TechWire

Q: Do these airplane sockets work? A: I'm not an engineer, okay?

The following is a verbatim conversation that occurred on flight EI 146 from San Francisco to Dublin at 4.55pm (PST), just as we were passing over Salt Lake City. Backdrop: I had discovered, to my delight, that the plane had power sockets on each seat. But when I plugged my laptop in, there was no current. Puzzled, I stopped a stewardess...

Me: "Hi. Can I ask: do these power points work?"
Stewardess: "With a laptop? Oh, no. You're not supposed to recharge laptops on them. I know that. No, they're not meant to recharge a laptop."
Me: "Do they work with anything?"
Her: "Well, I know that they're not supposed to be used for recharging a laptop. So..."
[At this point she wagged her finger at me. Playfully, but very much in the manner of: you shouldn't be doing that, now.]
Me: "But what are they used for, then?"
Her: "I don't know. I'm not an engineer. Okay? Is that okay?
Me: "Thank you."
Her: "You're welcome."

What a silly man I am. Sure why would a power socket on an overnight, 11-hour flight be meant to accommodate the use of a laptop?
God, I'm such a fool sometimes.

Update (5.27pm, PST). I have just asked a second crew member, a male steward, the same question. Here is the verbatim exchange.

Me: Excuse me, but do the power sockets on each seat work?"
Him: "Not all of them."
Me: "Oh. How do you mean?"
Him: "Some of them work. The ones with the red lights."
Me: "The red lights?"
Him: "Yes... [he looked into the distance at far off seats] Let me see if I can find any."

I am cursing myself. Why didn't I book one of the seats with the red lights? I have only myself to blame...

Update 2 (5.39pm PST). Okay, so maybe I'm not going to get a powered laptop. Hey, look on the bright side, though -- we've got personal screens on each seat! There's a choice of Marley & Me, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Slumdog Millionaire. Looking forward to this.

Update 3 (5.40pm PST). An announcement over the intercom says that there are "a few difficulties being experienced" on the entertainment system. It's not bloody working. But it's okay: the team are going to reboot the system. Any minute now, we'll be in movie heaven...

Update 4 (5.46pm PST). The reboot was not successful, according to the Aer Lingus man behind the intercom. Another reboot is to be attempted. Beside me, a woman with a restless five-year old looks like she's going to blow a fuse. But Aer Lingus folks know what they're doing. So it's all gonna be okay.

Update 5 (5.55pm PST). Okay, that reboot hasn't worked, according to the intercom.  The woman with the five-year old beside me is getting red-faced. I've just offered her and her sullen daughter the use of my Nintendo DS, which has a tennis game, a brain training game and Sim City with it. She thanked me but declined and is now waving franticlly for a stewardess. I have still not found a red light to power my laptop.

Update 6 (6.15pm PST). The intercom: "ladies and gentlemen, as you will have noticed, we are continuing to experience difficulties with our inflight entertainment system. We apologise and are continuing to try to rectify it."

Update 7 (6.25pm PST). Woo-hoo! The entertainment system is working. I switch on a movie. I look around to the lady and the five-year old, but they’ve left for another seat.

Update 8 (6.40pm PST). Mr Red Light steward has come back with an update on the power sockets.
“None of them are working, not even in Premier Class. We’ve had big problems with the whole [Avod] system over the past few days.”
Me: “But do the power sockets usually work when the entertainment system works?”
Him: “Well… there’s nothing wrong with the plane. They should work, but they could have been switched off deliberately.”

Switched off deliberately, eh? I suppose it’s for our own good. We have enough computers in our life, don’t we? Best cut us off for a while.

Update 9 (6.51pm PST). Aw, heck. The entertainment system has crashed. All screens have gone blank. Now there’s some gobbledygook computer code running down our screen. A collective groan has just gone up around the cabin.

Update 10 (8.34am GMT). Well, those red-light power sockets never did materialise. However, the entertainment system stayed working for the rest of the flight, even if that period coincided the time when most of us felt we should get some sleep. The first stewardess, the one who affirmed she wasn’t an engineer, did come back to me with a clarification of sorts, saying that the sockets are, indeed, meant for use with laptops. But it proved to be a moot point.

Lessons learned from having my laptop bag stolen

Three weeks ago, I had my laptop bag stolen in Dublin airport. I was having a coffee in the bar at duty free. I went up to buy the drink. My bag was with my friend, who was seated, reading a paper. When I came back, two minutes later, the bag was gone.

It wasn't a complete disaster: there wasn't actually a laptop in it. I was traveling to Liverpool for the night and had only packed some clean underwear. But the slimmest bag I had was a laptop bag, which was obviously what was targeted.

Boy, I would have given anything to see that motherf***er's face when he opened the bag. One pair of novelty boxer shorts and a pair of black socks.

Nevertheless, I'm ultra-careful now. As I write this, I'm sitting in Salt Lake City airport, sipping a tea. My travel bag, which has two laptops in it (because Aer Lingus can't be trusted to provide a modern plane with a power point on it for my leg back to Dublin form San Francisco), is sitting beside me.

There is no fucking way that anyone is getting this bag. (And if they do, I'll have a bit of explaining to do to Toshiba, as one of the laptops is a review unit, the NB100 (see my review here),)

Free wi-fi in the US is a 'can-do' attitude and we suck at it

We are simply not at the races compared to the US when it comes to simple, everyday integration of technology.

I am currently on the road in Utah. At every two-bit motel and gas station, there is free wi-fi. It is regarded as a feature to please patrons and to entice custom.

Old men and ladies working in these one-horse towns are completely au fait with the technology available. They show no signs of technophobia or pride in "the old ways". Heartland Americans, it seems, are far more modern than we are. Even Mormons (Utah is the centre of Mormonism). Even Bush-voters.

Many of those who are likely to read this probably know this already. The Irish technology community (and especially those on Twitter) ape American ways and means whenever they can, whether it's the language ('dumb', 'do the math', 'sucks' and a myriad of other copycat terms) or work practices ('intern' etc). Distilled, this is a huge compliment. It is Irish people trying to latch on to a philosophy of doing things that is very different from the traditional Irish approach.

It is a 'can do' attitude, which is a basic part of the American psyche. Americans are always, always looking for ways to do things, to fix things. We, on the other hand, tend to wallow in why things aren't possible.

If you are a wallower and you're looking for an alternative modus operandi, come to Utah. Or any US state.