Reading Tim Bray's blog today led me to find this fantastic set of illusions.

Jason Schroeder's rant about airline delays reminded me of something I had forgotten to blog about my trip to Switzerland recently.

We flew from Zurich to Copenhagen where a connecting flight was supposed to take us to Helsinki. Supposed is indeed the right word. We had already boarded the plane and were waiting for the plane to taxi towards the runway when I noticed that people around us were suddenly starting to do something. A second later, I realized that they're all staring at the air conditioning system which had started to blow some kind of gas inside the plane!

Think about it. You're in an airplane, full of people, and suddenly you see white gas coming in from every single air conditioning hole there is on board. Think about the panic that would've caused in the air!

Luckily, it wasn't gas. It was plain old steam. The air conditioning system was malfunctioning, failing to remove moisture from the hull and instead circulating it back inside. It was a very real reminder of how technology does break sometimes -- even on airplanes which probably get more service than any other vehicle in use (except perhaps helicopters...).

Oh, and the story ended with the passengers and crew switching to a different plane after some 45 minutes of waiting for the mechanic to arrive, check the air conditioning system, consult his colleagues, and finally declare that the plane is not going up today. At that point, I was glad that we had to switch planes. Who gives a shit if you get delayed by a couple of hours when the alternative is to take off in a plane you can't fully trust in actually staying in the air...

Apparently Google is indeed a great place to work.
I wonder if Adam was seeing some Resign Patterns at BEA :)

Man, I'd love to know what they're cooking in there...