

How Mr. Q Manufactured Emotion - bradgessler
http://30dayflight.com/day10.html

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cliff
This is awesome.

The transition part especially reminded me of iMUSE
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMUSE>) which creates seamless transitions
between music tracks in LucasArts games as you move between areas.

This significantly enhances the immersion of the games, and 99% of the players
probably never even noticed. And that's the point. They're not supposed to
notice. They're supposed to be immersed.

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johnnybgoode
I don't know what happened with this project since that letter to JetBlue's
CEO, but Mr. Q has completely and single-handedly saved what always sounded
like a questionable idea.

~~~
dcurtis
There are at least five other people as interesting as Mr Q who have made this
project completely worth it for me

~~~
johnnybgoode
That's good news. I hope you're right, because that would be great for all of
us.

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karzeem
In my experience, old people are frequently the best people to end up next to
on a plane. Given 80 years, everyone will have some absolutely fascinating
experiences.

~~~
patio11
One upon a time, I was at a dinner my university threw to bring together
scholarship sponsors and scholarship students. I was sitting at the table with
Mr. M, of the Mr. and Mrs. M that were paying for much of my education. Mr. M
was quite successful in the construction business and was bankrolling over a
dozen engineering students that year. He was in his nineties at the time.
[Edited to add: I just checked and it appears he passed away this year. I'm
going to send his family a card after I get home from work.]

Anyhow, at one point, my college nemesis (also, through accident of fate, at
my university through Mr. M's generosity) was doing his usual intellectual
preening and mentioned some numbers he had been working on for his civil
engineering project. As I recall, it was how much reinforced concrete he would
be needing for some project or other, but don't take my word for that: if
physically exists it is Not My Department.

Mr. M mentioned, in a humble and offhanded way, that perhaps Nemesis should
consider adding 20% more reinforced concrete so that the structure at issue
wouldn't fail.

Nemesis: "Well, I don't know where you're getting your numbers, _old man_ ,
but in this day and age X is considered enough."

Mr. M: "Well, I suppose it is entirely possible they have improved on the
formula since then."

Nemesis: "You mean since you used it last?"

Mr. M: "I mean, since I invented it."

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SwellJoe
Is this the first interesting person they've met? Nothing beyond schedule
exists on the other 9 days. Seems like a bad run of luck.

~~~
dcurtis
No, I've met tons of interesting people. It just takes a while to write.

~~~
pyre
How come when I click on another day (say Day 8 for example), I am no longer
able to navigate back to Day 10?

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dcurtis
Because the free wifi at Oakland is very crappy and I cant deploy the rest of
the site's changes.

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_pius
If you guys keep this up you'll have a nice coffee table book by the end. I
just hope you're taking some high quality stills. Nice work!

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unwind
Heh ... For some reason I mis-remembered, and expected an article about the
profound impact of the classic arcade game
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*bert> ... Not at all what I got, but a good
read nevertheless.

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gsiener
No offense, but I had trouble reading this because I got so distracted by the
inane amount of waste on day 9 (JFK->SYR->JFK). I wish the US wasn't so
obsessed with the all you can eat buffet of life...

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adamhowell
Yes, because had he not been on the plane it wouldn't have flown.

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mcantelon
Added weight doesn't require the consumption of fuel? Using the pointless
consumption of resources to garner attention doesn't set a bad example?

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adamhowell
You know, that's a really good point.

In fact, if he's really skinny he might actually be doing the world a favor.
With 2/3 of the US overweight the chances are pretty good that the airline
would have sold the ticket to someone fatter...

There are so many other things to get your underthings wadded about, I just
don't understand the negativity about how this kid's chosen to spend his
month.

~~~
mcantelon
>I just don't understand the negativity about how this kid's chosen to spend
his month.

I don't understand why, in a time when we should be dealing with the problem
of climate change, a project that celebrates the pointless use of resources
and emission of CO2 is seen as acceptable. Pretending irresponsibility has no
consequences isn't positive.

~~~
karl11
I doubt that when he conceived of this month long project, he had a
"celebration of wasting resources" in mind. It was probably more like, "I'm
going to meet some cool people and fly to 50 cities".

