Geeky Traveller

Seth Godin pointed me to Floodle.net. The site’s owner buys PDFs and other information products on eBay, and then posts them for free on Floodle. That sounds more unethical than it is, I think, because a lot of the content he buys has already been copied from a legitimate source.

One book that interested me was the CIA Book of Dirty Tricks. I downloaded it, and while cruising through it, discovered a couple of pages on nefarious pranks to play at the airport:

You might try to slip a couple of rounds of pistol ammunition or a
switchblade knife into your mark’s pocket just before he goes through the
metal detector at the airport terminal. You could also slip some drugs into
his pocket at the same time. Read a book on pick-pocketing to note the
technique for doing this. It’s quite easy since you are placing stuff back.

Very naughty. There’s another 117 pages of similar ways to mess with your fellow man.

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I’m a Vancouver boy. As a Canadian, we’re eternally pleased when our nation, region or town gets mentioned in ‘the foreign press’. So, I was made a little misty-eyed when I spotted Gridskipper’s Beginner’s Guide to Vancouver.

Vancouver, Canada’s hippest city, has a great music and art scene, is environmentally progressive, and has spectacular beaches, mountains and views of the Pacific. The city is also Canada’s most diverse with distinct ethnic neighborhoods including Chinatown, Little Italy, Punjabi Market, Greektown and Japantown. Filled with niche bookstores and fun bakeries and cafes, the Granville Island neighborhood is experiencing a revival though Yaletown still holds exerts a considerable draw on the youngun’s.

I don’t know, is Vancouver more diverse than Toronto? Tough call there. Also, one administrative note: as discussed on Kirsten’s blog, the SOMA cafe is apparently moving to the former location of the Wink Cafe, at 151 East 8th.

I also discovered a virtual Vancouver, courtesy of Jon Patch’s yeoman’s work on building up the city inside Microsoft Flight Simulator. I wrote more about the game and the city on my personal blog.

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I’ve blogged fairly often about Lee and Satchi’s trip around the world and their awesomified website that accompanied it. The trip is over, now, and they’re closing up The World is Not Flat.

One of Lee’s final posts applied here, though. He offers some tips for backpackers, including how to manage your gadgets. Here’s a sample:

• To save battery power turn off mobile phones – being connected to or looking for the network drains the battery.  The same is true for laptops and wi-fi signals.  Turn em off.
• When you get to a hotel room, open your computer and look for an unsecured wi-fi signal.  You’ll be surprised often.
• Carry two batteries for all gadgets.  Though, a computer battery may be an exception.

Congratulations to Lee and Satchi for surviving their around-the-world trip with themselves and their relationship intact. Strong work!

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Like nearly every aspect of air travel, the space reserved for tray tables has gotten smaller. I can barely fit my 12″ PowerBook on it these days. Now, as Metroblogging LA points out, US Airways has added insult to injury. They’re advertising on the tray tables:

Oh, thank you! Thank you airlines for helping me to learn more about products and services! (If I wanted to do that, I could read the SkyMall catalog, thankyouverymuch.) What I want is better service. I want the seats I booked, I want to be able to redeem my miles. I want to get where I’m going not worse for the experience. I’m sure when they start allowing cell phone use on airplanes we’re going to get directed ads while flying.

I’m going to take a couple of minutes out of my day to email both the airline and the advertiser (Splenda, in the case of this tray table) and express my feelings about their new venture.

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Disclosure: Litebook (that’s it under Hoth Han Solo) is a client of Capulet, my day job. That said, it’s a gadget which has applications for travel, so it’s not out of place on this site. Plus, I’ve tried it and it seems to work.

Jet lag sucks. I don’t drink, but I expect that it feels like being really, really hungover for a couple of days. I travel a fair bit, and cross eight time zones a couple of times a year. I’d like to be immediately efficient, but as soon as I get there–either Europe or coming back to Canada–I need to sleep for about three days.

I’ve tried a herbal remedy for jet lag, but it had little or no effect. The folks at Litebook have an alternative strategy, and the science seems to make sense.

Clinical research conducted at NASA and elsewhere demonstrates that in only 2 days your body clock can be reset to your new time zone with properly timed exposure to sufficiently bright light in specific wavelengths. With proper use of The Litebook

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