The Funded’s Adeo Ressi Arrested After Virgin America Flight Incident
The Funded founder Adeo Ressi was arrested and briefly detained earlier this evening over an altercation with a flight attendant. The airline? Virgin America, which I’ve been holding up as virtually the only airline that doesn’t suck (See Virgin Airlines Fails To Commit Atrocities On Flight VX746 and Delta Flight 1843 From JFK To Hell).
Ressi’s description of the incident is below, and he has sent this to Virgin, he tells me. I’ve reached out to Virgin America for their position.
I can’t help but note the similarities with Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater, who has now been rewarded for his behavior with a reality tv show. The worse the flight attendant, the better the chance for fame and glory, I guess.
You posted something nice about Virgin America a little over a week ago. I actually agreed until I was briefly and wrongly arrested as a result of a stressed out flight attendant today.
I am horrified by the incident on VX22 today, after flying over 70,000 miles with the company. Here are the details.
I was on flight VX22 in seat 2B, First Class, under the name Adeodato Gregory Ressi di Cervia. My company, the Founder Institute, is enrolling hundreds of entrepreneurs from eight cities into the incubator, so I was working before taking off. I shut everything down when the cabin door was shut, and started working again when the Internet was turned on at 10,000 feet, reviewing founder applications.
The first class steward, the “ITL,” served some food, but otherwise ignored passengers. There was a young stewardess in the back of the plane that brought me two ginger ails, some nuts, and Pringles. It was strange that the steward ignored passengers, focusing his attention on a baby in the font row, but I didn’t really notice much, since I was busy.
As we started to descend, the captain came on and asked everyone to shut down computers and electronic devices. The ITL walked down the isle immediately following the captain’s announcement and tapped my computer to indicate that I should shut off my computer. I looked up, nodded and indicated that I needed a second to finish an email, and he walked past me into coach.
By the time he returned, approximately 60 to 90 seconds later, I had finished the email at exactly 5:33 PM EST (according to email records), and I was closing the laptop lid. He stood above me, and the ITL said in a loud voice, “I told you to close the computer. You need to listen to me. You need to obey my orders. I am in charge. I told you to close the computer. You need to listen. I am in charge. Not you.” This went on for a while. It was awkward, uncalled for and embarrassing.
Meanwhile, I was holding the closed computer up off the tray table for everyone to see, as it was being shut down even before he walked over. He then said, “I can contact the authorities and have you arrested.” I responded, “I have done nothing wrong. Go ahead, if you like, I have done nothing wrong.”
Now, a few minutes after the original announcement by the captain, the ITL walks up to the bulkhead phone, and I presume he calls the captain. The captain then makes an announcement that everyone should have their devices off or “the authorities will be contacted and meet us upon landing.” My device was already off for a few minutes at this point, and I ask for the ITL’s name, who now completely ignores me.
As we continue to descend, I had a bag on the floor in First Class, which I know is not allowed on Virgin America First Class because I have flown over 70,000 miles on the airline. So, I ask the ITL to put the bag up, and he responds, “get up, and put it away yourself.”
I get up, and then the ITL starts yelling at me again for standing up when the plane is below 10,000 feet. I toss the bag into the overhead, leaving it open, sit down quickly and he calls the captain again using the bulkhead phone. He then comes over to shut the overhead compartment. At this point, we did not speak again during the flight.
We land at 5:49 PM, 16 minutes after I closed my computer down. We taxi to the gate, and there was a 15 minute delay while the authorities were called. Two NYC police men escorted me off the plane. Passengers are delayed even further as the police interrogated me in front of the exit door. Once I start moving up the platform, escorted by two police men, and the passengers are finally let out. Three First Class and Main Cabin Select passengers agree to be witnesses on my behalf to the police, taking more of their valuable time to say that I did nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, I was detained for an hour at the gate by police, who eventually let me go, jokingly referring to this as an “argument over a cell phone” to the TSA. Meanwhile, the Virgin America captain lectured me twice on the importance of turning your computer off, without even listening to my side of the story. The ITL told the police a story that I had been disruptive at other points in the flight, and the police said that the Virgin America flight team were now defending each other. The police also clearly indicated that they thought the ITL was not telling the truth. The police and the TSA had no charges.
You can get the police report for the names of two supportive First Class customers.
I am extremely disturbed by this incident in First Class on Virgin America. I request that Virgin America (1) terminate the ITL in question and (2) refund my money for the whole trip, allowing me to purchase alternative travel home. I do not want to wind up with this ITL on my flight again, as I have recognized him from my 70,000+ hours of flight with the airline.
I a law abiding citizen that has never gotten more than a mild speeding ticket, and I fly over 250,000 miles per year. I never raised my voice. I never cursed. I followed the captain’s instructions. Yet, I was removed from a Virgin America by police for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Thank you.
Adeo Ressi
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How Packaging Has Changed
It’s amazing to me how much packing products for shipping has changed over the years. I remember my early college days as a youngster working at The Wiz selling computers and how large the boxes were for each computer. Even if the computer was a small desktop (with a powerful 386 processor!), the carton that the product was delivered to the customer in was huge. Even though most manuals are never read, they weighed a lot, were large and required room in the box.
Fast forward to 2004 when I purchased my first laptop (I had work laptops prior to this date) – the Dell laptop was purchased on what is still referred to as the best computer deal ever (50% off all Dell 700m laptops). The box didn’t seem that large but had a lot of extra room and had a separate box inside the main box with all of the manuals and CDs.
When I purchased my next laptop in 2009, a Dell refurbished laptop, it came in a much smaller box. I didn’t realize how much smaller the box was until I decided to sell the Dell 700m laptop when I decided to move to Texas. Even though the new laptop was 1″ bigger, the box on the old laptop was considerably bigger in all dimensions.
I’ve furnished most the new office with products from Ikea. I’ve been amazed at how well Ikea packs their products for transit. A few times I thought I had the wrong product because the box was so small only to open the box and see how smartly packaged the item was setup in the box. It’s almost like the way they setup the box, the inside materials actually provide support for each other without the need to add tons of additional packing materials.
Yesterday I received my new laptop from Dell – also a refurb, though a 17″ Inspiron. I opened the box with my box cutter and when I pulled back the flaps, I was completely shocked. I thought for sure something was wrong. There was not one piece of foam, not one packing peanut, no air bubbles and not even those big bags of air. Nothing. I could see the laptop right there in front of me.
I pulled out a piece of cardboard that the laptop was attached to using what looked like a piece of plastic wrap. The cardboard said, “DO NOT CUT PLASTIC” and had a simple diagram of how to pull the flaps forward to release the laptop. Sure enough, a moment later the laptop was free and ready to power on. And power on it did. The refurbished laptop looks brand new (just like all the other refurbs I’ve purchased from Dell) and an initial test worked fine. I wonder if Dell ships all of their laptops with this new packing system. The manuals for the laptop were very small – CD sized and there were no extra boxes inside of the main box.
As an aside, I am also impressed with Whole Foods here in Texas. Their receipts print on both sides of the paper — just think about how much paper this will save over the course of a year. I wonder why the Whole Foods stores in NYC don’t use this same paper saving receipt system.
So where can we improve? My new car came with two huge manuals – perhaps a better way is a downloadable PDF or the manual on a USB stick. You would only need a small manual with emergency procedures (like if the Bluetooth won’t connect to Twitter).
I’d also like to see ATM machines that offer email receipts inside of printed receipts.
Next week I will buy my first Apple iPod Touch – knowing Apple, the packaging will have the environment in mind.
Products are getting smaller and now packaging is following suit. It’s so amazing to watch companies of all types invest in packaging. It will mean less waste in landfills, less shipping expenses and less space needed to store all of our product boxes.
If anyone is interested, I can take some photos of the packaging from the Dell refurb laptop.
Find more stories about: Dell, Ikea, Industry News
CenterNetworks Partner: Get your business cards scanned and transcribed with CloudContacts.
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‘Earth-like’ Exoplanet Could Have a Comet’s Tail
When the super-Earth COROT-7b was discovered in 2009, it was heralded as the rockiest, most truly Earth-like exoplanet yet. But a new study suggests it’s more like a comet.
In a paper to be published in the journal Icarus, an international team of astronomers led by Alessandro Mura of the Italian Institute for Interplanetary Space Physics in Rome argue that, given the planet’s likely composition and distance from its star, COROT-7b probably loses its surface elements to space in a long, comet-like tail of charged particles.
COROT-7b is less than twice the size of Earth and about five times Earth’s mass, and orbits a sun-like star about 390 light-years away. Because COROT-7b’s density is similar to Earth’s, astronomers hailed it as the first rocky exoplanet discovered and one of the best candidates for hosting extraterrestrial life.
But the rocky world also sits almost 100 times closer to its star than the Earth is to the sun, and it orbits its star once every 0.85 Earth days. The temperature on the daylight side of the planet is a scorching 4000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough for minerals on the rocky surface to break down and release charged particles into space, where they would be picked up and blown away by the stellar wind.
“We expect that the stellar radiation pressure and the plasma environment will cause the build-up of an elongated comet-like exosphere,” the authors write. Depending on what the planet is made of, and whether it was once the rocky core of a “super-Neptune” as some have suggested, the tail could be composed of elements like sodium, oxygen, magnesium or silicon oxide.
The researchers compare this vision of COROT-7b with Mercury, which has a similarly antagonistic relationship with the sun and also leaks charged particles in a long tail.
“The planet appears to be more like a ’super-Mercury’ under much extremer environmental conditions,” the researchers write.
The team suggests that a tail composed of sodium or calcium could theoretically be detected on COROT-7b from ground-based telescopes. Although detecting such a tail would probably eliminate COROT-7b as a candidate habitable world, “this project would be the very first attempt to learn something of the mineralogy of a rocky planet orbiting another star.”
Image: 1) Artist’s impression of COROT-7b, ESO/L. Calcada. 2) Model of COROT-7b’s proposed sodium tail, assuming the planet is 4000 degrees Fahrenheit at its surface. A. Mura et al, Icarus 2010. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2010.08.015
See Also:
- Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet
- At Last! First Real Evidence for a Rocky Exoplanet
- Astronomers Closer to Exoplanet ‘Holy Grail’
- Mercury Flyby Maps New Territory
- This Just in: Mercury More Exciting Than Mars
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Is Digital Eavesdropping Evil? Depends Which Country Is Doing It (TCTV)
First we had the Google vs China debacle, then came Saudi Arabia’s tussle with RIM. And now it’s India’s turn: threatening to block RIM, Google and Skype unless the companies agree to set up localised servers, all the better for state monitoring of communications.
Curiously, compared to the outrage levelled at the Saudi and Chinese governments, American reaction to India’s move has been pretty muted. Could it be that India is somehow perceived as “less evil” than the Muslim/Communist nations? Also: to what extent is India simply doing what every government – including the US government – tries to do: demanding the ability to monitor digital chatter in the hope of foiling criminal and terrorist plots? After all, if Big Brother can’t read your BBMs, haven’t the terrorists already won?
In this week’s episode of Why Is This News, we talk to Harvard Law professor Jon Zittrain, who explains the differences between governments who obey the rule of law, and those who don’t – and why Sarah’s right to criticize the government by email is totally protected, unless she should happen to email it to Paul.
Video below.
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38 Studios relocation loan in jeopardy
Democratic Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio has flip-flopped in his stance towards a $75 million loan from the state's Economic Development Corporation to fledgling game maker 38 Studios. The development house, founded in 2006 by former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, is hard at work on the top-secret Copernicus MMORPG and was offered the lucrative deal in exchange for moving the company's headquarters from Massachusetts to Rhode Island (and bringing a proposed 450 high-paying jobs to the state's economy).
Caprio, who currently serves as Rhode Island's general treasurer, is one of several political candidates condemning the deal, a marked change from his views in past weeks, notes the Boston Globe.
"I am not going to stand by and watch us gamble taxpayer dollars on a bad deal when there are thousands of small businesses in need of more access to capital," Caprio said in a press release dated August 31st.
Filed under: Fantasy, Economy, MMO industry, News items
38 Studios relocation loan in jeopardy originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google To Update, Shorten And De-Jargon Privacy Policies – Here’s What’s Changing
Mike Yang, Google’s Associate General Counsel, just published a post on the Google blog, informing users that the company is making its privacy policies shorter and easier to understand for non-lawyers. They are also making some other changes, but to be clear, the Mountain View company isn’t altering its privacy practices as such.
The updates will go into effect October 3, which is 30 days from now.
Until that time, all products and services will continue to be governed by the current version of the privacy policies and Google will update people on the changes via the Google Privacy Center and a notice the company will be putting up on the Google Account sign-in page, enabling people to learn about the changes when they sign into Gmail, Docs, Talk or Calendar.
There’s now also a dedicated page in the Privacy Center where users can find the most popular privacy tools, and some of Google’s product Help Centers will get more content over time.
So what else is changing?
Most Google products and services are governed by the main Google Privacy Policy, which was last updated in March 2009. However, Google writes, a number of its products also have individual privacy policies in addition.
The company will be getting rid of twelve of these product-specific policies to reduce unnecessary redundancies and/or to better reflect how the products work together. These twelve products will continue to be governed by the main Google Privacy Policy.
They are: 3D Warehouse, App Engine, Calendar, Docs, Firefox Extensions, G1, Gmail, Feedback, iGoogle, Maps, Talk and Tasks.
The main Google Privacy Policy will also be made more user-friendly.
Google says it is trimming redundancies and updating some of the legal language to make it more clear to users. For example, Google will be deleting a sentence that reads, “The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,” because they realized it’s kind of obvious that non-Google sites aren’t covered by Google’s privacy policies.
You can see a preview of the updated policy that will take effect on October 3, 2010. But even better is going to this page, where all the changes are indicated more clearly.
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