SF Chronicle reports exclusive image of deranged passenger who exposes himself, punches seatmate, strips naked

by Scott Carmichael on

There never seems to be a shortage of deranged people in the air. On a Southwest flight from Oakland to Las Vegas, one passenger exposed himself to his seatmate, then punched her in the face and took all his clothes off, forcing the plane to turn around and land in Oakland.

The suspect, 21 year old Darius Cappille, was arrested, and after a brief medical checkup, he was booked into a Dublin prison.

As is often the case with nutjobs like this, Mr. Chappille had an outstanding drug arrest warrant, which would probably explain some of his behavior.

The incident onboard came to an end when flight attendants and multiple passengers pinned him down, and upon landing, 10 police officers boarded the plane to remove him.

As more and more of these crazy people start popping up, it would appear our flights are more at risk from the mentally insane, than terrorists. It’s a shame the TSA can’t perform a simple sanity check before letting people board their flight.

[Photo credit: Danielle Lichliter / Special to The Chronicle]

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JetBlue quits flight pass deal

by Tom Johansmeyer on
You can’t jet as much as you want any more, as discounter JetBlue has suspended its “All You Can Jet” promotion. The deal offered fliers unlimited flights for a month for only $599.

To JetBlue’s surprise (but nobody else’s), the program was quite successful. The airline is taking advantage of the “while supplies last” comment in the promotion. Since the airline ran out of passes, it won’t keep the deal alive until Friday.

JetBlue does cite the realistic concern about seat availability: if too many people have passes, it could become impossible to accommodate everyone who’s entitled. Of course, the world is silent on whether oversized passengers need to buy two monthly passes, based on the growing airline trend regarding growing fliers.

Score Chicago deals and freebies with BrokeHipster.com

by Katie Hammel on

Okay, the name induces a slight eye roll – I’m not broke and I’m certainly no hipster, I just love a bargain – but the premise behind one of Chicago’s best new websites is pretty awesome. BrokeHipster collects all the top upcoming deals, from happy-hour specials and dining discounts to promotional parties and boutique sales, and puts them all in one place.

On any given day some of the freebies and cheapies might include: a promo party with an hour of free cocktails, a free tequila tasting, free museum admission, $2 beers or $1 burgers. The deals are all around in Chicago, and especially in this slumping economy, every bar, restaurant and store is looking for more ways to pull in customers with enticing offers.

If you find a stellar deal, just remember that BrokeHipster doesn’t create the deals, it just eliminates the legwork for budget travelers and frugal locals by putting the information together. It’s always wise to check directly with the establishment to verify that the deal is offered. There’s no cure for the heartache caused by the $1 burger that wasn’t.

Thought you’d heard the last of Clear? Think again!

by Scott Carmichael on

Clear, the bankrupt airport service that let travelers speed through the checkpoint, abruptly closed up shop last month.

The company had burned through all its cash, so within a matter of hours, the entire service was gone, and customers were left with a useless membership, to a bankrupt service.

Almost 260,000 people were also left without any way to get their money back, as Clear made it very clear (pardon the pun) that they wouldn’t be handing out any refunds.

Thousands of customers signed up and renewed each week, and even people that paid for the service the same day Clear shut down, were out of their money, and had to resort to credit card chargebacks.

Now, even though Clear is gone, they are working behind the scenes to make things worse. A court ordered the company to refrain from selling the customer information collected from the service.

It isn’t entirely clear why they wanted to sell the data, but it is very troubling that a company with very strict privacy rules would even consider violating their own membership agreement. Their database contains everything from names, birth dates, social security numbers, and numerous biometric entries.

Last month, Verified Identity Pass (the company that created Clear) issued the following statement:

“Personal information is safe – all airport kiosks have been wiped clean, and Lockheed Martin (the IT provider for Clear) has started wiping all the databases containing Clear customer data. No customer data will ever be sold, and once the cleaning process is done, there will be no traces of personal information left.”

Now that they are in court making a case for being allowed to sell personal data, obviously means they were lying when they wrote that statement.

Another development is even more troubling – I have been hearing from Clear members that they are receiving phone calls from Clear employees, asking whether they’d be interested in signing up for the service should it start up again.

It is obvious that something is going on behind the scenes – either a buyer was found for the entire service, or a new company is planning to start from scratch, picking up the pieces left behind. Whether they’ll be able to do this with the membership database maintained by Clear will be up to the courts.

Through the Gadling Lens: Photography tips I learned on my summer vacation

by Karen Walrond on

I just got back from a long weekend in Oregon. This was the second year that I joined 13 friends in a beautiful coastal town, where we rented this huge rustic beach house, and spent the entire time resting, relaxing, and generally making art. As it happens, all of us make all or most of our living being creative, and many of us are professional photographers. And even though we all pretty much know our way around a camera, having all of us together resulted in us learning and sharing various tips and tricks to creating cool images. And so, since the experience is particularly fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share with you my very favourite vacation photography ideas that I picked up this week.

On with the show.
1. Wake up early.

Because Oregon’s time zone is two hours earlier than mine here in Houston, while on vacation I found myself waking up earlier than most of the women with whom I was staying at the house. Since I didn’t particularly want to lie still in bed for fear of waking up the other houseguests, I found that the better option was to just go ahead and get up, pull on my wellies and go for a long walk on the beach. And naturally, I took my camera with me.

And this is how I learned my first lesson: every location has a much different personality early in the mornings, before its inhabitants have woken and began their day. In the case of this particular beach, the morning often brought a considerable mist or fog rising off of the ocean, and the light was invariably quite blue and grey. The beach was littered with the ashes of the evening’s bonfires and the remains of sandcastles from the day before, and save for the occasional morning jogger or yoga practitioner, I was the only person on the beach. It was a far cry from the bustle of the kite surfers and horseback riders of the middle of the day, and I relished the solitude and the calm, peaceful, vibe.

So on your next holiday, while it is tempting to sleep in, I’d strongly recommend taking at least one morning and waking up early, just to experience your vacation spot at the start of the day.


2. Use the ground or the sky as a backdrop.

I learned this trick sort of by accident: I was sitting on the ground taking a picture of a baby, when suddenly I noticed a friend of mine watching what was going on above me. The sky was amazingly blue and absolutely clear, and I realized that it made a perfect backdrop for my very fair, blonde friend. So I took the shot.

In the second instance, I was about to take the portrait of a different friend, and she stopped me: “Would you mind taking the shot from above?” she said, sitting on the grass. “I always prefer pictures of myself from that angle.” Since I’m always thrilled to take portraits of someone who have great body self-awareness, I was happy to oblige — and she was right: shooting from above is a great way to get a lovely, doe-eyed look from your subject.

It works particularly well with women and children.

3. Speaking of backdrops, don’t be afraid to get creative.

I was sitting in the house, when through the window I noticed a few of my friends standing on the lawn holding up a giant white sheet. Curious, I got up and went outside.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Prom pictures,” came the response.

The sheet was held so that the low light from the afternoon sun was shining right through it, diffusing the light and creating a lightbox effect. The result was this amazing glow around each subject:

I learned such a valuable lesson here: just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend some time capturing creative portraits of your travel companions. Let’s face it: vacations tend to make people relax. What better time to capture their best sides? It was an inspired idea.

4. In addition to shooting in the early morning, shoot during the Golden Hour.

During every sunny day, there comes the time as late afternoon turns into early evening, when the light becomes shockingly golden, making everything and everyone it falls on glow beautifully. The actual time of the Golden Hour obviously varies depending on the time of year; nonetheless, It is really a lovely time to shoot, so be sure to keep an eye out for the changing light, and save some space on that memory card to capture a few images during that time.

5. Finally, break all the rules and shoot into the sun.

I know, I know — they say you should never shoot into the sun. I can’t help it, though: the fact is that you can get some amazing silhouetted shots by shooting into the sun. However, if what you’re looking for are just some great back-lit shots, but you want your subject’s face to be clear, the best thing to do is to again wait until the sun is lower in the sky (but not too low so that it’s dark), and then set your ISO exposure for the light reflecting from your subject’s face (rather than the actual sun). The result is that the light from the sun will be “blown out” (read: almost white) but your subject’s face will be well lit.

So those are my lessons from the weekend: some of which I sort of knew already (like the shooting into the sun, or shooting during the Golden Hour) but I needed to be reminded; others which I had never considered (the fabulous sheet trick comes immediately to mind). I’m definitely taking these tips with me on my next trip. And of course, thanks much to my friends Alex, Ali, Andrea, Jen, Jen, Jen, Tracey and little Anna for letting me take their amazing portraits you see above, as well as sharing their fantastic photography tips with me, since they’re all profe
ssional photographers themselves.

Well, all except little Anna. She’s just sort of a supermodel rockstar, wrapped up in a sweet 6-month-old package.

As always, if you have any questions (or would like to comment on the tips you see here), you can always contact me directly at karenDOTwalrondATweblogsincDOTcom – and I’m happy to address them in upcoming Through the Gadling Lens posts.

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
Through the Gadling Lens can be found every Thursday right here, at 11 a.m. To read more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.