Posts Tagged mess
Email is Broken: A Case Study
Facebook’s “email” announcement is generating quite the buzz. Some speculate that Gmail and Hotmail will soon be on their deathbeds. While Mark Zuckerberg describes email as “slow and formal,” there is a much more pertinent problem: email abuse and misuse. Anyone with an email account gets bucketfuls of spam every day. I know I do.
With email nearly as old as the internet, the protocol still in use today assumes that: 1) All users trust each other, and 2) All users have a moderate level of skill to send and receive email properly. The failure of the first assumption has led to the high levels of spam and phishing emails we see today. There is no trust: how does anyone know that a link supposedly send by a friend isn’t a botnet client? The failure of the second assumption is just as bad: how many jobs have been lost due to a hasty “reply all” click? The remainder of this post will focus on the second assumption: email misuse.
Mailing List Misuse
The timing of Facebook’s email announcement coincided with an incident that really demonstrates that it’s well past time for email to die. I have subscribed to a fair number of mailing lists throughout the past 15 years or so I’ve been using email. As per Wikipedia, electronic mailing lists fall into two categories: 1) Discussion lists, and 2) Announcement lists. Discussion lists, such as the TinyOS programming help mailing list, allow all subscribers to send questions to everyone else in the list. Someone poses a question in the email, puts the mailing list address in the “to” header, and once sent, all other subscribers get the email. Anyone with an answer “replies all” to the list so that everyone can benefit from the discussion.
Announcement lists, on the other hand, are only a one-way broadcast. Only a single owner is permitted to send announcements to all subscribers on the list with the recipients unable to reply to all. That’s the idea, anyway.
In September, I joined an alumni mailing list which I would estimate has at least several hundred subscribers. The list owner sent out regular updates at an interval of roughly once per two weeks, as illustrated in the figure below. However, following the most recent announcement, chaos ensued. On September 15th (see figure), a subscriber learned that he could “reply all” to the list and not only email the list owner, but all of the other subscribers as well. For whatever reason, the announcement list was set up like a discussion list, allowing any subscriber to reply. It only got worse from there.
Once one subscriber hit "Reply All", the rest is history...
Soon, a torrent of emails followed in the steps of the first subscriber as one person after another typed up a response and hit “reply all.” Being an alumni list, the discussion circulated among a group of individuals of about the same class year, discussing subjects that made no sense to anyone else. The responses quickly got out of hand: through the afternoon of September 15th, the sending rate soared to well past 1 email per minute.
After the initial rush of random discussion, complaints ensued.
Following a mad surge of random discussion on the 15th and another resurgence on the afternoon of the 16th, subscribers began to email the list complaining about the onslaught. One after another, again surging past the rate of 1 email per minute, subscribers demanded that they be unsubscribed and that the discussion be taken to a message board. Finally, the message was heard: everything died down and stopped completely by the evening of the 16th.
So what went wrong? First, the list owner should have ensured that he was the only one able to send emails to the list. Second, a significant number of subscribers emailed the list in an attempt to unsubscribe instead of emailing the list owner. Both mishaps plus the breach of protocol for announcement lists made things quite a mess in only a few hours.
Some other interesting statistics can be computed in the aftermath. Since the list’s inception, about 10% of the total volume can be attributed to announcements, 50% for misuse/discussion, and 40% for complaints about the discussion. Next, we show the age distribution of senders:
The misuse is confined to the 45+ age group.
Since this is an alumni list, I was able to determine the age of just about every sender within two or three years, however, beyond some quick Googling, about 2% of the senders have an undetermined age. The above figure shows that those who abused the mailing list for discussion are all older than 45. Conversely, there is a roughly even distribution of age for those complaining. There is also slightly lower percentage of users under 45. From the figure, we can conclude that the younger generations are savvy enough to avoid either: 1) Misusing the announcement list as a discussion list, or 2) Sending the list an unsubscribe email instead of the owner.
Another interesting fact is that 37% of all senders used a business email address to reply to the list. 37% of senders used their business email for personal reasons! That’s insane. Another 9% had nasty hundred word “disclaimer” signatures at the end of their messages. Stuff like: “THIS IS A LEGALLY PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION THAT IS INTENDED TO BE VIEWED ONLY BY THE INTENDED RECIPIENT…ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION, OR COPYING OF THIS TRANSMISSION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.” I think the distribution and copying prohibition went out the window the minute they hit “reply all.” It’s a wonder more people don’t get busted for stuff they put in emails.
In conclusion, this case study demonstrates exactly why email ought to be abandoned. There are too many avenues for abuse, misuse, and unintended consequences. It would be nice to see Facebook come up with something appropriate for today’s internet.
Another Weekend in Stockholm
It’s still doubtful that we’ll be able to leave again on Tuesday, but there is hope, since the Swedish airport authority said that they may allow flights into and out of Arlanda tomorrow. Furthermore, the BBC weather maps predict the volcano ash will pass to the south of Norway and Sweden by the beginning of the week. It’s a better than nothing chance that we could leave, but I’m not holding my breath. Furthermore, the air crews and aircraft all have to be in place by Tuesday.
Yesterday, we took a trip to the Vasa Museum, which houses an absolutely massive wooden warship. The ship was built by Sweden in the 1600s in its fight against Poland and sank as soon as it put out to sea. It was recovered in the 1950s and restored over a 20 year period before being placed inside the museum.
I’ve seen plenty of wooden sailing ships at home, most were very small, but the Vasa is a giant. Its size was probably part of the reason for its downfall — the prevailing argument is that it was too top heavy and did not have enough ballast. From the keel to the top of the mainmast must be well over 100 feet: the ship seems like the Spruce Goose of its time.
Last night I went out with more stuck conference attendees to a bar near the waterfront. The average price was about $10/pint, but “pints” here are a noticeably larger 0.5L (16.9oz), not 12oz as in the United States. The place I went to had a large selection of beers, but not too many I hadn’t heard of.
Today we went out to the Royal Palace, meeting up with Alexandra, but this time we saw the changing of the guard, toured the insides of the palace, and the crown jewels. Interestingly, the woman operating the ticket office commented on my William and Mary ID, for it seems the concept of royalty has a different meaning in places that have monarchs. The changing of the guard involved a military marching band playing a few songs and marching around. The Royal Apartments were ornate, but were no Versailles, although a room in the Royal Palace was modeled after the Hall of Mirrors. The Treasury, which contained some of the crown jewels, was most interesting, with a guide explaining the historical significance of different crowns, maces, and orbs.
Since Alexandra was also stuck here with a canceled flight, we walked back to the train station to see if she could get a ticket back in the direction towards her school. She estimated the travel time would be about 30 hours. The train station in Stockholm was packed, with the ticket office handing out numbers to those who wanted to purchase tickets. The line was probably several hours long, so we just left. More than likely, trains towards Copenhagen were sold out for several days. It’s fortunate that Europe has the rail system it does, for if air travel was stopped in the United States for more than a few days, it would be much worse.
Later, we went back over towards where the Vasa museum was to find the zoo. We circled around it but could not find a way in. Finally, when we reached the entrance, it was 10 minutes from closing. We walked back along the waterfront and I headed back to the hotel.
While I was out today, I ran into several people from the conference. I saw one guy from the hotel who mentioned that he knew of people heading south into Spain or Morocco to fly to South Africa and then catch a flight from there to the United States. I ran into some others from the University of Illinois in a grocery store who predicted the winds would shift just in time to allow their Thursday flight to leave.
At this point, we will wait and see what happens with our scheduled Tuesday flight. If it doesn’t go, then we will probably start to think about alternatives. A group from the conference is considering chartering a bus to Madrid, but their airspace has been closed intermittently and I’ve heard the hotels there are booked solid. There is also a ferry that runs from Denmark to Iceland: we could take a train to Denmark, take the ferry to Iceland, and fly back home from there. Surprisingly, Iceland’s airport is allowing flights to and from the United States.
If we do consider finding an alternate route home, we will have to consider the costs of leaving a city that we know well with residents that speak good English and are pretty tolerant of foreigners. We also have to consider the probability of something else going wrong when traveling overland long distances, connecting on different trains or even buses. Bus and especially rail routes are extremely packed because of all that’s happened, with many being sold out for days. By the time we travel a week and a half to get home via land and sea, the airspace may have opened up anyway.
At this point, time is starting to pass. I haven’t done any work and I really should, at least to keep my mind off of being stuck here. My adviser and I may go to KTH to find an office and get something done. At the end of the week I am supposed to meet with my fiancee and the pastor for our wedding but I might not be able to go. I wonder what would happen if I were stuck here for months or even for the rest of my life (I’m sure this won’t happen, but I am thinking hypothetically). However, my sister has lived abroad for quite some time, so I’m sure I could adapt like she has.
Not a plane in the sky
I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be home in a few hours, but instead, I’m still here in Stockholm.
There seems to be a huge difference between the US and EU portrayals of this event. Everyone in the US seems surprised when I tell them that air travel is essentially stopped for the foreseeable future, while the EU media are spelling doom and gloom. Some are discussing government airline bailouts similar to what happened after September 11th.
Plenty of people from the conference are still staying in my hotel and most have rebooked flights for some time next week. They seem optimistic that the winds will shift or the eruption will die down in time for their flight to leave. I don’t think anyone really knows.
At this point the ash cloud covers most of Europe, so any airport remaining open is destined to be crammed with people trying to get out. There really isn’t anything I can do but sit tight and see what happens. If my flight is canceled on Tuesday, then it will probably be time to think about finding another way home.
In the meantime, my legs are getting beat up from the running, especially on the trails and hills. Walking around in the city probably doesn’t help either, and unfortunately, I don’t have a bike that I can borrow. The trails sure are great, though.
Today, a few of us still here took a bus tour around Stockholm. We drove around much of the city and saw a few things I hadn’t seen when walking around. The best tidbit I learned was that Swedish soldiers and sailors once received a 2 liter daily beer ration. Two liters of beer per day!
Tomorrow we may go to one of the nearby museums. Laundry is now another thing to do on my list since I’ve been here a week and could only pack but so much.
Stockholm: CPS Week
While my Stockholm trip to attend CPS Week has gone well until today, I suddenly find that my travels are far from over. Thanks to the ash cloud ransacking the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia, Sweden may become my new home for awhile. I really seem to be a marked man when it comes to air travel.
Day 1: Saturday 4/10/2010
When I arrived in Norfolk, there was a mix up at the ticket counter – the web check-in boarding pass I printed the day before was invalid and it took some work for the ticket agent to print a new one. When we arrived in Chicago that afternoon, it was a very long trip from the B concourse island to the international terminal. We had to go under the ramp, into the main terminal, and take a train to the international terminal, a good 15 or 20 minutes. Fortunately, the terminal was not busy and we were able to check in at the SAS counter without any issues.
The TSA agent checking my boarding pass at the O’Hare International Terminal commented about me being from Virginia; she said she had never been there. When I travel to other parts of the country, I always get interesting comments from the locals about me being from Virginia. In Palo Alto, a waitress commented that it was cold in Virginia, when at the time I remember it was really much warmer at home than in Silicon Valley. When in Gloucester visiting an old roommate, I got a comment from his neighbor that I was from “Virginny.” I’ve also heard another Massachusetts resident (who attends school at William and Mary) refer to “Virginny,” as well. Hollywood always portrays Virginians with thick backcountry accents when the reality is nothing of the sort. Some have the Tidewater accent, but it’s unnoticeable to the untrained ear.
Also, there were no restaurants in the O’Hare International terminal: 8 bucks for a pre-made sandwich. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long until the Stockholm flight departed. I noticed that nearly everyone waiting was Swedish, for there were no blue American passports that I could see. Once on the plane, I realized we lucked out on the seat assignments and got extra legroom since we were just behind the premium economy section.
On the flights, my adviser and I talked about the direction of my career in school and afterwards. Placement at a faculty job would probably require more time in school, perhaps up to another year, while a research lab may require less. It’s all about gaining enough experience to do what you want to do. It was interesting to talk to him about the possibilities since he has experience in both industry and academia. Both have benefits and drawbacks and there is no way I want to close the door on any particular track just yet. Just this week I talked with some other students in our department about the time required to complete a Ph.D., and those Master’s students involved in the discussion were wary of spending years in school to graduate. I would not be opposed to spending another two years in school as long as I worked hard enough to get some good papers published in the hope that I could get a good faculty position at a research university. From the looks of it, I have plenty of time to think about it and decide.
Day 2: Sunday 4/11/2010
As usual, I didn’t sleep much on the plane, only short bouts of 10 or 20 minutes. The sun came up quickly and the clouds parted, giving us a view of jagged mountains and snow and little sign of life. Before landing, the ground was covered up again by thick fog, which we soon descended into.
Though it was 7:30 in the morning, the airport was almost completely deserted. Immigration and customs was a breeze considering we were the only flight arriving at the time. A high speed train took us from the airport to the Stockholm Central terminal; a speedometer read well over 200kph as trees and buildings flew by. I doubt any train at home travels anywhere near that fast. From the train terminal, we took a subway two stops until we were near the hotel. One thing I found odd was that the subway tickets had to be purchased from one of several convenience stores surrounding the subway entrance. In the subway terminal, there were no ticket machines or windows and no signs indicating where tickets could be bought. Instead, we had to ask someone at the entrance looking for freeriders where we could purchase tickets.
The city was mostly deserted, though it was a Sunday. Stores were closed and nearly nobody was on the subway or walking around on the streets. Even the school where the conference was to be held was nearly empty of students with the library closed. Weatherwise, the day started out cloudy but later the sun came out, with temperatures in the lower 40s – pretty much a December or January day at home. It’s a good thing I brought my heavy coat.
The hotel had a room available as soon as we arrived, which was surprising since it was only 9 in the morning. My adviser and I slept for a few hours and then headed out in the afternoon, exploring Gamla stan and the area around the conference. We walked by the parliament building and the Stockholm Palace, taking a ton of pictures.
To me, it seemed as if everyone was pretending that the weather was nice. People at coffee shops sat outside at tables, wearing winter coats while being punished by the wind. Others stood in lines at ice cream stands, despite the 40 degree weather. Plenty more were out running and biking. I suppose weather can be much worse in Stockholm.
The crowds picked up some in the afternoon, but there were few restaurants around our hotel so we settled on a Mongolian BBQ place. I’ve been to similar places at home, but in the brief time I’ve been here there wasn’t anything interesting that caught my eye. Just the usual McDonald’s and a few other places labeled “American Grill,” or “Steakhouse.” I travel thousands of miles to get away from American food, among other things, but it seems I can’t escape it.
Day 3: Monday 4/12/2010
Though sleep was better than the previous night, I still had trouble. I almost never sleep well on trips since it’s always hard for me to adjust to new environments. I got up before 7AM and went out for a run beyond the university where the conference was, noticing there was a large park I could check out, so I headed that way and was surprised. City blocks now packed with commuter traffic and sidewalks packed with people suddenly gave way to a vast forest with tons of dirt trails. Plenty of other people were out running and biking.
I tooled around on the trails for awhile and headed back. I was surprised that traffic would stop even if it looked like I was about to cross the street. In addition to the trails, there were large paved paths with marked lanes for bikes and pedestrians. Sweden seems to have solved the bike path problem so prevalent in the United States. By making the paths wider and by separating pedestrians and cyclists, cyclists can cruise the bike paths without having to dodge pedestrians. In the city, sections of curb separated bike lanes from vehicle traffic, also decreasing the chance of a bicycle accident.
On Monday, there were a handful of workshops; I attended one on “Cooperating Objects,” which appears to be a new buzzword in the embedded/sensor networks community. A few people spoke about event detection and machine learning, with ideas similar to my research. There were easily several hundred people, much more than at previous conferences I attended, people from all over the world.
At the reception Monday evening, I met Alexandra from Romania, who attended school in Slovenia. It was interesting talking to her, considering that we are from very different and faraway places, yet we work in the same field. We hung out quite a bit between breaks throughout much of the conference and through her I was introduced to a few others from Eastern Europe. At school, it can feel very insular with few people to share your work and ideas with, but at a place like this, everybody is doing the same thing, and they come from everywhere.
Day 4: Tuesday 4/13/2010
Tuesday was a long one. I was up at 6:30 to run, with plenty of daylight. I explored a different part of the park than before, but ended up by a factory. I’m still surprised at the number of trails in the city.
The plenary speaker seemed to be more of a biologist, speaking about human and animal brains as a control system. There were quite a few talks in IPSN about machine learning and/or event detection so it was interesting to see others’ approaches to similar problems. Later on, there was a poster and demo session which lasted until nearly 7:30 at night.
During the poster/demo session, I met a guy from the University of Utah which had concocted a sort of “x-ray” vision with 802.15.4 radios – I remember reading about this on the internet a few months ago. Link quality between radios would change due to people moving about in the room, and with enough links, the moving people could be localized. Apparently, his paper based on this was rejected mostly because nobody believed it.
Day 4: Wednesday 4/14/2010
On Wednesday, I hit the motherlode for trails when out on my run. On previous runs I seemed to hit dead ends – running into roads, office buildings, or even factories, but today I found a trail that took me out to the rest of the park. There were plenty more trails and open space by the time I had to turn around. It was also sunny right from the start instead of morning fog.
The IPSN tracks were pretty interesting, again with a few on event detection and machine learning. One group took a twist with a technique I used in my paper that I hadn’t thought of. I also went to the CPS conference sensor network track, but didn’t really see too much differences compared with the typical sensor network research.
Day 5: Thursday 4/15/2010
I ran again in the morning, out to all the new trails I found the day before. Unfortunately, the clouds returned. At the conference, my adviser’s adviser, Jack Stankovic, was the plenary speaker. During his talk, he used the example of a storm in Chicago as a reference to real time job scheduling. The next day, I was supposed to return home via Chicago – hearing about any airline problem in Chicago was the last thing I wanted to think about. This example eerily foreshadowed the problems to come for my return flights (through Chicago).
There were a few other sessions in the IPSN track that were interesting – at least one other event detection paper that was related to my work. Then, in the afternoon, it was time for my presentation. Since I was in the sensor networks track of RTAS, most people were in the concurrent IPSN track, so I didn’t get a huge audience.
Just before the presentation, I found out about the ash cloud coming from Iceland. One of the other people in the room mentioned about flying back through Chicago the next day, as were my adviser and I. He then mentioned something about maybe not getting back, and that’s when I found out about the ash cloud causing a huge mess in the UK and northern Europe. It was headed to Sweden next.
With this on my mind, it was my turn to present. I thought I did reasonably well and finished on time, except that I rearranged my slides just before the presentation and wound up having a backup slide placed ahead of my last slide, causing me to skip through it.
Following my presentation, my adviser and I locked ourselves in a discussion room in the university library and proceeded to call the airline reservation number to get a new booking. The earliest we could get was the following Tuesday, over four days away. Weather reports stated that the cloud might stay for days or weeks. I walked back to the hotel and extended the hotel reservation until Tuesday while in the lobby other conference attendees scrambled to adjust their plans.
At the very least, I’ll get to see more of Stockholm and Sweden, though the weather isn’t supposed to hold up. Fortunately for this week it has been fairly warm and sunny. We’ll have to take it day by day to see if the ash cloud will dissipate enough to allow us to go home. If Tuesday comes and goes and there’s no sign of the cloud letting up, it might be worth a try to head south via train or bus through Denmark to somewhere where I can fly out.
Quote of the week: “Imagine there’s a storm in Chicago…”
My trip to Stockholm for CPS Week has been great, until today, when everything went sideways. The sessions were interesting, I met new people from everywhere, and my presentation went well.
Then came the unwitting harbinger of doom in the form of an example by this morning’s plenary speaker, Jack Stankovic. In his presentation, he spoke about airline scheduling as an example for real time assurance. “Imagine there’s a storm in Chicago,” he said, continuing on that airlines will have to cancel flights and rebook passengers.
As soon as I heard that, I knew I was in for it. My adviser and I were supposed to head to Chicago tomorrow on our way home, but now there’s an ash cloud covering much of Europe. We are rebooked to return Tuesday, but the eruption could continue indefinitely. Everyone is scrambling to rebook their flights and extend hotel reservations, but if this continues, we may be better off swimming home.
In the meantime, I’ll at least get to see more of Stockholm and Sweden.
Equipment Failure
My aging desktop PC is starting to come apart: today is the first time I have ever heard the click of death. I had always imagined it would sound like the disengaging of the head whenever I shut down the computer. In the middle of reading a research paper, I was interrupted by a violent, pounding racket that came screaming from the case. It was so loud that for a few seconds, I was actually afraid my computer would explode or catch fire.
Fortunately, the drive was mostly unused and had nothing really useful in it, while most everything remained safe on the primary WD Raptor. The really important stuff is already backed up on my network drive or on my department disk space, so if anything else blows up I’ll still be okay. When I removed the offending drive and tried to boot, only the power supply and CPU fans started spinning, leaving me with only a blank screen. Somehow I managed to have unseated the video card from its connection to the motherboard and after I reseated it, everything returned to normal.
Quite a few people try to salvage failing computer components, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The main idea is to patch stuff up just enough to transfer off any important data. There’s the legend of sticking the drive in the freezer overnight to get it working again. Someone even got their video card working by baking it in the oven. The fear of losing data is so great to some that there even exists a sound library of hard drive failures.
I don’t think my computer has much life left in it. I don’t want to switch to my laptop for everything since it only has a VGA output and no digital connection, rendering my monitor useless. I suppose I could get a docking station, but I can’t believe that Lenovo still makes laptops without digital outputs for external monitors. Despite buying it last year, it even came with a pile of serial ports, a dial-up modem, and a PCMCIA slot that nobody would ever use. A new desktop would be good for games but that was the purpose of buying an Xbox, and besides, high end desktops are still pretty expensive. Of course something beefy would also be good for my schoolwork, since the last two projects had implementations that were extremely CPU intensive.
Regardless, I think I’m running on borrowed time.
Rome Trip: Lightning Strikes Twice
As I sit here back at home writing this, a lone book sits high on the bookshelf, looming over me: “What Are the Odds,” by Mike Orkin. An apt title for the past five days, which were probably the longest five days I’ve had in quite awhile. What are the odds that I would get screwed on the way over and on the way back from Rome? The odds were pretty good.
The mess with the delayed flight from Norfolk keeping me home for two days was frustrating, but at least I was at home and not stuck in Philadelphia. At least on the second attempt I made it without any problems. After three days of walking and my SECON presentation, I was tired and jet lagged and ready to go home. I knew that on my trip back that anything could happen. I’ve had enough experiences with cancellations, delays, and lost bags to know that with each flight I was rolling the dice. On this trip, my number came up twice.
I got up at 6:30 AM Rome time, or 12:30 AM in Virginia. The train station was right across the street from the hotel, but it took almost 15 minutes of walking to get to where the train was. There were 30 platforms, some of which were behind others, so it was quite the walk with my suitcase out to the train. Fortunately, my dad and I bought tickets before we left at a machine so I didn’t have to waste time figuring out how to get a ticket. One wheel of my suitcase started to come apart and made quite the racket as I dragged it around everywhere.
The train left on time and got to the airport on time. I entered the airport terminal the same way we left and assumed that the ticket counter would be just inside. A sign said there were concourses A, B, and C. My dad and I arrived at C, and it appeared as though I would leave the same way. A monitor said the flight was on time.
I tried to find the ticket counter. There was a whole sea of them just inside from where the train dumped me out. A directory listed all the airlines and where the ticket counters were. It said US Airways: counter 511. But, the ticket counters in the terminal only went from 200 to 400. Where was 511? Looking around in disbelief, a small, out of the way sign said US Airways ticket counters were in “Terminal 5″. Terminal 5? How did that line up with concourses A, B, or C? More importantly, how does one get there? Another small poorly placed sign announced that a bus outside would go to Terminal 5. I went outside and found the sign for the bus and waited. As I waited a crowd began to form by the sign. It got bigger and bigger and the bus wasn’t coming.
Finally, the bus came and we packed in. Half the line got left outside. The bus wound its way all over the airport for ten minutes before arriving at the secret Terminal 5. Since I had web check-in and printed my boarding pass at the conference, I didn’t need to stand in line. I got my passport checked off and was put back on another bus to the terminal I started at.
When I got to the gate there wasn’t much going on but soon all the seats were packed and a large Italian family sat next to me and had a loud and heated conversation. Some of them hovered over me as they conversed loudly. Either the concept of personal space is nonexistent to them or they were trying to get me to leave by being obnoxious. It was probably a bit of both: I got up and found another seat next to an American couple who complained about the only coffee in the place was a bar that served only espresso shots. They really wanted their brewed coffee. I didn’t blame them.
The flight back to Philadelphia left on time and arrived on time. I had a window seat, but there wasn’t much to look at but clouds and bits of the ocean beneath. We crossed over the Alps and parts of France, but the clouds covered most of that too. Most of the transatlantic trips I’ve taken had the ocean blanketed by clouds. I’m not sure why this is.
The flight was nine hours, the longest I’d ever taken, but my sister took one that was something like 16 or 18 when she went to China. Nine was uncomfortable enough. I watched a movie, read several hundred pages of a book, and went to sleep. Everything cramped up. Fortunately, the flight attendants came by frequently with drinks.
Since I was near the front of the coach section and had carried on all my bags, it was easy to get off the plane and get through passport control and customs. I was through all that within 10 minutes, and fortunately customs did not ransack my computer looking for contraband. I would have had quite the fit if they decided to do that. I’m hoping these warrantless searches go to court soon.
I arrived in terminal A-West in Philadelphia, and the Norfolk flight left from at the far end of terminal F. My dad says this is about a two mile walk. There is a shuttle bus, but since I had been on the plane for nine hours and hadn’t run or biked in four days, I wanted the exercise. I had to go back through security again at F, but it wasn’t too bad. I had plenty of time: I got through customs at 3:30 Eastern time and my plane to Norfolk didn’t leave until 5.
Then the problems started. At the gate for the Norfolk flight, it was announced that the plane would leave 30 minutes late. A whole pile of people at the gate had missed earlier Norfolk flights and would be standing by for this one. Fortunately, I had a seat assignment.
5:30 came and went and the plane never arrived at the gate and the agent disappeared. Some pilots in uniform came to the gate who were commuting home and whined about the lack of agents. With no plane and no agent, 6:00 came and went. Then, another passenger for my flight who walked down the hall to the departures monitor said the flight was cancelled. Panic ensued.
Getting hold of my parents, I was able to learn the reservations number from the Internet. Apparently the plane got stuck in New York due to weather and they just decided to drop the rest of its flights. I asked the agent about other flights. No flights had seats through Norfolk until 3 PM the next day. No flights had seats through Newport News until the next morning. Despite complaining about my outbound screwup, the reservation agent said I would not be compensated for a hotel room due to weather. The agent booked me on the early morning Newport News flight and I thought about going to one of those Special Services desks and complaining until they gave me a hotel for free.
I talked to my parents again and again, using the power of the Internet, learned that I could get to Richmond. Surprisingly, my mom said if I could get to Richmond, she would drive the two hours to get me. There was a plane that left at 6:25. If I hurried, I might make it. Unlike the Norfolk flight, this flight was a mainline flight and left from C concourse and I was in F. I raced to the shuttle bus and got on the bus which happened to be just about to leave.
As I was on the bus, my phone rang: my adviser. Thinking I was back home, he told me that the session chair said I had made it to the presentation and that it went well. This was the worst time to be discussing this: I told him I was about to be stuck in Philadelphia. He couldn’t believe it. We talked some more about what a mess the travel was and then hung up and got off the bus.
I raced through the terminal and crashed into the check in desk at the gate for the Richmond flight. The plane was there. Two agents were there, one of whom told me to slow down as I mashed into the desk and my bags fell on the floor. I told them my story about the canceled flight and my rebooking and asked if I could get on the plane to Richmond. After a minute of typing, I got a new boarding pass and got on the plane.
The plane closed its door early and we pushed back before 6:25. We got away from the terminal and stopped. Out the window, the taxiways looked like a parking lot of airplanes. They were everywhere. The pilot got on the PA and said weather was preventing takeoffs to the north, but we were going to leave to the south. The problem was that all the northbound planes were in the way and couldn’t move. He sounded less than optimistic about getting out of there anytime soon.
We waited and waited some more. A girl got up to use the bathroom. When she came out, the whole plane smelled of cigarette smoke. A flight attendant came by and asked if she had been smoking, of course she denied doing so. A guy behind me said he was on a flight where someone next to him smoked in his seat and when the plane landed, the smoker was arrested.
7:00 PM came and went and we sat there, looking at the gridlock. A few planes took off. My legs were hurting from all the sitting. I called home and my dad couldn’t believe I was still sitting on the taxiway. My mom had already left for Richmond.
As we sat there and whined about the delay, I learned the guys across from me were also refugees from the Norfolk flight. They had missed an earlier Norfolk flight and were going to stand by for mine until it was cancelled. Like me, they had called someone to come and pick them up in Richmond and drive them back to Virginia Beach.
7:45 passed by and we had moved across a runway but were still stuck with planes in front of us. The captain came on again and said the control tower had slowed down departures to one plane per 20 miles. I hadn’t seen anything take off in almost an hour. It was starting to rain. If a storm came over the airport, that would be the end. We would go back to the gate and hundreds of people would be spending the night in the airport, myself included.
Finally, by 8 PM, planes started taking off again at regular intervals, but the captain told us we were way back in line and it would still be another 25 minutes. Unbelievably, my mom had already arrived at the airport in Richmond and was waiting in the terminal. By 8:50 and after two hours of waiting, we were in the air. Fortunately, it was a short flight and we were in Richmond by 9:30. As we were deplaning, one of the other guys from the Norfolk flight said he was going to flip if his bags didn’t make the plane. Good luck.
My mom met me in the Richmond terminal and it was a quick drive back with no traffic jams. Finally, after midnight and nearly 24 hours of traveling, I was back home. I slept like a rock and it felt great to get out on the bike this morning.
Perhaps I should write letters to US Airways and the DOT. What this will accomplish, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get a small voucher to use for my next trip, which will stay well clear of Philadelphia. There had better be direct flights to Boston when I go to WASA. I took one when I went to IC4As in 2007, but it might be different now. It seems that the solutions to these travel nightmares may be mitigated by:
- Re-introducing more mainline flights. Apparently, regional jets are more prone to maintenance issues and do not handle weather as easily.
- Add more capacity. With every flight oversold, one cancellation creates a huge cascade of stuck travelers that cannot be rebooked onto the next flight. Adding more mainline flights will help this.
- Add more point to point flights or stagger departures and arrivals at hub airports. It seems that planes leave or arrive at a hub simultaneously, leading to huge traffic delays. Southwest has a good model to follow for this one.
- Reduce capacity through hub airports that are prone to weather delays. It seems that if someone so much as spits in Philadelphia, the whole place shuts down.
- Provide better customer service to help stranded travelers. I only found out the plane was canceled when another passenger told me. With no agent at the gate, the only option was to call the reservation office. Airlines should guarantee that a passenger will arrive at his or her destination within some fixed, reasonable time period or else provide a full refund.
Fortunately, I have time to recover from this before my next plane trip in August. If my next paper gets in to RTSS, I’ll only have to go to Washington. Maybe in the meantime, I’ll actually be able to get back to doing research since the last couple weeks have been spent mostly dealing with this trip.
Rome Trip: Retry
I’ve never boarded a plane, taxied away from the gate only to turn back before the runway, and then get off and go home. It’s incredible that due to some weather, I couldn’t get to my destination until two days after my scheduled flight. It’s even more incredible that I got screwed again on the way back.
Fortunately, I made it to Rome on the second try. My dad decided to come with me on standby but left a day earlier to ensure he would get back. There was no way I was ever going to check a bag, after going through that routine on my last trip to NCAAs in the fall of 2005. I dragged everything with me through the airports, planes, trains, and through the city to and from the hotel.
The flights over were fortunately uneventful, but both were full. I got stuck in the back by the galley on the Rome flight and it was a zoo the whole eight hours. The flight attendants were banging around and the flushing of the toilet sounded as if someone was opening a door to the air rushing by outside. A kid threw up in the aisle behind me, right next to one of the lavatories and another guy behind me broadcasted his side of a conversation to half the plane about touring Italy with a bunch of Latin language students. The guy across from me yakked it up with a flight attendant for quite awhile because he learned that the flight attendant was from Pittsburgh. With the uncomfortable seat thrown into the mix, I didn’t sleep well at all. My dad was lucky to get a seat up in the front, but didn’t seem to have a much better time.
The flight over was about on par with the Scotland trip: I did manage to sleep enough to be able to make it to the hotel before crashing. Also like the other European trips, the sun never did set completely. It was twilight for a few hours and then suddenly the sun popped up and blasted the left side of the plane.
When we arrived in the morning on Tuesday, there was a massive mob surging to get through the passport control. There was no organization at all and everyone pushed and shoved their way towards one of the agents. Giant, uncomfortable crowds seem to be characteristic of Rome.
Fortunately, the conference center and the hotel were within a few blocks from Termini Station, so my dad and I took an express train from the airport which dumped us out right where we needed to be. Google Maps said the hotel was right across the street from the train station, but the place was packed with people and buses and we wound up walking right past the hotel before turning around after several blocks. The hotel was hidden in a row of similar looking buildings without much of a sign. It was nice inside and it wasn’t long before we got a room and zonked out for a few hours.
Tuesday afternoon we left the hotel and walked the short distance to the conference center for SECON where I got my registration stuff and walked through the poster and demo session. There weren’t too many posters or demos, and many of the presenters were not there to show off their stuff. The poster and demo session at SenSys was much bigger. On the whole, the quality of work was much higher at SenSys, though there were a few things that stood out. A lot of presenters couldn’t come because of visa issues. I almost couldn’t make it either.
Following the poster session, my dad and I walked down Via Cavour to the Colosseum, past the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill as well as the Circus Maximus. It seems nobody cares about the Circus Maximus anymore — it’s a dirty, grassy field that people just walk around in. It’s the only thing I saw in my tour of the city that resembled a park. There were no other open spaces anywhere. All the tiny sidewalks were packed with tourists.
Because of the lack of open spaces, I didn’t run despite bringing my running shoes. We did a lot of walking, and there were a lot of steps due to the steep hills. It was the most walking I’ve done since the knee surgery and I’m not sure all of that was good for the knee. It’s popped a few times and felt a little weird since I’ve returned. The whole time, I only saw one guy running while going along a side street after we left the Circus Maximus. Sidewalks are only a few feet wide and packed with people everywhere, with intersections nearly every ten meters. Drivers are merciless and threaten to run anyone over. There was no way I was going to run in a place like that. I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. Somehow, there were people that would just walk out in front of the attacking cars and miraculously make it across without being touched but I wasn’t even going to think about risking that. There were only a handful of cyclists, but I did notice that cars gave them plenty of room despite the fracas. Unsurprisingly, plenty of cars had side and quarter panel dents as well as paint transfers.
We walked past the Trevi Fountain and climbed the Spanish Steps, all of which were packed with tourists. There were just too many people at the places we went to make it really enjoyable. The entire city seemed to be one giant tourist trap, with throngs of tourists packing the streets and all the major monuments and museums. Oddly, many of the places we went to did not take credit cards, and had signs announcing this. I remember it wasn’t but five years ago when it was like that at home and now I take it for granted. We went through quite a bit of cash.
My dad and I looked up a restaurant in the Rome guide we had and managed to find our way there for dinner. I had pasta with bolognese sauce, which tasted nothing like the dish of the same name at home. At home bolognese usually means ground beef, but this was more like sausage, bacon, or something cured. It was different and definitely better than what I would find at home. I also had this massive mug of Italian beer that made it a bit tough walking back.
The hotel included breakfast as part of the deal and it was far superior to anything I would find at a standard American hotel. The hotel staff were extremely nice and when I couldn’t get their Internet connection to work with my laptop, asked me several times if I wanted to try it again or get help. The wait staff at restaurants were always wearing uniforms, and as my dad said, waiting tables in Rome seems to be a serious profession. There weren’t any sloppy teenagers with surly attitudes. The hotels and restaurants were an example of service done right and were a stark contrast to the approach taken in the United States.
Following breakfast on Wednesday, I went over to the conference with my dad and we sat through a panel session on the direction of wireless sensor networks. Everyone desperately wants wireless sensor networks to be more integrated with the rest of the computing world. People want IP stacks on motes, Java on motes, and applications to extend the social networking craze. I’ve seen several panel discussions and talks on this, but not much has actually happened yet. The powers that be are asking for papers in this area, but not much has been produced. The argument is that sensor network research is maturing and now it is ready for prime time. Tighter integration with existing systems through decoupling and modularization will allow this to happen.
Following the panel session, it was time for my session on routing. I watched three other presentations before it was my turn. Though the session chair wanted me to use another computer, my presentation worked fine. I didn’t screw up and I thought I did much better than the practice runs. I got some good questions and talked to several people afterwards about my paper. A few people weren’t familiar with the zone-based forwarding approach, so I explained it afterwards.
In the afternoon on Wednesday, we took the Metro to the Vatican and stood in a massive line to walk through St. Peter’s Basillica. I found it interesting that people in line for over an hour were turned away because they were wearing shorts. We also went into the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. St. Peter’s was massive inside, and really made me feel tiny. Despite how big everything was, there were almost too many people to really appreciate it. We headed back towards the hotel, walking over the Tiber and past the Pantheon, another monument mobbed by tourists.
Every single monument or attraction in Rome is completely surrounded by buildings. You just walk through a narrow alley and out pops an obelisk. There are no skyscrapers; all the buildings seem to be made of adobe and aren’t more than a few stories high. Just about everything is covered in soot and dirt.
Wednesday night, we found a restaurant near the hotel and ate dinner, another pasta dish that was very good. There was also a coffeehouse that was recommended in the guide, so we stopped there too. Drip coffee doesn’t seem to exist in Italy or Europe, instead everyone drinks espresso or cappuccino. Apparently, cafe americano is seen as crap, and you will get laughed at if you order it. The coffee I had in Rome was good, but espresso is almost like drinking liquefied beans. I like coffee strong and black, but that was overload. I’m sure I could get used to it, but I’ve never understood the enjoyment of shots, be it coffee or alcohol.
Everyone we interacted with, from hotel and wait staff to people on the street seemed to know we were Americans. This, despite me wearing loafers, slacks, and button down shirts. It’s like we had targets painted on us. At a grocery store, the cashier addressed everyone in front of me in Italian. When it was my turn to pay, she spoke to me in English before I said a word. I also made a fool out of myself since I didn’t know I had to weigh the banana and print out a tag with its price on it. An irritated line of Italian teenagers formed behind me as the cashier went to the back and weighed the banana.
On Thursday two women tried to pickpocket me as I walked towards the conference center. One grabbed my arm while the other waved something in my face, so I shoved my hands in my pockets, walked faster, and broke free. It reminds me of something I read in one of Robert Ludlum’s books: when attacked without warning, “reach for your weapon, not the wound.” Don’t fall victim to the distractions and protect what’s important.
My dad left for the airport Thursday morning and I spent the rest of the day at the conference. The most interesting paper was on detecting complex events by converting a timeseries of sensor readings to a string and performing string matching with training data. One guy from UVA gave a presentation and we talked for awhile afterwards. By the end of the day, with several shots of espresso during the breaks, I was beat. I never really got over the jet lag and didn’t sleep very well. The jet lag did not set me up well for the return trip, which became almost as much a disaster on the way out, but I’ll leave that for the next post.
Fortunately the weather held up well: it was cool in the mornings and got hot in the late afternoons, cooling down again as the sun set. The climate was much like central California, or Sacramento.
Overall, it was an interesting trip, but I don’t think I would go to Rome again. It was like Colonial Williamsburg, but with many more tourists. I’m sure there are plenty of less touristy and other interesting places in Italy that would be worth visiting if I was there for more than three days.
Rome Trip: Short Circuited
Right now, I should be ten minutes into my flight from Philadelphia to Rome to present my paper at SECON. Instead, I’m sitting here writing this at home. When I travel, I’ve frequently been screwed by flight cancellations, lost bags, food poisoning, and various illnesses. This time was no exception.
The problems started last week when I noticed I had fraudulent charges on my credit card, which I needed for my trip. Fortunately, the credit union was able to cancel my card and overnight me a new one at no extra cost to me.
Yesterday I spent over two hours in traffic getting back home since I would be leaving from Norfolk.
This morning started out innocently enough, fighting with traffic while biking for two hours in Virginia Beach. The best way to deal with the jerks is to give them the biggest smile you can manage. A few rednecks in a black 4-door Toyota Tacoma yelled at me to “get the hell off the highway,” and then came to a stop at a light in front of me. I gave them the grin, and the guy in the passenger seat rolled down the window and stared me down. I swear he looked just like the old guy in the Holocaust museum shooting and I could tell he was just boiling with rage. Anyhow, I managed to make it back home alive and left for airport in the mid afternoon.
At the airport in Norfolk, the gate agents delayed the flight for an hour, leaving little time to make a connection. There was weather earlier in the day in Philadelphia causing a queue of planes scheduled to arrive there. Somehow, we got bumped up on the arrival queue into Philadelphia so they boarded us on the plane in Norfolk earlier than they originally said we would. We taxied away from the gate and then just stopped. The pilot announced that there was now a ground stop in Philadelphia and we would have to wait, probably from more weather. We waited and suffered in the heat for 45 minutes before the pilots decided to take us back to the gate. By this time, it was less than an hour before the Rome flight was scheduled to leave Philadelphia and there was no way to make it.
Going back to the gate was probably the best way to stop an even worse situation: getting stuck in Philadelphia with tons of other travelers thanks to the weather, since we would miss the Rome flight.
Calling reservations yielded that there was no way to get to Rome leaving tomorrow, even on other airlines. Leaving Monday even looks dubious, since most flights leaving then are overbooked. I can’t leave later than that since my presentation is on Wednesday morning, so there would be no point in going I told my adviser to try to get in touch with someone else attending the conference in case I can’t make it.
What a mess, but it could have been worse being stuck in Philadelphia.
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