Very well-kept cemetery here in Varese. Low chance of zombie catastrophe.
If today's flight from SFO to Amsterdam were equipped with WiFi, I would've live-tweeted the whole thing. Alas, no WiFi. Usually quick to accept defeat, I pressed on for some reason and tweeted to myself, figuring I'd just make a blog post out of it. Wham. It's a tape-delayed TweetBlog!
No WiFi onboard KLM. I'll just keep an offline tweet log and dole them out afterwards. This is jb, reporting from #KLM606, seat 15E.
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I've chosen to upgrade to "economy comfort." The benefits are as follows:
10cm extra legroom.
free drinks.
#KLM606
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My row-mate just got up. Now's my chance to steal back the middle armrest. It's my time now. #KLM606
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He heads back to seat and I immediately relinquish middle armrest territory. I'm not built for mid-air confrontation. #KLM606
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Ok, one episode of Parks n' Rec from the KLM entertainment center, then it's work time. #KLM606
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I'm forcibly making myself smaller to accommodate this glaring space deficit between us. He pretends not to notice. #KLM606
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Just as my computer comes out, the dinner cart appears on the horizon. One more episode while I eat. #KLM606
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I'll have the beef please. And another tiny bottle of that lovely sauvignon blanc you're serving. #KLM606
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This X-Men movie is just a straight-up, well-made origin story. Also, January Jones wearing outfits. #KLM606
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Flight attendants look on impotently as I'm further marginalized in this tiny chair.
#KLM606
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This guy's leg is touching my leg now. He's crossed the no-fly zone and is into Justin airspace. Do I have permission to fire? #KLM606
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Great. This idiot just shifted in his sleep and turned on his seat light. Attendant approaching to reprimand us. #KLM606
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RANDOM: Why do I always feel the need to capitalize elements of the periodic table when I'm writing them? Just seems like they deserve capitalization, no? #KLM606
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I've just been presented with a small tub of Dutch Chocolate ice cream. My plan to deal with row-mate's encroachment is on hold. #KLM606
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Is anybody else still drinking? Is it weird for me to ask for another bottle of wine while all the lights are out? #KLM606
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Either it's 9:30pm PST and I'm responsibly enjoying more wine, or it's 6:30am in Milan and I'm drinking alone in the dark.
#KLM606
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Enemy may have glanced at my screen as I typed out another armrest update. Mentally preparing for combat. #KLM606
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Armrest! Armrest! He crossed his arms while asleep and I snuck right in there! I've got dual-elbow comfort! #KLM606
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Dammit to HELL. I moved my left arm for ONE SECOND to grab my headphones and he re-took center armrest. I've never felt so demoralized. #KLM606
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Not only that, but he actually gained more ground. Elbow now all the way over into my area. He is the Israel to my Palestine. #KLM606
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Just shoved his arm over while he was asleep. Source Code feels like it's worth a re-watch. #KLM606
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Pretending not to notice that row-mate enemy just spilled his whole breakfast tray into his lap. I think he can feel me smiling inside. #KLM606
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Ladies and gentlemen as we make our final descent, please rock out to Bibio. #KLM606
One of the nice little extras that's unique to Flavors is the ability to save custom backgrounds and color palettes. Why is this good? Well, say you've designed your Flavors page with all kinds of specific colors that go with a particular background photo. It matches perfectly and everything is just the way you like it. But if you're like me, you'll get antsy and start messing around with your design again, and before long everything is scrambled into a big mess. Now you're really wishing you had your old design back the way it was. This is where saved backgrounds and color palettes can save the day.
Next time you upload a new background for your Flavors page, notice what happens in the Backgrounds panel of the Design Panel. Your new image is automatically laid out on your page, and thumbnails for both the new background and the old one are now available in the Backgrounds panel. Just click on the old thumbnail and your background image goes back the way it was. That little red "x" in the top right lets you delete a saved background from the panel should you ever decide to clean a little house.
Same thing goes for the Colors panel. Next time you're configuring a new color scheme for your site, make sure to click the "Save your palette" button there at the bottom of the panel. A text box will pop up prompting you to name your saved palette. Once that's entered, your new palette will now be displayed at the top of the list under the "Palettes" tab in the Color panel. Check out the short demo below to see those features in action, I promise it'll make sense.
With custom backgrounds and palettes, you can experiment with a Flavors design until your heart's content, without worrying about losing your original masterpiece.
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One nice thing about taking a break from work is being able to say yes to anything with little or no notice. This morning a couple of guys I train with decided to go to Denny's when we were done and asked me to come along. Over breakfast I learned that one of them is an army Ranger who'd spent more than three years in Afghanistan. We were talking about the different ways soldiers cope with such a long tour, and it turns out one of the ways is drugs. "Oh yeah, there's tons of people who are, like, addicts over there," he said. In response, I said something incredibly stupid: "where the hell do you buy drugs when you're out in the middle of Afghanistan?" Even as I was finishing the sentence it dawned on me that there's enough opium and marijuana there to fuel a year-long Woodstock festival attended by, say, Texas. Anyway, I happened to come across these photographs tonight as I was thinking about this morning's breakfast.
http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/9462/1/the-best-view-of-heave...
On the desktop of my computer lies a folder called "time for a change". This folder contains the materials for my websites, several résumés, and the latest version of my cover letter, which you're now reading. The cleverly-titled "time for a change" folder was born late one evening when I abruptly decided to shake up my life a little bit because — well, just because. Because working a job that was good enough was no longer good enough. It was time, finally, to stop doing what I know and start doing what I love. It was time for a change.
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I'll spare you the rest of that cover letter, since you aren't here to evaluate my qualifications. I wrote the opening paragraph almost eight months ago. It was to be my first step towards a new life in San Francisco. I didn't get very far. Summer came and went and nothing had changed. How come? Because things got in the way. Trips, work, Angry Birds, re-runs of The Office and countless other stupid excuses. What was I waiting for? Well, I wanted to show up in San Francisco with everything already figured out. Dream job, great apartment, new car, new life. I was waiting for everything to line up perfectly. Never one to make things easy on myself — I'm the same guy who vacations in Iran and roots for the San Francisco Giants — I spent most of the year stressing out about this change I wanted to make, going through something akin to the 12 stages of grief before finally accepting what everybody else in the world already knows: there is no perfect time. You just have to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and jump. And so with that in mind, this is my last week at the Whitehouse. I quit my job. I'm moving to San Francisco to do something else.Did I really just write that? Up until now this whole scheme was just an idea, a fantasy I kept safely at arms length. But with a short walk down a hallway and one spoken sentence, the hazy fantasy has been firmly replaced with cold hard reality. Wow — when you're truly ready to set the charge and demolish your whole life, it's astonishingly simple to set in motion. I walked into my boss' office as a long-time employee on the verge of another year with the company, and walked out a few minutes later a short-timer on the verge of a completely different existence. No wonder people who do this are always talking about "making the leap" or "jumping off a cliff". It's an abrupt jolt of exhilaration, followed by a duller more sustained rush, followed by a creeping dread as you notice the ground hurtling towards your face, followed again by the sustained rush of freedom.
So that's it. I'm now mid-air, and am going to enjoy this freedom for a bit before I start figuring out how and where I'm going to land. I have no plan. I have no timetable. I just know that I'm ready for a change, and this is the first step. A couple months ago I was discussing my life-change fantasy with a friend of mine and his dad. I launched into my well-rehearsed list of pros and cons, but was quickly interrupted by the dad: "So basically you're jumping out of a plane." Well yeah, I said, noting yet another free-falling metaphor. "Do you have a parachute?" Yes, I told him. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled: "Well, then jump!"
Happy Thanksgiving Travel Day. At lunch yesterday we were talking about the only thing everyone else is talking about: getting home for Turkey Day. I myself am driving to San Diego this year, but that's not going to stop me from using this occasion to break out an unpublished column about Virgin America that I wrote last month. I knew I'd eventually figure out a way to wedge this in here during a slow week.
People rave about Virgin America. They love the hip terminal decor, the in-flight mood lighting, the in-seat entertainment units, and the a la carte touch-screen food service. I'd like to join you, People Who Rave About Virgin America. I'd like to be in the club. But as many times as I've been on-board, I can't quite get on board. I've flown Virgin from LAX to Seattle, San Francisco, and New York, and have yet to walk away feeling like I've found my new favorite airline. The reason is that a lot of the time, stuff on the plane just doesn't work. In my life I've never watched a full TV program from beginning to end on a Virgin flight. No matter which channel I choose, it's inevitable that I'll get a maximum 20 minutes of uninterrupted programming before the dreaded "service not available" pops up right as I get sucked into whichever insipid reality show I've stumbled upon. Then it becomes a desperate search around the dial for signs of life from the satellite, which itself is a clunky process thanks to the semi-responsive touch-screen and the Intel 486 processor they've got under the hood of that thing. This scenario has unfolded on every Virgin flight I've ever flown — most recently from SF to LA, where I tried and failed to watch highlights of the first World Series game I'd ever been to with my dad.Like the TV thing, the food system they've got going is great — in theory. In reality, I think it's way overpriced for what it is. And also like the TV thing, I've had shaky success using it. The whole checkout system is rather cumbersome and a couple times my order never showed. Or I'll order something and they're out of it. If it all worked like I assume it probably can, I'd get on a Southwest flight and think "man, this feels like the stone ages. I'll bet this plane still has a smoking section." But actually I don't miss the Virgin trappings at all. In the time I spent trying to find a reliable TV signal I could've just watched a whole show on my laptop. In half the time I spent waiting for my digital Coke to arrive, I could've just flagged down a flight attendant and gotten one in analog.
Exacerbating my misadventures on these planes is the interior design. On last month's flight I turned away from my blue screen of death and really began to consider my surroundings. The black leather seats with gleaming white plastic backs look like stormtroopers that have been temporarily put to sleep and stacked up along the floor for later unleashing on rebel forces. The purple lighting and black floors take their cues from silly LA clubs that set a scene meant to distract you from the $150 bar tab you're quickly running up. Which is actually what happened to me even before I got on the plane. Seduced by the terminal atmosphere, I made a deal with an automated check in machine to pay $35 for something called "main cabin select", which translated in my brain to "bottle service on the flying nightclub you're about to board." The actual Main Cabin Select? The exit row. I repeat, I paid money to be responsible for my fellow passengers' well being in the event of a water landing. Although I suppose it was just about a wash, since skipping Main Cabin Select would've put me in steerage and cost me $25 for checking my bag. So now I know this going in with Virgin. When you get to the airport you're going to give them more money, it's just a matter of whether or not you'd like to pay $10 extra to sit in an exit row.
Now that I've been roped in to Virgin's "Elevate" frequent flyer program (my fourth and hopefully last reward-based affiliation with an airline), I'll probably give 'em a few more chances. I just need to remember to not check a bag, bring my own entertainment, and feel neither hunger nor thirst along the way lest I'm fooled again by this flashy upstart and their fleet of airborne junior prom hummer limos.
UPDATE: Here's quick tip of actual value. If you're flying from SFO to LAX and you're checking a couple of bags, it's going to cost you $50 extra. It's $70 extra to fly first class, and you can check bags for free. The moral? If you're ever going from SFO to LAX or vice versa, and you're checking a couple of bags, just give 'em an extra $20 and that way you get to fly first class and drink for free. See? Sometimes I help.
I just bought some shares in an index fund that tracks the Wilshire 5000, which means I just bought shares in the 5000 largest American companies. I did this because I wish to take substantive action against Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US credit. Standard & Poor’s, and to a lesser degree, Fitch…
Captain America WW2 propaganda posters (+variants) for Mondo in conjunction with Paramount Pictures.
Technology made it easy for us to stay in touch while keeping a distance,
’til we just stayed distant and never touched. Now all we do is text too much
Do you all know what an N.I.E. is? The National Intelligence Estimate is the ground truth of the American Government hammered out on the anvil of the Lord.
W. Patrick Lang (retired Army intelligence officer), during a talk at UVA regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
From Seymour Hersh’s recent New Yorker piece on Iran nukes.
Once upon a time a prince asked a beautiful princess *
copy source: the web (tweaked by me)