National Air Traffic Controllers Association
National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Granted, it sounds like there might possibly be some stress from returning burdens of high air traveler traffic this year.
However, there does not have to be a problem resulting in overcrowding, delays, more lost luggage, incidents, etc.
While tourism is something you pretty much have to be someplace else to experience, a lot of travel in the US is business travel.
Business travel usually occurs on shorter notice - mere days or weeks advance notice - as opposed to the months of advance notice vacation travel for vacations or going to or from colleges benefits from.
Because of this - and possibly because businesses have more money to throw around, business travel is more expensive.
Business travel seems like it is often unnecessary. It is done often as a formality or as a grand showing in the face of less then grand endeavors. These are not sales call situations where you need to be there to press the flesh and sign the documents.
A lot of travel by technical and administrative people's could be eliminated by videoconferencing - which today has practically no costs associated with it.
Millions of US homes now enjoy broadband access to the Internet. I have to believe that most US businesses enjoy an Internet connection on their premises or have one nearby. I would expect most of them would have broadband connections available to them.
Broadband connections are excellent for live video conversations.
Apple's Macintosh's come with audio-video (AV) conferencing software called iChat. It has been shipping with the computers since October 2003.
For a couple of years, Apple has been selling an excellent videocamera for teleconferencing on the Macintosh which they call the iSight. It works great with iChat and it has a suggested retail price of only $149. It is different than the $29 cams you get for PCs.
They have plastic lenses, iSight's is glass. They have no physical security (and yes, on MS-Windows it is not unknown for a cam and mic to get hi-jacked) whereas the iSight has a closable shutter. They use a slow USB connection that limits the quality of the video transmitted; the iSight instead uses a high speed Firewire connection and gets correspondingly excellent video.
When you consider the price of a typical rush rush business trip will easily cost over a thousand dollars per person for round trip airfare, car rental, hotel accomodations, tolls, gasoline, staff time wages, meals, customer entertainment expenses, delayed handling of routine business work - paying $149 for a camera or even a half grand or a grand for a computer to boot, is not such a high price to pay. In fact, it is a savings.
Reduced business travel would give the US air and transportation industries time to catch up. Accomodation industries like hotels could increase utilization of their facilitites for daytime functions like training, corporate awards ceremonies for saving businesses money and increasing their technical capabilities, more entertainment functions like no fuss catered birthdays and anniversairy parties, and more meetings of local businessmen seeking to increase local commerce opportunities.
It is pretty clear from events in November and December as well as earlier this year, that computers could use some improvement and need some slack time so their kinks can be worked out by the transportation industry. The public sector would also benefit from a levelling off or decrease in the workload if they have a sudden shortage of trained workers to fill specialized slots that require years of training.
Smooth improvements over several years are always preferable to drastic changes that lead to stress and inconvenience. It makes the time waiting more pleasant, and the time at the end of the several years more enjoyable.
In the meantime, people only have to think with an open mind. There are better ways to do some things.
Granted, it sounds like there might possibly be some stress from returning burdens of high air traveler traffic this year.
However, there does not have to be a problem resulting in overcrowding, delays, more lost luggage, incidents, etc.
While tourism is something you pretty much have to be someplace else to experience, a lot of travel in the US is business travel.
Business travel usually occurs on shorter notice - mere days or weeks advance notice - as opposed to the months of advance notice vacation travel for vacations or going to or from colleges benefits from.
Because of this - and possibly because businesses have more money to throw around, business travel is more expensive.
Business travel seems like it is often unnecessary. It is done often as a formality or as a grand showing in the face of less then grand endeavors. These are not sales call situations where you need to be there to press the flesh and sign the documents.
A lot of travel by technical and administrative people's could be eliminated by videoconferencing - which today has practically no costs associated with it.
Millions of US homes now enjoy broadband access to the Internet. I have to believe that most US businesses enjoy an Internet connection on their premises or have one nearby. I would expect most of them would have broadband connections available to them.
Broadband connections are excellent for live video conversations.
Apple's Macintosh's come with audio-video (AV) conferencing software called iChat. It has been shipping with the computers since October 2003.
For a couple of years, Apple has been selling an excellent videocamera for teleconferencing on the Macintosh which they call the iSight. It works great with iChat and it has a suggested retail price of only $149. It is different than the $29 cams you get for PCs.
They have plastic lenses, iSight's is glass. They have no physical security (and yes, on MS-Windows it is not unknown for a cam and mic to get hi-jacked) whereas the iSight has a closable shutter. They use a slow USB connection that limits the quality of the video transmitted; the iSight instead uses a high speed Firewire connection and gets correspondingly excellent video.
When you consider the price of a typical rush rush business trip will easily cost over a thousand dollars per person for round trip airfare, car rental, hotel accomodations, tolls, gasoline, staff time wages, meals, customer entertainment expenses, delayed handling of routine business work - paying $149 for a camera or even a half grand or a grand for a computer to boot, is not such a high price to pay. In fact, it is a savings.
Reduced business travel would give the US air and transportation industries time to catch up. Accomodation industries like hotels could increase utilization of their facilitites for daytime functions like training, corporate awards ceremonies for saving businesses money and increasing their technical capabilities, more entertainment functions like no fuss catered birthdays and anniversairy parties, and more meetings of local businessmen seeking to increase local commerce opportunities.
It is pretty clear from events in November and December as well as earlier this year, that computers could use some improvement and need some slack time so their kinks can be worked out by the transportation industry. The public sector would also benefit from a levelling off or decrease in the workload if they have a sudden shortage of trained workers to fill specialized slots that require years of training.
Smooth improvements over several years are always preferable to drastic changes that lead to stress and inconvenience. It makes the time waiting more pleasant, and the time at the end of the several years more enjoyable.
In the meantime, people only have to think with an open mind. There are better ways to do some things.
posted by John Collins | 4:47 PM
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