Michael O’Leary is a parasite July 15, 2009

After reading an interview with Michael O’Leary, the so called brain behind Ryan Air, I am convinced that people should never ever fly again with Ryan Air. This man is an absolute parasite who started a company only and only to make profit and money, without the slightest love for his product and his clients. Every passenger on his air planes is merely a bag of money that “wants to go from point A to point B”.

Although there is some truth in this statement – and for many tourists, youngsters and one-time flyers it is the full truth – I do not accept it as such. Yes, I’d like to transport myself from A to B, but I am not prepared to de-humanize me for the length of the trip. And that is exactly what Michael O’Leary wants: from the time that you arrive in your departure airport until the front door of your – not so close as you’d expect it to be to your actual destination – arrival airport, you are a bag of money, tossed around without respect.

Perhaps one-time flyers are prepared to sell their soul for a slightly cheaper fare, but frequent flyers will never accept Ryan Air as their means of transportation. As a 50 flights per year person (which is still not so much, actually!) I really enjoy the faithfulness to my carrier Brussels Airlines, the usually fair prices, the interesting departure and arrival times and the fact that I do not have the impression that they see me as a bag of money. In sum, Ryan Air might be interesting for the tourists, but a large segment of the market will stay clear of Ryan Air.

My actual point that I’d like to make is however not on the quality differences between Ryan Air and other, decent carriers. Instead, I’d like to accuse Michael O’Leary of not having the slightest ethical sense. A more or less quote from the interview: “I do not invest in long-distance flights yet, because that market is still good. Only when it starts going bad in that market, I’ll start something.” I shiver when I read this, how can you be so crude?

Perhaps, more importantly, why do people choose for money, instead of quality? Quality is what makes your day, not money in your pocket.

OpenCog July 8, 2009

I just discovered this cool blogpost on OpenCog. It is a very interesting blog by someone who has both time and talent for nice experiments (and he seems to have the needed hardware as well…). Although he is not directly in my line of research, which is quantitative sociolinguistics, he touches with my fondness for computational linguistis, statistics and lexical semantics via NLP.

Bodo Wartke: Die Wühlmäuse Berlin, 25.06.2009 June 26, 2009

Yesterday evening was a sparkling evening in Die Wühlmäuse am Theo, Berlin. E. and I bought tickets for König ödipus, by Bodo Wartke (http://www.bodowartke.de) several months ago. I was anxious to see one of the first German artists of which I became a fan (after the Wise Guys) live on stage.

After a first attempt, where Bodo Wartke would be part of an Adventsspiel, but he fell out due to illness, this was our second attempt to see him live. A couple of weeks ago, I received word that he broke his foot and that he would not be playing his new show in the 25th. My world almost collapsed: how could he be out on the two occasions that I wanted to see him???

Luckily he announced an Ersatzshow on the 25th in which he remained behind his piano. Poor guy. Nevertheless he was full of energy and put on a great show! We were sucked into a great rush of laughter, seriousness and plain out entertainment.

In one of his songs, he mimicks a Dutch person that says “I love you” (ik hou van jou). He makes fun of the way they say “hou” and then concludes by asking if there are Dutch people in the room he might have offended. He was completely caught off guard when E. and I raised our hands, pointing out that we were speakers of Dutch ). This was a hilarious moment for us, he was totally not expecting this!

Anyway, he is great, gave 3 extra songs and was extremely nice and friendly on stage. We booked tickets for a show in november (where he must play König ödipus, and if he is ill, I will be very angry, yes Bodo, I will be very angry!!!). I am already looking forward to it!