In Flight – NYTimes.com – This is an absolutely beautiful interactive piece written by a pilot describing a flight from London to Tokyo. I immediately sent it to the Snook; he’s a big fan of airplanes and flying. (Interesting trivia: his original major in uni was aeronautical engineering.) The writing is lovely and I appreciated the touches of humour throughout. The infographics were really helpful too as I learned about waypoints and sky countries and the problem with altimeters. I also marvelled at the overall design of the piece–the way the background and text colours shifted as I scrolled, mimicking the airplane’s long journey, bookended by the takeoff and landing sequences. What a fantastic way to present a longform essay. I worry sometimes that the Internet has broken my ability to digest longer pieces of text, but I absolutely savoured every word of this one.
