Jet Set Lara, the blog of an international escort, offers some observations on the generic sameness of many Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels. I have a recurring nightmare. In it, I wake up in a hotel room. The bed is perfect with four down pillows, 400 thread count linens, and a 2000 coil pillow top mattress. The clock radio is blaring classical music having been left on as some sort of primitive turf marking by the housekeeping staff. Oh – there is the green/gold bedspread rolled up behind the pale yellow armchair, along with the two overstuffed decorative pillows that will be placed back on the bed when it is made up. Ah yes, there are the faux-tique writing desk and armoire. Rubbing my eyes, I trudge to the bathroom – as I thought –…
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Undersea Accomodations
The Vancouver Sun runs a story on the emergence of underwater hotels. The Maldives Hilton already has an underwater restaurant. This property has been on my list of places to check out, but has been bumped down a notch since I’ve recently been to Bora Bora Nui. How many overwater bungalows do I need to stay in in a year? When the fully underwater properties are completed, perhaps even by the end of next year, they’ll no doubt make the list at UnusualHotelsoftheWorld.com. (Hat tip for the news article to Tripso.com and for the Unusual Hotels directory to Marginal Revolution.)
Google SMS
Google SMS is pretty amazing. I saw it recently and made a note to myself that I had to check it out, finally had a chance this afternoon. You can send a text message to GOOGL (46645) with a request for information, and you’ll get a text back in a matter of moments. My first test was for driving directions from Reagan National airport to my home. I entered “From DCA to [Street Address City State]” and I had turn by turn directions in seconds. Then I asked it for a definition, sending “define blog” Final test, how what is the population of Virginia? “virginia population” Verdict: very cool.
I’m hungry
Time for dinner, and this looks absolutely delicious.
Where do I even start?
Boston’s Logan Airport offers wireless internet for $7.95. Continental offers wireless internet free in its Presidents Club. The airport is trying to force Continental to stop competing with its pay service, claiming offering internet for free to club members is “an unacceptable potential risk” to airport security. (Somehow when passenger pay $7.95 it’s no longer a risk.) Security as a catch-all for prohibiting behavior is a clear risk to liberty. Fortuntaely Continental is fighting it. (Hat tip to David Rowell.)
Problems with France
Via David Rowell, it turns out the the French realize that they are pathetic losers. Maurice Lévy, the head of the media giant Publicis, whose company owns Saatchi and Saatchi and has offices in 100 countries across six continents, said France had failed to get the 2012 Olympics because the world now saw it as a nation of perdants – “losers”. For good measure, he described the 35-hour week as “absurd” and the wails of complaint that followed Paris’s loss of the Games to London as “pathetic”. … “What I wrote was hard, but true. France is not in a crisis, it’s worse than that. A crisis is usually sudden and short, while we are in an endemic situation,” he said. “I’ve just had enough and wanted to say what I felt.” In the article,…
Hotel or Orange Cardboard Box?
First there was European no-frill discount airline easyJet. Now there’s easyHotel. In keeping with the “easy” philosophy, frills are again being ditched in favor of value for money. EasyHotel is charging $35 (£20) a night for double rooms at its first hotel in central London. Following in the footsteps of Japan’s capsule hotel concept, these rooms are being heralded as Europe’s smallest. Rooms come in three sizes — small, really small and tiny. At 80, 70 and 60 square feet (7.2, 6.3 or 5.4 square meters), there is little room to swing anything more than a carry-on bag. Bathrooms are standard. Windows and a remote control for the TV are extra.
Traveling with a lover — because it’s more economically efficient
Jacqueline Passey is looking for a lover to travel with, apparently because she didn’t get a job in my office. So send gifts, miles, and upgrade certificates my way gentlemen. You’re welcome.
Lost Luggage as a Constitutional Question
Eugene Volokh gets a lost luggage call meant for Alaska Airlines. Sometimes a looming constitutional question is really just a wrong number.
Causes of airline delays
Tyler Cowen points to a Slate piece that purports to explain airline delays. Mayer and Sinai’s study also identified the real culprit: the deliberate overscheduling of flights at peak periods by major airlines trying to increase the amount of connecting traffic at their hub airports. Major airlines like United, Delta, and American use a hub-and-spoke model as a way to offer consumers more flight choices and to save money by centralizing operations. Most of the traffic they send through a hub is on the way to somewhere else. (Low-cost carriers, on the other hand, typically carry passengers from one point to another without offering many connections.) Overscheduling at the hubs can’t explain all delays—weather and maintenance problems also contribute. But nationally, about 75 percent of flights go in or out of hub airports, making overscheduling…
