So I get to the part where Walter asks his wife if she'd found anything. She lies with a pause before saying, "no" and I marveled at the way it sounded, completely honest, except for that pause. That obvious lie pause.

One supposes Walter was too caught up in the subject to notice. It's a plausibility that lets you continue. He's probably crazy after all. But I thought it was pretty stark. After a few moments of meditation, I realized something.

We use SIP phones at work. These, of course, connect to a VoIP network, which typically has a small delay. You know where this is going. The delay I noticed in the film is roughly the same as that perceived while using our VoIP system. The actual delay is about half that, but the RTT, is what's important.

In short, any of our clients who have cause to wonder whether we're telling the truth probably think we're lying. This subject was on my mind that day because I'd been arguing with a client's customer (with blessings from both my boss and the client) and noticed the VoIP system was just making things worse, because while a casual conversation can go at a slow pace, an argument needs smaller segments than the delay would properly accommodate for.