Tag: transportation

Reboot in Flight

I write this on (cramped, poor service Economy class SAS) the flight from Tokyo to Copenhagen. The aircraft attendants just told us that there are some issues with the movies in the in-flight entertainment system, and they will need to take down the system and reboot it. This process is supposed to take some twenty minutes! Nothing to be upset about, really, and likely totally unrelated to anything important for flying the plane. But still, needing twenty minutes for a reset is a bit much for something like this… makes Windows look positively fast in comparison. I guess it has to do with initializing some 200 individual screen units.

Anyway, in the end the system was up partially. All recent feature movies were missing (but the selection of older movies was intact), and the forward and downwards-looking cameras were inaccessible. Apart from that, it appeared to function normally. Interesting that it can be partially broken like that.

Travel Tip: Tokyo Trains

I am just back from my first ever trip to Tokyo, and it was a very interesting experience. I am very impressed by the Tokyo train system, and I cannot understand why some foreigners seem to avoid it and use taxis instead. All stations have signs in English (at least all that I visited in Tokyo), and the system is mostly very reliable and predictable. There are some things that I would have like to know before I came there, however, which were not entirely obvious.
Continue reading “Travel Tip: Tokyo Trains”

Off-Topic: Car Sizes and Prizes

The car market is pretty fascinating in many ways. Going out actually buying a car quite recently, I was given cause to reflect on prize vs actual size. The non-linear prize increase you have to pay to get to a slightly bigger car from whatever point you are at is interesting. And the fact that a “very small” car is just above four meters long, while a “pretty large” car is at around five meters. How can a few centimeters actually matter that much?

Continue reading “Off-Topic: Car Sizes and Prizes”