David Gessel

USAir, not my favorite airline…

Monday, November 7, 2011 

Carolyn and I were flying from LGA to DCA early this morning. I booked an award ticket through UAL on USAIR, but mine was a connecting flight through PHL as there wasn’t any availability on the direct for award tickets. On UAL this means you have a confirmed flight on the less optimal route but if there are seats at the gate the agent will get you to your destination the most efficient route available, which is also the lowest CO2 emission route and the lowest cost route for the airline: everybody wins.

I called US air the night before to verify that I could fly standby (no problem, I was told) and that there were seats (looks like plenty, I was told). No problemmo.

But not with US-Air. Not that they weren’t friendly enough, but as my booking class was “X” and they didn’t have any “X” seats left, they couldn’t book me even though there were plenty of open seats. I tried with the gate agent, the supervisor, all to no avail. I called UAL but they don’t have any visible inventory because US-Air doesn’t share it with them. US-Air tells me UAL has to get me into one of their open seats. UAL shows no open seats.

So I figure I’ll just go to the gate. Gate agents have special powers over last minute seating. I show them my ticket and they immediately hand it back “no, we already called United, they won’t put you on this flight.” I’m thinking there must be a note on my ticket – but no, apparently the counter had called the gate and specifically told them not to let me on the flight. I get on the phone with UAL and they tell me “I don’t understand why they won’t just accept your coupon.” No budging.

I thought maybe I’d take the shuttle over to JFK and fly direct to IAD, but Carolyn pointed out there was a UAL express flight from LGA-IAD. As I have to get back to IAD later in the day anyway, it is a better option (pick up a rental car and drive myself into DC and back out). UAL got me on it no problem. I bus myself over to the UAL counter, and a very cool and very knowledgeable agent at the counter tells me about his family in Italy and his recording business in Rome while he gets me a very good seat on the LGA-IAD shuttle and clears my upgrade and tickets me for tonight’s flight back to SFO. Friendly agents, premium seating, no hassle, expedited security line.

UAL win: USAir Fail.

Glad I’m not causing a transfer payment after all. Lesson: it is worth flying a less convenient route on UAL than a more convenient one on USAir.

Posted at 05:27:04 GMT-0700

Category: PlanesTravel

Oh Google… you’re so cute.

Friday, November 4, 2011 

Sure you’re the largest data harvester in the world and you’ve convinced more people than even microsoft to migrate their personal and business data away from their relatively secure and relatively private personal computers and company servers onto your public, ephemeral servers where you make their data to every government in the world you do business with and all the hackers in China, and even in those circumstances where you do actually provide some measure of security, your services have helped eliminate any residual rational discomfort people might have had about giving Big Brother direct editorial review of every communication they have, every document they create, every question they think about. More than any other company, if only by dint of your scale, you have made an Orwellian informational panopticon reality.

But who can stay mad when you’re so damn cute.  Barrel roll :-)

Posted at 03:51:05 GMT-0700

Category: FunnyPolitics

A Very Energetic Band at Borgo a Mozzano’s Halloween

Thursday, November 3, 2011 

This band was playing a small stage along Via Roma at Borgo a Mozzano’s Halloween festival.   I haven’t been able to figure out their name yet (will update when I do).  The singer managed to put out an amazing amount of vocal power from such a small frame.

Encode parameters

 ffmpeg -i Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.MTS -c:v libsvtav1 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -preset 2 -svtav1-params tune=0 -b:v 0 -crf 40 -pass 1 -an -f null /dev/null && \
 ffmpeg -i Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.MTS -c:v libsvtav1 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -preset 2 -svtav1-params tune=0 -b:v 0 -crf 40 -pass 2 -c:a libopus -b:a 96000 Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.webm

 

Posted at 07:13:14 GMT-0700

Category: EventsPlacesTravelvideo

Fantomatik Orchestra at Borgo a Mozzano

Thursday, November 3, 2011 

The Fantomatik Orchestra performing at Halloween at Borgo a Mozzano

That’s our local butcher dancing with the cow’s head and eyeball.

Converting to webm to break the privacy leak and serial dependency to Youtube, AV1 recompression with the following command executed the second pass at a blistering 0.00917x actual speed, or 0.3 fps compression rate.

 ffmpeg -i Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.MTS -c:v libsvtav1 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -preset 2 -svtav1-params tune=0 -b:v 0 -crf 39 -pass 1 -an -f null /dev/null && \
 ffmpeg -i Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.MTS -c:v libsvtav1 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -preset 2 -svtav1-params tune=0 -b:v 0 -crf 39 -pass 2 -c:a libopus -b:a 128000 Band_at_Borgo_a_Mozzano.webm

 

Posted at 04:03:03 GMT-0700

Category: GeopostPlacesPositiveReviewsTravelvideo

Halloween at Borgo a Mozzano

Wednesday, November 2, 2011 

Borgo a Mozzano hosts the biggest Halloween festival in Italy and this year was the biggest yet. The streets were so packed with people it was almost impossible to move in some places. There were at least 8 stages, each hosting several different bands through the night playing all sorts of music from heavy metal to gypsy punk to polka, but one of the best was the marching band which had our town butcher out dancing with a cows head.

Halloween_Borgo_a_Mozzano_2011_DSC06657.jpg
Posted at 10:42:55 GMT-0700

Category: EventsPlacesTravel

Lucca Comics and Games 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011 

Lucca Comics and Games is a bit like Comic-con except in a medieval walled city, which goes well with a lot of the costumes.

Lucca_Comics_And_Games_2011_DSC06005.jpg
World of Warcraft?

Posted at 09:12:49 GMT-0700

Category: EventsPlacesTravel

Passaggio del Terrore

Monday, October 31, 2011 

The first night of Halloween at Borgo a Mozzano (it is a 3 night extravaganza here), we visited the famous Passaggio del Terrore. The highlight was seeing the owner of our local hardware store as a crazed psychopath.

Passaggio del Terrore_DSC05913.jpg
Posted at 17:40:44 GMT-0700

Category: EventsphotoPlacesTravel

beepocalypse

Sunday, October 30, 2011 

Arriving in Italy we found our apartment had been squatted in by a swarm of hornets, probably through the chimney. It appeared they’d recently had a massive party and most, but not all had died.

We started a fire to clear the chimney and dispose of the corpses, which given how gigantic they were, was a lot of burning. By a lot, I mean dustpans full of hornets, some still crawling, at a time.

They could have been European Hornets, but the largest were closer to 5cm or so, fairly large even for European Hornets.

DSC05873.JPG

DSC05869.JPG
Posted at 02:05:58 GMT-0700

Category: GeopostphotoTravel

Fight ProtectIP/SOPA

Thursday, October 27, 2011 

I am a constituent and I urge you to reject the Internet Blacklist Bills (PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House).

This bill is deeply, deeply flawed and fails completely to live up to the fundamental constitutional basis for copyright: “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.”

I am deeply concerned by the danger these bills pose to Internet security, free speech online, and innovation. The Internet Blacklist Legislation is dangerous and short-sighted, and I urge you to join Senator Wyden and other members of Congress in opposing it.

If this bill passes, those entire “middle class” of moderately successful collaborative and user-generated sites will be driven out of the internet. The 1% sites like Google or Facebook can afford tier one lawyers to protect themselves from the prima facia unconstitutionality of this absurdly ill-considered bill, but the vast 99% can’t afford the legal resources or the infrastructure resources this bill mandates and they will vanish, hobbling the internet as the most fruitful incubator of science and the useful arts so far created.

Promote science and the useful arts by blocking ProtectIP/SOPA.

Posted at 16:19:49 GMT-0700

Category: NegativePolitics

Google Maps, now with billboards

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 

This is the first I’ve noticed location-specific ads being inserted into a google search. It makes sense that their map becomes a revenue source. If the ads don’t work, the the map will go away. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

google location ads.JPG
ah… this
Posted at 15:05:25 GMT-0700

Category: Technology