short takes

Congrats to all the folks behind SpaceShipOne! Commercial space flight for non-billionaires in my lifetime has just gotten more likely. Woot!

Here's a perfect gift for certain types of geeks: Klein Bottles. Be sure to read the guarantee.

This is a fantastic hack (link courtesy of dglenn). Some urban explorers in Paris found some unused tunnels and caves below the city, so they built a cinema -- with restaurant and bar. Their mission: to "reclaim and transform disused city spaces for the creation of zones of expression for free and independent art".

Random bit from the instructions for my new sukkah: What's the Hebrew word for the day you take the sukkah down? ( Read more... )

I use a strand of small white lights to light my sukkah. (Got 'em cheap one year on Boxing Day. :-) ) The box is long since gone, but I remember that it proclaimed that these were the sorts of lights where one burned-out bulb does not take out the entire strand. This is, now, demonstrably true, but I am at a loss to explain the failure mode that results in all lights in the first third of the strand -- and no others -- going out simultaneously.

travel snafu

Today I asked one of our administrative assistants -- who, I'd like to stress, is very competent in my experience -- for the confirmation number I'd need for my plane ticket for SIGDOC. In retrospect, it's good that I didn't wait until the last minute to ask for that.

It seems that our travel agent sent us an itinerary for the flight -- in August, when we made these arrangements -- and then never booked the flight. That flight is now expensive (because it leaves this Sunday), so when they discovered the error they put me on a cheaper flight that leaves four hours earlier, apparently without consulting anyone at my company first. My coworker asked if the new flight would be ok.

I looked at it and told her that I didn't want to be a nuissance, but a 10AM departure on Sunday -- when I don't need to be in Memphis until evening -- really does not bring me much joy. (When you work it backwards, allowing for airport lead time and transportation, that's pretty freaking early. Heck, this flight has me arriving two hours before I can check into the hotel, even.) I suggested, however, that we shouldn't be the ones to eat the cost on this. The travel agent screwed up, and that company should make good on the original flight at the original price. My coworker agreed that I am not being unreasonable.

We'll find out tomorrow, I guess -- it was after 5:00 when this came up, so they were already gone for the day. I hope they are smart and decent enough to just fix this. I of course don't know what our contract with them says, but we have a confirmation from them.

My mind boggles. They forgot to actually make the reservation?! This is a travel agent we're talking about! Do they do this often?