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Weekend read: The tyranny of aircraft boarding

103 words posted by Simon on 5 July 2013

I seem to have featured a disproportionately high number of articles about air travel in this series of weekend reads, and I’m adding to that collection today. Chris Ziegler has written an entertaining and informative post for The Verge, in which he casts aircraft boarding as a microcosm of a broken industry. I suspect he realises that the problem is greater than efficiency alone, but his exclusion of all other aspects of the boarding process does make for an interesting read, and leaves the reader to ponder why the system is as it currently is. Some of the comments are quite entertaining, too!

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2D: The space shuttle

188 words posted by Simon on 3 July 2013

Endeavour

You might remember some of the extraordinary pictures from late last year, when the Endeavour space shuttle was driven across Los Angeles to its final resting place in a museum. It was a quite remarkable operation, and this Global Mail article by Gerard Wright describes it at a very human level. It also includes some more of those memorable photographs that really help to put the physical scale of the shuttle in perspective.

But what if you like the space shuttle so much that you want to steal it? Jason Torchinsky has you covered with his article for Jalopnik. Torchinsky delivers an article on a faintly ridiculous topic in such a way that it combines eye-popping factual detail and intrigue with a strong dose of humour. It’s well worth a read.

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them! The picture at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by InSapphoWeTrust, and has been used here under Creative Commons licence.

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