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You guys may have noticed a nifty little feature that I’ve added to each individual post. That little box under the “submit comments” button labeled:

  • Notify me of followup comments to this post via e-mail

When you check that box you’ll get email notification of any new comments made on a particular post, making it easier to find out if anyone replies to your comments and hopefully foster more discussion.

Enjoy!

Google Hacking Your Next Trip

Before your next trip a few clever Google tricks can provide valuable information and make things easier for you in that Internet cafe in the middle of Paris or Seattle.

  • Currency Conversion
    • Google provides a nifty little conversion tool that you can use to find out how much your Euros are worth. From the Google.com use this format: 3.5 USD in GDP and voila! You can find out more details by reading this.
  • Image Search
    • A very simple image search can tell you a lot about the place you are going. Click here and then type the name of the place you are going and notice what people are wearing. This is especially useful for international or adventure travel. If you don’t see anyone wearing jeans, you shouldn’t either.
  • Calculator
    • The Google search box can be used as a calculator. Some examples are:
      • 2+3
      • (5/3)*2
      • You get the gist…
  • Web Page Translation
    • There are several detailed travel blogs written by people providing information about the place that you want to go to. Unfortunately some of them may be in a language that you don’t know. You’ll see a link that reads Translate This Page next to your search result.
    • Currently Google supports the following languages:
      • English to and from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese; and German to and from French.
  • Airport Conditions
    • You can learn of airport conditions by typing in the airport code followed by the word “airport“.
  • Flight Status (US Only)
    • Just type the airline and flight number in the good ol’ Google search box.
      • For example, “united 129”.
  • Weather Conditions
    • Type the word “weather” before the city name to get your forecast.
      • Example (weather san fransisco, CA).
  • Street Maps (US Only)
    • Enter the address and get a map search result. Google recognizes addresses entered in the search box as map requests.
  • Phone Book (US Only)
    • In case you forget your buddies phone or address information.
      • first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
      • first name (or first initial), last name, state
      • first name (or first initial), last name, area code
      • first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
      • phone number, including area code
      • last name, city, state
      • last name, zip code

Also we’ve posted these tips for a long trip and these, getting organized before a few weeks away, and some travel items to carry for you students (of all ages) out there.

Airport Security Trays to Carry Advertisement

Only in America, where anything can be used to sell something. The article mentions laptops…I wonder if they’ll be marketing water bottles, toothpaste, or snow globes – all of which are not allowed in carry-on luggage.

Travelers nationwide could soon see ads for laptops, expensive cars and other products in the trays that carry their shoes and cell phones through X-ray machines at airport security checkpoints.

After a six-month test in Los Angeles, the federal Transportation Security Administration was expected to formally issue guidelines Thursday to vendors that want to offer the ads at other airports.

Under the plan, ad companies would pay fees to airports and provide the TSA with millions of dollars worth of trays, tables and other non-electronic items used at the security points.

In return, advertisers get to hawk watches, laptops and cell phones in a place where travelers regularly stash such items of their own.

Going to San Francisco-Fresno Area: Suggestions?

I’ll be leaving soon for a few days. It will be mostly business but I’m sure that I’ll find a way to travel and see some sights. I’d like to ask those of you out there who might know, what’s cool out there to do? I’ve done my researching ahead of time and have a few good ideas – but in my first time to the state run by Arnold Schwarzenegger you might have some off-the-beat suggestions that one can’t find just anywhere.

Holla at me in the comments! :mrgreen:

Climate Change Debate Rages Everywhere Except in Scientific Circles

The terms “global warming” and “climate change” have now become synonymous with liberal politics and intertwined with religion.

Hardison, a parent of seven here in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching “An Inconvenient Truth” in her seventh-grade science class.

“No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation — the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet — for global warming,” Hardison wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is “one of the signs” of Jesus Christ’s imminent return for Judgment Day.

Yet while Democrats and Republicans fight over the existence and causes of global warming, in Sweden Al Gore has indirectly brought together the left and the right.

“A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference,” Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.

Brende said he joined political opponent Heidi Soerensen, of the Socialist Left Party, to nominate Gore as well as Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier before the nomination deadline expired Thursday.

Now that climate change has been determined to “very likely” be caused by human activities (in a report released today by the IPCC) no doubt that the debate will continue.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), said the findings marked a historical landmark in the debate about whether humans were affecting the state of the atmosphere.

“It is an unequivocal series of evidence [showing that] fossil fuel burning and land use change are affecting the climate on our planet.”

And while prominent conservative journalists offer interesting solutions:

I can give you 20-in-2: Tax gas to $4 a gallon. With oil prices having fallen to $55 a barrel, now is the time. The effect of a gas-tax hike will be seen in less than two years, and you don’t even have to go back to the 1970s and the subsequent radical reduction in consumption to see how. Just look at last summer.

Exxon-Mobil continues to bribe scientists to deny their own findings.

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

We can all do some little things that can make a big impact. You can give your home an online energy audit, unplug your charged cell phones, and set your computers to stand by or shut them down when not in use.

About Anil Polat

foxnomad aboutHi, I'm Anil. foXnoMad is where I combine travel and tech to help you travel smarter. I'm on a journey to every country in the world and you're invited to join the adventure! Read More

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