A good poo joke

Its hard finding good jokes on poo, but I found one (more like it was sent to me), and it cracked me up. For obvious reasons, I decided to spare you all some pictures.

A Congressman was seated next to a little girl on an airplane so he turned to her and said, "Do you want to talk?? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the congressman. "How about global warming, universal health care, or stimulus packages?" as he smiled smugly.

"OK," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

The legislator, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss global warming, universal health care, or the economy, when you don't know shit?" And then she went back to reading her book.

Picture of the Day: Urban Transportation

Desperate needs call for desperate measures. This picture is both amusing and very disturbing. I don't know how authentic it is (i.e. whether that poor baby in the bucket has been photoshop'd in, for example). But I have seen scenes like this play out before me multiple times in the developing world.

Photo credit: Unknown. Someone emailed it to me w/o the credits. I can't find anything inspite of scouring the internet. Do email me if you have anymore information.

Navigating Air Travel's New Reality

Following up on yesterday's post, I came across this interesting article. The author went through the same sort of experience I went through but was more patient and giving to the airline industry...or atleast, she tried to explain the problems more gently and made a different point.

I am sitting in seat 10B on flight 744 from Dallas to New York, getting a front-row view of where air travel is headed in this country. Booked two weeks in advance, my coach-class ticket cost $1,258 round-trip—and that was without checking a bag, changing my ticket, or any other innocuous act that could have upped my tab by hundreds of dollars... [My] only gustatory options on this three-hour dinnertime flight are a standard-issue flagon of plonk and an unwholesome assortment of snack foods. Together, they set me back more than $10.

....

Raising prices for diminished service isn't a winning strategy for keeping customers. Indeed, in a recent Condé Nast Traveler survey, fully 82 percent of readers said they'd travel less if prices rose by 20 percent or more. And while 47 percent said they would be willing to pay extra for an in-flight meal, most balked at the other fees, with only 20 percent saying they would shell out to check a bag. Most agreed the air travel experience has headed south: 70 percent of those surveyed said they had experienced a flight delay of more than an hour in the past year, and nearly 30 percent said a carrier had lost their bag or canceled their flight.

How bad will it get? Here, we look at the many ways in which you will feel the airlines' changes—and what you can do to minimize the pain.

[READ MORE]

The stupidity of short-term thinking

photo courtesy: Innaminnafly

I'm flying to Europe for six weeks in August (and I won't be blogging much during that time as I know you are all dying for a break! :-) ). And, I'm VERY VERY annoyed at the airline industry right now.

Travel is a luxury item, and with the economy struggling as it is, only crazy people (like me) who are footing their own bills or business people who have someone else footing their bills are doing the traveling. The once high-flying (pun-intended) airline industry is struggling to pay their own bills, and is consequently trying to punish anyone who is trying to help them out.

Normally, with packed flights through most days of the year, airlines keep peak season rates relatively low. But with such low demand, airlines are trying to make their profits entirely in the peak season...so poor, unfortunate idiots like myself are stuck with abnormally high rates. (I try my best to avoid peak traveling seasons in general, because I dislike crowds intensely. But this time, I had no choice.)

This is what I call stupid short-term thinking. While they make money in the short-term (really??), in the long-run, they are "shooting themselves in the foot." And here's why:

• They are losing on the majority of people sitting on the fence about traveling. I know plenty of people who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands and have been contemplating traveling, but have given it up because of the exhorbitant rates. Airlines are betting on the few who HAVE to fly, not on the potential of people who might fly if their deals were better.

• They are losing out on customer loyalty. What few airlines realize is that a lot of frequent travelers are loyal, and are powerful word-of-mouth marketers. I am loyal to Virgin Airlines for example (amazing customer service and in-flight service!!), and Southwest Airlines, and I used to be to JetBlue before their customer service started sucking. When you bully people into doing things they don't want to do or don't think is fair, they will hold it against you. In this case forcing us to pay unfair fees and putting up with awful customer service while it will get us this time, will lose us in the long run (this is why I will NEVER fly Northwest/KLM again!)
  

• Allowing poor business practices to continue, even flourish: The larger US Airlines have the absolute worst service in the world, and they have no excuse. For years, the US government notoriously protected their airline industry, allowing awful business practices to endure. When the markets finally opened and protectionism was terminated, these "institutional airlines" (US Airways, Delta, American Airlines, United, etc) struggled. Their burgeoning bureaucracy made them inefficient against innovative, nimble, emerging airlines like Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, Frontier, and others. The older airlines have only survived by capitalizing on their monopoly routes, their loyal customers, and building alliances with better airlines around the world.

Still struggling, the institutional airlines turned to stupid short-term thinking, taking their ire out on the customers. Fly one of them and you'll find yourself paying for everything. None of the institutional airlines have on-demand entertainment, a common availability amongst every first-world airline. If you want it, you pay for it. Many of these airlines are locked into lengthy and heavy contracts with labor unions; so their staff are often old, cranky, angry people who have seen a once glorious job go sour. Naturally their customer service is terrible. Further, they've cut down on seat spacing, have aging fleets, ancient in-flight entertainment, and make you pay for everything, including your water and your luggage (in addition to your already sizable airline ticket).

Its ridiculous to me that these airlines are thriving in this economy. And why?? Because the now cost-conscious consumer is forced to go with the cheapest deal, not the best airline. While hunting around today, for example, Delta Airlines was charging $1121 for a round-trip ticket to Paris; Lufthansa, a relatively superior airline, was charging $1600 (which is currently average for all non-American carriers). Normally, I would pay the extra $100 or $15o over Delta just to get better service. But this time, I can't even afford the $1121. But its my only choice, so I take it. So here we have it...the market is working against us and them.

Yes, airlines have investors and shareholders. But shareholders are reasonable people. Everyone knows that the economy is doing terribly. It would be ridiculous to expect that Delta would churn out record profits at this time...

My point is this...short-term thinking, without considering the bigger picture is very stupid and dangerous. While the ailing US institutional airlines continue to get through another year, its only a matter of time before they will have to bow out. After all, GM just did...only a matter of time with the rest...

An Update on the Aquaduct

A few weeks ago, I blogged about/reviewed a technology called The Aquaduct. As stated in that post, I had emailed the team a few questions that I couldn't find answers to. It took them three weeks to respond, and they sent me a generic answer after all of that. But apparently, they've started a blog with the first post answering a lot of my questions, including how they came up with their design, the type of filter they used, the cost of their product, and where they were heading with it.

Frankly I'm a bit disappointed with the vagueness of their answers. Still it atleast scratches the surface...

Water Technology: The Aquaduct

The IDEO team pose with their winning technology (photo: examiner)

Technology Name: AQUADUCT

Description:
In a nutshell, the Aquaduct a pedal powered water transportation and filtration system.

Aquaduct was designed by a team of IDEO folks in response to the Innovate or Die competition 2007, sponsored by Google and Specialized Bicycles. It placed first. The rules were simple:

Invent an unheard of, unprecedented pedal-powered machine, build it and film it. Just make sure that your innovation has human pedal power as its original source.

You may either ride solo or build with a team of up to five people.

Individual entrants (or the team contact) must be registered members of YouTube at the time of entry, be at least 18 or older and be residents of the U.S., Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain or the U.K.

Here's the basic layout and design of it:



My review:
The Aquaduct basically helps with transportation, filtration, and storage, (and disinfection?? need to check on this).

The good: It uses bicycles (with parts that can be found in even the remote parts of any developing country) and human power (probably the only thing they can count on in poor areas); it looks cute, and combines several different water processes into one unit. The filter is just representative of other more locally available filtering systems that we can find. I love the fact that the water is covered at all times, which keeps it from being contaminated further. And I love the pedal-powered pump.

The what: Ummm...bicycles being used to transport water or anything else in developing countries are not new. Infact bicycles are the first transportation vehicles that a poor person will invest in. And they've been using bicycles to transport water and everything else for centuries. So why would anyone invest in this tricked out tricycle that carries only water??

And cost-wise, bicycles are luxury items to being with, in many of these parts. So you have to make it functional. Essentially, think about the cost and then double the amenities that come with it or it will fail.


Bicycles are crucial transportation for the poor, and a luxury. On the left, Ugandan boys carry jerry cans of water back home [1]; on the right, an Indian boy carries cans of water, petrol and a friend on a tricycle [2]. If Aquaduct wants to succeed, it must expand its functionality.

Variations I would suggest:
1. Most poor people I've gone water hunting with, carry plastic or clay pots (the clay keeps the water cold), or large 20 gallon plastic jugs (aka jerry cans). The Aquaduct should actually include areas to load existing water jugs and filter into existing water jugs, not new ones that you sell with the tricycle.

2. Make the rear storage unit a "clip-on" so that they can take that thing out and carry other things when they need to.

3. I love the peristatic pump. Is there any way you can design it so that the pedal-power can be used to pump water directly from the ground? or transfer to power other things?? Poor people WON'T invest in this unless it can serve multiple purposes.

[1]: Source: Staffordshire Learning Network
[2]: Source: People's Daily Online

Other reviews/information:
http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/03/12/aquaduct-is-a-pedal-powered-water-purifier/
http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/weblog/innovate_or_die_winner_aquaduct
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/03/11/aquaduct-by-ideo/
http://mellowvelo.blogspot.com/2008/01/aquaduct-mobile-filtration-vehicle.html
The very uninformative Innovate or Die website
The inspiration behind Innovate or Die: