Not A Mystery

It is entirely possible that Airlines will soon revoke the law of diminishing returns.

And I’m not talking about their profits, but instead their ability to come up with new ways to tack on charges.

United Airlines has just begun to offer a new ‘service’, which they’ve dubbed Premier Line.

Board the airplane sooner and get earlier access to overhead bin space with Premier Line. You’ll also enjoy the benefits of priority check-in and priority security, where available. Premier Line is now offered in all United® and United Express® airports in the U.S.

So United will now charge you to board the aircraft earlier than your seat-mates. They should more honestly call it ‘Front Of The Line’, but that would invoke images of class warfare.

There Is Really No End In Sight

They’ve figured out that as more people bring along carry-on baggage, overhead bin space is becoming a scarce resource, and passengers  will pay for a leg-up so to speak.

And how much will they pay? The ad says it is ‘starting’ at $9, but we know that’s a teaser.

So I checked it out on my favorite San Francisco to London flight. In that real world case the actual charge $39 per passenger, one-way.

That doesn’t really guarantee you anything except the opportunity to stand closer to the door.

I’m not sure how many passengers will jump at this option, but I think there would be a larger market for the opportunity to get off the plane earlier.

What do theatre owners and airline executives have in common?

Nothing.

Well, actually they do both provide their services to seated customers, which should imply some sort of similarity. But in practice nothing of the sort.

While the airlines constantly shrink their seats and services, theatre owners at least have a different take on customer satisfaction.

… theaters across the country [are] expanding the width of … seats and increasing … leg room, or row spacing …

“We want to err a little bit on the roomier side, because over the last 50 years Americans have gotten a little plumper,” [New York] City Center’s senior vice-president and managing director, Mark Litvin, said, “and we find these larger seats are much more comfortable for people.”

… Theatre Projects Consultants, a theater-development firm, found that the average standard width of seats in performing-arts theaters has expanded from 21 to 22 inches over the last two decades, “primarily due” to the concurrent rise in obesity. Over the course of the entire last century, the average width increased from 19 to 21 inches.

Source

If, like me, you spend your airtime crammed in coach you will be impressed with the ‘pitch’ on these seats.

The airlines might try to claim that frequent flyers are not succumbing to obesity like their theatre-going cousins.

But given that they now force some customers to purchase two tickets if they require a seatbelt ‘extender’, that excuse just won’t fly.

In recent posts we have recommended two books for listening:

1. Rocket Men – The Epic Story of the First Men on The Moon
2. The Billionaire’s Vinegar – The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

So if you are wondering whether we actually read books, the answer is yes. And to prove it, here are two recommendations for your reading pleasure. Actually I read both of these on my Kindle, but that still counts as a read.

Both books are set in India, and you will discover things you never would as a tourist.

The first is “The White Tiger“ by Aravind Adiga. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2008.

Quoting from an Amazon review by Kerry Walters:

The plot centers around Balram Halwai, a laborer born and raised in a small village utterly controlled by crooked and feudally powerful landlords. The village is located in ‘the Darkness,’ a particularly backward region of India. Balram is eventually taken to Delhi as a driver for one of the landlord’s westernized sons, Ashok. It’s in Delhi that Balram comes to the realization that there’s a new caste system at work in both India and the world, and it has only two groups: those who are eaten, and those who eat, prey and predators. Balram decides he wants to be an eater, someone with a big belly, and the novel tracks the way in which this ambition plays out.

By coincidence I was reading this book when the Mumbai attacks took place. Although The White Tiger is set in New Delhi it still provided a multi-layered backdrop for current events.

The next book, on the other hand, does take place in Mumbai. “Shantaram“ by Gregory Roberts is a monster of a book at 944 pages.

From the Amazon.com and Publisher’s Weekly reviews:

Crime and punishment, passion and loyalty, betrayal and redemption are only a few of the ingredients in Shantaram, a massive, over-the-top, mostly autobiographical novel. Shantaram is the name given Mr. Lindsay, or Linbaba, the larger-than-life hero. It means “man of God’s peace,” which is what the Indian people know of Lin. What they do not know is that prior to his arrival in Bombay he escaped from an Australian prison where he had begun serving a 19-year sentence … he arrives in Bombay with little money, an assumed name, false papers, an untellable past, and no plans for the future. Fortunately, he meets Prabaker right away, a sweet, smiling man who is a street guide. He takes to Lin immediately, eventually introducing him to his home village, where they end up living for six months. When they return to Bombay, they take up residence in a sprawling illegal slum of 25,000 people and Linbaba becomes the resident “doctor … Linbaba’s life in the slum abruptly ends when he is arrested without charge and thrown into the hell of Arthur Road Prison. Upon his release, he moves from the slum and begins laundering money and forging passports for one of the heads of the Bombay mafia, guru/sage Abdel Khader Khan. Eventually, he follows Khader as an improbable guerrilla in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan.

But more than all that, this will give you a feel for India that I don’t believe is available elsewhere. Everything from the side streets of Mumbai, to village life, to prison life, to mafia life, to Bollywood life. And as an additional attraction, Afganistan. To be honest, parts of the ‘autobiographical’ story might or might not be true, but there seems no doubt that the tapestry into which it’s woven is the real thing.

A friend who spends time in Mumbai every year said he will never be able to walk past the Arther Road Jail again without thinking about what is happening inside.

Read on.

I just finished listening to “Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon”.

Written by Craig Nelson and read by Richard McGonagle the audible.com edition was published just in time for the 40th anniversary of our first moon landing. It is by far my favorite audible book of the many I’ve “read”.

The book contains massive amounts of detailed behind-the-scenes information about the manned space program; its history, politics, science and engineering. We get detailed oral accounts in the astronauts’ and mission controllers’ own words. The narrative takes us into the spacecraft on the journey to the moon and the descent to the lunar surface.

To put everything into context, critical design decisions are described by the managers involved. For example, how do you decide the quality level required of the suppliers who will deliver the (literally) millions of parts that made up the spacecraft? Even with a 99.9% quality requirement there would still be thousands of parts expected to fail on the mission itself.

During the actual mission the narrative makes you feel like you are sitting with the astronauts, inside Columbia and then the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) as Armstrong and Aldrin descend to the moon’s surface; while Collins orbits the moon waiting their return. Because they missed the intended landing zone by about 20 miles Armstrong had to take over manual control of the landing and finally put it down with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining.

Starting with the end of WWII and the ‘recruitment’ of German rocket scientists by the USA and Russia, the book follows the development of the US and Russian space programs and how they symbolically ‘fought‘ many battles during the Cold War.

The book finishes with an account of NASA after-the-manned-missions. How the public became blase (at best) about manned spaceflight and NASA lost its way without the tremendous focus of the lunar program. It presages the threat that the US is on the way to losing our leadership position in science and engineering as we move into the 21st Century.

One haunting image painted by Nelson is the possibility of a Chinese or Indian team of astronauts returning to Tranquility Base, taking down the American Flag and putting up their own national flag.

Some final notes.

• This book is a fantastic listen partly because of the subject matter and partly because Richard McGonagle does an outstanding reading. Therefore I highly recommend the audible.com version of the book over the printed or Kindle edition.
• If you did engineering work during the time frame of the book you will enjoy it even more than the average reader, because it will remind you of what the field was like then, as compared to now.
• If you’ve ever used a slide-rule, programmed in Fortran or were awestruck with the first hand-held electronic calculator, then you must listen to this book.

Enjoy.

Go forth and Multitask!

As readers of the blog know, I came out of the closet a while back and confessed that I married into a (wonderful) Rio Linda family. Over the past 20+ years I’ve been there more times than I can remember  for family functions, holidays, BBQ’s and whatever.

Water Seeks Its Own Level

As a result, I believe I’ve got the chops to say pretty much anything about Rio Linda that I want, as long as I don’t get too carried away.

But right now I don’t plan to say anything. That’s a relief, isn’t it?

What I do plan to do though, is share some really fine photographs of Rio Linda. These were taken by Steve Shames a Sacramento photographer. Although he’s got gorgeous photos of more famous ‘pretty’ places, he called this particular collection one of his favorites.

These were taken on high speed infra-red film, so they are a bit other-worldly, but very effective.

When I was an aspiring (amateur) photographer long ago and far away I experimented with infra red film and I can vouch for the fact that it’s not something you want to try at home. It’s easy to take a weird looking picture but impossible to take a good one.

Steve has done a great job, here’s the link to Steve Shames Rio Linda collection.

And “America’s Pinata“ can eat his heart out.

Enjoy

We’ve gotten comfortable with Eco-Tourism, and now have another great phrase entering the lexicon: “Terror Tourism”. Today we’re visiting Mumbai, six months after the attacks, thru the reporting of the Financial Times.

Farhan Jehani, co-owner of Leopold Café, said business could not be better as he pointed out the bullet and grenade marks the managers have purposely retained on the café’s walls in remembrance of the incident. “Leopold’s . . . has become more famous now following this incident [the attacks], no doubt,” he said.

Street hawkers operating around Nariman House, which is near Leopold’s and the Taj, say it has also become a tourist attraction.

“There is also a bus service that takes tourists there,” said Imran Khan, a street vendor who sells replica watches, jewellery and stickers not far from Nariman House. “So in a way it has become good for us, business-wise, after the attack.”

They used to be just a Café, now Leopold’s is a destination.

Business is Good

Come see our bullet holes!

It's A Tourist Destination Now

But hey, if it’s bullet holes you want, let’s try Bosnia. My son, Matthew, took this picture in Mostar, Bosnia and he was just an ordinary tourist, way back in ’07.

Bullet Holes? We Don't Need Your Stinking Bullet Holes.

So what’s the point? Pick your favorite.

• People are callous and stupid,
• Disneyland is becoming disintermediated,
• Life goes on.

I guess I pick the last one, that’s why I filed this post under Angst.

Shameless plug: If you like the picture, thank Matthew by going to his website www.treasuredfinds.com and purchasing a gift for Dad on Father’s Day.