More annoying to me are the video monitors of neighbors who elected not to watch a program. On DTV-equipped UA planes, a loop of movie previews and commercials plays over and over again if you ignore your screen. Few people seem to know how to cut the screen off (push the "-" contrast button repeatedly until the screen cuts off). I have reached over sleeping seatmates to turn off their monitors when ignored.

Back to the window issue. When flying, say, EWR-BLR via FRA, the flight leaves EWR around 6:30pm ET, which (in winter) is 5:00am IST and arrives BLR around 1:00am IST. Therefore, I try to stay up the entire flight (both flights) as much as possible to get on IST time and get to sleep on arrival. The best solution (keeping the window open when light outside + the overhead light on) wouldn't endear me to the people sitting nearby. When the sun rose (on my last flight into FRA), I noted that the people that would be affected by the sunlight near me had eyeshades, so I opened the shade just enough to get the sun in my eyes. No one said anything.