I’m a pilot (single engine) and a flight instructor. I have many airline pilot friends, and am somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of the industry.

Even with all that, the magic of airline pricing eludes me. It feels like 3-Card Monte.

Also, as you may have noticed, the plethora of Internet travel sites are much weaker for international travel – especially travel that crosses multiple airlines in multiple countries.

Personally, I consider non-stop flights worth quite a bit of money. Every take-off and landing is another opportunity for weather delays. It is another opportunity for equipment (aircraft) problems. It is another opportunity for bags to be lost (if you are checking bags). It is especially frustrating to have these issues at an airport where English is not the preferred language. If I can’t get a non-stop, and I’m flying internationally, I’ll do what I can to choose a transfer point in the US.

Where possible, I fly myself, or if under a few hours, drive.

I concur with Dave Hamilton on this one.

The disagreement, in my view, is a descriptive one rather than conceptual; rather like the proverbial blind men describing different parts of an elephant.

That OS X is beginning to host features of iOS that harmonise the user experience across the two operating systems merely demonstrates the shared heritage of the two systems and the robustness of OS X, and not that OS X is becoming iOS. It’s the user experience, courtesy of key features, that are converging and being harmonised, not code.