qupada

Next time they (unnecessarily) reboot The Italian Job I can see this fitting right in.

Assuming the 5% estimate is correct, the back-of-an-envelope math is pretty easy.

Their annual report says 200M passengers in 2024-2025 financial year.

If they wanted to pay off the hardware in 5 years they’d spend a total of €750M on it and additional fuel, potentially being paid by 50M (5% of 1B) passengers, necessitating a minimum €15 charge to break even.

That is before you consider paying interest on a loan for purchasing the hardware, signage (their website says they have 643 planes with a total of 122,941 seats, just printing an information card for each seat back could be a substantial cost), staff training, the cost of the time each plane is out of service for the installation, etc, etc.

Could you try a lower price and hope that more people pay? Sure, but that feels pretty risky, and I’m sure they thought about that too.

Much as I enjoy having WiFi on flights and all, agree with the other posters here that it just ain’t adding up.

Forget no more!

https://youtu.be/evV05QeSjAw

Sadly the reports of angry Italians are somewhat embellished. Curd nerds is real however.

https://youtube.com/@gavinwebber

Coprolites might not be my favourite fossil, but they’re a solid number two.

You’ll probably find too that most microwaves have a rated power only around 1200W, and I’m betting not all of that is making it into the food either.

With British kettles allowing up to 3000W (230V 13A), I expect we’re talking more like a third of the time than a half.

But also at regular checkouts.

You’ve just stood there motionless for the last 4 minutes, while someone else (potentially two people) scanned and bagged your purchases for you.

How is it that JUST NOW is the time you’ve decided is right to rummage through your bag for your wallet/purse, or check your banking app on your phone to see if the account actually has money in it? What were you doing for the rest of the time that was so vitally important?

I swear you can just about hear the birds flying around in their head sometimes.

I worked on Avatar 2 & 3. Babysat moviemaking in an otherwise-empty building during covid lockdowns. Long days and working weekends. Friendships strained, the odd one ruined.

I’ve held the Oscar which Avatar 2 won, and my name is in the credits of both.

What I have not done is watch either film in its entirety. Bits and pieces during the creation process sure, but neither from start to finish.

After close to 9 years of every work day somehow tracing back to one or the other film, the overwhelming feeling at the completion of Avatar 3 was relief, above all else.

And to be clear it’s not that I remotely think they’re bad films, quite the contrary. Technology was created which will define an era of visual effects, and irrespective of what anyone says about nuance of the story, they are undeniably experiences (a point on which perhaps I agree with the writer of that article, around in-theatre viewing).

Over-exposure to anything will really change your worldview.

Interestingly, I was just reading an article about that on the bus ride to work this morning:

https://slate.com/culture/2026/01/avatar-3-fire-and-ash-movie-box-office.html

“Anyone who says they hate farts is choosing to have less joy in their life, but the same amount of farts”

Mine won’t sit like this, but will stand up with his paws on my knees and try to headbutt me in the nose.

So that’s fun, I guess.

Also Lenovo, who were the first ones to give than nonsense a whirl (X1 Carbon Gen 2, 2014).

Lenovo’s was present for just that single generation. Apple kept it for 6 generations over 7 years. Dell 4 generations, 3 years.

Can’t say I’ll miss any of them.

Really the most you can hope for these days is to encounter two broken TVs of the same model, with different faults.

Luck holding, this lets you wind up with a single working unit.

Any introduced species becomes classified as a pest here in NZ if it either directly harms, or competes with for food any native animal.

On the subject of magpies specifically, some regional councils take a more aggressive stance than others.

The shit-list contains a few that are frequently a surprise to non-NZers, like hedgehogs.

A British quart is larger than a litre (≈1.14l), US quart is smaller (≈0.95l).

From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

The fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt.

Published in 1979, so nearly a half century old idea 😉

I was given an S50 for Christmas.

Where we were staying was fortunately right on the edge of suburbia and it was a clear night, plopped it down on the deck and apparently we’re twins? Because the first picture I took was also Orion.

(this was only a couple of minutes, so doesn’t look amazing)

Also far too many clock stoppages.

Rugby: an 80-minute game that completes in around 100 minutes, inclusive of the 15 minute break between halves.

Gridiron: a 60-minute game that inexplicably takes 3.5 hours.

Very little fucking about in rugby, they just get on with it.

U3219Q reporting in. The new U4025QW is looking pretty tasty though, 5120x2160, 120Hz, Thunderbolt hub, more ports than you can shake a stick at.

All of the U and S series Dells I’ve used have been great, and they’re by and large remarkably reasonably priced too.

Double-bagged, with any luck.