Geeky Traveller

January 22nd, 2006

What the World Loves

Today I saw The Prejudice Map for the first time. It’s the result of some silly experiments with Google. It’s meaningless, and probably reflective of the map’s creator more than any particular country.

I was, however, inspired to play along. I whipped up an even sillier map, using Google queries like "Canadians love their *". I editorialized heavily, and the result is more meaningless than ever. It was fun to make, though.

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January 20th, 2006

Blogs and Business Travel

I’m kind of late with this one, but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless. InFlightHQ references this New York Times article on blogs covering the business travel beat:

Experts on personal Web journals predict that more business travelers are likely to hop on the blogging bandwagon, and for good reason: they are modern-day Marco Polos, eager to recount their latest adventures and reveal their latest discoveries.

 Come on board! There’s plenty o’ room on the wagon.

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January 13th, 2006

Luxury Link Has a Bogus Auction System

Back in October, I wrote about Luxury Link, an auction site featuring "the world’s premier online luxury travel resource".

This week, we decided to use the site to add a short city vacation on to our trip to Edinburgh (I was eventually convinced that walking in Scotland in March was insane).

Being an experienced online auction user, I waited until the last minute to submit a bid. Happily, no one had bid on the particular offer we wanted. As this screenshot shows, I entered a bid at 3:27pm on an auction that was supposed to end at 3:30pm. As the second screenshot shows, when the bid was processed, the site changed the auction’s end time to 3:35pm! What kind of bogosity is that?

It strikes me as extraordinarily manipulative move the advertise end time for an auction after someone bids. It’s obviously designed to foster a bidding war. I did a little investigation, and apparently the bidding extends by five minutes each time a new bid is entered. That, as far as I’m concerned, is absurd.

I’m less irritated than I usually would be, though, because I scored an insanely cheap four night stay at the very fancy-looking Boscolo Hotel Dei Dogi in Venice. What can I tell you? I’m a Taurus, and I love the luxury.

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January 4th, 2006

A Geeky Traveller’s Packing List

Lee LeFever is one of the geekier travellers I know. He and his wife have recently set off on a round-the-world backpacking trip. It’s all documented on the gorgeous TheWorldisNotFlat.com, which I’ve mentioned before.

I did, however, want to draw your attention to Lee and Sachi’s incredibly detailed packing list for world travel. Here’s the geeky bit:

Padlock
Wirelock
Laptop ac adapter
Palm treo adapter
Palm treo sync cord
Earphone plug adapter
Extra styli for Treo
Headphone splitter
Pentax camera charger
USB SD card reader
Camera Pentax Optio WPi
Extra Camera Battery
PalmOne Treo 650
Extra Treo Battery
Protective pouch (laptop)
Sony Vaio T350 series laptop
Extra Laptop Battery
256MB SD card
GB SD card
2GB SD card

And that’s, you know, not including clothing and the like. 

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January 4th, 2006

Walking from London to Cape Town

Paul and Gary Constant are an Australian couple who are walking from London to Cape Town. Yes, that’s London, England to Cape Town, South Africa. How incredibly insane is that? Now, I admire my sisters’ Dad for sailing around the world, but he’s got nothing on these people. According to their blog, they started in August, 2004. They’re currently in the Sahara Desert. Apparently one of their porters has got a bum camel toe (sorry, couldn’t resist) at the moment:

We no sooner came to terms with the erratic weather than Mimi, one of the best of our four camels, injured his foot; it is not a huge problem, according to the combined wisdom of the many nomads who have examined it, chewed their pipes thoughtfully, drunk tea and delivered a verdict, but nonetheless our Mimi is not in a condition to walk for a couple of weeks.

I make that journey about 9700 kms. My admiration for these people knows no bounds. Thanks to Lee, who’s on a lengthy if less-strenuous journey of his own, for pointing me to their site.

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