When your airline declares bankruptcy

Be careful when there are warnings that an airline may be going out of business.

A coworker of mine, +Leonid Notik, is currently stuck in the Ukraine trying to get home from Odessa, because “Aerosvit” apparently is in bankruptcy. Here is his story so far:

I needed to land Odessa we circled 5 times and then they would not approve our landing so the airline then flew us to Kiev (which is a distance of 900 km away). They left us at the airport and said “You will have to continue on your own.” We made a fuss and then they tried to fly us to Odessa once more failed so again we returned to Kiev.

Then they told us that they did not have an airplane that to land in weather conditions like these. So we were organized into a vehicle to travel 10 hours, at a cost of $40 each.

So we had a night without any sleep yesterday. Two days ago I saw that the flight board said the flight was okay so we rented an apartment for the day in Odessa. When checking with my travel agent she told us that everything is fine, but in the evening, when we were already in Odessa (and I suppose to leave the other day) I called her once more (having been taught by bitter experience) to check that everything was still fine and the answer she gave me was that “the flight is canceled”, and that we must to arrive to the airport to see how can they help us.

When we got to the airport yesterday they told us that they won't have an airplane this week and we have to fly to Kiev.

I checked and there were no seats on the bus to Kiev on the necessary dates and there are not places on the train in the necessary dates , by close to miracle we paid extra to a friend of my fiancé's father (he is a bus driver) and the friend canceled the ticket of one of passengers and accepted mine :)

So take the time to check out that your airline is not in trouble before flying, and if you used a travel agent ask them for help should something go wrong.

Photo by Leonid Notik, used with permission.

Instagram warning

I tend to avoid this kind of post, but felt it was worth putting out there as many people who travel take lots of pictures and some of them post them on Instagram.

Instagram wants right to sell users' photos to advertisers

Facebook's photo-sharing site Instagram has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users' photos to advertisers without notification.

So if you don't delete your photos by 16 Jan. they get to sell your photos for profit without your approval...

Source article at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20767537

On reading the new policy at

There are 2 main problem points:

Parties with whom we may share your information:
* We may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of, or that become part of that group ("Affiliates"). (like Facebook)

Parties with whom you may choose to share your User Content:
* Any information or content that you voluntarily disclose for posting to the Service, such as User Content, becomes available to the public, as controlled by any applicable privacy settings that you set. To change your privacy settings on the Service, please change your profile setting. Once you have shared User Content or made it public, that User Content may be re-shared by others.

How far can you go in 2 weeks?

In 1873 Jules Verne proposed that it was possible to go Around the World in 80 Days (original French title: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours).

While in 1924 by a team of aviators of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force flew around the world in 175 days, covering over 44,000 kilometers (27,340 mi). Not quite Verne's 80 days, but respectable not the less. Since then the duration has been reduced

Back in July 1969 the Apollo 11 crew flew from Florida, USA to the Northern Pacific Ocean with a stop over on the moon in 8 days, 3 hours, and 18 min.:

Launch date       July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC 

Lunar landing    July 20, 1969, 20:17:40 UTC at Sea of Tranquility 

First step:          July 21, 02:56 UTC 

Landing             July 24, 1969, 16:50:35 UTC. North Pacific Ocean

 
Currently the International Space Station has an Orbital period of  92 minutes 50 seconds.

Looking a bit further afield, after 8 months, 10 days, 2 hours, and 15 min. the the Mars Curiosity rover landed on Mars.
 
Now where could you go in 2 weeks?

Based on a new concept being tested by NASA you might be able get to Alpha Centauri in a mere two weeks — even though the system is 4.3 light-years away. This is explained in an interview posted on IO9 titled How NASA might build its very first warp drive
in which George Dvorsky interviews NASA physicist Dr. Harold White using a loophole in Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity by warping the space (squeezing) in front of and (widening) behind the ship as shown in this image:

Source: http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/HTMLdosya1/AlcubierreWarpDrive2.htm

Dr. White's concept is based on an improvement to the design proposed by Dr. Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 in his paper The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity. The principle was sound, but it was determined to need too much energy to be practical. By modifying the shape of the field generator Dr. White thinks he has got the design to the point where it could be possible. 

.

It seems that this design was used for the Vulcan command ship

As posted on IO9: The above image of a Vulcan command ship features a warp engine similar to an Alcubierre Drive. Image courtesy CBS.

 So now to the lab to prove the concept.

I recommend reading the interview as it explains the concept, and the original problems quite well.

Additional reading:

• Space.com: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say
• Time.com: NASA Actually Working on Faster-than-Light Warp Drive

Traveling with electronics-part 2: Security

Several years  ago my wife ran a conference of Immunologists. One of the visitors was on her way from her lab in the UK and she was stopped at UK boarder control. Seems her laptop tested positive for nitrates (they use them in the lab) even though she had been real careful to keep this laptop out of the lab so it would be clean. They wanted to hold her laptop and send it to her, but as it was to be a short trip she told them to hold it for her return. Then came the clincher, she had to tell them that they could not look at the data as it had confidential patient data protected under UK law.
Now the rest of us are not protected under such laws, and need to worry what happens if a boarder agent demands your password to check your device (phone, laptop, etc.)

 Violet Blue for Zero Day has a nice article on ZDnet with the title If security wants your password: Privacy for travelers with digital devices

In it she points out that:

Anyone who travels with laptops, phones and tablets should know what to do if security asks for their password, an agent asks to see what's on their phone, and how to protect sensitive or private information if their gadget gets out of their hands.

 She references material from the EFF that everyone should read about basic precautions, how the government searches devices, how (and when) to protect your data, encryption and good passwords, border agent demands, and more.

On the EFF's Travel Screening page, they cover the basics on border search, and travel 'blacklists' such as the Department of Homeland Security's Automated Targeting System.

•  See also: Defending Privacy at the Israeli Border: Information for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices (eff.org)

•   Supplemental, regarding American police and digital devices: Know Your Rights (eff.org)

 Post image: "I do not consent to the search of this device" sticker, from the EFF shop. A great stocking stuffer!

Airline experinces

Just read an interesting post from Fred Wilson about favorite airlines.

Although the actual blog post is more of a question and a description, the comments are really useful and I recommend reading them.

The blog is titled Fun Friday: Favorite Airline I strongly recommend you go read the comments for insight from serious road warriors.

Be wary of places about which Trip Advisor no information

When you travel it is always a good idea, use sites like TripAdvisor to reviews of a place and the CIA World Fact Book for other useful details.

Otherwise you can end up with an unhappy trip like the Mar Curiosity Rover:

Source: http://www.tnooz.com/2012/08/31/news/mars-curiosity-rover-leaves-first-tripadvisor-review-not-a-happy-visitor-might-be-fake/

New (Zealand) take on those boring safety films

Anyone that has flown knows that they always give a safety briefing at the beginning of the flight. Now I have always figured that the timing is a bit off for some of it, like after they come and check that everyone has their seat belt on they demonstrate how the seat belt works.

I have even seen cases where the video presented was not the one for the plane I was on, but a sister model or older interior. In one case I had to point out that the video said that lights and call button were on the ceiling, but they were on the seat back  monitor.

But the people at Air New Zealand - the official airline of Middle Earth, mind you - has released a new Hobbit-themed in-flight safety video.

Thanks to neatorama for pointing it out at http://www.neatorama.com/2012/10/31/The-Hobbit-In-Flight-Safety-Video/