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johnb

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Everything posted by johnb

  1. johnb
    If you're using Safari on your iPhone, you can ""request the desktop version" and it will reload and display as it does on, well, a desktop. Is that what you're trying to do? It will stay in the desktop version for the remainder of your session at least. I do it all the time when looking at Yahoo Finance, where I hate the mobile version.
  2. johnb
    Here's something that showed up in WashPo today on the topic of resort fees: "Find a Hotel Rate That Seems Too Good To Be True? Look For The 'Resort Fee'" by Christopher Elliott on washingtonpost.com
  3. johnb
    I guess I was too goody two shoes as a kid, but I never pool hopped. Then again, in the small town in which I grew up, I'm not sure anybody actually had a pool at home, even out there on "pill hill" where all the doctors lived. In my case this would have been in the 1950's. On the subject of satellite photos, how is this any different from just using google maps to do the same thing? Everybody has access to satellite photos with sufficient resolution to do the job, or was it the list of such homes that they were really selling, thus relieving the buyer of the work of compiling the information? That I could understand, but from the standpoint of privacy isn't it pretty much the same thing either way? Anybody with a pool can easily be seen by anybody anywhere in the world.
  4. johnb
    A little new information pertinent to this thread. "Looking To The Sky To Speed Up In-Flight WiFi" on travelskills.com
  5. johnb
    Well, as someone who has spent his entire life practicing economics (starting with three degrees more-or-less in the subject), I'm well aware of the shortcomings of the "invisible hand." But you're considerably overstating them. Briefly, while it's true that you can never have perfect competition in the real world, you don't need to have perfection. Economists make the important distinction between perfect and workable competition. Workable competition means that you have enough competitors to cause them to bid prices down to a reasonable level consonant with the true underlying cost of providing whatever it is. It all depends, but typically if you have 4 to 5 or so competitors in a particular market that will do the job so long as they can't collude, which is where anti-trust comes in. Your writing is never poor. So-called resort fees are a different animal and appear in a different setting. Apparently just about every so-called resort throws them in -- maybe in this case it's the upscale ones who don't -- I don't know. What they amount to is a way to advertise a lower price than the actual price. Somebody started doing it so competitive pressure (there we have competition again) forced "everybody" to do it. Again it's an appeal to those who are price-sensitive (cheap), but in this case also less careful, so in that way perhaps it is consistent with the WiFi fees above. But if you go to such a resort there is no option to avoid them as is the case with WiFi fees, nor should you worry about it -- just add them to the advertised price to get the real price and then decide if you want to take the deal.
  6. johnb
    Keep in mind that that's how the system works. The whole idea is that private companies are expected to exhibit unbridled greed. But at the same time, competition from other greedy private companies causes {is supposed to cause} the market price to drop to the correct level, reflecting the actual underlying costs. That is the genius of the free-market system. It neither does nor needs to rely on the generosity of anyone, which wouldn't work because there are always those who will be greedy. Rather it relies on the famous "invisible hand" of Adam Smith, which drives down the price to the right level whether greedy market participants would choose to charge that price of not. But of course, for the above to work, there must be others in the market, i.e. competition. Otherwise you have a monopoly. What you experienced on that aircraft was a micro-monopoly, which allows them to charge a ridiculous price. It's a flaw in the system, but it won't last forever because eventually another airline will offer something better and enough customers like you who have become aware of it will choose that airline instead -- that is exactly what is motivating American Airlines to get rid of GoGo and install a better and cheaper system, a pre-emptive move so they don't lose too many customers when Delta or whomever comes up with a better deal. As to hotels, the ones that charge for WiFi certainly realize that they are "losing" your business. But the truth is they don't give a s***. Notice that it's mostly the expensive Ritz/JW type hotels that charge for WiFi, while the downscale Court/Suite types mostly give it away for free. Ask yourself why that is. Customers like you and I are price sensitive, otherwise known as cheap; we book using discount on-line services, or like Joe H call direct and negotiate, but either way we don't stay in the Ritz in the first place--we go downscale (well, except maybe for Joe). The Ritz's customer base is rich business travelers who just pay the bill with their corporate Amex card and think no more about it. The Ritz can charge them for WiFi because, well, they don't really care what they pay -- most of them probably don't even look at the bill, because that would be unseemly after all. The Ritz knows you aren't going to stay there, so they haven't lost your business by not giving you free WiFi, you cheap bastard. Your threat to not stay there is hollow. So just go over to the Court/Suite, sonny boy, and don't soil our nice lobby rug. Oh, and don't forget the bug spray!
  7. johnb
    Technical Correction Note (may safely be ignored by most readers): That particular post from the Oldest NY thread has been corrrupted (we need to fix it). Venierio's is a pastry shop, not a pizzeria -- it's entry got concatenated with the entry for Totonno's (1922), which is indeed a pizzeria. A considerable amount of information from that original and very lengthy post has disappeared.
  8. johnb
    According to this from King Arthur Flour, the first pizza recipe in an American-published cookbook appeared in 1936. It was an Italian-themed cookbook with a title partly in Italian*. Gourmet Magazine published its first pizza recipe in August 1945, based on a reader request. KAF opines that pizza began to "come into its own" in America with the establishment of Pizzeria Uno in Chicago in 1943. * Specialita Culinarie Italiane: 137 Tested Recipes of Famous Italian Foods -- page 48 click
  9. johnb
    You are certainly entitled to your skepticism -- as a fairly skeptical person myself I will defend skepticism to the death (and if you are skeptical of that last part, so be it ). My skepticism may have shown in my earlier exegesis (anti-exegisis?) on the subject of the "Great Flood." I suppose it depends on what you consider to be a "hard citation." How hard is hard, and how hard does one's citation need to be in this context? Since the history profession has generally not accorded the same import to food and restaurants as to other branches of their scholarly pursuits, the hard documentary evidence readily available to contemporary pizza scholars, not to mention funding, is not as extensive as that available to those studying, say, the Battle of (insert you favorite battle here). See the earlier discussion between Rocks and myself on the subject of the age of Killmeyer's Tavern in Staten Island. In short, sometimes, realistically, if you wish to move forward you gotta go with what you got. Two individuals who may come close to being what might be termed pizza scholars are Ed Levine who wrote "Pizza, A Slice of Heaven" (2005), and New Haven historian/architect Colin Caplan who is said to have an "extensively researched" book on pizza history coming out next year. Levine (along with many others) cites Lombardi's as the oldest, having been established in 1905. Caplan points to 20 pizzerias as the oldest in the US continuously operating in the same location, and those have start dates ranging from 1912 to 1936; presumably if there are 20 still operating continuously from that era, there were many more that have fallen by the wayside. All that said, I would certainly agree that pizza did not leave its Italian enclaves and enter the mainstream until later. When that occurred I don't know, but I too have personal memories. I'm quite an antique myself, being a decade older than you, and I recall from the early 50's when I was around ten, my Mom would occasionally make "pizza" from some sort of kit she picked up at the local A&P in our small Indiana town. That's pretty mainstream; needless to say, it was also pretty bad pizza.
  10. johnb
    Since this is a thread about ancestry, there is an interesting ancestral connection here. I assume Matt is at the Bloomington campus of IU. If you were to go to the little church in the middle of the campus, in the cemetery, you would find some gravestones of ancestors of mine (or at least short branches off the direct line)(or so I have been told by relatives--I haven't seem them myself). Small world.
  11. johnb
    The article, from 1944, appears to constitute the Times' first mention of pizza, but it was scooped by several decades by a 1903 article in the New York Tribune, discussed here. The main new thing offered by Luigino's, the subject of the article, may have been carry-out. New York's (and no doubt America's) first pizzeria was Lombardi's, opened in 1905. The oldest pizzeria in the US continuously operating in the same spot appears to be Papa's in Robbinsville NJ, established in 1912. By 1944 there were many pizzeria's in NYC and around the east coast and even the midwest, including Pepe's and the Modern (formerly Washington Pizzeria) in New Haven. So I think we can say the venerable Gray Lady was slow to pick this one up.
  12. johnb
    Back in the day, Al's Steak House on Mt. Vernon Ave. in Alexandria had a good cheesesteak, and current reviews suggest that is (was) still the case. Unfortunately, Big Al himself died of cancer last August and it appears the place may have closed for good, though it isn't certain. Info here: "Al's Steak House: Temporarily Closed in Del Ray" by Mary Ann Barton on patch.com
  13. johnb
    I feel your pain, and perhaps I'm being too narrow-minded, but I question whether problems like this will be solved by expecting service folks to accurately read and act on body language clues. It will happen occasionally, but as a general rule, not so much. I think there's not much practical alternative but for the customer to be more forthright and speak up. Always answering "fine" to those "is everything alright" queries exemplifies the problem. If everything isn't alright, the customer should say so, but most of us don't most of the time. Remember that old expression "I'm not a mind-reader." If they're there asking, tell them. If they don't show up, send up a flare, with flair. Just my 2¢.
  14. johnb
    Here is something that may be pertinent to this thread, or not. Take it FWIW. click
  15. johnb
    My personal view, aside from whether bitcoin is or isn't a viable "currency," is that it is a passing idea, something appealing to those who don't like rules, such as those society has wisely created to maintain stability in everyone's wealth and income, otherwise known as central banks and financial market rules. But there is a potentially very positive aspect of bitcoin, namely bringing light to the ledger that underpins it, which is a blockchain. Blockchains have a great deal of potential, which is becoming better understood. In short, a blockchain is a store of information that is open to all but yet pretty well insulated from being tampered with or changed. It's more complex than I'm comfortable trying to explain in any detail. Here is an Economist article on the subject that points out its potential. The Wikipedia article is here. I think we will be soon be hearing a lot more about blockchains (also called altchains for applications other than bitcoin).
  16. johnb
    There is no shortage of opinions on which is the best steak, and they all contradict each other. IMO the White House in Atlantic City has a reasonable claim. I'm also partial to Leo's in Folcroft.
  17. johnb
    That day I remember being seated on a red line train, at Farragut North I think it was, when we were held for a few minutes and lots of announcements came over the PA about some type of problem, telling Metro workers to go somewhere. I couldn't hear anything very clearly, but it was certainly not normal. The train finally went and I got home in the wet snow, and only then heard about both incidents.
  18. johnb
    I grew up about 20 miles from the nearest Monon tracks, which would have been in French Lick, a resort town in the old days and best known these days as the home town of Larry Bird. Among other things French Lick was the home of Pluto Water (it was the springs that were the foundation of the resort development) and the place where FDR announced he would be a candidate for president. Many rich and famous traveled there on the Monon in the old days, including celebrities and mobsters. Our town was actually closer to the tracks of the Southern Railroad's line from Louisville to St. Louis, and my younger brother and I spent many evenings chasing trains on that line via a parallel highway. They ran really big trains, as many as 200 cars, with five engines in the front and four more in the middle. That was real power. Great stuff.
  19. johnb
    Air Florida 90 crashed into the 14th St Bridge and then the river close to the Virginia side. I seem to recall that there is a tiny portion of DC on the Virginia side (is this true?), and I don't know whether the line otherwise runs down the center of the river or one side. But anyway, did it actually crash in DC or in Va.?
  20. johnb
    That would be a safe assumption. I was referring to a book that I won't name but is often found in your hotel nightstand, and is thumped a lot by office seekers, particularly in the South. "Noah's flood" is a widely used term: often in the (extensive) literature about the so-called Great Flood, those writing on the subject refer to it that way, perhaps for convenience. Oh, and neither Noah or anyone else ever built such a boat, but let's not go there.
  21. johnb
    I have tried on various occasions to make some type of version of cha ca la Vong, the iconic Vietnamese (Hanoi) turmeric/dill fish dish, from scattered information found on the internet. Difficult since I've never eaten anybody else's version nor have I traveled to Vietnam or seen it on a Vietnamese menu. Recently the NYT Cooking section has posted a recipe that seems pretty good, and I have made it. But last night I tried it using boneless skinless chicken thighs in place of the fish, and it worked quite well. The fresh dill and turmeric combination is oddly very good. Here is some previous discussion on DR about the dish. It appears to be available at Eden Center. This is an image of classic cha ca la Vong grabbed off the net. Not mine.
  22. johnb
    I was just about to reply to the Monon Railroad topic (the railroad ran near where I grew up) but I discovered it's another of those threads where the software won't let me reply. The blue button is in my topic listing (unlike what I wrote above) but it won't let me reply to the topic. ???????
  23. johnb
    It's true that Spanish doesn't make that distinction, but that fact doesn't change or even affect the logic as it applies in the case of English (in fact it's not a grammatical distinction -- Spanish simply uses the same word for both). It was only an attempt to add some explanation to express the idea, not lean on Spanish as some sort of guide. One could remove the "Spanish" reference entirely and the same conclusion would still be there. Anyway, if that makes me a nearly perfect grammar nazi, that's fine by me.
  24. johnb
    That was my assumption.
  25. johnb
    Wow! Two eggcorns in one post, one a compound eggcorn/malaprop, and the second used to comment on the first. We are all susceptible.
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