This is Slashdot, so I understand that you didn't read the linked articles. Here is a more general summation from the articles I posted above.

An entry into anotherâ(TM)s airspace is a trespass even if the trespasser doesnâ(TM)t touch the surface of the earth. Airplanes may trespass by flying low over a personâ(TM)s property, for example. An airplane trespasses by flying low enough over the surface to interfere with the ownerâ(TM)s reasonable use and enjoyment of her surface.

The only way to guarantee that you are not trespassing is to be in public airspace which is determined to be 500ft.

And no, you do not have to cause damage to be trespassing.

Well, that is not actually correct -
"In that case the court held that a plane flying just 83 feet in the air—the commotion was literally scaring the plaintiff’s chickens to death—represented an invasion of property. The justices declined to precisely define the height at which ownership rights end. Today, the federal government considers the area above 500 feet to be navigable airspace in uncongested areas. While the Supreme Court hasn’t explicitly accepted that as the upper limit of property ownership, it’s a useful guideline in trespass cases. Therefore, unless you own some very tall buildings, your private airspace probably ends somewhere between 80 and 500 feet above the ground."

Source:
http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Dummies Article on the Topic:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/...

Google Search With Many Articles:
https://www.google.com/search?...

What does all of this say - the Supreme Court has ruled you own at least 83 feet above your property. So no, all airspace is definitely not public. Hopefully this will lead towards a new ruling which will legal define how much airspace you own; opposed to it being left in a legal grey area for heights between 83 feet and 500 feet.

I am really curious as to what the error message was and why it would not let him fly further without a settings change. I am guessing it was probably something about when flying in an extended range be sure to respect the privacy of others and local laws. At least if it is like other software warnings.

One would hope that before you purchase a Tesla car you would be okay with your distance to the nearest service center:
http://www.teslamotors.com/fin...

The USA Government did acknowledge that it shot down the aircraft and did agree to pay compensation to the families. "As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims."

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I have never installed an ad blocker before, but Slashdot drove me to install ABP! Just couldn't take the random scrolling to the top of the page while reading comments. Although, not that I have added an ad blocker I may never go back...

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/...

For those who do not want to go to the article, where does US oil come from:
    - USA: 38.8%
    - Canada: 15.1%
    - Saudi Arabia: 8.1%
    - Mexico: 7.5%
    - Latin America (other than Mexico/Venezuela): 6.2%
    - Venezuela: 5.9%
    - Nigeria: 5.2%
    - Africa (other than Nigeria): 5.1%
    - Persian Gulf (other than Saudi Arabia): 4.8%
    - Other than above: 3.3%

Yes, but it used more in slang than in proper English.

From Urban dictionary:
n isolated incident or individual that identifies or seems to identify an entire group

Examples: ...the vast minority of music is corporate pop ...the vast minority of movie theatre patrons yell at the screen during movies ...the vast minority of people on the internet are self-absorbed trolls ...the vast minority of neighbours are obnoxious hillbillies that play their music way too fucking loud

I am not sure how much you want Netflix to make, but they are definitely not running at a lose or breakeven! Net income for 2014 was $266,799,000:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?...

The USA governments case was three fold against Microsoft and the integration of IE:
1) Alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera) that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store.
-No longer matters as downloading an app from the store to replace an app on your phone is pretty much the main reason people switched to smart phones in the first place.

2) Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers
-There has been evidence that Google has altered the API of Android in anyway to have their apps before better than other apps. Everyone has access to the Android source code so this is not an issue.

3) Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct
-Google is not forcing manufacturers to only sell Android phones with Play Services. Google has nothing equivalent to the "Microsoft Tax" that was charged even if you bought an OEM computer without Windows.

So No, this is nothing like the antitrust case against Microsoft for the integration of Internet Explorer. Microsoft's actions were completely anti-competitive at the time...

Then why are there so many people using tor or other anonymizing software? How many people would like to keep their IP address private, but don't know how? There is a lot of tracking that can be done via an IP address alone...

I can remove GMail, the calendar, maps and youtube from my Android phone. To tell you the truth Samsung S3 (Verizon) did not include the Google Calendar or Youtube app at all and only included their versions of both those apps. It is actually your carrier (Verizon, AT&T, etc) more often than not that decides which apps you can and which apps you cannot delete from your phone. The manufacturer gets some say in what can or can't be removed in regards to the apps, but the carriers always have the final say.

Ummm... Samsung sells the Galaxy Ace line of cell phones that does not come installed with Google Play Services. They also ship numerous other lines of cell phones that come packaged with Google Play Services. It seems that they are allowed to both. They also are allowed to ship Tizen phones and Windows phones. It seems that there contract with Google for Play Services is not limiting their choices.... It is the customers who are controlling Samsung's choices by voting with their wallets.

Amazon is no way using a third tier company to make the Fire Tablets. The Fire Tablets are manufactured by Quanta Computer which has revenue of over 4 billion dollars and over 70,000 employees. They are also the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world. Do you consider them third tier since they are based in Taiwan instead of Korea or China?

Lastly, Samsung got involved with Tizen so that they could steer the direction of the OS. Something they can not do with Android since Google and the Open Handset Alliance control the direction of the development of Android.

There are 2 things that you are forgetting -

1) There are a lot of feral/wild cats in the USA who get 100% of their food from hunting and scavenging. These are the cats that they primarily attribute to the killing of birds - not the domesticated cats that people have in their homes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

2) There are people, like me, that own a cat (or cats) and allow them to go outside. My cat loves to hunt and would much rather catch his food than eat store bought food. I know that he (my cat) alone "catches" 2-5 birds a month and he does not release until all of the meat is gone...

The number of feral cats is estimated to be in the "tens of millions" (http://www.aspca.org/adopt/feral-cats-faq). Even if you said ten million feral cats - that would mean each feral cat would have to average 8-9 birds a month. Which does not seem overly high to me given the minimal amount of meet on each bird.

If the small shops / "mom and pop shops" are overselling the bandwidth that they have by that much, then I would say that the issue is with the small shops themselves. There is no issue for the small shops if they are not massively overselling their connectivity.

I also do not think there are many small shops selling broadband Internet Connectivity in the USA. Where I have have seen small shops is in rural areas where they are selling Microwave based Internet which is usually very expensive for the bandwidth compared to cable/dsl and has much lower throughput and high latency.

Anything that requires "cables" generally has a monopoly. Sometimes this is shared in the cases were you have both a telco and cable provider servicing the same residence. In extreme cases you may have a third entity if Google or another company is running fiber lines, but that serves less than 1% of the population. These monopolies are granted to the service providers by the municipalities so there is no "true" competition or incentives for the service providers to increase bandwidth. In most cases there is a disincentive since that could spark a "bandwidth race" with the other service provider in the area which just increases the operating costs.

Now, if they do not have to invest in their networks, but they can charge companies on the Internet that rely on bandwidth (such as Netflix / streaming services in general / gaming / etc) so that they can be prioritized on their over saturated networks without investing in their infrastructure - it is a win win for the service providers. Which is why, IMHO, Verizon/AT&T/Comcast/etc are so against Net Neutrality being enforced. Without Net Neutrality, to me, it is like Google Adwords were the Telcos/Cable Companies can have all of the services that want bandwidth bid against each other to have top priority or even exclusive access to their networks.

If last mile Internet Service was actually a free market commodity were anyone could be a service provider, and lay their own cables, I would not see this as such a big issue since people would be able to vote with their wallets if they did not like the fact that X company was restricting their access to Y service. But, the way it stands right now, the end consumer really has little to no choice over their broadband provider which means someone (or some governmental entity) has to prevent them from abusing their monopolies.