This is awesome.

The transition part especially reminded me of iMUSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMUSE) which creates seamless transitions between music tracks in LucasArts games as you move between areas.

This significantly enhances the immersion of the games, and 99% of the players probably never even noticed. And that's the point. They're not supposed to notice. They're supposed to be immersed.

I don't know what happened with this project since that letter to JetBlue's CEO, but Mr. Q has completely and single-handedly saved what always sounded like a questionable idea.

There are at least five other people as interesting as Mr Q who have made this project completely worth it for me

That's good news. I hope you're right, because that would be great for all of us.

In my experience, old people are frequently the best people to end up next to on a plane. Given 80 years, everyone will have some absolutely fascinating experiences.

One upon a time, I was at a dinner my university threw to bring together scholarship sponsors and scholarship students. I was sitting at the table with Mr. M, of the Mr. and Mrs. M that were paying for much of my education. Mr. M was quite successful in the construction business and was bankrolling over a dozen engineering students that year. He was in his nineties at the time. [Edited to add: I just checked and it appears he passed away this year. I'm going to send his family a card after I get home from work.]

Anyhow, at one point, my college nemesis (also, through accident of fate, at my university through Mr. M's generosity) was doing his usual intellectual preening and mentioned some numbers he had been working on for his civil engineering project. As I recall, it was how much reinforced concrete he would be needing for some project or other, but don't take my word for that: if physically exists it is Not My Department.

Mr. M mentioned, in a humble and offhanded way, that perhaps Nemesis should consider adding 20% more reinforced concrete so that the structure at issue wouldn't fail.

Nemesis: "Well, I don't know where you're getting your numbers, old man, but in this day and age X is considered enough."

Mr. M: "Well, I suppose it is entirely possible they have improved on the formula since then."

Nemesis: "You mean since you used it last?"

Mr. M: "I mean, since I invented it."

Is this the first interesting person they've met? Nothing beyond schedule exists on the other 9 days. Seems like a bad run of luck.

No, I've met tons of interesting people. It just takes a while to write.

Wow, you're not only an excellent designer but an excellent writer as well. My suggestion: ask permission to record your conversations with them for future "This American Life" style podcasts. Yes, I know the jet engine noise might be intractable for audio quality.

How come when I click on another day (say Day 8 for example), I am no longer able to navigate back to Day 10?

Because the free wifi at Oakland is very crappy and I cant deploy the rest of the site's changes.

Give the man a break, he's living on a plane for 30 days.

If you guys keep this up you'll have a nice coffee table book by the end. I just hope you're taking some high quality stills. Nice work!

Heh ... For some reason I mis-remembered, and expected an article about the profound impact of the classic arcade game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*bert ... Not at all what I got, but a good read nevertheless.

Yes, because had he not been on the plane it wouldn't have flown.

Added weight doesn't require the consumption of fuel? Using the pointless consumption of resources to garner attention doesn't set a bad example?

You know, that's a really good point.

In fact, if he's really skinny he might actually be doing the world a favor. With 2/3 of the US overweight the chances are pretty good that the airline would have sold the ticket to someone fatter...

There are so many other things to get your underthings wadded about, I just don't understand the negativity about how this kid's chosen to spend his month.

>I just don't understand the negativity about how this kid's chosen to spend his month.

I don't understand why, in a time when we should be dealing with the problem of climate change, a project that celebrates the pointless use of resources and emission of CO2 is seen as acceptable. Pretending irresponsibility has no consequences isn't positive.

I doubt that when he conceived of this month long project, he had a "celebration of wasting resources" in mind. It was probably more like, "I'm going to meet some cool people and fly to 50 cities".