It looks like there is some unaccounted for variance in their design: "The listeners would be asked which audio sample (electronica, male vocal, female vocal, or instrumental) they wanted to audition. The requested sample would then be played through one cable, then we'd swap and repeat per the test protocol."

They should have either made people listen to the same audio sample or made everyone listen to all the samples.

How about giving me a phone that makes it through a full day or two of real world use without running out of juice? Bonus points if I can actually make a decent quality phone call where both parties easily hear each other.

So, you're saying they were guinea pigs?

Its like saying "Hey, Chevrolet, you know your customers like the radio station set to 101.9, why cant you engineer your cars to respect their choice instead of forcing your nefarious 101.5 agenda."

Yeah, but this is a Mozilla car analogy we're talking about here.

In the current 2015.7 model, release, the UX team has decided that a 5-button hamburger menu on an AM dial (and only from 1100Khz to 1150KHz in 10KHz increments) is all that's needed. Users who want to access a wider range of frequencies in the AM band are free to write an extension or purchase a third-party radio head unit.

To further improve the user experience, we remind prospective extension developers that in the Aurora channel for the 2016.1 model year, the about:config setting for frequency.megavskilohertz has been removed, along with the FM antenna. The UX team has made this recommendation based on telemetry that suggests that few drivers actually listen to FM radio, especially since the 2013.6 model, in which the AM/FM toggle switch was removed because the UX team for 2012.1 felt it was cluttering the dashboard.

It was those fat French* who demanded that Microsoft deliver an OS without a web browser at all, wasn't it?

* I'll assume Gerard Depardieu represents all French people, just like McDonalds represents all American cuisine and heavy drinking represents all Irish.

Hey, if it gets you laid, go with it. We have to use what works, not what we wish would work in a Utopia. It's a big shit sandwich, and we're all going to have to take a bite. When you reward a behavior, you get more of it. This is science.

These guys are weaving a judicial tapestry that ensures that even if society as a whole were to move a bit in their direction over time, there will be so much precedent against them that it'll take decades longer to accomplish their goals.

Pssht. I'm still a Reversi guy.

Seems like it would have been easiest to change the breathalyzer to only display "drunk" and "probably not drunk" lights. That takes the fun out of it.

So, he says it was over his yard, the kids say it was over their yard, the neighbor says it was over their yard. Does anyone, including the drone owners, dispute that? One would have a hard time arguing it wasn't over their yard.

That seems like something provable. He only fired one shot, correct? And we know where the drone crashed, and where he was, so we can probably determine if that's a false statement. It doesn't seem like it. He must have shot up in the air, because he hit the drone, and the drone was in the air. And it crashed in a field near his house, not in a neighbor's yard, so the statement that he did not fire over his neighbor's fence does not seem false on the face of it. I wonder if his neighbor actually saw the shot, too.

As for warning about a falling drone, don't know. And we don't know if it was necessary. We'd need a better look at his neighborhood, and the reasonable assumptions one could make (or not make out) about the trajectory of a crashing drone. It depends on how populated his neighborhood is. But nothing in the article indicated any possibility of it hitting someone while crashing. Possible, sure, but you'd think that issue would have been explored if it existed.

The article says he was charged under the Kentucky Revised Statutes with "wanton endangerment in the first degree" and "criminal mischief." Here's the wanton endangerment statute:

Do you think he exhibited "extreme indifference to the value of human life" and created "a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury?" Clearly not from the shotgun blast. As every hunter and student of simple physics in this thread has already said, there's no danger from falling pellets. And if the direction of the blast checks out (not at anyone, not over his neighbor's fence, etc) then the blast itself did not create any danger to human life.

So how about the falling drone? If he shot the drone down in a crowded area, where it would almost certainly hit someone, then yes. That does not appear to be the case, though. Nothing from the story indicates there was any significant risk of it crashing into someone. If that had been the case, you'd think they'd put it in the story. Obviously that needs to be confirmed, but I think it's likely. If no reasonable person could believe the drone had a reasonable chance of crashing into someone, then I don't see how you can convict him of wanton endangerment.

So how about criminal mischief?

I'm assuming it's in the first degree, as the value of the drone was over $1,000.

Well he did intentionally destroy property causing loss of more than $1,000. So the question is did he have a right to do so, or any reasonable ground to believe he has such a right? He clearly believes so. He believes he has the right to destroy a spy camera hovering in his backyard. Whether or not that's reasonable is up to a jury. But in Kentucky? Own backyard? Father? Kids who could either be injured if the drone crashes on its own, or by the drone pilot intentionally, or at the very least be spying on them taking pictures? I'd bet a Kentucky jury of his peers would agree that Meredith had reasonable grounds to destroy a spy camera on his property. You own your airspace up to 300ft per the FAA, and there are Supreme Court decisions that agree you have property rights over your airspace.

I hope he takes it to a jury. I'd like to see what they say. I bet he will, too. He believes he's right, and I bet a defense attorney would love this case, if not just for the news spotlight alone.

There has been public outcry. People are talking about it. Laws are getting passed. Opinions are changing. Snowden is in exile for now but I don't think he'll stay that way forever.

The US declared war on Germany on 12/11/41. It took two and a half years to land at Normandy. It's still 1943 and you're declaring Hitler victorious.

Newsflash: places with machine shops need to fabricate objects, so they use the latest technology available. Surprise to uneducated people: US Navy ships have machine shops on-board, because they often need to fabricate objects while at sea. The surprising twist: when you're at sea, you can't just order from Amazon, you have to make it right then and there. Crazy, eh?

Do they have a good reason to be firing the weapon?

"Justification" is a thing. You can argue in front of the jury that yes, you broke the law against firing weapons in city limits, but you were justified in doing so because reasons, and they may or may not agree with you.

So, are the neighbors just randomly firing their guns in their air for shits and giggles? If so, he would not respond favorably. If they're firing their shotguns in the air to defend their property and privacy from flying surveillance devices, he'd probably tell his daughter to go inside for a bit while he goes and helps his neighbors deal with a nuisance.

Somebody else in the comments had a good idea...garden hose on full blast. Consider it a warning shot. Yes, I think Meredith was justified in what he did, but I like the hose idea, as you're less likely to wind up arrested.

I was deliberately being misandrist.