Yesterday American's scheduling and ticketing systems went offline around 11:00 CDT. By noon CDT, the Dallas Morning News had this:
“American’s reservation and booking tool, Sabre, is offline,” American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said at midday. “We’re working to resolve the issue as quickly as we can. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience.” (American subsequently absolved Sabre of any blame. ”We apologize to Sabre & customers for confusion.”)
She confirmed that the problem is causing some delays of American flights.
Shortly after, American grounded all of its flights for about three hours before getting its networks talking to each other around 3pm CDT.
I found out about this crash while stepping off the BART at SFO. My dad texted, "Are you affected by the AA ground halt?" Talk about a WTF? moment.
I was affected, but I'm happy to report that (a) I got to SFO shortly before American resolved the problem, and (b) American's gate agents had their crap together and got everyone out as quickly as possible. I was only 30 minutes late arriving at O'Hare.
American hasn't explained what happened yet; the Dallas Morning News has a theory...
I had a few hours of free time yesterday, so I went up to the Gloria Ferrer winery in Sonoma. I don't know how people can live like this:
For months, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, and 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney have wrestled over the scope and manner of making necessary renovations to 99-year-old Wrigley Field. They appear to have reached a deal:
The city and Mr. Tunney have agreed to allow the Cubs to erect a video screen in left field, as well as a right field advertising sign "in the style" of the existing Toyota sign that currently sits in left field. The Cubs will work with the city on placement of both signs "to minimize impact on nearby rooftops to the extent consistent with the needs of the team," according to a statement from the Cubs.
The Cubs will be allowed to hold 40 night games per season — up from the current maximum of 30, capped by a 2004 neighborhood protection plan — under a new special City Council ordinance that will allow for additional night games when required by Major League Baseball's national TV contract. The 40 night games do not include playoffs or other games that are not counted under the current ordinance. The Cubs will also be allowed to start six games at 3:05 p.m. on Fridays (unlike the usual 1:20 p.m. starts).
They'll also extend beer sales, build a hotel across Clark St., and put up more advertising.
Now if only they'd renovate the pitching staff, and possibly the hitting.
I think I had a better time than the people freezing to death at Wrigley:
In my profession, I get to sit at Peet's Coffee at 6:30am and watch action-packed videos like this:
I know what you're thinking: "slow down, tigerblood. Slow down."
I'm also pushing a new build of customer software up to production, and waiting for my coffee to kick in.
At least I'm not blowing three runs in the 10th with a damned balk, like other people I could name.
...or, how I took advantage of the Middle Class Housing Subsidy but skipped an important step.
In December 2011, I reduced my home mortgage interest rate from 6.25% to 3.125%, which thanks to the commutative property of multiplication, reduced my home mortgage interest by 50% year-over-year. What I forgot to do, however, was reduce my tax withholding allowances for 2012, which increased the taxes I owe for 2012 by an amount equal to 1/3 of the amount I saved on mortgage interest.
Well, I just filed my 2012 taxes online, and later today I will write a check to the U.S. Treasury for a lot more money than I expected. (I fixed my allowances in January, when I discovered this horrible oversight.)
Go ahead and call me stupid. You're allowed.
One consequence of leaving my computer off for a day and a half: 320 emails. Granted, many of these are status messages and blog postings in my RSS feeds. But still—yikes.
I used not having my charger with me as an excuse to leave my laptop off for 36 hours. That didn't prevent me getting email, of course. (Who can live without email?)
Because of some family scheduling, while I'm in the Bay Area this weekend the Giants are at Wrigley, meaning I'm missing games there and at AT&T Park.
I listened to the game yesterday driving down from the city to the peninsula, catching the Cubs 2-run homer in the 7th, followed by the nausea-inducing announcement that they brought Carlos Marmol in as a reliever. Yep: Cubs lost, 3-2.
Tomorrow I have an 8am conference call, and Tuesday I have a 7am call, but until then...I'm on vacation. I might even watch today's game on TV.
Only after passing through the TSA checkpoint at O'Hare just now did I realize I've forgotten to bring a laptop charger. Fortunately my folks have a Dell at home. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to do any work for four whole days. How awful would that be?
Of course, there's always my tablet, my phone, their computers and iPad...
How much again is a ticket to Sint Maarten?
Via Sullivan, a new Google Chrome plugin that allows you to embed secret messages in photos you post on Facebook:
That’s the idea behind Secretbook, a browser extension released this week by 21-year-old Oxford University computer science student and former Google intern Owen-Campbell Moore. With the extension, anyone — you, your sister, a terrorist — could share messages hidden in JPEG images uploaded to Facebook without the prying eyes of the company, the government or anyone else noticing or figuring out what the messages say. The only way to unlock them is through a password you create.
The extension is only available for the Google Chrome browser — Campbell-Moore cites its developer tools and popularity — and the messages are restricted to 140 characters. Less certain is what Facebook thinks; a spokesman declined to comment. But it’s still the first time anyone’s managed to figure out how to automate digital steganography — the practice of concealing messages inside computer files — through Facebook, the world’s biggest social media platform. Unlike cryptography, which uses ciphertext to encrypt messages, steganographic messages are simply hidden where no one would think to look.
Calling Bruce Schneier...