… Additional Desktop Shenanigans and MORE.

It’s rare to see the words “We’re sorry” stamped prominently on the home page of any airline. But that’s exactly what British Airways proclaims concerning the complete mess that has become the new Heathrow Terminal 5.

Moreover, a week ago BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh went so far as to make a public apology after the chaotic opening of the new Terminal 5: “Yesterday was definitely not British Airways’ finest hour. We disappointed many people and I apologise sincerely. I take responsibility for what happened. The buck stops with me.”

Apologizing is not a sign of weakness. In fact, a public mea culpa, if done right and effectively carried out, can reassure those hurt that the transgression is both understood and unlikely to be repeated.

Hopefully that is the case with Terminal 5. Because, just, wow.

A Nice Gesture in Mich.
No doubt, gas prices are high throughout the nation. And if you’ve followed the state of auto manufacturing of late, you know Detroit has had a rough go of things. So here’s a feel-good story for folks in Michigan:

A Mobil gas station owner in Michigan gets $50,000 for selling the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $135 million. With some of that money, he plans to buy 9,000 gallons of gas and sell it at cost — about $3 a gallon — to his customers.

“If you win something, you should do something with it,” said Tarek Saad, of Dearborn, told Detroit News (via Obscure Store). “Don’t be greedy.”

Stanford E-Week Winners
The challenge for Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Week innovation tournament in February was to use an everyday object — rubber bands — to create as much value as possible in six days.

The goal of RubberBandTogether, the winning team, is to sell the ball and donate the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The cost is $1/band or $3,056.

Here’s a video — a bit oversweet but nonetheless inspiriting — of the winning team:

Zany Inventions in Geneva
At this year’s International Exhibition of Inventions, which runs through Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, more than 700 inventors — companies, independent researchers, universities and just people with a good idea to make unicycles a little easier to ride — from more than 45 countries are showing off their products of all kinds.

From artificial nose hair to reusable packaging for fresh flowers to a bed that makes itself, the nearly 1,000 wacky new inventions on display at this year’s exhibition offer all sorts of impractical solutions to problems you may not know you have.

Last year’s recipient of the Grand Prix award was the inventor of a mechanical shovel for collecting, breaking down and reducing materials to gravel.

For Pranksters
As proved by our hugely successful April Fools’ Day issue on Tuesday (Huge pieces of cake to all of you!), IMT readers have a fantabulous sense of humor and workplace merriment. So here’s another idea to add to our earlier list of hijinks and pranks for the office:

Newton Virus is a non-destructive virus that causes icons on your computer desktop to fall towards the ground as if affected by gravity. You can transfer the computer virus to a colleague’s Mac via a specially designed USB device.

Here’s how it works:

Newton Virus, created in 2005 by London collective Troika, is on show at the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York until mid-May.

Cheers.