Flying out last Sunday, as I was sitting on the plane, with about 10cm of space between my knees and the seat infront of me, I got to thinking about how the level of comfort has taken a turn from the early beginnings of air travel. It used to be expensive, priviliged transportation, for the hot shots who could afford it. Since the cost of the flight already was so high, they could throw in some "complimentary" food and drinks, which would only raise the price by a few percent. Sitting in a noisy aircraft with dips in pressure and occasional turbulence was never classified as comfortable. But the airlines went out of their way to improve the things they could do something about. The big chairs which fall back are now even found on ferries, adopted apparently because they are so comfortable. And for a good period of time, people did travel on those planes, the priviliged ones at least.

But then came the people's revolution. We are getting better at running our airlines, operational costs are down, meanwhile the demand for travel is booming. Why not sell this to more people? And so the prices dropped, budget airlines joined the race and now there are more airlines than political scandals in a year. So it has become cheap, but at what cost? Airlines still have drinks, but they're trying to retail them now. Air travel has gone for being reasonably comfortable to sitting on a bus. Seats used to be wider, there was more leg space, more space in the overhead etc. As a kid, we had this excercise in gym class where you would crouch down and touch your toes, then jump up so that your knees touch your chest. I was quite good at that and I imagine it will come in handy when I'm travelling with Ryanair next week and I expect to rest my knees on my chest.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,4284,1597508,00.html

Very nicely crafted, I haven't read anything this good in quite a while.

Have you ever noticed that whenever men hit women in movies, they always swing the backhand? *watching a James Bond movie* Why is that? Is that some kind of sexist demonstration of power? That "I'm restraining myself and yet I can still kick your ass"? Is that the equivalent for the head butt between guys? "I could refubnish your face with my hands but I'll show you how much damage I can do just with my skull"?

Idiotic macho games.

Just picked up the brand new NTNU study catalog (don't ask me why they would print it up right now, with school starting a mere month ago) and reading the description of their computer science course, I caught onto an interesting statement. "This program will affect your entire professional life." After giving 5 years of my life to it, I sure would hope so.

Also, the catalog looks very nice in terms of layout, but the content is fairly mediocre. Why is it that whenever the layout is good, the content is not and vice versa? There must be a strong force of inertia at play..

Norwegian national team coach Åge Hareide threw a tantrum and declared that reporters don't know what they're talking about discussing tactics and that the general public isn't clever enough to understand this complex phenomenon. While that may very well be accurate, it's 2005 and unless you're Trapattoni, you can't say things like that, you have to work the PR engine. The game is all about marketing and popularity now, it's no good making enemies.

But this debate will surely spin off into a confrontation on prime time, with Åge apologizing as he always does when he's wrong. Meanwhile, we can enjoy that he gets so many things right, with Norway now in playoff and a fair outside shot at making the tournament in Germania. What opposition does Åge prefer? Denmark or Turkey would be nice. Indeed why not, it would be.