banning the ownership of firearms by private citizens either.

I found this article in the NY Times: U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun

Yeah, he bought the gun. But that shouldn't have happened. If the proper checks were made at the federal level, that purchase would have been denied. Sure, he could try to get one on the black market, but that's possible even if a ban is put in place. (Banning guns will get them off the streets? Sure! It's worked so well for drugs, underage alcohol, not-yet-released Hollywood films...)

We don't need tighter gun control laws. We just need to properly enforce the ones we have!

Music, DRM, and Mr. Jobs' Good Idea

Today an interesting item appeared from within the annals of Apple's website: post by non other than everyone's favorite CEO/Mogul/Salesman, Steve Jobs, entitled "Thoughts on Music". The page addresses recent calls for Apple to open the FairPlay DRM used in the iTunes Store, and points out how the current content-protection systems of the industry came to be in the first place.

However, the real interesting bit comes a little further down, where Steve outlines the three possible directions the online music industry can take from here. First, they could "stay the course" and keep up the fragmented, proprietary DRM systems that consumers love to hate today. Second, Apple could license FairPlay to other companies, but that would make meeting the music industry's security requirements monumentally more difficult. Finally, we could probably take the best course possible, and just do away with DRM entirely.

...What?

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none.

It's not a new request to hear, but it's certainly new to hear it from the guy in charge of the world's largest source of DRM'ed music! Unlikely though it may sound, if the music industry would ever do this, Steve Jobs is the man who could convice them.

Honestly, I think the reluctance to sell DRM-free music is mostly due to corporate nervousness, not any justifiable business position. Here's an example - take Fred, a fictional college student living with 3 other undergraduates in an on-campus 4-person suite. He's a mostly honest kid, but he's pirated his fair share of music in the past. Fred wants to get a new song he heard on the radio. He could use his university's Ruckus subscription, but that wouldn't play on his iPod because of incompatible DRM. He could buy it from the iTunes store - that would make sense, but he'd like to be able to share the song with his roommates, and FairPlay would only let the music play on Fred's iPod. So he resorts to Limewire, or BitTorrent, or any of a million other illegal sources that you, dear reader, are likely intimately familiar with.

Now, here's where the RIAA throws a fit. Fred resorted to stealing because he wanted to do something illegal! You can't just get a song and share it with your friends! That's wrong and we won't allow it!

Ah, but see, it's happening anyway. Thousands of times every day. Even people who still buy CD's are likely to let friends and family rip them. You can't stop that with anything short of Big Brother. I feel for the content creators, I really do. Heck, I'm going to school to become one of their ilk. But, illegal or not, this is simply the way the world works, and it will still happen no matter how much the RIAA screams about it. Fred is going to share his music. He has some morals of his own (independent of the law, I might add), so he won't post it on the internet, but he still wants to share it with his roommates, and that pulled him away from legitimate online music sources. From my own experience, I'd say "Fred" accounts for a very large portion of my generation. (Most of the rest won't settle for any price but "free," so there's little you can do about winning them over)

Now, let's pretend iTunes sold DRM-free music. What changes here? Well, Fred might decide that the song is worth a buck to him, and buy it. He's a nice enough guy after all, and the DRM was the only thing stopping him before. (He'd probably be even more likely to go legit it he could get it for free from Ruckus) He buys the song, then throws it over AIM to his roommates. They all listen, and a grand time is had by all. How did the record companies fare in these two scenarios?

Profit made from DRM'ed store: $0
Profit made from DRM-free store: $1

Now of course, in this situation the record companies would argue they're really entitled to $4, not $1, and probably that Fred has "stolen" $3 from them (if the lawyers got involved). But that's their fantasy world. In the real world, the choice isn't between $1 and $4, it's between $0 and $1.

So the real question is, who wants a dollar?

Why I Hate US Airways

You know, I used to like flying.

I'm back at S.U. this week after a typically uneventful spring break, but I had a bit of adventure getting here. It's story time...

I was supposed to fly back sunday night on a flight that left at 8:40, and got me here around 10. That was the plan. After my typical last minute rush of packing (made worse by the obsessive need to watch the "Serenity" DVD my dad had purchased before I left) I got to the Pittsburgh airport, made it through security, and sat down at my gate with enough time left to play with the free WiFi.

Close to the time we were supposed to board, there's an announcement saying there's an "overbooking situation" on this flight, and they're looking for 3 or 4 (!) volunteers with flexible travel plans to switch to a later flight. I'd heard this before, and it didn't concern me much since the airline usually finds a few volunteers to keep their compassionless business model running (They'd rather overbook and kick people off a flight than risk having a few empty seats that aren't being paid for).

Unfortunatly, this went differently this time. A little while later, they called four names to come to the counter, and mine was one of them. We were informed that we might get bumped, and that we needed to wait here until everyone else got on the plane. We waited. And waited. While I was talking to another passenger who had been affected (a girl who also went to SU, and had an 8am class the next day), we overheard an interesting discussion. It seemed the plane was supposed to be ready to take off now, but they were waiting on some checked luggage that was late. The supervisor on duty wasn't happy with this, as apparently its against airline policy to delay takeoff for late luggage.

U.S. Airways overbooks its flights, and likes to leave suitcases behind when they don't make it to the plane on time. And they wonder why they're always on the verge of bankruptcy...

Anyway, eventually they mumbled something about being sorry for the inconvenience, and told us we could in fact get on the plane. Awesome! I gathered my things, and headed out to the plane. Since this was a small "Express" flight, standard carry-ons won't fit in the overhead bins. Instead, you put a yellow "Gate-Check" tag on them, and on your way to the plane, hand them to guy who puts them in the back of the plane. At your destination, you pick them up at the gate, rather than at baggage claim. I handed my roller-bag to the guy, and got on the plane with just my backpack containing my laptop and a few other small, expensive things I don't trust out of my sight. I sat down, and breathed a sigh of relief that this trip was finally getting underway.

Then the late luggage showed up.

Apparently, the luggage they had delayed the plane for was quite numerous. In fact, it wouldn't all fit in the back of the plane. The stewardess (attendant? What't the PC term?) started asking people very nicely if they could fit extra bags under the seats and whatnot. She was actually being quite thoughtful, doing everything possible to avoid leaving anything behind.

Then the supervisor showed up. He said that while the plane wasn't overbooked, it was overweight, so the four of us had to get off again. The thoughtful stewardess tried to offer us the choice of having our bags taken off and put on a later flight while staying on ourselves, but the supervisor said she couldn't do that. Dumbfounded, we exited the plane again.

The supervisor merits special mention. Now, most people still seem like people when they are working. Either they are pleasant and trying to help you (like the stewardess), or they hate their job and it shows, or whatever, but you can still tell they are human. Then there are people who come across as company policy books come to life. They aren't compassionate, they don't even offer a sad "I wish I could help" smile to calm you down. No emotion, no empathy. From all appearances, they have no souls.

The supervisor was of the latter type. Think Dick Cheney. Seriously, this guy looked (and sorta sounded) like Dick Cheney. (No joke!) His nametag said "Sean L." because apparently he doesn't have the guts to put his last name behind the work he does.

Once off the plane, I asked whether my gate-checked luggage would be taken off the plane. The supervisor assured me that it would, but that they couldn't just give it to me there on the tarmac (you guessed it: against policy), but that we could get our bags later at baggage claim F. Then one of the workers nearby got the brilliant idea to take our names down so that they could get our bags off the plane. Keep in mind, this only occured to him after the supervisor had assured us that all would be taken care of. Before we could ask any more pesky questions, the supervisor shooed us back into the airport.

At this point, we obviously weren't too happy. I was already planning this blog post. The girl I talked to earlier was nearly in tears after a phone call with her boss in Syracuse who wasn't very understanding that she wouldn't be able to work her 11pm shift that night. A middle-aged woman in our group looked like she wanted to shoot someone. The supervisor gave us a very unconvincing apology for our troubles (again, think Cheney), and then it was time for the paperwork.

If you get bumped from a flight at US Airways, they are "generous" enough to put you on the next flight out, (in this case, at 7:15 the next morning) put you up in a hotel for the night, and give you a $10 meal voucher to use at the airport restaurants. The only real nice thing they give you is a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the continental US, usable anytime within the next year (except for black-out dates like, oh, any significant holiday). Of course, you have to sign this ticket to accept it - right under some rather fine print that promises you won't sue the airline. Mmmm... extortion!

I took the free ticket and meal, but passed on the hotel; This is my hometown, I'll sleep in my own bed tonight, thank you very much! I called my dad, and told him he had to turn around and pick me up again. The supervisor reminded us that our luggage was at baggage claim F. (How could he be so sure? He hadn't checked or anything.) He also gave us the assurance that you cannot get bumped twice, so we were guaranteed our flight in the morning. (Gee, how nice...) Broken and defeated, we all headed to baggage claim F.

I'll bet you can see where this is going. Yup, my gate-checked roller-bag wasn't there. The other passengers' luggage was sitting on the corousel, but mine was MIA. After a fruitless search, I shuffled over to the baggage claim/customer service desk. I explained the situation to the nice guy behind the counter (at least this one seemed human!), and he went into a back room to check. After a phone call, he told me there had been some sort of "miscommunication," and my bag had stayed on the plane and gone to Syracuse without me.

Damn you, Dick Cheney-alike!!

The man told me that my luggage would be locked up in Syracuse overnight, and I could pick it up when I arrived the next day. I walked to the passenger pick-up area, my mind stuck on the image of an equally-pleasant guy in Syracuse telling my my bag had accidently been sent back to Pittsburgh...

On monday I got up much earlier than I generally prefer, brushed my teeth using my finger as a toothbrush (my real toothbrush was in Syracuse...), and went back to the airport.

My own trip would go smothly this time, but I did get one last glimpse of US Airways incompetence. While wating for my flight, the announcement came that this flight was in an "overbooking situation," and they were looking for seven volunteers to give up their seats. Seven! It seems the flight we had been bumped to was overbooked to begin with, and the four of us were making it even worse! So now, the events of the previous night had affected the travel plans of a total of 11 people. Fortunatly, they got the volunteers, so no one had to go through quite what we had, but still.

I count it as a minor miracle that when I arrived in Syracuse my roller-bag was, in fact, waiting for me at the baggage claim desk. I got a cab, rode back to my dorm, thanked God I had no morning classes on mondays, and collapsed in my bed.

So yeah, not liking US Airways too much at the moment. And Sean L, wherever you are.... YOU SUCK!

Penny-Arcade Guys Get Macs!

That's right folks; Tycho and Gabe, creators of the wildly popular and gamer-oriented webcomic Penny-Arcade, have both purchased computers from Apple. Gabe's MacBook Pro (I still think that's a dumb name) hasn't shipped yet, but Tycho has been using his recently-arrived Intel iMac, and has all manner of good things to say about it:

I've used my own Mac for every computing task this week. What I have ascertained is not that PCs as we know them lack good design, but that PCs as we know them have hardly any design to speak of. I'm not trying to be insulting. Use a Mac for a week, and we'll talk again.

(mocking snarkiness follows...)

To my PC-loyal friends: What now, guys?
We are toppling your monuments, your idols, your bastions of power... and comedic sarcasm. People are beginning to see - There's a better way! (And unlike the current Democratic Party, we actually know what we're talking about when we say that!) Resistance is futile. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. With drop shadows, and translucency!

Political Musings Around Deus Ex

Before I say anything, let me point out that this is just my random musing over an idea I thought up about 5 minutes ago. It isn't a well-constructed or complete argument, nor do I intend it to be - just me spitting out what I'm thinking about.

I don't know how many of my friends actually played through a significant part of Deus Ex, (most found it too slow) but I finished it last year and really enjoyed it. One thing I found interesting about it was the way it depicted the near-future of our world. The world of Deus Ex is filled with fear and terrorism. Some leaders (political and otherwise) use this fear to further thair own adgendas. Of course, being a video game, their adgendas mainly center around variants of "take over the world," but I still found it to be an interesting parallel to our own world. (Here is where all my conservative friends just opened their mouths and started shaking their heads - bear with me!) The fact that the game came out before 9/11 made it seems all the more prophetic. The fact that leaders exploiting fears over terrorism played prominently gave me the impression that this was a "liberal-friendly/sympathizing" game.

I recently found a review of the game from when it was new (2000) in which the author laments the fact that the game's designers took up "ultra-right fantasies" for much of the games plot. He said "a plot which fingers the UN as the chief agency seeking world domination is only heading one way politically", and noted "a wimpy liberal isn’t going to find much attractive about their final choices."

Wait - I'm a liberal, I loved this game, and it's plot most of all! I guess my point is that politics aren't static. What was considered a "right" game under Clinton can now be considered a "left" game under Bush. I guess that would just make it an "anti-government" game, although newspaper clippings and e-mails tend to paint a favorable picture of the fictional President Mead, who opposes the the increased powers of UNATCO.

Actually, I guess I don't really have too much of a point, just throwing my observations out there. I just found the difference between my impression of the game and this review's.

Thoughts, anyone?