Japan finally reaches the tipping point, where deaths exceed births. What the anti-immigration folks forget is that were the US as insular as Japan is, we would be in the same boat.
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Month: December 2005
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Me vs NWA Journey Logic
Today I had my first encountered with the latest “innovation” in airline revenue management, journey logic.
Journey logic, or married segmnets, comes in to play most frequently when trying to book complex itineraries. Airfare is identified by a set of codes, i.e. VPEE02, BLAXP, or YLE. Each code, or fare basis, combined with an origin/destination pair, correlates to a set of rules and a price in the reservations system. At the same time, the number of seats available on a given flight on any day is maintained by looking only at the first letter of the fare basis code. So if I were looking to buy airfare using the VPEE02 fare basis code, I would need to find flights that had seats available in the “V” fare class. Using some clever tools that exist on the Internet, I can query the global reservations systems to check for just that kind of info. And putting the two data sets together I can determine what flights are likely to price at a given point, or what flights have upgrade seats available, even before I go to buy anything.
Still with me?
Journey logic throws a wrench in the works. Journey logic says that if you’re connecting on an intinerary such as Newark (EWR) to Minneapolis (MSP) to Portland (PDX) to Tokyo (NRT) to Bangkok (BKK), and you want to upgrade any available segments, the routing EWR-BKK has to say that it’s allowed. If there are upgrade seats available on the segment PDX-NRT, but not on EWR-BKK, even though PDX-NRT is a subset of EWR-BKK, you can’t upgrade.
Sound difficult? Basically journey logic throws out the availability in the middle and only looks at availability from the true origin city to the final destination. Any flights that have availability in the middle essentially become irrelevant, and you can’t upgrade.
The same thing can happen if you’re trying to book a cheap airfare. Say there was a sale on flights from EWR-San Francisco (SFO), with a fare basis KLXVR2. Flights were available at a cost of $200, but you have to connect in MSP. You go try to book the flight, but it keeps pricing at $325 with a fare basis code of QWLXSP. So you go check to see if any seats are available on each segment in “K” class, and what do you know, EWR-MSP is showing K7 and MSP-SFO is showing K5. But with journey logic, EWR-SFO is at K0, so there are no seats available.
In the end, after two phone calls and several hours of hammering away at the website, I did get my ticket, EWR-MSP-PDX-NRT-BKK-NRT-LAX-MSP-EWR booked, with every segment except BKK-NRT in business class. So it looks like I won this battle against journey logic, even if I did deliver a self-inflicted wound by putting it on the wrong credit card.
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Cookie Monster
I baked this afternoon. From scratch. Two recipes, one for chocolate chip cookies, the other for peanut-butter chocolate pinwheels. Something around 100 cookies in total.
Talk about a way to ruin your appetite.
William Lind, in his weekly column On War, writes the following about our options in Iraq:
The question is whether Washington will grasp this opportunity before it fades away. It means halting our war against the Baathists and nationalists, in what would be an acceptance of local defeat. But it opens the door to a potential strategic victory against our real enemies, Islamic non-state forces such as al Qaeda. If, subsequent to an American deal with the Baathists, they root al Qaeda out of Iraq, it will be a greater win for us than if we defeated al Qaeda ourselves, because it will have been beaten by fellow Arabs and Moslems. That strikes directly at al Qaeda?s legitimacy.
However, while this would appear to be a strategy to lead us to an acceptable path to withdrawl while delivering a blow to Islamic fundamentalism, the reason it would not pass muster in this White House is simple. The White House remains convinced that Saddam was in league with Bin Laden, which makes the Sunni Baathists suspect as a result. Given the tendancy to paint with broad strokes, the ability to separate distinct groups required to see this is a valid option that would accomplish a stragetic victory where we deny refuge to the fundamentalists who would do us harm just isn’t there.
And it’s a shame, because right now we’re directly responsible for creating a safe haven for Islamic fundementalist jihad groups to operate in Iraq.
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The Corporate Holiday Party
Yesterday was our Holiday “meeting”, where we engaged in team-building activities while drinking from the open bar. Our hosts were the the Ridge at Back Brook, a posh country club in East Amwell. After the team building activities, everyone was free to relax, sing karaoke or otherwise just hang out until… well, I left at 5 pm, anyway, and people were still there.
In a reminder of the times, our senior management handed out copies of the book Who Moved My Cheese, the popular book about how to respond to change. And after the book, the first of what will likely become many changes was announced, with one of our managers leaving to take a new position with a software vendor.
2006 will be a long year for all of us at Merck. Just remember to always keeping looking for new cheese.
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Beyond Comprehension
So the latest revelation, after all the torture scandals, the hidden prisons, the Iraq invasion intelligence maniuplation, and the countless other debacles that have gone on is how in the world anyone can believe that this administration should be allowed to continue in office.
Quite honestly the depth of disregard for the very rule of law the Chief Executive is responisble for upholding, and his failure to uphold those laws leading directly to multiple violations of the most basic principles of this country, has me astounded. That anyone can honestly believe he deserves to continue in office given his failure to uphold the rule of law is beyond me.
Fire this guy. Please, for the sake of all law-abiding, decent, honest folk in the world.
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Where oh where has the Ethics Committee gone
Given the outrageous levels of corruption among the Republican regime today, how can the “ethics truce” possibly continue? Why won’t someone stand up and push for honest reform?
I may not have needed a sick bag while I watch The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, but the not-so-subtle religious overtones leave me feeling queasy. While I haven’t read the book in years, I recall being distinctly uncomfortable when I read phrases like “Daughter of Eve” and “Son of Adam” thrown about. In some ways the religious usage was almost too casual, and certainly entirely intentional.
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XBOX lovers
If you’re interested in an XBOX, you’ve got two choices. Either you can go to Japan or check out Best Buy.
Myself, I’m waiting for the PS3.
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Daily Show
The unexpected ending of the Tuesday edition of the Daily Show had me wondering. As it turns out, there was some sad news out earlier this week. Having been exposed to a suicide in the past, it’s always devastating.