Posts Tagged ‘Travel’
Tips for frequent international travel
I travel pretty regularly, about 35% so far in 2010. When it goes wrong, travel can be exhausting, frustrating, complicated, stressful and even debilitating. I’m always looking for ways to make my trips run more smoothly. On a recent flight to Taipei, I wrote down a few of the techniques which I’ve successfully put into practice and found helpful. This is not an exhaustive list; I’ve omitted a lot of the common and obvious tips I’ve seen elsewhere.
- Make a packing list. This one may be obvious, but a lot of people neglect it. Perhaps they think making lists is boring and fussy, but really, it isn’t. Without a packing list, it’s easy to forget to do the things which will make your trip better. Use it every time, and bring a copy with you (or store it online) so you can add the things you wish you had brought or done. A simple, ever-improving packing list is the most effective technique I have found for making travel less stressful and more enjoyable.
- Carry a water bottle with a tight-fitting lid. I use a 32oz Nalgene bottle, which fits nicely into the seat next to me or under an armrest, and gives me enough water for even the longest flights. I fill it up after passing through security, at a cafe, bar or lounge, and generally decline the beverages offered by the cabin crew. Staying hydrated helps me feel better during the flight, and leaves me with less malaise when I arrive. I don’t need to manage a tray table or armrest full of cups and other debris, so I can sit more comfortably, with the tray table folded away.
- Consolidate essential items using multipurpose equipment. For example, invest in a power adapter which has USB sockets onboard, and carry USB cables instead of wall chargers. Versatile items like this save on space and weight. I can charge two devices this way, but the equipment is smaller and lighter than even a single wall charger.
- Learn how to sleep on an airplane. Getting some sleep on a long flight really helps to offset the effects of traveling. There are several resources out there with practical advice on how to do it. One thing which really helped me was to buy a high quality eye mask which blocks out all of the light in the cabin. The one I use looks a little funny and is not cheap, but is very comfortable and effective. It’s made of memory foam with a soft, washable cover and works much better than the ones the airlines give away for free. I no longer bother with a neck pillow, and use the flaps built into the seat to lean my head against. I’m surprised at how many people don’t know about this common aricraft feature: virtually every long-haul seat has something like this, even in economy, though it may not be obvious how to use it.
- Buy duplicates of things like toiletries, and keep them in your travel kit so you don’t need to pack your everyday items (and risk forgetting them) each time. The less packing you need to do, the less time it will take, and the less opportunity there is for mistakes. This also saves time unpacking when you get home, and lets you buy a smaller size of the item where available.
- Optimize border crossings Carry the forms you’ll need for customs, immigration, etc. in your carry-on. They don’t always provide them at the counter or on board the plane, and it’s a hassle to rush to fill in the form at the last minute. If you have a few of them with you, you can fill them out early (perhaps even before you fly) and then hustle to the front of the queue. For countries you enter frequently (especially your home country), programs like Global Entry (US) and IRIS (UK) will save you a lot of time by allowing you to use an automated kiosk to cross the border.
Traveling at home
For me, the most enjoyable part of traveling is the inspiration that I derive from visiting different places, talking to people, and generally being outside of my normal environment. This bank holiday weekend, when so many Londoners visit faraway lands, my partner and I stayed in London instead, and my sought inspiration closer to home. The city has been delightfully quiet, and in contrast to the preceding week, the weather was mostly pleasant, apart from the sudden downpours the BBC described as “squally showers”.
Photo credit: Márcio Cabral de Moura
We spent Saturday afternoon in Richmond Park, a 2500-acre nature preserve easily accessible via public transport from London. The plentiful oak trees, fallow deer, and various species of water fowl made it easy to forget the city for a while. Having visited a few times on foot, I think it would be fun to cycle next time, and see different areas of the park.
Afterward, we had dinner at a tapas restaurant in Parsons Green which offered notably excellent service as well as good food. By this time, it was nearly 7:00pm, and we took a chance on getting last-minute theatre tickets to see Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl in Neil Simon’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue. We arrived at the theatre just in time for the show, which was not sold out, and in fact had quite reasonable seats available. The show had several good laughs, holding up fairly well after nearly 40 years since the original Broadway production.
Photo credit: Gary Bembridge
On Sunday, we visited the Design Museum for the first time. Having been disappointed by the nearby Fashion and Textile Museum, our expectations were not too high, but it turned out to be very worthwhile. The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition showcased designs from architecture, fashion, furniture, transport and more. Some of my favorites were:
- Pachube, a system for sharing real-time sensor data and fostering a community around its uses
- Grassworks, a line of flat-pack, self-assembled furniture constructed entirely from bamboo, without glue or fasteners
- The Gocycle, a lightweight (16kg) electric bicycle for city dwellers
- The Eyewriter, a low-cost eye tracking system powered by open source software
- The Land Glider, a small (1×3 meters), enclosed electric vehicle which maintains stability by leaning into turns
- Analog Digital, a clock which is operated by a person covering and revealing segments using paint
- BMW GINA, a fabric-skinned shape-shifting car concept
I was delighted to see that there were a half dozen or so exhibits which related to open source software.
Even including the theatre tickets, it was a very inexpensive holiday compared to traveling overseas, and generated a lot less CO2. I was more than satisfied with the inspiration available within a relatively small radius. I don’t think I’ll give up traveling, as I really enjoy seeing friends who live far away, but I think I’ll be more inclined to stay home during peak travel times and enjoy local activities.
DebConf 10: Last day and retrospective
DebConf continued until Saturday, but Friday the 6th was my last day as I left New York that evening. I’m a bit late in getting this summary written up.
Making Debian Rule, Again (Margarita Manterola)
Marga took a bold look at the challenges facing Debian today. She says that Debian is perceived to be less innovative, out of date, difficult to use, and shrinking as a community. She called out Ubuntu as the “elephant in the room”, which is “‘taking away’ from Debian.” She insists that she is not opposed to Ubuntu, but that nonetheless Ubuntu is to some extent displacing Debian as a focal point for newcomers (both users and contributors).
Marga points out that Debian’s work is still meaningful, because many users still prefer Debian, and it is perceived to be of higher quality, as well as being the essential basis for derivatives like Ubuntu.
She conducted a survey (about 40 respondents) to ask what Debian’s problems are, and grouped them into categories like “motivation” and “communication” (tied for the #1 spot), “visibility” (#3, meaning public awareness and perception of Debian) and so on. She went on to make some suggestions about how to address these problems.
On the topic of communication, she proposed changing Debian culture by:
- Spreading positive messages, celebrating success
- Thanking contributors for their work
- Avoiding escalation by staying away from email and IRC when angry
- Treating every contributor with respect, “no matter how wrong they are”
This stimulated a lot of discussion, and most of the remaining time was taken up by comments from the audience. The video has been published, and offers a lot of insight into how Debian developers perceive each other and the project. She also made suggestions for the problems of visibility and motivation. These are crucial issues for Debian devotees to be considering, and I applaud Marga for her fortitude in drawing attention to them. This session was one of the highlights of this DebConf, and catalyzed a lot of discussion of vital issues in Debian.
Following her talk, there was a further discussion in the hallway which included many of the people who commented during the session, mostly about how to deal with problematic behavior in Debian. Although I agreed with much of what was said, I found it a bit painful to watch, because (ironically) this discussion displayed several of the characteristic “people problems” that Debian seems to have:
- Many people had opinions, and although they agreed on many things, agreement was rarely expressed openly. Sometimes it helps a lot to simply say “I agree with you” and leave it at that. Lending support, rather than adding a new voice, helps to build consensus.
- People waited for their turn to talk rather than listening to the person speaking, so the discussion didn’t build momentum toward a conclusion.
- The conversation got louder and more dense over time, making it difficult to enter. It wasn’t argumentative; it was simply loud and fast-paced. This drowned out people who weren’t as vocal or willful.
- Even where agreement was apparent, there was often no clear action agreed. No one had responsibility for changing the situation.
These same patterns are easily observed on Debian mailing lists for the past 10+ years. I exhibited them myself when I was active on these lists. This kind of cultural norm, once established, is difficult to intentionally change. It requires a fairly radical approach, which will inevitably mean coping with loss. In the case of a community, this can mean losing volunteer contributors cannot let go of this norm, and that is an emotionally difficult experience. However, it is nonetheless necessary to move forward, and I think that Debian as a community is capable of moving beyond it.
Juxtaposition
Given my history with both Debian and Ubuntu, I couldn’t help but take a comparative view of some of this. These problems are not new to Debian, and indeed they inspired many of the key decisions we made when founding the Ubuntu project in 2004. We particularly wanted to foster a culture which was supportive, encouraging and welcoming to potential contributors, something Debian has struggled with. Ubuntu has been, quite deliberately, an experiment in finding solutions to problems such as these. We’ve learned a lot from this experiment, and I’ve always hoped that this would help to find solutions for Debian as well.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Debian has benefited from these Ubuntu experiments as much as we might have hoped. A common example of this is the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. The idea of a project code of conduct predates Ubuntu, of course, but we did help to popularize it within the free software community, and this is now a common (and successful) practice used by many free software projects. The idea of behavioral standards for Debian has been raised in various forms for years now, but never seems to get traction. Hearing people talk about it at DebConf, it sometimes seemed almost as if the idea was dismissed out of hand because it was too closely associated with Ubuntu.
I learned from Marga’s talk that Enrico Zini drafted a set of Debian Community Guidelines over four years ago in 2006. It is perhaps a bit longand structured, but is basically excellent. Enrico has done a great job of compiling best practices for participating in an open community project. However, his document seems to be purely informational, without any official standing in the Debian project, and Debian community leaders have hesitated to make it something more.
Perhaps Ubuntu leaders (myself included) could have done more to nurture these ideas in Debian. At least in my experience, though, I found that my affiliation with Ubuntu almost immediately labeled me an “outsider” in Debian, even when I was still active as a developer, and this made it very difficult to make such proposals. Perhaps this is because Debian is proud of its independence, and does not want to be unduly influenced by external forces. Perhaps the initial “growing pains” of the Debian/Ubuntu relationship got in the way. Nonetheless, I think that Debian could be stronger by learning from Ubuntu, just as Ubuntu has learned so much from Debian.
Closing thoughts
I enjoyed this DebConf very much. This was the first DebConf to be hosted in the US, and there were many familiar faces that I hadn’t seen in some time. Columbia University offered an excellent location, and the presentation content was thought-provoking. There seemed to be a positive attitude toward Ubuntu, which was very good to see. Although there is always more work to do, it feels like we’re making progress in improving cooperation between Debian and Ubuntu.
I was a bit sad to leave, but was fortunate enough to meet up with Debian folk during my subsequent stay in the Boston area as well. It felt good to reconnect with this circle of friends again, and I hope to see you again soon.
Looking forward to next year’s DebConf in Bosnia…
Interviewed by Ubuntu Turkey
As part of my recent Istanbul visit, I was interviewed by Ubuntu Turkey. They’ve now published the interview in Turkish. With their permission, the original English interview has been published on Ubuntu User by Amber Graner.
Airplane etiquette
As I have most recently observed on my recent flights to New Zealand for linux.conf.au, it seems that many of my fellow travelers are unaware of this simple rule:
When standing up from your seat, do not use the back of the seat in front of you as a handhold unless this is a physical necessity for you. This is very disturbing to the person sitting there, who may be trying to sleep. Instead, bring your own seat forward and use the armrests.
Yes, I’m talking to you, 61J.
That is all.
Love, Matt
Iberia on-line check-in doesn’t work with free software
Apparently, there are still some 1990s-era websites which haven’t noticed that the web is not Windows. I realized this today when attempting to check in for an Iberia flight using my Ubuntu system and Firefox.
Someone thought it would be a good idea to use JavaScript and ActiveX to check whether the user has installed Adobe Acrobat Reader. If they don’t, it displays a helpful message:
Error message from Iberia on-line check-in
…and refuses to continue. After all, if you might not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, why bother trying to check in? I’m glad you asked. Because it’s not the only program capable of reading and printing PDF files!
You may have noticed that the message offers us some information, just in case the script got it wrong. Perhaps it tells us how to continue checking in despite having different application preferences than their developers? Unfortunately, no. Instead, it explains how to configure Windows to use Adobe Acrobat Reader as the default PDF viewer:
Helpful guidance for configuring your Windows system
I’m not the first one to discover this problem, as a quick search turned up instructions for working around the problem (Spanish, English translation) from September 2008.
Hooray for trains
This weekend, I took my longest train journey in recent memory. It was only a matter of hours, but after so much air travel over the past few years, it was a welcome change of pace.
I could freely cross and uncross my legs. Power and wifi were widely available. All of this in standard class!
Where do I sign up for more?
You know it’s going to be a rough flight when…
…you walk down the aisle, find your row and seat, and find that…
- It’s in the center of a row of five
- The plane is completely full
- There is no seat cushion!
This seat has no cushion
We'll see | Matt Zimmerman 