Tuesday, July 16, 2002

John Robb explores the possibility of enhancing our current hub-and-spoke air transportation system with a peer-to-peer version. He has an especially pithy comment on landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport without quite enough time to make his connection to New Hampshire. "Thank you for flying with us today. We know you have a choice of carriers, and we do appreciate your choosing United. Have a great day in Chicago, or wherever your final destination may be. Except the poor bastard who is connecting to Manchester. Even though we're unloading, and they know you're sprinting to the gate, you won't get there in time to avoid having the door slammed in your face. For the next 10 minutes, you'll stand in line waiting to rebook on the next flight, which leaves four hours later, and while you wait, you'll contemplate your plane, sitting on the tarmac, with your seat empty, preparing for its on-time departure. When you complain, you'll be given an eight dollar meal voucher, which you'll use to buy a six dollar sandwich. They'll keep the change. Have a great day." 10:58:21 PM      comment [] Joanne Jacobs' daughter had the same experience as my sons did with the gifted and talented program in elementary school (scroll down to "Discriminating Bloggers, posted on July 14). Higher-level work was increasingly watered down and finally ignored. 10:31:45 PM      comment [] Once again, a lot of the interesting new technology is being developed to support the military. Meanwhile, San Jose, the self-proclaimed capitol of Silicon Valley and my personal town of residence still doesn't have high-speed cable internet access, although AT&T and the city say it's coming Real Soon Now. We can figure out how to use autonomous air vehicles to bomb the hell out of hapless Afghans, but I have to wait interminable seconds to see pictures of Farmall H tractors for sale at Yesterday's Tractors. The injustice of it all. Life is tough here in the valley; you don't know how hard it is. 10:22:18 PM      comment []

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