Naomi Kritzer: This reminds me of the "automatic wheelchair" I saw someone using at the Miami airport last week. Here's the upbeat article describing these travesties: www.fastcompany.com/91071380/ame...

This reminds me of the "automatic wheelchair" I saw someone using at the Miami airport last week. Here's the upbeat article describing these travesties: www.fastcompany.com/91071380/ame...

No blind person has said "hey, you know what I'd really like? if 99.99% of all alt text was total garbage, absolute dogshit, just as totally fucking useless as having no alt text in the first place. That's what would help me." These guys with too many eyes in their heads, though.

American Airlines rolls out wheelchairs that can automatically take passengers to their gates - Fast Companywww.fastcompany.com Whill's autonomous chairs will zip passengers to their gates, avoiding obstacles, then return to their starting place. American Airlines rolls out autonomous driving devices at two U.S. airports

So FYI it moves at approximately 1 mph but slows down anytime it senses something nearby, which is constantly because it's in an airport, and plays a jaunty little tune as it rolls, like an ice cream truck. I think the woman I saw using it did make it to her gate but hoooooly shit.

If you're actually disoriented, you probably still in fact want a human, not this thing. If you just need an alternative to walking end to end through the mile long Miami airport, you know what, one of those little scooters like they have in grocery stores seems a whole lot better?

I have never seen those in an airport! Your options are "get pushed in a wheelchair designed only to be pushed by another person" or "ride in a golf cart" or "walk." Or, I guess, get a ride from Hell's Ice Cream Truck, if you're in Miami.

Anyway, there may be a good reason to have these but it should be illegal to use the word "zip" to describe how they move.

Hell's Ice Cream Truck and it doesn't even give you ice cream. My god. I would ask if it could get worse but I'm sure it's somehow already worse than I think in a way I haven't yet realized.

The cargo thing on the back looks tiny and also like it has a serious risk of overbalancing the contraption if you're light and your suitcase is heavy. Hopefully these things can at least summon help if they fall over, but frankly that should not be a concern at all.

Yikes. As someone extremely likely to need assistance the next time I'm in an airport, as much as I don't want to have to rely on an employee showing up to push me that still seems vastly preferable to something like this that I have absolutely no control over and have to just hope it works properly

....it plays a tune? Like they were aware that Miami International is already a miserable place, right?

Mari, I am not overstating things when I say it was like a little ice cream truck! I know my friends who use the grocery store scooters hate the BEEP BEEP BEEP when it backs up, and this made me think, "turns out there's a worse option!" I wish I'd spotted it empty so I could've gotten video.

I did like the food options in Miami but other than that I hated the airport. Not enough seating at the gates yet also somehow 10x as spread out as any other airport I've ever been in? And an excruciatingly long wait for our bags (which we then immediately rechecked -- international travel).

To be fair, I haven't been to that airport in several years, but, also to be fair, I have hated it since the 1970s. It was poorly designed from the start, and the improvements haven't improved much.

My worst ever airport and experience was in JFK in NYC and overall this wasn't memorably terrible, but it's definitely badly designed.

Perhaps they needed the seating space for more hallways, which then obstructed the route needed by the baggage carts.

The odd thing is that I was told - actually told - that Eastern Airlines originally designed one of the terminals to WELCOME passengers and make them want to fly on Eastern and I think we have just found one reason why Eastern Airlines is no longer with us.

OMG. I don't think I actually have enough nos here.

If they wanted to be PROPERLY evil there'd be an app to control which tune to play. Your choice of "Camptown Races," "Dixie," or the dinkely-doo version of "Freebird."

... but, no matter what you selected, what you'd *get* is "Never Going to Give You Up"

It plays a tune. Ok NOW I'm angry. Fucking hell. Hell indeed.

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