My wife had her first annual 29th birthday today, on the pristine island of Kaua’i. In her honor, we did a special CrossFit-style workout. Three rounds:
- 29 burpees
- 29 sit ups
- 29 double unders
- 29 walking lunges
It took damn near exactly 29 minutes.
Archive for the 'Travel' Category
We got up at 2 AM and made the drive up Haleakala in time for sunrise. Beautiful. After breakfast at Kula Lodge it was home for a much needed nap.
We took a day trip over to Lanai and saw hundreds of spinner dolphins on the way. It was quite a show. They ain’t called spinners for nothing, let me tell you. Reminded me of a certain flash game I used to play way too much.
David from MWR Lahaina had us both standing up on the first try. Tons of fun.
Juan In a Million has the best breakfast taco in Austin. If you go, spring for the extra tortilla (you’re going to need it).
I was catching up on the Chris Soghoian saga, and decided to read this letter to the TSA from his crack team of Stanford law-ninjas. Oh boy, is it a doozy!
If you’ve lost track of Chris’ story, it appears that despite the FBI dropping charges, the TSA is trying to fine him $11k. Jennifer Granick’s terrific letter raises the obvious questions, such as, “Why Chris and not Senator Chuck Schumer?” as well as my favorite, “What part of free speech confuses you, exactly?”
Ok I paraphrase, but you get the idea.
But getting to the point, my jaw dropped when I reached the penultimate page where — if I am not mistaken — Granick suggests that the TSA may not actually possess the authority to fine travelers:
… However, sections 44901-44907 only govern the conduct of the Department of Transportation, the aviation industry, and airports. We have seen no legal authority for the proposition that the TSA can create civil liability for individuals where Congress chose not to do so in sections 18 U.S.C. 1036 and 49 U.S.C. 46314. What statutes give TSA authority to penalize those not covered by the statutory authority under which they have been passed?
The TSA collected over $1M in fines during 2004 alone.
Two weeks ago, Rob and I spent a couple hours at the very excellent Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I can’t get over how awesome it was. We saw some core memory, a PDP-1, a German Enigma, part of ENIAC, an IBM 360, an Apple I, an Altair, a Xerox Alto… so much amazing antique tech. We spent the entire time in the Visible Storage exhibit, but there are many others including Mastering the Game, the history of computer chess.
Here’s a picture of me standing inside a Cray-1 (serial number 001, originally at Los Alamos). 
Many elements of the museum’s collection are available online. For example, check out the Cray-1 Manual I just found, or this picture of Seymore himself.
The museum is located in the old SGI building just off 101 (on N. Shoreline Blvd.), and is totally free — although donations are welcome and, naturally, accepted in powers of two.
Postscript:
On our way home, we stopped at Halted Electronics, which served as a kind of surrogate gift shop for the museum. HSC is like Noah’s ark for electronics and computer parts: they have two of everything. I picked up a killer AthlonMP motherboard for $20. Great store, don’t miss it.
I just got back from a trip to Colorado, and everything was great save for the air travel. If you’re considering a flight from Seattle to Denver, or vice-versa, here’s a tip: don’t get suckered into the “operated by” scam.
I bought my tickets from American, only to later discover that the flight was actually operated by Alaska Airlines. This is because American doesn’t actually fly between Seattle and Denver. Instead, they sub contract to Alaska to fill the otherwise gaping hole in their coverage.
In my capacity as glorified cargo, I didn’t figure such a detail should matter to me. I don’t really care if the flight is operated by Santa Claus, just so long as he gets me where I want to go. Boy, was I mistaken.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but I had troubles on both my departing and returning flights, and in both cases I found that American blamed Alaska and Alaska blamed American. Each time one airline pointed the finger, I was forced to get in line and wait at the other airline’s counter.
In one instance, an Alaska representitive expressed worry that American would not pay them because of what he had done to help me. Talk about a lack of encapsulation. A passenger should simply not be exposed to this level of detail. I don’t care of American pays Alaska in greasy expired Chucky Cheese tokens, I bought a damn ticket and now I should be able to get on the plane!
So my advice to everyone is to avoid these “operated by” flights. If you have any suggestions on how to detect these things before the fact, I’d love to hear about them.
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