Looking out the other window
Monday, May 31st, 2004
Flying home from Los Angeles I sat on the right side of the plane (again) which meant that my view was south.
Here’s an idea I had while flying. I realized that the arc of a view from over 30,000 feet might take in 100 miles which means that people sitting on one side of a plane might see a whole city while people on the other side see desert or a lake. So, like overseas flights where a GPS shows a map with an image of the plane moving over land and cities or water, why not tweak the GPS software to tell the folks on one side what they are looking at and the folks on the other side get a different story, 100-200 mile offset.
Unless the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we’re now flying over Las Vegas, unless you have a good sense of geography or recognize it from the air, you might be clueless. A GPS solves this nicely but it needs to be sensitive to one’s arc of view.
Anyway, a meandering river, a road in the middle of nowwhere, countours in a clear cut, circular fields, tract housing, Chicago skyline, a Connecticut lake. Good to be home on the Connecticut lake side of things.
A Peterson’s Guide to Major Industrial Polluters and Environmental Threats
I was at a conference a few years ago and on route I had to fly west out of Pittsburgh. I was enjoying the few minutes of rest as the plane climbed to altitude (no electronic gadgets). I could see
Wow, my first trackback! Cool.