One day soon, frequent fliers should expect flight attendants to know their birthdays, how they like their coffee, and what they’re likely to buy on board.
After years of dithering, airlines are learning to use the wealth of customer data they collect. Greater stability in an industry long roiled by bankruptcies is enabling carriers to invest in technology to personalize the flying experience and better target promotions. But the airlines sometimes struggle to do all that without making customers uncomfortable.
On some airlines, flight attendants armed with tablet computers will soon have far more data on fliers at their fingertips, including their allergies, seat preferences and whether the carrier lost both their bags last trip. Airlines’ marketing pitches are also becoming more relevant, in part based on customers’ online-browsing history, their likes on Facebook and their income.
“Data is key to almost everything we’re doing,” says Maya Leibman, chief technology and information officer at … American Airlines. But with the push into data, she says, the carrier is learning to walk the line “between providing excellent customer service and suddenly becoming creepy.”
How Airlines Mine Personal Data In-Flight
Beware the ménage à trois of American utilitarianism, individual rights, and a deficient interpretation of Christian love:
The Rev. Frank Schaefer officiated his son’s same-sex marriage “because I love him so much and didn’t want to deny him that joy.” But his decision to flout Methodist law could cost him his pastor’s credentials in the latest flashpoint of a debate roiling the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination.
…
The German-born pastor is unapologetic, saying he answered to a higher law — God’s command to love everyone ….
Michael Rubinkam, Methodist pastor faces church trial for son’s gay wedding (Associated Press)
“Dan,” in Rod Dreher’s comboxes, gives his canned provocation in response to Rod’s call for offensive religious clichés:
Dan says:
November 9, 2013 at 9:38 am
A concept practiced by Christians that I find abhorrent – ritualistic cannibalism. They call it ‘communion’. It seems to be practiced to bring people ‘closer to God’.
It’s the same reason Jeffrey Dahmer gave when asked why he ate his victims – ‘to get closer to them’ – communion.
My first reaction was anger, but that gave way to “Maybe Dan has encountered some actual practicing Christians; it’s kind of nice to have people taking offense at actual Christianity rather than at some political crusade under a Christian banner.”
(The oddity of believing that the bread and wine truly becomes the body and blood of Christ – that’s it’s not just hocus-pocus and mummery – and then scorning it anyway is beyond the scope of this item.)
And now for something completely different. Mitchell & Webb reprise War of the Worlds. Don’t worry: it’s short. And not R rated like their (hilarious) one on farming.
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it’s stupid.
(Attributed to Albert Einstein)
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 