I fly once or twice a year, I'd prefer to be seated first, get comfortable, and not have to worry about everyone else (and not fight for overhead space). In business or first class, people can easily get by you if they are in your row and you were first. I don't think I'm in the miniroty there, as most first class and airline club members seem to enjoy being first. First class and business seats are also more comfortable than anything in the boarding area, and you often start getting service immediately.
It's not just U.S. airlines... I flew Varig to Brazil, a great airline by most standards. While in Sao Paulo awaiting our flight to Miami, we were informed the plane had mechanical difficulties, and we wouldn't be able to fly until the morning. They ushered us out to the public transportation lanes and issued taxi after taxi a voucher to drive us to a 4 star hotel that they contacted and requested they hold the evening buffet open for the passengers, as it was quite late by that time (after 11:00pm). In the morning, two beautiful tour busses (nice and clean and new), complete with air conditioning and full bathrooms, picked up the passengers at the hotel and brought us back for our flight.
Needless to say, every single person on the flight missed their connection in Miami. Keep in mind this is the SAME airline, just in Miami instead of Sao Paulo, Brazil: The plane got in fairly late (I don't recall exactly what time... but late evening at the earliest). No one was there to meet the plane and make arrangements for connecting flights. No one was at the desk. We had to call the airline in order for them to get someone to come and deal with us. They arranged our flight for like 6:00am the following morning, and told us we could go to a particular hotel (decent, not great hotel), and we needed to catch the hotel's shuttle in the public transportation area. So there we were, like 150 people waiting the the curb... with all of our luggage, and the bus pulls up, the driver opens the door and says "I'm sorry, I can't take all y'all," and drives off without taking anybody. So we go back to the Varig desk to complain (yes, the shuttle bus should have taken people, but it would have taken 10 trips to get everyone on their luggage anyway). They called the hotel, but would not pay for taxis or arrange any other transportation. I ended up just taking a taxi at my own expense anyway. We get to the hotel and it's jam packed... the check in line was out the door. Many people didn't even get a room until 4am, enough time to take a shower and go back to the airport. In Brazil we walked into the hotel and were just handed the keys to a room, the airline had taken care of everything; everybody had a room in, I'd guess, no more than 20 minutes.
The conclusion is the airlines don't have the onus in the U.S. that they have elsewhere to treat passengers better. Why the amazing treatment in Brazil? Are there laws about it? I don't know. We made Varig aware of our dissatisfaction and haven't used them since, but what else are you going to do? You're usually limited to flights available, there isn't always a lot of choice.
Yes... general boarding. But before that, they let on first/business class, airline club members, frequent flyers, etc.; this guy wanted to board 2 other people ahead of others because he was a frequent flyer. Southwest over reacted, but the guy was not entitled to do that, either.
Yes, because that would only happen in the U.S.. In my international travels, travelers from other countries (South America in this case) act like a herd of starving people getting bread off the back of a truck when the first row is called to seat.
What they should do is print a boarding code on the boarding pass, and call by code... and guess what? Some of them do that!
It's actually not uncommon for this in the U.S. as well, however, some people pay for the privilege of boarding first: first/business class customers, "gold club" members (or whatever the airline wants to call it, frequent flyers... then when it comes to general boarding, after those people, it's usually handicapped and people traveling with young kids. In this case, the guy wanted frequent flyer privileges for three people because one of them was a frequent flyer, and then got mad he didn't get it, expecting someone to break the rules always because people had broken the rules in the past.
I'd again re-state my position that the Southwest agents acted inappropriately, no doubt, but the guy was a jerk, too.
Why is the rule stupid? I think it's pretty fair... the kids aren't frequent flyers, they aren't allowed early boarding. Case closed. How is it fair to everyone else waiting to board? Or, how about someone goes to a theme park and buys a single "fast pass" and tries to use it for the whole family. I guess the ride attendant would have to be brain dead to say "no."
There's no excusing Southwest's reaction, but the guy was a jerk, too.
I agree, the reaction was ridiculous - but so was the tweet. The agent was rude because she was following rules? So just because some agents broke the rules related to boarding in the past means they are forever obligated to break the rules in the future?
As so often happens in these cases, I see the clash of two idiots, not a one sided sob story.
That'd be a fair warning if phishers weren't pussy ass scaredy cat losers who wouldn't actually be able to inflict harm in any way except with a keyboard.
That makes no sense to me, though... how does a phisher succeed when they don't send you a link? Since they can't blindly lead you somewhere else, you wouldn't receive a phishing scam email without links.
Yes... I taught myself how to program before ever taking a class, but learning all the different data structures and techniques for design and development at school helped a lot; getting out in the real world helped cut the cruft and continue to learn what works, but education actually did help... and with this field, it's all ongoing education and development and new techniques and tools, but there's always the basics they were built on.
The thing with my bank is that they don't send links in the email, and they often warn people that they won't. If there's something you should look at on your account, like a notification of bill pay or something, they simply say in the email "log into your online account" without providing a link. Most people have their bank bookmarked, so it's not like it's some kind of hardship.
I pretty much do the same thing, but instead of useless data I put insulting data. Sometimes I'm impressed with the effort... sometimes it links to a google form, and that's pretty sad. Some of them are so good, though, if they just put that much effort into honest work, they'd be pretty well off.
Yes! My wife is terrible, and when I say "just don't click on anything," she asks "what about the legitimate ads?" So I repeat "just don't click on anything... there's no SPAM that is legitimate." Sadly, she does it anyway. I missed a whole day of world cup group games "fixing" her computer... and it wasn't the first time. I should just cut her off.
Interesting... I should stop clicking on those links, then. I feel like, since I'm using linux, I likely won't get a virus, so when I get a "you need to change your password" link, I usually just curse them out in it. Email: eat@shit.and.die, password: youfuckingasshole. I know it doesn't solve any problems, but it feels good.
Hey, if enough people did it, they'd have to wade through tons of insults before finding one where the person actually fell for it.
Agree... I was the only programmer in my last department that actually had a C.S. Degree; one guy was an education major, one had a degree in chemistry (I guess that's a lateral move in "STEM" as a whole). One guy had no degree at all, and that guy was probably the best programmer of us all.
My last phone was an Optimus V from Virgin... The only problems I had resulted from me rooting and installing a clean version of Android, so I can't blame LG. I would have kept it... it was a bit slow playing angry birds (not what I bought my phone for, though), but I could use it as a mobile hot spot. When I upgraded to a 4G phone, I lost that ability... and didn't want to root it after the earlier problems I'd experienced. But here's the thing: I didn't encounter bugs like the author describes. It worked the way it was supposed to. I didn't mind the camera wasn't all that, I didn't have keyboard problems (although it seems like you can install a third party keyboard app that should fix those problems... not that you should have to). I see a lot of complaining about the author of this article, but I think he raises some good points... I'm reminded of Bill Gates saying that people didn't care about bug fixes, they wanted new features!
Not good enough... we also traded in the minivan when the kids were a bit older, but our small SUVs only get around 23MPG... I'd traded in my 93 Civic that routinely got over 35MPG, now you don't even get that in a Civic or other small car without it being a hybrid or something... with very few exceptions. I may get a Mazda 3 or 6, though. They get upwards of 35.
I will say this, though, to actually contribute to the conversation about minivans... I had no problem driving one, and felt no stigma about it. All the people buying giant SUVs and justifying it because hey, once or twice a year they may buy a big box item and save on delivery! Or they need to carry a lot of passengers... Our Honda Odyssey carried 7 people a lot more comfortably than any SUV I've been in, and when you needed cargo space it was right up there with the big boys when you folded the rear seat down... even more than a lot of big SUVs; add decent towing capacity and overall better mileage, and the only reason for most people not to get one was the "stigma." Unless you're towing a yacht, or need to go off roading, a good (200hp+) minivan is a much more logical choice.
Have you seen the new spate of commercials? Where they're promoting customer satisfaction "guarantee?" I made the mistake last year of trying to save money by dropping satellite TV and going with Comcast, since I already got internet through them. It was a f#!king nightmare. I did have the forethought to set a cancel date for satellite far enough in the future (several weeks) to ensure some overlap... and was able to cancel the cancellation in time. For two missed appointments, hours on hold (unceremoniously being dropped after waiting 90 minutes at one point), and a multitude of unkept promises... for my "gaurantee" I got $20 credit.
I bend over and keep getting comcast for internet because there's no viable alternative where I am... nothing fast enough to allow me to work from home, but I won't give them the chance again for anything else, and I'm biding my time for when I can dump them entirely.
"Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues." GREAT! So are libertarians! Except the pretend ones who only use the guise of libertarianism to protect corporate interests... which isn't particularly libertarian, either.
Fair enough... and we'll judge democrats on what Barack "spread the wealth around" Obama, Joe "Foot in mouth" Biden, Hillary "We're going to take those profits!" Clinton, Harry "We refuse to vote on a budget because it'll show how terrible our fiscal situation is like" Reid, and Nancy "You have to vote for it to see what's in in" Pelosi say and do; and we'll judge republicans based on . . . who? Republicans are such a minority now it's hard to pick... John Boehner? OK. Guess what... it's all bad, and libertarians look like saints and perfectly sane by comparison.
Just because they didn't call it that? What about Macrovision, the fact that every blank CD, DVD, and VHS and Cassette tapes carries with it a fee that gets paid to the RIAA/MPAA no matter what you use it for; the whine's and cries that piracy would destroy the industry from these companies started long before digital and DRM, 40 years ago the RIAA was claiming recordable cassette tapes would put them out of business. Despite history, the content of their whining hasn't changed.
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I fly once or twice a year, I'd prefer to be seated first, get comfortable, and not have to worry about everyone else (and not fight for overhead space). In business or first class, people can easily get by you if they are in your row and you were first. I don't think I'm in the miniroty there, as most first class and airline club members seem to enjoy being first. First class and business seats are also more comfortable than anything in the boarding area, and you often start getting service immediately.
It's not just U.S. airlines... I flew Varig to Brazil, a great airline by most standards. While in Sao Paulo awaiting our flight to Miami, we were informed the plane had mechanical difficulties, and we wouldn't be able to fly until the morning. They ushered us out to the public transportation lanes and issued taxi after taxi a voucher to drive us to a 4 star hotel that they contacted and requested they hold the evening buffet open for the passengers, as it was quite late by that time (after 11:00pm). In the morning, two beautiful tour busses (nice and clean and new), complete with air conditioning and full bathrooms, picked up the passengers at the hotel and brought us back for our flight.
Needless to say, every single person on the flight missed their connection in Miami. Keep in mind this is the SAME airline, just in Miami instead of Sao Paulo, Brazil: The plane got in fairly late (I don't recall exactly what time... but late evening at the earliest). No one was there to meet the plane and make arrangements for connecting flights. No one was at the desk. We had to call the airline in order for them to get someone to come and deal with us. They arranged our flight for like 6:00am the following morning, and told us we could go to a particular hotel (decent, not great hotel), and we needed to catch the hotel's shuttle in the public transportation area. So there we were, like 150 people waiting the the curb... with all of our luggage, and the bus pulls up, the driver opens the door and says "I'm sorry, I can't take all y'all," and drives off without taking anybody. So we go back to the Varig desk to complain (yes, the shuttle bus should have taken people, but it would have taken 10 trips to get everyone on their luggage anyway). They called the hotel, but would not pay for taxis or arrange any other transportation. I ended up just taking a taxi at my own expense anyway. We get to the hotel and it's jam packed... the check in line was out the door. Many people didn't even get a room until 4am, enough time to take a shower and go back to the airport. In Brazil we walked into the hotel and were just handed the keys to a room, the airline had taken care of everything; everybody had a room in, I'd guess, no more than 20 minutes.
The conclusion is the airlines don't have the onus in the U.S. that they have elsewhere to treat passengers better. Why the amazing treatment in Brazil? Are there laws about it? I don't know. We made Varig aware of our dissatisfaction and haven't used them since, but what else are you going to do? You're usually limited to flights available, there isn't always a lot of choice.
Yes... general boarding. But before that, they let on first/business class, airline club members, frequent flyers, etc.; this guy wanted to board 2 other people ahead of others because he was a frequent flyer. Southwest over reacted, but the guy was not entitled to do that, either.
Yes, because that would only happen in the U.S.. In my international travels, travelers from other countries (South America in this case) act like a herd of starving people getting bread off the back of a truck when the first row is called to seat.
What they should do is print a boarding code on the boarding pass, and call by code... and guess what? Some of them do that!
It's actually not uncommon for this in the U.S. as well, however, some people pay for the privilege of boarding first: first/business class customers, "gold club" members (or whatever the airline wants to call it, frequent flyers... then when it comes to general boarding, after those people, it's usually handicapped and people traveling with young kids. In this case, the guy wanted frequent flyer privileges for three people because one of them was a frequent flyer, and then got mad he didn't get it, expecting someone to break the rules always because people had broken the rules in the past.
I'd again re-state my position that the Southwest agents acted inappropriately, no doubt, but the guy was a jerk, too.
Why is the rule stupid? I think it's pretty fair... the kids aren't frequent flyers, they aren't allowed early boarding. Case closed. How is it fair to everyone else waiting to board? Or, how about someone goes to a theme park and buys a single "fast pass" and tries to use it for the whole family. I guess the ride attendant would have to be brain dead to say "no."
There's no excusing Southwest's reaction, but the guy was a jerk, too.
I agree, the reaction was ridiculous - but so was the tweet. The agent was rude because she was following rules? So just because some agents broke the rules related to boarding in the past means they are forever obligated to break the rules in the future?
As so often happens in these cases, I see the clash of two idiots, not a one sided sob story.
You can, but you're often not likely to even consider some things until you have to do them.
That'd be a fair warning if phishers weren't pussy ass scaredy cat losers who wouldn't actually be able to inflict harm in any way except with a keyboard.
That makes no sense to me, though... how does a phisher succeed when they don't send you a link? Since they can't blindly lead you somewhere else, you wouldn't receive a phishing scam email without links.
Yes... I taught myself how to program before ever taking a class, but learning all the different data structures and techniques for design and development at school helped a lot; getting out in the real world helped cut the cruft and continue to learn what works, but education actually did help... and with this field, it's all ongoing education and development and new techniques and tools, but there's always the basics they were built on.
... and don't forget to sign in with your username and password so that you get credit for having read the memo!
The thing with my bank is that they don't send links in the email, and they often warn people that they won't. If there's something you should look at on your account, like a notification of bill pay or something, they simply say in the email "log into your online account" without providing a link. Most people have their bank bookmarked, so it's not like it's some kind of hardship.
Which I (and a lot of other people) would then not have participated in, so PayPal should learn from it.
I pretty much do the same thing, but instead of useless data I put insulting data. Sometimes I'm impressed with the effort... sometimes it links to a google form, and that's pretty sad. Some of them are so good, though, if they just put that much effort into honest work, they'd be pretty well off.
Yes! My wife is terrible, and when I say "just don't click on anything," she asks "what about the legitimate ads?" So I repeat "just don't click on anything... there's no SPAM that is legitimate." Sadly, she does it anyway. I missed a whole day of world cup group games "fixing" her computer... and it wasn't the first time. I should just cut her off.
Interesting... I should stop clicking on those links, then. I feel like, since I'm using linux, I likely won't get a virus, so when I get a "you need to change your password" link, I usually just curse them out in it. Email: eat@shit.and.die, password: youfuckingasshole. I know it doesn't solve any problems, but it feels good.
Hey, if enough people did it, they'd have to wade through tons of insults before finding one where the person actually fell for it.
Agree... I was the only programmer in my last department that actually had a C.S. Degree; one guy was an education major, one had a degree in chemistry (I guess that's a lateral move in "STEM" as a whole). One guy had no degree at all, and that guy was probably the best programmer of us all.
Maybe the warnings issued could be used by the IP holders in civil court. Perhaps there should be a fast track IP infringement court.
My last phone was an Optimus V from Virgin... The only problems I had resulted from me rooting and installing a clean version of Android, so I can't blame LG. I would have kept it... it was a bit slow playing angry birds (not what I bought my phone for, though), but I could use it as a mobile hot spot. When I upgraded to a 4G phone, I lost that ability... and didn't want to root it after the earlier problems I'd experienced. But here's the thing: I didn't encounter bugs like the author describes. It worked the way it was supposed to. I didn't mind the camera wasn't all that, I didn't have keyboard problems (although it seems like you can install a third party keyboard app that should fix those problems... not that you should have to). I see a lot of complaining about the author of this article, but I think he raises some good points... I'm reminded of Bill Gates saying that people didn't care about bug fixes, they wanted new features!
Not good enough... we also traded in the minivan when the kids were a bit older, but our small SUVs only get around 23MPG... I'd traded in my 93 Civic that routinely got over 35MPG, now you don't even get that in a Civic or other small car without it being a hybrid or something... with very few exceptions. I may get a Mazda 3 or 6, though. They get upwards of 35.
I will say this, though, to actually contribute to the conversation about minivans... I had no problem driving one, and felt no stigma about it. All the people buying giant SUVs and justifying it because hey, once or twice a year they may buy a big box item and save on delivery! Or they need to carry a lot of passengers... Our Honda Odyssey carried 7 people a lot more comfortably than any SUV I've been in, and when you needed cargo space it was right up there with the big boys when you folded the rear seat down... even more than a lot of big SUVs; add decent towing capacity and overall better mileage, and the only reason for most people not to get one was the "stigma." Unless you're towing a yacht, or need to go off roading, a good (200hp+) minivan is a much more logical choice.
Have you seen the new spate of commercials? Where they're promoting customer satisfaction "guarantee?" I made the mistake last year of trying to save money by dropping satellite TV and going with Comcast, since I already got internet through them. It was a f#!king nightmare. I did have the forethought to set a cancel date for satellite far enough in the future (several weeks) to ensure some overlap... and was able to cancel the cancellation in time. For two missed appointments, hours on hold (unceremoniously being dropped after waiting 90 minutes at one point), and a multitude of unkept promises... for my "gaurantee" I got $20 credit.
I bend over and keep getting comcast for internet because there's no viable alternative where I am... nothing fast enough to allow me to work from home, but I won't give them the chance again for anything else, and I'm biding my time for when I can dump them entirely.
"Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues." GREAT! So are libertarians! Except the pretend ones who only use the guise of libertarianism to protect corporate interests... which isn't particularly libertarian, either.
Fair enough... and we'll judge democrats on what Barack "spread the wealth around" Obama, Joe "Foot in mouth" Biden, Hillary "We're going to take those profits!" Clinton, Harry "We refuse to vote on a budget because it'll show how terrible our fiscal situation is like" Reid, and Nancy "You have to vote for it to see what's in in" Pelosi say and do; and we'll judge republicans based on . . . who? Republicans are such a minority now it's hard to pick... John Boehner? OK. Guess what... it's all bad, and libertarians look like saints and perfectly sane by comparison.
Just because they didn't call it that? What about Macrovision, the fact that every blank CD, DVD, and VHS and Cassette tapes carries with it a fee that gets paid to the RIAA/MPAA no matter what you use it for; the whine's and cries that piracy would destroy the industry from these companies started long before digital and DRM, 40 years ago the RIAA was claiming recordable cassette tapes would put them out of business. Despite history, the content of their whining hasn't changed.