Who needs multi-million dollar airport renovations? I’ve figured out a way to make the Raleigh-Durham airport seem much bigger, cheaply! Jaded air travelers know that landing at a large airport like Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is only half the battle. The other half is taxiing to the gate, which sometimes seems to take longer than the flight itself. Two-runway Raleigh-Durham Airport doesn’t have this problem. When jets land at RDU, they are frequently within sight of their gates. This ease of movement contributes to the image of Raleigh-Durham as a small-town airport. A “hick” airport, if you will.
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Cheap Thoughts
Cheap thoughts.
There are 170 posts filed in Cheap Thoughts (this is page 12 of 17).
Cheap Thoughts: Police Flashers
On our way to the lake today we passed a police officer conducting a traffic stop. It reminded me of a thought I’d been meaning to blog about. When police pull people over, they fire up every light they have. Blue lights and high-beam flashers are going crazy. While the blue lights do convey authority and make the traffic stop visible to other motorists, I think the rapidly flashing high-beams are counterproductive. Such a fast-paced flashing can’t help but make the motorist nervous.
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Cheap Thoughts: Fear
What is the antidote to fear?
Understanding.
Cheap Thoughts: Alarm Clocks
I wonder how much stress in people’s lives can be directly attributed to the buzzing of an alarm clock.
Context and the Internet
Mark Cuban has some important thoughts about what the Internet has done to context. Worth a read, and something I’ve not considered before.
On the other hand, this isn’t new to celebrities. The tabloids collect a file full of pictures of a celebrity’s differing moods. When that celebrity has a down week, the papers will run an angry picture. When its a happy occasion they’ll run a happy picture. I guess when everything gets recorded this is to be expected.
Its a beautiful day
Its a beautiful day. Nothing special is happening other than the special things that always happen while we’re making ourselves too busy to notice.
Take a moment today to stop and appreciate where you are.
Cheap Thoughts: Craigslist
After responding to a few ads on Craigslist and receiving no response I’ve hit upon the fundamental problem with free ad services: the seller has no “skin in the game.” Since the seller’s cost to post is free, he or she has nothing at stake and therefore doesn’t feel as compelled to respond to queries as he or she might when using paid ad services.
Maybe the problem is that email is too easy to ignore. Perhaps if Craigslist offered a better way of contacting sellers this could be alleviated.
Cheap Thoughts: Roaming Office Cameras
Ibiblio’s Paul Jones, Keeper of the Rubber Chicken, posted to a story of a guy who built a robot to cruise around the office for him while he worked from home.
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Cheap Thoughts: Using pictures to express emotion in IM clients
Macintosh OS X instant-messaging (IM) clients display your login picture during chats. If you’re having a chat, the traditional way to express smiling is to use a emoticon like this: 🙂 . Why not make your login picture smile, instead? Take different shots of yourself expressing various emotions and provide an easy way of changing them during a chat.
Nothing expresses emotion better than a face. Why not put this to use?
Cheap Thoughts: Doctor Auditions
I’ve finally decided its stupid to drive nearly to Apex from North Raleigh when I want to see my doctor. The cost in gas and time don’t justify it. I work from home 90% of the time so why schlep across town and back if I don’t have to?
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