Events

I haven't commented on Friday night's attacks in Paris for a number of reasons, none of which is relevant right now. I would like to call attention to some of the better responses I've read in the last couple of days: Paul Krugman reminds us that if we fear ISIS, they're succeeding—not the other way around. Professor Olivier Roy of the European University Institute in Florence says the Paris attacks reveal ISIS' strategic limitations, not their strength. President Obama sharply criticized Republican...

No, really. In 1998 Microsoft wanted to demonstrate its SQL Server database engine with a terabyte-sized database, so it built a map called Terraserver. Motherboard's Jason Koebler has the story: Terraserver could have, should have been a product that ensured Microsoft would remain the world’s most important internet company well into the 21st century. It was the first-ever publicly available interactive satellite map of the world. The world’s first-ever terabyte-sized database. In fact, it was the...

As I mentioned Thursday, I'm on a mileage run. But because I'm an aviation geek, not only am I trying to hold onto elite status for 2016, but also I'm trying out American Airlines' newest airplanes. Yesterday's flight from JFK to LAX got me on the A321 Transcontinental (along with, no kidding, both Laura Linney and Natalie Dormer). Today's gets me from LAX to DFW on this gorgeous thing: They're seamless, you know. If you look at the fuselage of any other passenger airplane, you see rivets, welds, all...

...not everywabone would look like these guys, getting in a few waves just past 9 in the morning today: These are just some quick edits on my Surface. When I get home I'll spend some more time with the few hundred photos I've taken today and yesterday.

Two from last night, near the Hermosa Beach Pier:

The Boston Globe thinks it's time to do away with the TSA: Let’s face it: The Transportation Security Administration, which annually costs taxpayers more than $7 billion, should never have been created. The responsibility for airport security should never have been federalized, let alone entrusted to a bloated, inflexible workforce. Former TSA administrator Kip Hawley calls it “a national embarrassment that our airport security system remains so hopelessly bureaucratic” and warns that “the relationship...

Cooling my heels (just what does that cliche mean, anyway?) at JFK. I miss New York. I don't want to live here again, but I do like visiting. I mean, look: That might look a little better if I could get Lightroom to work on my Surface Pro. Time to reinstall it, again.

Some rules of flying: Schedule your outbound flights so that delays are inconvenient but not fatal to the purpose of your trip.  Know that the atmosphere is immense, and airplanes are small. Ground holds happen for very good reasons, all of them about you surviving the flight.  Charge your phone.  So, yeah, we're on a hold pad for another half hour... 

For the next 52 hours, I'll be traveling, for a really horrible reason. I'm not traveling for work, nor really for vacation, though I will admit to enjoying it (in a way my friends don't really understand). No, I'm trying to keep my American Airlines elite status for another year, because so far in 2015 I have traveled less than in any year of the past 10. So tonight I'm flying to New York, tomorrow to Los Angeles, then back to Chicago on Saturday evening, about 5,500 miles total. The routing provided...

Scott Hanselman has a good rant today about how software developers increasingly use their own customers to do quality-assurance (QA) testing: Technology companies are outsourcing QA to the customer and we're doing it using frequent updates as an excuse. This statement isn't specific to Apple, Google, Microsoft or any one organization. It's specific to ALL organizations. The App Store make it easy to update apps. Web Sites are even worse. How often have you been told "clear your cache" which is the 2015...