Re:I no longer build software
by kens on Monday September 21, 2020 @02:29PM
(#24546776)
> Anyone remember spending hours at AAA getting TripTiks
I'm glad to see someone else mention TripTiks. I went on long road trips with my family when I was a kid and TripTiks were the coolest thing. A TripTik was a custom-made flip-book assembled from pages that were map segments with everything of interest noted along the way. Your route was marked with a highlighter. It was bit like turn-by-turn guidance in handheld paper form.
>> People lived in 1990 and didn't feel that bad to have to call a travel agency to get a ticket
Travel agencies were awful; people don't realize how good they have it with online tickets. The way they worked is you'd ask for a flight from X to Y. They'd spend a whole minute typing some cryptic database query into their terminal and come up $1000 leaving at 6:45 am. You'd ask if there's a better price and they'd spend another minute typing a slightly different query before coming up with something slightly better. Repeat for 10 minutes, and you feel guilty every time you ask a question because they're doing you a favor with so much typing. Then ask if there's anything better if you leave Wednesday and the whole process repeats. Finally they obtain a semi-decent flight after a huge effort, but you're left with the feeling that you probably could have saved a bunch more if you'd known the right question to ask.
I'm glad to see someone else mention TripTiks. I went on long road trips with my family when I was a kid and TripTiks were the coolest thing. A TripTik was a custom-made flip-book assembled from pages that were map segments with everything of interest noted along the way. Your route was marked with a highlighter. It was bit like turn-by-turn guidance in handheld paper form.
>> People lived in 1990 and didn't feel that bad to have to call a travel agency to get a ticket
Travel agencies were awful; people don't realize how good they have it with online tickets. The way they worked is you'd ask for a flight from X to Y. They'd spend a whole minute typing some cryptic database query into their terminal and come up $1000 leaving at 6:45 am. You'd ask if there's a better price and they'd spend another minute typing a slightly different query before coming up with something slightly better. Repeat for 10 minutes, and you feel guilty every time you ask a question because they're doing you a favor with so much typing. Then ask if there's anything better if you leave Wednesday and the whole process repeats. Finally they obtain a semi-decent flight after a huge effort, but you're left with the feeling that you probably could have saved a bunch more if you'd known the right question to ask.