pkrecker

One time in 2013 I was flying from San Francisco to Phoenix with a layover in LA. I purchased my ticket directly from United, the flights had a UAXXXX flight number, and the printed tickets I got when I checked in had United branding on them.

I got to LAX and I proceeded to try to find my UA flight, but the flight number was nowhere to be found. I waited a bit and when it still didn’t show up on the monitor, I asked a gate agent. The agent looked at my ticket and told me to keep waiting.

Eventually I started to get worried as my departure time was approaching. I asked another gate agent, and this time I was informed my flight was not a United flight at all! It was a US Airways flight. Also, it was in a completely different terminal. Also, at LAX to move between terminals you have to exit security and hike across parking structures and parking lots. There was no way I would make my flight.

I looked at my ticket and sure enough, in small print it said “operated by US airways.” I hadn’t even noticed this, but even if I had, how was I supposed to know that this meant it was literally not a United flight at all?

Thankfully a friendly customer service agent took mercy on me and got me booked on an American flight later that day.

I later learned from a flight attendant friend that this was called a “code share” and it was subsequently changed to make it more user friendly.

There are a million things like this I don’t even think about anymore because I travel so much. But when I think back to those days of early adulthood I remember how stressful and confusing airports could be.

This article repeats the idea that the tenure of SWEs at large tech companies is only 1-2 years, but I don't think this is true, and certainly not at the lower bound of one year. I am not sure about other companies but at Google, where I work, the average tenure of a SWE is over 5 years.

At least for the US (and I suspect for most other countries), that is incorrect. When adjusted for inflation both median wealth and median wages have increased in the last 30 years.

I'm willing to pay more for a better ride experience:

* Waymos are all the same. I underrated the value of this until I started taking Waymo more often.

* I can control the music and volume with my phone.

* I can listen to YouTube or take a call without AirPods. Sometimes I even hotspot and do some work.

But most importantly Waymos all _drive_ the same way. I have had some really perplexing Uber drivers, either driving in a confused and circuitous way, distracted by YouTube, or just driving dangerously. I am more confident that I will have a safe ride in a Waymo than in an Uber.

"... for six to 18 months"

I studied CS at ASU from 2005-2010, and my mom was a dean there, so I got view into the university as both a student and second hand through her experience as an administrator.

One thing I liked about going there is that it was easy for me to get exposure as a programmer by working for researchers at its public/private research ventures. The professors weren’t world famous but they were solid and always seemed to have some paid extracurricular coding for me to do for one of their research projects.

On the administration side, I agree with this article that Crow’s vision has been basically validated. Despite its increasing size, ASU’s academic stature via research output and reputation among academics has continued to improve in the last 15 years. For example, ASU was just added to the prestigious Association of American Universities.

Watching ASU transform over the years as Crow realized his vision has been very cool.