flying destroys the environment

Ouch. I fly today.

You should subscribe to the excellent treehugger.com blog. It is sometimes over the top irrational — but not on this post:

One transatlantic flight for a family of four creates more CO2 than that family generates domestically in an entire year. (source)

Air Travel and Climate Change: Take the Train

As a frequent flyer, this really hurts.

_42115312_branson-clinton203afp.jpgWe need this kind of statistical data to significantly improve the Earth. We need to take an economists viewpoint. Seems we need to fly less … or come up with aeroplanes with better technology.

Up to 25% of the world’s aviation carbon dioxide emissions could be cut if airlines, airports and governments worked together, the Virgin boss said.

Sir Richard Branson last week pledged Virgin airlines profits worth $3bn (£1.6bn) towards renewable energy initiatives.

Branson call for greener airlines – BBC

Bangkok military coup – 20th Sept.

“… the incongruity of the festive atmosphere amidst a coup d’etat.”

Bangkok looks pretty relaxed so far. Thai tourists are not fleeing.

tank.jpg

photo originally uploaded by Dan Caspersz.

More photos from Thailand

“geotagging” photos in Flickr – update

Update:

The Jelbert GeoTagger device records the latitude and longitude and compass direction of every photo you take. …

GeoTagger Adds Positioning Info to Snapshots – Slashdot

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There is some cool stuff happening on that there internet.

I love all the map mash-ups.

For example, when I post a photo to my Flickr account, I can tag it with the exact location it was taken. It is automatically posted to my personal photo map of the world.

For example, here’s the map of 6 photos I took near the Mississippi River in St. Paul:

geo-tag-photos.jpg

If you have plenty of extra time, you might want to play with these new mapping toys.

But working with photos in Flickr can be painfully slow and a bit buggy. A desktop client would be better.

I may wait until the GPS in my (future) camera does the job without me manually having to tag each picture.

FlickrBlog
Great shot – where’d you take that?

how will you die?

Shouldn’t we spend more on reducing vehicle deaths? Less on hassling airline travellers?

According to this data, you are more likely to be killed by an American policeman than by a toothpaste-wielding foreign jihadist.

Flu, hernia, or police more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda – BoingBoing

death.jpg

no need for life-jackets on airplanes

Quoted from an Economist article:

“Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.”

Welcome Aboard, Enjoy Your Flight – Gadling

cheap flights – UPDATE #2

I am often frustrated trying to find a good deal on a flight on-line.
Note: CheapTickets charges a $9 service fee while Yahoo is still free.

But I really like the (fairly) new Yahoo! site. It has a nice AJAX interface too.

Cheap Airfares on Yahoo! FareChaser.

web interface

UPDATE – Just booked a flight on CheapTickets.com — not quite as slick as the Yahoo site. But it still got the job done. Found the cheapest, most convenient fare comparing all competitors.

outdoor bloggers “meetup”

You know those oddball conventions you hear about? Freak gatherings. Pug dog owners, paranormal ghost busters, or atheists.

I am going to one.

I am forced to travel to Northern California to attend.

hodown400x328.gif

Needless to say, bloggers meetups get a LOT of coverage on the internet. I’ll be posting on my hiking blog.

Blogs for the outdoors have just taken off in the last few months. I expect I’ll be one of the founders of a huge annual event.

missed Burning Man … again

In 2005 I planned ahead to finally get to the world’s craziest festival.

But … maybe it’s too late to ride a bicycle nude as performance art. Everyone’s already done it.

400px-Participants_at_Burning_Man_1986-2005.png

My travel logistics to the middle of the desert were too challenging. And attending this anti-commercial spectacle is really expensive. I did not go.

But here are a few photos of 2006 for the armchair travellers like myself.

burn-man-stuff.jpg
Burning Man Photo Results, Sort Of – Gadling

More photos via Wikipedia

book – a decade of Burning Man photos

This may be the closest I ever get to the famous desert festival.

Barbara Traub’s new book Desert to Dream is an unprecedented photographic record of a decade of Burning Man celebrations. Contributions from filmmaker Les Blank, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, Leonard Nimoy and beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti …

10 Years of Burning Man – photos – Wired magazine

If interested in the book for one of your alternative friends:

A Decade of Burning Man Photography
Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man Photography