claudeo
join:2000-02-23
Redmond, WA
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Back to the original topic. It is pathetic that even in brand new airport terminals (like the renovated terminals at SeatTac) you can hardly find any outlet. At some airports, like ORD (Chicago), there are simply *no* outlet available. The 3 outlets I had scouted out at Heathrow Terminal 4 a couple of years ago have been condamned. Things are getting deliberately worse for travelers, not better. Clearly, airport authorities generally do not want their traveling customers to plug in. There may be some exceptions, but the general rule seems to be "you're a business traveler, too bad for you!". This blatant lack of support for the reality that people need power for their laptops, or for their cell phones when they get stranded for hours between cancelled or late flights, is not limited to airline terminals. I often have to go to meetings in brand new auditoriums and classrooms where the only outlets are next to the teacher's stage. This week I was in a hotel room that had its own WiFi AP. Nice. But the only available electrical outlet was on the desk. What's the point of WiFi if you're going to be tied to the desk anyway?
BTW, I always travel with a little 3-way AC power cube (it is UL listed, but that very compact model doesn't seem to be available anymore) which, unlike the "3 in a row bar", allows 2 fat adapters as well as a regular cord to be plugged in at the same time. It's light, compact and I have never been hassled by security for traveling with it. A nice alternative to the cube, just a little heavier and bulkier, is a short (about 16 inches) extension cord with a 3-way female end. Used that for a week-long train trip in Spain, where the outlet was placed in such a way that the cube would not have worked as well. I also travel with a universal adapter like the one from APC (»www.apc.com/resource/include/tec···sku=INPA) which is light, *flat* and really universal. I can plug my cube into it if I need to plug in several devices anywhere in the world. The problem is, as always, finding an outlet. |
