Swiss has gone to the 777 now. The seats are better than the old ones in the A340-300, and contrary to what SeatGuru said beforehand, they are lie-flat, not angle-flat. The seat controls are right where your elbow hits, so they’re always getting bumped by accident. You still want to get the seats at the front if possible for more space. I think the separated interior aisle seat might be better than the throne seats (not the aisle window seats – those must suck, either crawling over or being crawled over to get to the restrooms). The thrones have the legspace kinda constrained by the seats in front which ends up being uncomfortable after a while.
Not having a window is not a big deal, and I say that liking to look out the windows. There’s little to see on the 12 hour international flights anyway. It’s tundra or ice for the day flight or nighttime for the red-eye (I always get high clouds anyway), and you’re an asshole if you open the shades when everyone else is trying to sleep. There’s always one.
It’s nice to have more storage space for small items. And a built-in USB for keeping the iPad charged. This was the first time the waitress asked me to put away my iPad for take-off and landing. Hopefully that won’t continue.
I really miss having some control of an air nozzle. It gets warm in the rear seats, even though I was sitting next to what looked like a vent. The front seats seem to be cooler.
No more jingus dual-pin headphone adapter necessary! Now there’s a touchscreen with a wider view-angle. Also about 25% bigger.
Always avoid the Swiss wine – go for the French or Argentina.
Still lots of James Bond. But more space, so it seemed like more other movies.
ObHomer[1]:
This is basically one of the central plot points of The Odyssey:
On the way home from Troy, after a raid on Ismaros in the land of the Cicones, he and his twelve ships are driven off course by storms. They visit the lethargic Lotus-Eaters and are captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus while visiting his island. After Polyphemus eats several of his men, Polyphemus and Odysseus have a discussion, and Odysseus told Polyphemus his name is “Nobody”. Odysseus takes a barrel of wine, and the Cyclops drinks it, falling asleep. Odysseus and his men take a wooden stake, ignite it with the remaining wine, and blind him. While they escape, Polyphemus cries in pain, and the other Cyclopes ask him what the matter is. Polyphemus cries, “Nobody has blinded me!” and the other Cyclopes think he has gone mad.
[1] Doh! Not that Homer!
How is it possible to have a West Coast tour that goes to San Diego and SF, but doesn’t stop in LA? I mean, LA went from having basically no gyms [1] to having about 15 [2], including one listed as one of the best in the US in a recent climbing rag [3].
If you climb in the Sierra, one of the premier alpine destinations in the US, well, LA is the place to live. Then there are those little known places like Joshua Tree and Tahquitz. While San Diego basically has a two hour longer drive to everywhere good, the Woodson Boulders, and Mission Gorge. Which no one ever goes back to twice.
Sigh. Being in SD at 5pm on a Monday is probably kinda tough.
[1] Cough, Rockreation, ARC, H18.
[2] Though still not a one in the SFV/SGV, dammit, aside from my backyard. ARC doesn’t count and never has. My backyard is better. And I have better taste in music (seriously, Air Supply is not even ironic). And no one steals the bouldering mats out from under me when I’m 15 feet off the ground. Though occasionally I have to yell at Ms Crashpad to get off the damn pads.
[3] Sender One. I’d agree. It’s almost as good as going to a real crag. Step enough. Good route-setting. Continually changing routes. An unfortunate propensity to play reggae, but that’s an objective hazard of any climbing gym where 23 year-old pad-people get to pick the music. Now if they’d just install some of the Big-Ass Fans that Cliffs of Id has…
One of the gyms I go to… wait, all the gyms I go to, on a couple of continents, will only sell you a “day pass”, even if it’s 8pm and they’re going to close in two hours. But several of them will give you a discount on the so-called day pass if you’re in before the rush – 2 or 3 pm.
So the “day pass” is $15/EUR per session if you actually might use it for a whole day, but is $20/EUR per session if you’re only going to use it for a couple of hours.
Big ups to the guy at ARC who only charged me $10 one night when I got there at 8pm. That seemed fair. And only happened the once.
ObXKCD:
A thought occurs to me: my place of work (heretofore POW) puts all sorts of requirements on passwords, and also requires that they be changed every 90 days (against best practices), so having worked there for a while, I am long past the point of being able to actually remember a password, or even caring to try. Password manager to the rescue.
However, POWIT also requires that the new password be more than x characters different than the last one. How can they know that, unless they are storing passwords in plaintext? If they’re handling them correctly, then all they should ever see, or be able to see, is a pseudo-random hash that either matches the current password hash or doesn’t. Even if they store the last hash, they shouldn’t be able to tell how far away the new password is away from the last, entropically.
So I’m guessing they’re not actually doing it right. Which is not a big surprise, from the same folks whose best practices brought you the OPM hack.
Today’s slightly disconcerting announcement
at 1700: “Gamma ray testing is commencing in Building 233. All personnel should clear the area. Gamma ray testing is commencing in Building 233. All personnel should clear the area.”
Five-hours-too-late ObArcher: “Do you want giant ants? Because this is how you get giant ants.”
Five-hours-too-late career realization: There went my chance to go all Bruce Banner…
Tagged Hulk, PSAHigh Energy Physics
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