Traveling with Apple Vision Pro

But on a 14-hour trans-continental flight, you've gotta have something to do. If nothing else, to distract you from how uncomfortable it is to be effectively confined to your seat + a few feet of narrow walkway for that long. That's more confined than a prison cell!

Killing time is a rather slower flight experience than being unconscious.

I'm very happy WiFi continues to be an expensive opt-in product. If it was always-on, I'm sure I'd break the above habit.

Now you've got me wondering if that's even possible. Ankara to Singapore? Durban to Algiers?

Edit: to be clear, I was nitpicking "trans continental", ie., flights within the same continent.

The routine part, I think, is what took the "I won't sleep on this long flight" anxiety away somehow, because I started learning the rhythm of the flight. For example, there is no point to try and sleep until the initial meal is served, you'll just get woken up anyway. So now I just spend that time thinking and daydreaming and being bored, then I quietly eat my meal but stop at feeling overly fully, and by the time it's over I start to get tired.

I also realized that a sleeping mask is a great aid for me (on the other hand, I don't need earplugs/earphones). This came as a great surprise, as I don't typically need darkness to sleep well, but something about the sensory deprivation in the plane setting seems to do the trick.

What I'm saying is, I used to describe myself as the "I don't sleep on planes" guy for a good decade, but then it started working; don't give up yet.

BTW, to give this a software dimension: I was recently on a flight with an airline I hadn't used before, and I really liked a UI in their in-flight infotainment that showed the entire flight as a timeline with all meaningful events penciled in (when the meals are, etc.) and a recommendation during which blocks to sleep. That was really nice and thoughtful.

Do you recall which airline this was? Given similar pricing, this seems like a useful differentiator that would sway my decision of which airline to pick.

It was Finnair from Berlin to Seoul, via Helsinki.

Edit: I found a YouTube video showing a version of this feature from 8 years ago, but I think the one I saw was a bit more refined: https://youtu.be/5-CrsPAZslg - still, interesting that it's this old and I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Popularly known as “raw dogging” or “barebacking” a flight, apparently.

https://www.gq.com/story/why-men-are-rawdogging-flights

Outside of flying, I have no temptation or desire to take them thankfully, so a prescription with ten pills lasts me literally years.

There are direct flights from Madrid that take around 13-14 hours.

Real question, never tried any.

I wish I could go to sleep on a plane. I’m someone who can sleep in most vehicles. Unfortunately it’s that same reason I can, which is why I shouldn’t.

I think it's honestly a great moment for cultural leveling. There's always a couple classics in the machine. I (un)seriously judge people who feel the need to get Wifi access on flights so that they can just chat on Discord. You have an excuse to just watch a movie!

I suppose most people that want to "raw dog" a flight will fall asleep eventually, so I guess there's that. But I think getting buzzed and just slipping into a bad nap for like 12 hours is a bit different, at least to my mind.

A BiPAP machine uses 50-150 Watts, according to a random Google query, so you're looking at somewhere between 500 and 1400 Wh of total storage to get your 9 hours of sleep on a plane.

So what you're looking for is (a) a way to daisychain these batteries together so that you don't need to wake up ever 40 minutes to 2 hours to swap batteries and (b) a way to plug in your BiPAP machine, if your battery packs are all USB-C and your BiPAP isn't.

For this reason BiPAPs have much more beefy motors so they can ramp up and down quickly. Or perhaps two separate motors, I have never taken one apart (I have normal CPAPs which is basically just a pressure fan in a box with some regulation electronics)

But anyway my point is, a normal CPAP doesn't use that much power. It may use more than that if a humidifier is used (which is probably not a bad idea on a plane, but it requires distilled water which is an issue to bring on the plane in sufficient quantity). Because the humidifier is just a heater and heaters use lots of power.

I don't use a humidifier, my CPAP has a PSU of about 60W but I doubt it uses more than 20. The problem is more that they are not USB-C powered, nor are there official USB-C converters for it. I could probably construct one but bringing home-built electronics on a plane is probably not a great idea either.

So yeah I don't think this will be a great option tbh. If power is provided on the plane it would work but I've never seen this on my flights except in business/first.

Travel CPAPs are a thing but you can't just buy one where I live. They're only supplied by the medical service here, and they don't do travel versions. It's not allowed to buy one yourself (and they're very expensive, around 700 bucks).

That sounds an awful lot like idleness.

Slept like a baby with munchies being the only side effect

Idleness is then just a religious (Protestant Christian?) spin on a perfectly normal thing, much like masturbation.

Ah, ok. Tnx. I assumed availability(eg [1]), so with a $1k-ish cost similar-order to travel, I wandered off looking for other obstacles.

The HME plugs used with travel CPAPs instead of a humidifier, with calcium chloride foam to transfer heat and moisture from exhalation to inhalation, looked interesting tech with winter coming. But for day-ish replacement.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSc1N0ervY

And yeah the Resmed Airmini and Breez Z2 are the only ones I've seen for sale in my previous country (where it was legal to buy them personally if you have a prescription) but they added up to well over 1000 euros with the battery kit which for some weird reason is not included. For my country (medium-wage) that's pretty steep.

Given 100Wh batteries, I've wondered if one could kludge a TSA-compatible carry-on electric mobility device, like skateboard wheels plus selfie sticks, as a one-bag travel scooter. My hungry laptop already needs several. Or carry a conversion kit for an "amazon, use, then give away" inexpensive manual kick scooter.

The reason airlines don’t allow CPAP to be plugged in is because they don’t want people to suffocate if the power goes out in the cabin. But that’s just bonkers because CPAP masks have an escape valve for that purpose already.

In the end, I gave up arguing with the airlines and just keep myself busy on flights. It makes the travel much less comfortable but the one upside is I almost never have jet lag.

So transcontinental is accross the same continent. Intercontinental is between separate continents.