The Garden Street Garage, a robotic parking garage in Hoboken NJ, had a bit of a snafu last week:  The city fired the parking garage employees, who took with them the intellectual property rights and manuals that went along with the software that controlled the robotics.  For several days, hundreds of cars were trapped in the belly of the robotic beast because the system was incapable of functioning without a working software license.  Nice job, Hoboken.  (via Boing Boing) #entertainment

Today's Dilbert talked about something I was planning on writing about: 
Sticky price tags are the stupidest thing human beings have ever created.  Just the other day, I was attempting to take the sticky price tag off a gift from my sister from Latvia (yes, the country).  It utterly failed.  And not because I'm stupid.  Granted, I'm not the smartest kid on the block (I always spell "genius" wrong), but I think I'm smart enough to remove a sticker from a solid object.  Instead, the sticker came apart into a million pieces and left a permanent sticky residue.  If Wendy was there, she would have said to use rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover, both of which I've already proven do NOT work on sticky things (sorry, Wendy ... good idea though). 

Just like the comic points out, sticky-price-tag-sticker-makers don't quite get it.  Their purpose is to come up with a great product that works flawlessly.  The thing they forget is that price tag stickers aren't supposed to be permanent.  They always need to be taken off.  And while I could use harsh chemicals and sharp objects to remove these things, I shouldn't need to.  Buncha idiots. #entertainment

Traveling is almost never a routine event.  Air travel is certainly no exception.  And I've noticed something that happens quite a bit on planes:  Air rage.  For a variety of reasons, people get really mad at things that are completely out of anyone's control.  For example, the word "delay" is about as common as the word "the".  So when there's a delay, it should be a routine thing.  But it's not.  The pilot comes on the overly-loud intercom:  "Hello, this is your captain speaking.  We're experiencing a bit of a delay as a result of a low pressure front coming out of the northeast.  Air traffic control has halted all takeoffs for the remainder of the hour, so we'll be sitting on the runaway in our taxiing position.  Just sit back and enjoy some in-flight entertainment."  Immediately, people groan and look outside.  At least 95% of the people take out their cell phone and call someone.  Some smart guy [angrily] says to one of the flight attendants, "It looks fine out there!  How long is it gonna be?"  (Isn't it funny how the anger is directed at the person who is completely incapable of doing anything to fix any type of problem?)  The flight attendant calmly gives some sort of canned reply:  "I'm sorry sir, but I don't have any more information at this time.  If you'd like, feel free to move about the cabin and use the rest rooms at this time."  (In a very rare moment, I develop a higher amount of respect for these loud-talking, elbow-crushing, sleep-ruining waiters and waitresses and their ability to handle and defuse a tense situation.)  No less than 20 more people ask this same exact question, each one more angry than the one before. 

Air rage is a bit different from road rage (or traffic rage) in that people are completely helpless to do anything but sit around and wait for something to happen.  At least road rage is proactive:  Angry drivers weave in and out of traffic trying to figure out what the problem is or to find the quickest way out of traffic.  Or they turn on the radio to see what the problem is.  Air rage is based on second hand information.  The passenger is angry at the flight attendant because the pilot said that the air traffic control person said that the weather person said that there will eventually be a storm passing through. #travel

Pictured below (pile of yellow stuff, second from left) is an anatomically correct replica of a pound of human fat.  You can use it to teach your biology class about human anatomy, or you can take kk.org's advice and "keep it on your dinner table and watch everybody lose their appetite".  Also pictured are a liver (I think), a kidney (I think), and a five-pound wad of fat.  (via Cool Tools)
#products

The Hic Cup is a stainless steel cup with a brass rod attached to it that "instantly and reliably relieves your problem hiccups".  When drinking from the cup, the metal bar rests on the outside of your cheek, forming an electrical circuit that sends a jolt (less than static electricity) into your body and interrupts the hiccup reflex.  A cure for hiccups for $25?  Not really worth it unless you have a major problem.  (via Neatorama) #products

Airline travel is like a game.  A pitiful, humiliating, hurtful game.  Not only are certain people shown preference over others, everyone must experience a number of uncomfortable annoyances:  Security checks, pilot lingo, and the baggage claim (unless you're smart enough to not check your bags). 

The baggage claim has to be the least efficient, most uncomfortable way of distributing anything to a group of people.  Bags magically come out of a hole in the wall or the floor and travel around a conveyor.  Logic states that people want to get their bags as soon as possible, so they predictably stand around the "magic hole".  Everybody has the exact same bag, and everybody thinks their bag will come out first.  People treat the bag pickup with such ridiculous urgency that it shows their unfounded fear that their bags might go back into the magic hole and never come out again.  All in all, it's a horrendous event, and it's just so fitting after a 5-hour plane ride sitting between a fat person and a baby. 

So to make things interesting, I have a few recommendations: 

1.  Make it a contest.  Whoever gets their bag first wins a prize. 
2.  Double or triple the speed of the baggage carousel.  Trying to grab your bag that's traveling at 30 mph would just be awesome. 
3.  Double or triple the number of magic holes.  The question of the day:  Which hole will it come out of?  That would definitely help make number (1) more interesting. 
4.  Turn the lights off.  Nothing says "challenge" like running around in a dark room full of angry people on movable floors. 
5.  Set up obstacles.  I would pay money to watch a grandma trying to get to her overweight bag on the conveyor belt while trying to jump over cones, duck under fences, and dodge projectiles. 

#travel