Category Archives: Review

Qantas and the ridiculous excess luggage pricing

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In three weeks Oziel and I will be moving to the antipodes [Australia]. We are now deep in the realms of selling, packing, donating, recycling and throwing out. But we still don’t think we will make the luggage limit set by our airline—Qantas.

I read Qantas’ excess luggage pricing, and was sure there had been some misunderstanding. So I called Qantas to confirm the price of sending on additional bag of 23 kg. I was told in a calm, matter-of-fact tone that the price would be 850 AUD. At this price, an extra 23 kg bag doubles the cost of one ticket [96% extra for those that don't like exaggeration].

I was completely beside myself. I can’t understand how they can justify that price. At that price, I want an extra seat and extra carry-on luggage allowance too.

The comparison rate for an additional 23 kg bag from British Airways is 50 AUD, only 6% of the price charged by Qantas. Now I am considering leaving bags here, and picking them up on my next flight to Europe—which will not be with Qantas.

Seeing this policing suggests to me that Alan Joyce, Qantas’ CEO, should have thought twice about rejecting his job offer from RyanAir.

Online voting in NSW

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I just voted online in the NSW state election. I was pleasantly surprised the painless process of casting votes. I can’t say the same about deciding on my preference order for the candidates.

The website has a clean design and the process is simple. Once you register you need to wait 24 hours before you can vote. Online votes must be cast before 6:00pm EDST on 25 March 2011. Unfortunately the online process is not open to most people who can vote on election day.

Permanent train delays

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Next week there is a new train timetable in the Øresund region. A tunnel is opening up that will change Malmö C train station from an end-station to a through-station. This is should decrease travel time and reduce delays. From our place next week it will be 9 minutes faster to get to Malmö (only 60 minutes) and 17 minutes faster to Copenhagen Airport (84 minutes) and Copenhagen H (97 minutes).

However, I am unhappy with this “improvement.” These changes weren’t propagated through the whole system. So while the train I catch to work in the morning will leave 10 minutes earlier, it will still arrive at the same time. The train will stop in the middle of the journey for 10 minutes at Karlshamn station for no apparent reason. This makes me very grumpy.

As much as I hate all of the delays the trains have faced the last two winters and summers, I am not convinced making every trains late is the answer. I would prefer to go on angry rants once or twice a week than suffer every day.

Security Sunday

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Until recently my password management system resembled an onion. The inner most layer contained the most sensitive access, each with a different random passwords. Each subsequent layer had a single password, but contained less and less access and/or information.

But I wanted to be more secure – and the fact is I have forgotten a number of passwords that I rarely use, which has cost me money and wasted my time. After some research I chose LastPass as a password management solution. It comes recommended from LifeHacker, Gina Tripani and Leo LaPorte.

For Mac users I found out that Sophos now has a free anti-virus solution. While I have only been using it for some hours, it does not seem to suck like the other solutions I have been trying. That said it hasn’t found anything – but I am taking to be a good sign.

For all other security tidbits I will point to the blog of Bruce Schneier. This will save me various airline security rants.