That's a good way of putting it. It might actually be a decent tool for the cops to use. The difference being that the police and courts are (supposed to be) knowledgeable about the law, trained in its enforcement, and accountable for their actions. The university offices in charge of these things, not so much.

On the other hand, if you're not even willing to walk down to the campus police station and file a report, any prosecution probably isn't going to go very far anyway.

"The reason Boeing went for this was to reduce weight, power consumption and complexity."

No, it's not. They most certainly are not running the entertainment system on the same wires as the avionics. The avionics system is a real-time network that is different at a very low level. The FAA exception allowed Boeing to connect the two networks at a single point, using a "network extension device."

If "Jackie" had gone to the cops, which is what they're there for, there wouldn't have been a problem. She wanted a media shit show, and she got it.

Recent events, such as the Rolling Stone farce, have shown that universities and the public are not responsible enough to act in the way you suggest. If the cops want to set up a rape reporting website, that's one thing, although I still think it's useless because a rape conviction should require physical evidence. Universities or random people doing this? That's just asking for a witch hunt.

That line of thinking is where a lot of the danger of this kind of thing comes in. Eyewitness testimony, never mind a "witness" clicking a button in an app, is incredibly unreliable. Rape is a serious crime, and should require physical evidence to convict.

The real solution to this problem is to eliminate the stigma behind reporting rape and having the proper evidence gathered. A bunch of reports of rape don't mean anything. A bunch of reports of rape with positive rape kits is evidence.

Yes, but that's a big if. If you've got physical separation then there's no if, and there doesn't seem to be a reason why the avionics network should be connected to anything else, and it's usually not. Boeing apparently asked for an exception to that rule. It would be interesting to find out why.

You're making unfounded assumptions. Before they started putting those GPS displays in the seats I used to take my hand held GPS as carryon. I had all the same information and my Garmin was certainly not connected to the aircraft systems.

According to the slides somebody linked up above, the airplane avionics network is isolated from everything else (running a completely different protocol) except for a specific exception that Boeing got for some 777s, subject to a bunch of security requirements. If I were in charge of the FAA I wouldn't have granted that exception. So if you're paranoid, you might want to choose any other airliner instead of a 777.

Walking has demonstrable benefits, both for physical and cognitive health. "Man up" when you're 20 might mean getting off the couch and running, but when you're seventy might mean going for a stroll or doing a few reps with a five pound weight.

Some people might have no other choice than to use a scooter - it's not necessarily laziness, but it's certainly not good for you, and people who want to live healthily as long as possible should minimize their use as much as they can.

If you can hack an air gap down in the avionics bay, you can hack the one where a control cable runs by inches from your seat. That doesn't have much to do with the wifi.

If the wifi network is connected to the avionics network, i.e. with no air gap, that's stupid and should be fixed.

Sure, because a cheap, clean source of energy wouldn't help with any of those things.

You'll live longer, healthier, and keep your cognitive abilities longer if you "man up."

I'm not American, but your IRS site says that to qualify under section 501c you must be an organization that is "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, [or] preventing cruelty to children or animals."

Therefore, churches are tax exempt because they are religious organizations. That exemption category seems to be problematic because somebody has to decide what is a religious organization, so just eliminate it and let regular churches be tax free under the charitable organization exemption, or one of the others.

If somebody has to decide who is a religion and who isn't, that immediately creates a tax imbalance.

My suggestion is that churches be given tax exempt status based on already existing non-profit and charity criteria. That way religion isn't singled out either way, and the accounting requirements make sure they're actually operating the way they're supposed to.

Corrections to gravity were discussed at great length when they were still a reasonable alternative. You CAN explain some galactic rotation, and the movement of some clusters. The problem is, in order to explain all galaxies, all clusters, or all galaxies and clusters, modified gravity theories need lots of dark matter anyway.

Dark matter isn't really all that revolutionary of an idea. Neutrinos are "dark" in that they don't interact electromagnetically, and they were mysterious mathematical figments (very prominent physicists literally thought they were fudge factors in nuclear equations) until we observed them.

Churches are tax exempt because they're churches. If they satisfy the requirements of a tax exempt non-profit or charity, that's great. If not, pay your taxes. Scientology, for example, would likely fail quite badly as a non-profit.