Frankly, this isn't terribly impressive. The Ariel Atom 500 will manage a 0-60 of 2.3 seconds or less from 200 *fewer* horsepower than the Blade, thanks to an even lighter weight of 1,213 pounds. And like the Blade, it has space frame construction, they just haven't wrapped some flimsy composite panels and a plexiglass windshield over it all. (But what did that add to the weight, really? I doubt it was 187 pounds, so the Atom is still lighter...)

All the Atom really lacks is the "look-at-us" headline-grabbing use of 3D printing, which doesn't seem to be bringing terribly much of an advantage to the table here. And I guess, the styling that's right out of a kid's calendar. But really, what's revolutionary here? It's certainly not the construction or performance...

Up next on Slashdot: A revolutionary new 3D-printed paperweight that holds down paper better than ever. It's going to revolutionize the paperweight industry!

Not correct. From the only authoritative source -- Microsoft themselves:

"Sign in with a free Microsoft account to create, edit and save documents for home use. A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to create, edit and save documents for business use."

And... "1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.

a. Consumer Use. You may install and use one copy of the software on Android Phone devices you own or control in order to view existing documents. As allowed by the software, you may also create, edit or save documents for non-commercial use purposes.

b. Commercial Use. You may install and use one copy of the software on Android Phone devices you own or control in order to view existing documents. As allowed by the software, you may also create, edit or save documents for commercial use purposes IF you are a commercial Microsoft Office 365 subscriber with mobile device rights subject to the following terms:

Refer to your existing license terms for Microsoft Office 365 with mobile device rights (the “service”) to identify the entity licensing the software to you and for support information. The terms and conditions for the service apply to your use of the software. However, the software’s privacy statement applies to your use of the software in addition to the privacy statement for the service. You may find the privacy statement within the software, and as applicable, on the app store from which you obtained the software. You may use and install copies of the software on Android Phone devices you own or control subject to the service terms and conditions so long as you have a valid subscription license to the service that includes mobile device rights. If there is a conflict between the service terms and conditions and the above, the terms in this Section 1.b apply."

And finally... "Premium features on your Android tablet and phone with Office 365

Core editing is available for free on Android devices with screen sizes of 10.1 inches or less. The extra features below are available on Android tablets and phones with a qualifying Office 365 subscription. For information about the extra security and control features that are available for customers with an Office 365 for business plan, visit the mobile apps for business page.

Word

Track and review changes
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Highlight table cells with custom color shading
Enable columns in page layout
Customize headers and footers for different pages

PowerPoint

Save ink annotations from slide shows
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A qualifying Office 365 subscription is required to use the premium features"

That's not free, it's payware with a non-commercial use, feature-crippled, time-unlimited trial that has basic features removed which even home users would want such as page orientation, breaks, table colors and headers / footers.

Actually, it's tripled to quadrupled, but fuel still represents only a relatively small fraction of the total cost. (Somewhere on the order of 20-30% of the ticket price you're actually paying these days goes towards gas, or significantly lower if you bought a full-price ticket.) That doesn't remotely explain the fact that ticket prices have vastly increased.

Yeah, no it doesn't. Compare the overall tax rate paid by those individuals with that paid by big business some time -- it's enlightening. Hell, it's not uncommon to hear of major, profitable US companies paying little to no corporate taxes at all.

Sorry, but no, they're not. For routes I personally pay attention to, the base ticket cost has increased by a factor of two to three times in the space of the last 15 years, and that's *before* I even add on all the ancillary, hidden costs. The actual travel cost for my routes is now about five times what it was a couple of decades ago, and even after accounting for inflation (about 60% in the last two decades), that means the real-world cost has more than tripled.

If the airline chooses to offer them to you, yes.

[citationneededbecauseyou'rewrong.jpg]

I stopped reading after the first paragraph, where you are clearly and unmistakably wrong. Airlines in the US market are nowadays setting record profits, whether they're perpetually whining about costs or not.

You do realize there's a limit on the number of operations any given airport can handle, right? Unless you're going to force people to travel at unpopular times or spend a fortune upgrading airports and dealing with all the NIMBYs who whine whenever that happens, a lot of our large hub airports are already operating at, near or even well beyond their design capacity. "Down with the regulation" only works when deregulating can provide a noticeable advantage, but it can't when there's no room to expand.

Which is hardly a valid comparison, given that their entire fleet seats just 21 people. (And to seat all 21, they need three aircraft).

They've very cleverly used charging by weight to gain publicity on the theory that any publicity is good, but realistically they need to know your approximate weight anyway because their largest aircraft seats just nine passengers, and their smallest just three. Your weight is a significant issue in the weight and balance of the aircraft when it's that small.

You do realize that married couples pay for multiple tickets already, and so do families with kids? If anything, those with kids should be paying significantly less, because their weight is far less than that of an adult and they typically have far less baggage too -- yet the discount from a full adult ticket is extremely small indeed.

And it's not just devs who've gotten the message. It's been close to a decade since I last hosted a project on Sourceforge, and so I see myself merely as a normal end-user, but I've gotten the message, too. Sourceforge is no longer trustworthy, and I won't be downloading any project from it, ever again.

I couldn't disagree more. There has been a standard carry-on size for as long as I can remember, but it's only since airlines started nickel-and-diming their customers with hidden fees that most people started taking advantage of it.

And frankly, if you want efficient stowage, having a standard size is a GOOD thing. There's a reason container ships use standard container sizes, and that air freight uses standard unit load devices: It's the most efficient way possible to fit in the maximum quantity of cargo. The same is true of baggage -- if there's a standard carry-on size, overhead compartments get made (on all but the smallest aircraft) to fit that size as efficiently as possible.

And that's why the whole IATA proposal is bunkum -- if they decrease size just fractionally, all that will do on most aircraft is leave small spaces in each overhead compartment that aren't sufficient to fit another bag. You're not going to get any more people jamming bags in the overheads without a very significant change in bag size, or a redesign of the overheads to match the new, smaller bag sizes optimally.

I'm well aware of that. I'm also aware that it's relatively straightforward for an airline to determine their average passenger weight quite accurately, and to budget for that in setting their ticket prices. And I'm also aware that it's an idiotic issue to raise in the first place, because airlines have never charged by (or even measured) passenger weight in modern history.

BTW, here a carry-on follows Ryanair's example: 55x40x20cm, to fit in the overhead.

You've just identified your own problem: Ryanair. Stop trying to save yourself a few pennies and just buy a seat on a decent airline. Just as a random example, British Airways allows carry-on of 56x45x25cm. That might not sound a lot, but crunch the numbers and BA is giving you 43% greater carry-on allowance per passenger.

So-called "budget" airlines almost always work out to be significantly more-expensive than their traditional cousins when you actually sit down and do the maths. They're a false economy, but sadly morons who don't take the time to figure this out mean that they're taking over and will soon be the only way to travel.