What? (Or my reaction to the day I start university.)

First of all, I start university on Monday. I will be attending the Escuela Superior de Ingenieria Industrial, which is the equivalent of the Industrial Engineering major within the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (in Spain, each major has their own building.) I had initially thought I would start sometime in October, as public universities in Spain do, but this was cut short by my decision to take a common pre-university course at the university in order to evaluate how fucked you might be. This course covers Physics, Math, Chemistry and something we have in Spain called “dibujo tecnico,” translated roughly to Technical Design, it is what I like to call “an art class for nerds.”

And since I come from an American School, I’ve never taken it.

The other three are pretty straightforward, I might have some problems with Chemistry but nothing too harsh, and I’m pretty sure Math and Physics will simply help me get back to speed (I’ve noticed I can’t do math nearly as fast as I could, kind of like an athlete that hasn’t trained for a few months.)

Which brings me to my main statement. Why can’t we do design with computers? In 3d even, it would make everything much more manageable and interesting (not to mention easy, at least for me.) The private university to which some of my friends are going (the private equivalent of the Politecnica) has much less old fashioned drawing and much more new computerized design. Just because we’re public doesn’t mean we can’t be modern!

But alas, since at the public university here your opinion does not matter, I must continue on and get ready to draw like I’ve never drawn before.

But then again, quoting the great Jeremy Clarkson, “how hard can it be?”.

It has now become ridiculous.

I quote a recent article from IEEE Spectrum on surprise, Continental’s lack of intelligence in, surprise, fuel management, specifically in Newark airport, something which may be familiar from my older post.

And then, just a few minutes later, the pilot came on the public-address system again: “Uh, folks, we’re going to make a quick stop for refueling.” Huh? Passengers looked at each other in ­surprise. Flight attendants passed ­rapidly through the cabin ­checking seat backs and tray tables and strapped themselves in. Minutes later, we landed at Stewart Air National Guard Base, in Newburgh, N.Y., less than 100 ­kilometers from our ­destination. After a long ride on the ground past National Guard cargo planes, we parked and waited for the fuel trucks.

Are you serious?!?! I have never even heard about an unplanned refuelling stop on a regular airliner. And more to the point, its not like they were flying a new route for which the fuel requirements were only mere estimates, they were flying a regular route! This is the third time I see articles bashing Continental for its stingy attitude with the gas. They better adjust before they gain the reputation of filling their tanks only half full. If you thought high fuel prices were bad for a company, low passenger rates will finish it up.