GrifMD

I'm kind of torn between the top deck and the nose seats.

I've flown British Airways's business class on the upper deck, and I've flown Qantas' business class which is all on the lower deck starting at the nose. I wasn't quite at the front, but I was close enough to see the slightly more forward facing windows. I always thought it'd be great to sit in that first row and have that more forward facing view.

I had a blast on BA's though, as I was young and blowing through a bunch of airline miles on a transatlantic flight with my now wife. Getting to sit backwards on a plane was a little fun change too. Those BA seats (their last generation business class) are pretty bad by business class standards, even at the time, but they were alright on the narrower upper deck of a 747.

It's a shame, as I don't think I'll likely ever fly in a 747 again. I rarely fly Korean Air or Lufthansa, and I've got no plans to fly Air China.

I will say though, I really didn't like flying the 747 in economy. I did with Qantas a couple times, and it was noticeably louder and less pleasant than their A380s which had started flying at the time.

So my recommendation: fly a 747 at the front or upper deck if you can in business or first, at least once if you've never had the chance. Avoid it if you're flying economy. Most other wide body jets will be newer, quieter, and all around more pleasant.

That was delightful, what more can I say?

This is cool! I do want to ask, did you have AI design the page for you? It looks like a design pattern I've seen spit out by LLMs pretty frequently.

I'm not hear to talk down to you about the site, I love this little thing that gives me just enough info to satisfy my curiosity.

It reminds me of the iPhone 5C when I had a 5S, it's a beautiful colorful breath of fresh air that I wish I had but my needs are so much greater. But if I wasn't an engineer who needed a highspeced MacBook Pro I'd go with it.

It's called Coppertone for a reason

You've gotta change it from "you're throwing a party" to "we're throwing party".

Or just ask them to invite some people man, don't stress.

A recent survey revealed that 30% of Australians are casually racist... https://youtu.be/DHQRZXM-4xI?si=gsVaLimUuW_g0c6d&t=72

Maybe? The Australian tech seen has always felt fairly small to me, at least in Sydney. We've got Atlassian and Canva as the local darlings, and then Google, Amazon, FB, and Salesforce have their offices, though I don't think much real engineering work gets done here. I'm not trying to throw shade at any engineers in Sydney of course, especially at those companies, I just never got the since that the engineering teams were large here.

Maybe I'm too insular, but is there much of a startup seen here, @aussieguy1234? If there is I'd love to hear about it

That's a bad faith argument and you know it. More power is more power. These projects weren't taking away from development of other power plants.

Mirror's Edge (2008) had a pretty neat level inspired by these storm drains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3qooY0d_A

I feel very much the same way as the author about TikTok. I browse it far too often. I've implemented app based screen time limitations in iOS specifically for Reddit and TikTok but it's so easy to override. Deleting the apps for a few days works, but only for so long.

My takeaway from that was more "the world isn't that daunting, if you just do something consistently with effort, you're going to do a lot better than most people since most aren't putting much effort into it."

You don't have to do that with everything in life, but you can do that with the things you care about.

It could be actually practicing chess, it could be following a training plan while running, and it could be rising through the ranks at work.

I like cycling, and I know with a consistent routine I improve a lot more than my friends who just cycle on once or twice a week. I'm not trying to be better than them, I just really enjoy being a good cyclist.

It's been a few years since I've used a VPN with streaming, but I recall some services not working well with it. I was in Australia with NordVPN to the US on a fibre connection.

I looked it up out curiosity, it's over 2 miles along a major road that crosses a major freeway. There is a suburban route that has a dedicated bike lane crossing of the freeway (101). Yikes.

It's always a treat to fly on. I managed to score some first class award tickets on Etihad's A380s from Sydney to Abu Dhabi to London... for July 2020. As you can imagine, that didn't work out.

I fly Sydney to LAX on Qantas usually once a year and somehow I always get swapped from an A380 to a 787 :/

I understand that this plane isn't the most fuel efficient, and that the A350, 787, and 777X are replacing it, but the A380 just feels a little "golden age of flying". The multiple decks, the bars on some planes and the crazy first class suites (and their showers) really made it a cool plane. It was the first plane that flew on that had enhanced pressurization (Qantas economy LAX to MEL back in 2010), as I mostly flew AA's old 737s back then.

I do acknowledge, that a lot of the things I'm lamenting are premium products, I really do. The cost for first and business class tickets on most A380 flights are ridiculous, and frankly the only time I've flown business is either via upgrades or award tickets (thank you credit card bonuses). Still, you've got to admit they are cool planes. What other plane could you actually take a shower on?

"Sydney has a few crossings where instead of particular directions being open to pedestrians, the whole crossing goes green for pedestrians and red for cars. This seems more efficient to me, and safer since cars aren't moving at all when you cross - often you have to share the space with cars turning left when you cross. I wish we had more of these."

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These are called "pedestrian scrambles", and I like them a lot more too. I do know there's a few in the Sydney CBD, but I don't recall them being marked particularly well that they are a scramble.

The ones in Oakland (picture below) are very well demarcated, and a study found them to reduce vehicle-pedestrian conflict though did increase the amount of people crossing parallel to traffic when the signals indicated "don't walk".

Picture: https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/crossings...

Study: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3fh5q4dk

You should see how impressive some of the luxury trains have gotten. Japan has a couple of them that are particularly luxurious. And while these aren't owned by individuals, they're indicative of what you could own.

https://www.luxurytrainclub.com/trains/seven-stars-kyushu/

https://www.jreast.co.jp/shiki-shima/en/

Of their works: the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a few choice coding songs. Some of it is little too dark or a little too airy. Before the Flood is also pretty good a little sad at some points. The Juno single they put out as part of the 2016 Jupiter probe collaboration with a few artist is pretty nice. The Vietnam War soundtrack never quite vibed right for work. And finally, Watchmen Vol 1 is dope, especially NUN WITH A MOTHERF&ING GUN but good luck getting work done to that.

The Ministry of the Future also addressed the same type of heat reduction technology, albeit as a much smaller part of the book.

I'd highly recommend it, though the opening is very hard to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future

I don't own a car anymore, but it's something I online window shop sometimes. It seems like Lexus is going to be the last luxury car brand to keep physical controls instead of all screen.

Yeah but the gas mileage on that was only 16 city/24 highway (mpg)...

I don't see any sources on this, just some tongue in cheek Quora posts.

I did find something interesting about "the Slugshot" being illegal in some US states, but I would take this with a grain of salt considering the source.

http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2018/07/the-monkey-fists-nasty-co...

I've enjoyed sensory deprivation tanks like this, but to be perfectly honest, I feel like I can let my mind wander the same way when I wake up an hour before my alarm goes off and manage to resist picking up my phone.

This sounds like a quote from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

The core of the post is "have quality experiences". This can be applied to many things, like travel for instance. I remember my times in hostels in Australia and European mountains much more than I do any 5 star hotel because I was having a good time with friends.

Not to mention the bars and lounges in business & first class.

https://onemileatatime.com/guides/airplane-bars-lounges/

I've only flown on 747-400s with BA and Qantas, and I've found them to be terribly loud. I've heard the 747-8s were a little quieter, but would you really say that would be better than a 787, A350, or A380?

I too have heard that the A220 is a fantastic plane. I'm looking forward to Qantas flying them.

I'm not sure that's correct. EU and Australia have been using contactless terminals before Apple Pay. Still, most hotels I go to want the actual card number (usually taken at checkin) that they put on hold. Payment can either be charged to that card number on file at check out or you can present another card.

I recently saw someone denied check in when they only had their phone at the Shangri La in Sydney a year or so ago.

Thinking back, the only time I've used contactless to pay for a hotel was at the Six Senses in Fiji. Four Seasons & Ritz Reserve usually still do the whole folio presentation thing at check out. Most of the standard corporate hotels (Hyatt, IHG, Marriott) I've been to have let you check out in their app to the card on file.

I can't speak for Stanford, but Santa Clara University has gone through a similar transition. It started while I was there ('11-15), where the "party street" was full of frats, sororities, and just loosely themed houses. The school and the police really started to shut down parties on that street hard my second year there. What used to be just every house open to anyone became closed doors, you had to know someone who actually lived there.

I think the school has started to buy the actual property on that street now to control it more.

I won't apologize for the behavior of the frats, some of them did some truly awful stuff, and I never was a part of any of them, but I watched the university expand from educational to trying to manage the entire student experience.

I brought my cat from the United States to Australia (a notoriously strict country). If you'd like any advice let me know.