A life ordinary by Amit Sarkar - Issue #25

December 09, 2022

Hello friends,

Welcome to another late edition of my newsletter.

Time passed with a lot of things happening. We attended a couple of children's b'day parties. Our son caught a fever every week thanks to the cold winter in the UK. Also, the boiler at our rental property needed repairs so that meant extra money down the drain in these tough economic times.

I also met my office colleagues on two separate occasions. One was the leaving drinks for a few people and the other was a Xmas bowling party.

Our company Emplifi, recently acquired Pixlee TurnTo and that has created new excitement in the organisation.

We also finished watching Season 3 of Trying show on Apple TV+. It’s based on a young couple living in London who are not able to conceive and are trying to adopt children. A very heartfelt show and it's already renewed for Season 4.

Google also announced Google Play's best apps and games of 2022. Do check them out. I love Android and own a OnePlus 9 Pro.

There are a lot of apps that help you save money. One such app that has rewarded me regularly is Airtime Rewards. Register for the app and add all the cards that you regularly use for shopping. It will then reward you whenever you shop at any of its 150 partner retailers. Download Airtime Rewards for free with my code 7F43GCVF and save money off your phone bill every time you shop with brands like Boots, Greggs, Wilko, Argos and loads more: https://airtimerewards.app.link/friend

Also, the newsletter platform that I use to publish my newsletters, Revue, will sadly be retired by Twitter. No official confirmation yet but there is insider news circulating the internet. So I'll be looking for newer options to migrate my newsletter. I promise there will be no impact on my subscribers.

🌐 Global Distribution System (GDS)

A lot has changed about air travel since it went mainstream in the 1930s. On-board smoking, free-flowing booze, and five-star meals have given way to baggage fees, cramped seats, and mystery meat.

Through all this change, one thing has stayed the same — the software that manages it all.

What can you book on these popular websites normally known as Online Travel Agents (OTAs)?

You can book either of the following

  • Flights

  • Hotels

  • Car rentals

So how do these big websites get the availability and pricing for these products? What software do they use to do their search?

How does it know which airline is providing what seat at what price? How do you prevent simultaneous bookings by multiple customers across the world from booking the same seat on the same flight?

What do travel agents use when they do our bookings over the phone?

They all use a system called the Global Distribution System or GDS for short. There are 3 main GDS players in the whole world.

They dominate the majority of the market. And you can book cruises and trains as well using GDSs.

So GDSs have access to airline/hotel inventory and OTAs subscribe to these GDSs. But before OTAs can subscribe to a GDS they need to be accredited by IATA (International Air Transport Authority). This prevents any rogue agent from accessing airline/hotel inventory.

GDS is one of the first abbreviations you learn in the travel business. How to understand the three main GDSs and connect to them?

🏃✈️ Half-Marathon in Heathrow

Imagine running a 2.1 kms loop 10 times to complete a Half-Marathon inside Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. YouTubers Josh Pieters and Archie Thomas Manners did just that. Watch the video and be amazed.

🌍🧭 World Travel Tech Awards

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 2nd annual World Travel Tech Awards.

World Travel Tech Awards serves to recognise, reward and celebrate excellence in travel technology through our annual awards programme.

This is a very interesting award as it covers tech and travel. Both of which I'm very fond of. Though I haven't travelled a lot lately, it was good to read about this award that has been around for just 2 years.

Some of the awards that most excited me are as follows -

Do check these out and be delighted.

🧠 ChatGPT

OpenAI recently gave the public access to their recently announced tool called ChatGPT.

I have tried this tool recently and with some amazing results. Though not everything has wowed me, some did do.

Like it can write responses in multiple languages.

The best example I have seen so far is Building A Virtual Machine inside ChatGPT. I tried the example from this website myself and here are the results.

Some more examples shown below.

This tool can really do wonders if you know what problem you want it to solve and can articulate it properly.

Thank you so much once again for reading my newsletter this week. Please feel free to Buy me a coffee if you are enjoying what I am sharing.

Until we meet again next week, try chatting with an AI, stay really warm, drink lots of hot drinks and binge-watch anything you enjoy.

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