Monday, December 26, 2005

Wings of Paradise: Hawaii's Incomparable Airlines

Recently received my copy of this new book, and read it over the holiday weekend. I enjoyed it immensely, and recommend it to anyone interested in Hawaii's aviation history. Unlike some of the previous books, it covers the entire industry, rather than focusing on either Hawaiian Airlines (as in Kennedy's Hawaiian Air) or Aloha Airlines (50 Years of Aloha, published by Aloha Airlines itself). Both of these books are slanted towards the history of the airline's story they're trying to tell, such as often referring to Aloha as "Brand X" in Kennedy's Hawaiian Air. You get some of this feeling from Wings of Paradise, as well, but because it alternates between telling the story of Hawaiian, Aloha, Mid Pacific, Royal Hawaiian, Discovery, Mahalo, and others, you get a pretty balanced picture in the end.

My biggest complaint with the book is that it's a bit short on recent details. Coverage of Island Air, for example, is pretty much limited to the start as Princeville Airways, the acquisition by Aloha and name change to Aloha IslandAir, the crash on Molokai, and the final name change to Island Air, and the sale to Gavarnie Holding, though the acquiring company isn't mentioned by name in the book. Omitted from Island Air's history is the airline's brief flirtation with the Dornier Do 228 and eventual replacement of the Twin Otters with the Dash 8. It also missed the point that a contributing factor to Mahalo Air's downfall was the replacement of new ATR-42s with older examples that ended up costing the airline a lot in maintenance expenses. I can forgive omission of some of the recent events due to the lead time in book publishing, such as Island Air's planned acquisition of Q400 aircraft and details on Mesa and FlyHawaii's plans (though FlyHawaii is also not mentioned by name). But completely omitting Pacific Wings is a definite oversight.

However, one must keep in mind that it's easer to find out about more recent events, and perhaps omitting them now is reasonable course of action in favor of waiting to see how they effect the industry in the long term.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Movies

I realized today that the last movie I saw in a theater is out on DVD. This can mean one of several things, or more likely, a combination of all.
  1. I don't see enough movies.
  2. Most movies aren't worth watching in theaters.
  3. Movie to DVD time is a lot lower than it used to be for VHS.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Green Day Videos

I was watching a few Green Day videos earlier today (American Idiot, Holiday, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, if you must know) and noticed they had a green tint to them. At first I was thinking it was a reference to The Matrix, where the simulated world of the Matrix is presented with a green tint, drawing a sort of connection to the two.

Then I remembered the name of the band...

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Website back up

Finally, my web site is back up. Took longer to get the DSL installed in my new apartment than I originally expected.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Web Site Down

Yes, my web site that hosts Quanterium.com including The Mueller Quadrant and Mid Pacific Images is currently down. I expect it should be back up around November 1st.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

This Can't Be Good

This quote from today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin caught my attention:

Faris said he was surprised the cash-strapped airline has been able to survive this long, and agreed with Aloha that it needs to hasten its emergence from bankruptcy.

It can't be a good sign when your bankruptcy judge is surprised that you're still in business.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

I Want My Money Back

First they go to WalMart and steal plasma TVs. Now they're using the money we (the taxpayers) gave them to buy expensive shoes and purses.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Star Trek: New Voyages

If you haven't seen this yet, what are you waiting for? Go. Download. Watch. NOW!

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Acrobat Office Toolbar

Apparantly I'm not the only one annoyed by the little two icon Acrobat toolbar taking up an entire line of screen space in Word for Mac. So here's how to get rid of it.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

One Mustn't Forget One's Towel

So I'm roaming around WalMart while they change my car's oil. Guess what I found? The original BBC television series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on DVD. So of course I immediately put it in my shopping cart.

I remember first reading about it when it was released for Region 2 (Europe); it's nice to see that it's made its way to North America.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Stuff to Read

A couple of books I've read recently and recommend:

Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond. A nice, easy to read book that serves as a biography for both Linus Torvlads and the operated system he wrote, Linux.

Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfield. A collection of short stories detailing the development and introduction of the Macintosh computer, by one of the people that did it. You can read the stories online at Folklore.org but I often find I prefer reading printed books over text on the screen.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

These Are the Voyages...

So, Star Trek: Enterprise is done. Over. Gone.

The ending was the worst of all of Star Trek's season finale episodes -- I don't count Turnabout Intruder, since there was nothing special about that episode as the last episode of the classic Star Trek.

Unlike others (such as Jolene Blalock), I didn't have a problem with the concept of doing a show where the crew of a future ship was looking back at the missions of NX-01. I can definitely see that encapsulating the story within a story about Riker and Troi pushed away emphasis from the regulars on the show, and that does seem inappropriate for a finale. However, These Are the Voyages... felt to me more like an epilogue to the series (or even the last 18 years of Star Trek on television, which the producers indicated they were trying to do to some extent), with Terra Prime being the "real" last episode of Enterprise.

My problem with the episode is that the two story arcs didn't seem to mesh that well. I've watched the episode twice, once last night and again this afternoon. I'm still having trouble working out exactly what about the events during the Enterprise's journey back to Earth was supposed to help Riker decide what to do with regards to telling Captain Picard the truth about the Pegasus. At first I thought it was something about Trip and T'Pol's admitting to each other that they still have feelings for each other, despite having ended their relationship six years prior. Watching it again, I picked up that it's definitely something about Trip and his relationship with Captain Archer. Riker sees to see that relationship as parallel to the one he has with Picard. I guess that's it (it's amazing how these issues sort themselves out as you sit down and write about it). But it's not very obvious, and by the time I've figured that out, the episode hasn't left a very favorable impression in my mind.

Jolene Blalock was right though, T'Pol does seem pretty out of character when she opens up to Riker. I suppose we can explain that away though as the holodeck adapting the program to have T'Pol answer Riker's questions in a way that is at least somewhat in character; no doubt Chef's discussions with various crew members were not word for word identical to Riker's.

There were a few technical issues I had with the production as well. The biggest had to do with the appearance of the characters. These Are the Voyages... is set six years after the events of Terra Prime. Only two characters looked they were any older. Shran definately looked older, and Hoshi Sato seemed a bit older as well, even if all they did was take her hair out of the ponytail for most of her scenes. Star Trek has aged characters plenty of times, examples that come to mind immediately are Unnatural Selection, The Deadly Years, All Good Things..., and Twilight. They changed the characters' appearances a bit for In A Mirror, Darkly, surely they could have done the same for These Are the Voyages....

There were a few smaller issues as well. Riker's beard seemed a bit too thin. The interior for the Enterprise-D's turbolift didn't look right. And if you look closely, right at the end of the teaser, after Riker has frozen the holodeck program and is on his way to the bridge, you can see Hoshi Sato moving a little bit. Though you do have to give the actors some leeway here; it can't be easy to stand perfectly still through several takes.

I am one of those people that think it would be a neat idea for a future Star Trek series not to be based around a single crew, but to do small arcs spanning a few episodes before moving on to someone else. Much like older television shows like The Twilight Zone were different every week. There are a lot of little story lines spread throughout 200 years of "history" that it would be nice to come back to and follow up on. The biggest technical hurdle I see would be the constant need for vastly different sets. Many 24th century (and even late 23rd century) Federation starships have similar interiors, which would help, but some weeks we might want to set a story on Deep Space Nine or a Romulan warbird, requiring vastly different sets. But recreating the Constitution-class sets for the Defiant in In A Mirror, Darkly and then doing the Enteprise-D for These Are the Voyages... leads me to believe that this might not be as big of a deal after all.

But anyway, the very end of These Are the Voyages... was quite nice. I would have liked to have heard Archer's speech, though. But after that, the montage with the three Enterprises was way nice, it brought a tear to my eye. Enterprise NCC-1701 is now my computer's wallpaper.

Oh and one final request. Will you forum people please stop posting the sexy pictures of Jeri Ryan and Jolene Blalock? It's all about Linda Park, after all. ;)

To the crew of the Enterprise, I can only say this: Live long, and prosper.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

In A Mirror, Darkly

If you missed the last two weeks of Star Trek: Enterprise, then you really missed out on a couple of really good episodes. Fortunately, this is the 21st Century, and we have BitTorrent.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Don't Panic

Ignore what the film critics say. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a good movie. Go see it.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

iPods and Candy

Just in case you don't have time to go to a store, now you can get an iPod from a vending machine in the SFO International terminal. Click on the photo for a few more.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

George Carlin says...

Weather forcast for tonight: Dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

Monday, February 28, 2005

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Googling Yahoo

I'm out driving around earlier today, with the radio on, and after hearing 1-2-Step and Let Me Love You for like the 10 millionth time since I've been in Albuquerque, I decide I need to find a better radio station. So I go home, Google "albuquerque radio stations" and which link do I find helpful in finding a new station to try? Yahoo Directory.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Ban Urban Legends

Oooh... I can't wait to see the letters from the Believers on this one!

Thursday, February 03, 2005

CBS, NBC, whoever...

Ok, so I kind of blew it with last night's rant about CBS. The original Star Trek was on NBC, not CBS.

CBS we can blame for ripping off Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek concepts for Lost In Space.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

CBS Still Sucks

They cancelled Star Trek again. Only this time, they did it as the show was getting better, not worse.

The TrekToday article indicates that it was CBS president Les Moonves that made the decision, so I think it's fair to blame them. It's also interesting to note that both times Star Trek has been cancelled (as opposed to the series simply ending after seven years), CBS did it.

This may not be all bad, though. New episodes could be produced in syndication, like The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Or perhaps on SciFi (or another cable channel).

Though perhaps the best thing for Star Trek is to give it a few years off. No TV, no movies. Get rid of Berman; I'd much rather see Manny Coto take over, and lanuch a new series in about five years.

Live long and prosper, Captain Archer.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Monday, January 10, 2005

Another iPod user

Scroll the thumbnails all the way to the right, then count back about 14.