Travel
On travel, of which I do a lot
@UAL, Congratulations on END:VEVENT!
Life’s little victories.
Starting in 2006, when UAL.com got an upgrade, they started having problems exporting events in vcal format. They had some issues with time zone declarations that we eventually got sorted out (so many people have problems with time zones):
Ual.com now gives broken "calendar" appointments for flights. The times are wrong, which seems worse than no calendar function at all. Below is a .vcf file for a flight I will be on tomorrow. BEGIN:VCALENDAR PERIOD:Microsoft CDO for Microsoft Exchange VERSION:1.0 BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20061214T001000Z DTEND:20061214T034500Z CATEGORIES;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:TRAVEL DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:UA 0179=0D=0ABOS to SFO=0D=0ADepart: December 13 2006 at 18:10 PM (local time) =0D=0AArrive: December 13 2006 at 21:45 PM (local time) =0D=0ASeat(s): =0D=0AAPOLLO Record Locator: xxxxx SUMMARY;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Flight From BOS To SFO PRIORITY:3 CLASS:PRIVATE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR It is wrong. Decoding the DTSTART: field (for example) it says: 20061214 start date, Dec 14, 2006 (correct) T Time 001000 the "start time" (incorrect) Z UTC (GMT time zone). Compare with the description field, literally: "UA 0179=0D=0ABOS to SFO=0D=0ADepart: December 13 2006 at 18:10 PM (local time) =0D=0AArrive: December 13 2006 at 21:45 PM (local time) =0D=0ASeat(s): =0D=0AAPOLLO Record Locator: xxxxx" Aside from being formatted for minimum comprehensibility, it says the departure is 18:10 PM [sic, 18:10 is actually 6:10 PM, or 18:10, but not 18:10 PM] which is actually 02:10 GMT. That is the start time _should_ read DTSTART:20061214T021000Z The end time is also wrong. Also consider reformatting the description field using text/plain Content-Type:text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit or just remove the encoding MIME types and take out the carriage return/line feeds.
That got fixed shortly after I reported it. But then there was the continental merger and Continental’s software had a different .VCS formatting bug, they closed with “End:VEVENT End:VCALENDAR” rather than “END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR” – it seems like a minor issue, but it breaks importing into gcal and a lot of other calendar apps. Outlook is so messed up it doesn’t seem to care if things are formatted correctly or not. I first reported this in almost 2 years ago and periodically after that, finally reporting it to bugbounty@united.com at the end of October and only two months later, it is fixed!
Old way (wrong!): DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Flight number: UAxx=0DAircraft: Boeing 747-400=0DFare class: xxxxxxxxxx (R)=0DMeal: Lunch=0DConfirmation number: xxxxx =0D=0D This information is subject to change. Sign in to your MileagePlus(r) account at united.com to view your up-to-date itinerary.=0D=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0D=0DCheck in with United beginning 24 hours before your flight:=0Dwww.united.com/travel/checkin/quickstart.aspx?irPNR=xxxxxxxx=0D=0DChoose your seats, select Economy Plus seating, view your receipt and more:=0Dwww.united.com/managereservations=0D=0DCheck flight status:=0Dwww.united.com/flightstatus=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0DFind a hotel or car for your trip...=0DSearch for a Hotel:=0Dwww.united.com/hotels=0D=0DSearch for a Car:=0Dwww.united.com/cars=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0DThank you for choosing United.=0Dwww.united.com
End:VEVENT
End:VCALENDAR
New way (correct! – even with proper indenting now):
DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Flight number: UAxx=0DAircraft: Boeing 747-400=0DFare class: United xxxxxxx (R)=0DMeal: Lunch=0DConfirmation number: xxxxxx =0D=0D This information is subject to change. Sign in to your MileagePlus® account at united.com to view your up-to-date itinerary.=0D=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0D=0DCheck in with United beginning 24 hours before your flight:=0Dwww.united.com/travel/checkin/quickstart.aspx?irPNR=xxxxxxxx=0D=0DChoose your seats, select Economy Plus seating, view your receipt and more:=0Dwww.united.com/managereservations=0D=0DCheck flight status:=0Dwww.united.com/flightstatus=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0DFind a hotel or car for your trip...=0DSearch for a Hotel:=0Dwww.united.com/hotels=0D=0DSearch for a Car:=0Dwww.united.com/cars=0D------------------------------------------------------------=0DThank you for choosing United.=0Dwww.united.com END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR
That’s so Colorado
“…Not allowed in the cargo hold: lithium batteries, e-cigarettes, personal vapes.”
United’s Magic Trays
@United has new coach trays that are coated with a material that has an amazing coefficient of friction. They are not sticky at all—there’s no adhesion effect—it is all friction. Even low surface energy plastics don’t slide on it at all.
The approximately 75-80° angle in the picture is the point at which the cup topples over itself. It isn’t adhered to the surface and it doesn’t appear to slide at all before toppling.
This would be the perfect coating for a smart phone pad in a car. I never managed to find out who made it.
Lufthansa Business Class
I’ve occasionally had to buy business on poorly planned Lufthansa intra-Europe flights. While Lufthansa long-haul premium seats are possibly the best in the business, on short-haul/intra-Europe flights, LH business class seats would seam a little mean in most carrier’s coach sections.
There is no difference between coach seats and business class, none at all. In business all middle seats are blocked out, but that isn’t that hard to find in coach. It is efficient to scale business, it involves only moving a rack-mounted divider that is the only obvious differentiation in the classes.
In both the seats are substandard to the amenities one usually expects, especially on a long haul flight:
– little padding on the seats
– cramped seat pitch (worse than econ +)
– typical economy seat width
– no in seat power (not even a usb port)
– no personalized IFE
Such limitations would be cheap in economy, but in business they are, perhaps we should say “disappointing.” Neither the economy nor the business class zone is going to leave the passenger well-rested (IST-FRA is a long enough flight that rest matters); such a flight is a grim endurance test for everyone. But it is very egalitarian in shared suffering, though not particularly egalitarian in pricing. And were LH business not priced competitively with other carrier’s business, the disparity in services wouldn’t seem quite so jarring.
LH is, of course, efficient and well organized, but every other airline I’ve flown that has a business class has far, far better business class, even those that can’t really manage the basics.
Basra Snow Storm
I was feeling a little left out, reading posts by people digging out of snow storms and here I am in Basra where it gets down to 10C at night sometimes and usually hits the mid 20’s during the day. Rough. But the weather here came through with our own sort of snow storm.
Starting to look like a brown-out!
Obligatory shot of the yard furniture getting covered.
Kitty’s head is starting to show some accumulation.
With all this blowing through you can barely see a few hundred meters!
It’s really starting to accumulate. Where’s the snow blower?
It takes some special cleaning after playing out in it.
Cat Watch
Cat Watch
The twins resting after a busy day.
Family Feud Basra Style
Gunfire is pretty common here, perhaps even more common than in Oakland though usually for the same reasons: celebrating holidays, sports victories, weddings, that sort of stuff. It is kind of fun to listen to and watch tracers and stuff, but usually the villa is also celebrating in an obvious way; when you hear gunfire you also hear cheers, at least at night.
This evening the house was quiet, but the gunfire sure wasn’t. The guys tell me it was a tribal feud in the neighborhood, quite close from the sound of it. This is a low-fi recording from my phone.
Power Adventures In Iraq
Plugging things in here is always an adventure. Most of the outlets are the horrible giant British style so they have interlocked grounds, but most appliances are European style, so plugging things in means either using something to jam open the ground interlock, breaking the interlock tabs with force, or dispensing with the plug entirely and just stuffing bare wires in the holes.
When using the latter method, it turns out the British plugs are actually kind of useful because toggling the ground tab with a screwdriver uses the interlocks to bind the wires in place. You just hope the ground pin is wired to ground, not hot. Usually it just isn’t wired to anything.
Most appliances and power strips here come from China and are the sort of manufacture China was famous in the US for about 30 years ago: taking something out of the package usually breaks it. The wires inside are so thin it is amazing they survive and grounds are never, ever actually connected. I have cables that on the inside have a ground insulator but no ground conductor inside the insulator. Awesome!
But we just rewired the new villa and even though the ground isn’t wired (of course), the outlets are new and seem like they’re decent quality. And we even got British style plugs to dispense with the highly problematic and very melt-prone plug adapters. All seemed good until….
Uh oh. Maybe it just needed to create a little vent….
Nope. Melt down. Good thing these have a built-in fuse… (which is still fine, though encrusted in melted plastic).