One might think that a carrier whose name is ‘Delta’ would be conscientious about measuring (and capitalizing on) the differences between their service offerings and those of their competition. Given that their fares aren’t discernibly cheaper than other carriers, there’s no measurable delta there.

Sitting on a unremarkable Delta flight from JFK to SFO these are my observations:

1. Checked bags – $25. What is the delta? The overhead storage became full before the plane was half boarded and all remaining passengers are forced to check their bags at the gate; delaying boarding and artificially dictating whose bags were checked and whose were not.

2. $2 for headphones is exploiting unprepared passengers. Given how much they charge for TV shows/movies (see #3) you would think it would be in their best interest to give out the headphones for free to promote spending money on the entertainment.

3. On board entertainment – $2 per TV show $6+ per movie. No free on-board movies, no free TV show lineup.

4. Free Food offerings – Airline pretzels or cookies in bags that look like airline peanuts from the 60′s. Where’s the co-branding? Give me a taste of the latest and greatest from Fritolay or something.

[I actually did this back LAST November or so and am just getting around to writing this]. Why you ask? I had just finished reading “The Boy Who Moved The Wind” and wanted to recommend it to Oprah (just in case she hadn’t heard about it) so that she could cover it on her show and add it to her reading list.

I first heard about William’s story from a friend’s Facebook post linking to a YouTube video titled “Moving Windmills”. Watching the video left me in awe of this kid and what he managed to accomplish with what little formal education and resources he had access to. When I saw that he had written a book I thought it would be interesting to find out how he figured out how to build a windmill.

Reading the book I realized how much suffering, endurance, determination, and resilience it took to get William to that TED stage where he said the words, “I try and I made it”. His success wasn’t simply achievement in the absence of education, but also perseverance in the midst of calamity.

I’m not the type to buy into the value of inspirational stories of those overcoming adversity (read: I’ve never been moved to internalize the actions or achievements of anyone else), but William’s story has changed my outlook and view on life . Seeing William continuing to work to succeed in his goals while simply struggling to survive made me redefine what I think it means to “try”.

[If it's not already clear, I recommend everyone to go buy and read this book].

I was originally going to post a rant about our horrendous experience flying on United Airlines to Hawaii a few weeks ago. But what this experience (and a few others) have got me thinking about though is ticket fares.

Among other (many) problems I had with United on this trip, the first leg of our flight was canceled the night before the flight. It wasn’t due to current/impending weather conditions since the weather was normal and all their other flights (read: every hour) to our connection airport (O’Hare) were on time. Their solution was to book us on a flight the following day as “all” other flights that day were already booked. Now had I have gone along with this, there would have been  few consequences. First, we would have lost one day of our vacation, I would have paid for an unused hotel room and car rental, and lastly, I/we might have wasted a vacation day (depending on the stringency of our workplaces).

When I called customer service they made no effort to compensate us in any way for losing a day of our trip (partial/full refund, upgraded seats, free snack-packs) or even to explain why the flight was canceled. If they had I might have be satiated or at least understood; but instead I got zilch. Rather than raising a fuss (or rather before) I made the customer service representative check all nearby airports and see if any other airport had flights with open seats. Luckily they were able to accommodate us. (Now not to interrupt myself, but I think “good customer” service would have been to have done this before bumping our flight to the next day and calling to ask if we’d be able to fly out of the alternate airport).

The alternate flight was out of Newark airport instead of La Guardia and at 6 AM instead of 9:30 AM. Herein lies my biggest problem with this situation. When I originally booked the tickets, I intentionally paid more to book a 9:30 AM flight instead of an earlier one, and out of La Guardia over the usually cheaper but less convenient Newark. Shouldn’t I be compensated for the fare difference?

If I had booked a suite in a hotel or a luxury rental car and been downgraded, I would have been refunded the difference. There wouldn’t have even been a question of it. So why is that not the case with airlines? If I call and berate someone at United Airlines I might be able to get some miles or a voucher or something out of it, but that really isn’t the point. I shouldn’t have to do anything. Their systems should look at the flight I booked and the flight I took, calculate the price difference based on when I purchased my ticket, and automatically credit me the difference. Instead, somehow at flight time all flights are considered equal. Why is this the case? In any other business this practice would be considered bait and switch.

Believe it or not, I got the above email from Microsoft this week. They emailed me asking me to change my account settings to enable them to send me “promotional information” (aka SPAM). Isn’t that just ridiculous? … And of course, this email had no unsubscribe link.

I submitted my first iPhone application to the iTunes store almost exactly a month ago today. It’s an application called Capital Calls. I wrote it for the Sunlight Labs – Apps for America Contest. While writing it I was of course dreaming of winning first place and the $15k  bounty that came with it. However, that was not meant to be. Instead I recieved an honorable mention and $100. Still, not too shabby for an app written in 2.5 weeks over nights and weekends. I don’t think that the hourly rate translates too well, but I’m proud of the accomplishment none the less.

I tried Pandora back in 2005 when the service first launched. The concept was intriguing – a radio station that would help me discover new music that I would like. Like many others, I discovered that on Pandora all music eventually led to Christian rock. Not necessarily a problem if you like Christian rock, but not exactly the revelation I was looking for (pun intended). So I wrote it off and went back to depending on the radio and friends to find new music.

A few months ago Steve mentioned that he was able to use the Pandora iPhone app without interruption on his commute to work in the morning. I was frankly more surprised that he was using Pandora than I was that he had managed to hold a 3G signal the whole time. So after being semi-convinced by him that Pandora’s suggestion algorithms have improved, I decided to give it another shot.

Sure enough, all the music that is played revolves more closely around the original selection. The downside of this is that it appears to simply generate a static playlist based on what you start with, so in a few hours you start to loop. It’s not ideal for discovering new music,  but It’s not necessarily a bad thing either. After a while you feel like you’re listening to a mix tape.

Additionally you can access a list of the songs you bookmark and thumbs-up on the website, which makes it convenient for tracking all the new songs you’re finding. All in all I give this new and improved Pandora a “thumbs-up”. My only gripe is that their downloadable player is simply the web interface packaged in Adobe Air.

Although my new apartment is devoid of roaches (thus far)… having a balcony door as my primary means of ventilation leaves me vulnerable to airborne insects. Flies tend to fly in an out w/out causing me too much grief; mosquitoes however are turning out to be my new nemesis.

My much beloved high ceilings have turned out to be my biggest tactical setback. The skeeters can merrily perch themselves up on the ceiling and digest my blood while watching me helplessly agonize over their existence. My other problem has been my slow (i admit it) reflexes. Even though mosquitoes are by no means the zippiest zippers out there, they out maneuver my fly swatter like a Porsche does semi’s on I-5.

Luckily for me, evolution has given me the ultimate trumph card… Ingenuity. So how pretel did I conquer the beasts? A can of compressed air, shaken and sprayed upside down. By disregarding all the warning labels on the can, you cause the liquid coolant to spray out along with the air. Apply this on a mosquito (even one a few feet out of reach) and viola, you’ve stunned them long enough to splat them with your fly swatter. If they’re still too high, give them a few more sprays and they’ll fly around and settle someplace more accessible.

Since joining kwiry I’ve learned a lot about how the media/press business works. It’s far more contrived and engineered than i had ever thought. Of course it makes a lot of sense from a business perspective, but it takes away some of the excitement of reading knowing that most of it is really some sort of editorial-advertising. Knowing all that, it’s still exciting to see kwiry appear in my RSS reader!

I went to my first auto show in years this past weekend and I remember why i don’t like them. Hordes of people walking around like lost cattle. That said… Ford featured kwiry ktags on the displays for some of their cars…

see my other pics from the autoshow

Warren and his jujitsu school made the news in Taiwan. You can see him kicking some *ss.