Engineering Marvels

A modern 777 jetliner is an absolute marvel of engineering. Yet (unlike on smaller planes) the overhead bins are almost, but not quite, deep enough for standard carry-ons to go in wheels-first. And almost, but not quite, wide enough to fit three lengthwise. So you can only get two in a bin. A tiny modification to their design could have increased the bins’ capacity by 50%.

I used to have a fax machine which required fax paper rolls, which was fine; the rolls were cheap, lasted almost forever, and were a snap to change. Finally it broke and I had to replace it, and found that ones like that are no longer made. Now they’re all “plain paper” fax machines.

Which sounds great – except that they require these ridiculously bulky cartridges containing rolls of what looks like carbon paper in them, that are quite costly, don’t last very long, and are a royal pain-in-the-butt to change, if you can even manage to figure out how to do it correctly. Moreover, after laying in a supply of these godawful cartridges, I thought to get hold of a back-up fax machine that appeared to take the same ones, only to find that in fact, the cartridge for the second machine is actually a tiny bit different and not interchangeable.

Technological progress – you gotta love it. God bless our engineering geniuses.