Man, kids never shut up

On the flight down to SJC, I sat just forward of the tail mounted engines, it was V. loud. This time, I'm in row 8 seat A, so it's fairly quiet, except that the rest of row 8 is made up of kids from the loud age groups (~2, ~5). We've got the nonverbal screeching one and the babbling idiot one, then their very friendly and encouraging mom. The guy who was sitting next to me has already escaped to a seat closer to the engine exhaust.

Lane suggested that a bad earthquake here would destroy much of the internet (then qualified that to "the web"). Looking down at the wrinkly, buckled ("Waaaah," says seat 8E) earth surrounding the fault and imagining that happening to the ground beneath a tech park, I have to say that the damage would be extreme. Not even a hardened [what we call our bomb-, bullet-, acid-, fire-, and hacker- proof facilities] would be safe. Would Washington be safer for net stuff? Nah. We got earthquakes up there as well. Volcanos, too. Is the moon geologically stable? Are there moonquakes?

Starquake -> CGA -> BeOS safe mode

Looking down, I can see the fringes of light known as "fingers of God" streaming down around the clouds. They wouldn't be so prominent if it weren't for so much "smog of Man" in the air.

I think it's physically possible for all those thick, poofy-looking cumulus clouds to suddenly become invisible (would require a sudden increase in air pressure/temperature). That would be scary.

Ooh, there's a big snowy mountain directly beneath us. Air clear around it. Alive.

33,000'. The air at this altitude is not safe to breathe.A loss of cabin pressure would kill us all quickly. I dunno if the little yellow masks are meant to really save us, or just give us something to do as the pilot decreases altitude at an incredibly dangerous rate in order to reach breathable atmosphere. Oh, and it's like -80C out there.

A plane just passed us a mile or so to the left, headed in the opposite direction. I saw it streak by at a relative speed of around 1K Mph. Hurtle!!!

You help your child with the mask first because it is seconds from death