I've always heard that it was six pounds. It's funnier because the bag might survive or it might break but you won't know when or where.

Yup. People are putting up with all that security theater, too. Even first class on some airlines has less to offer beyond a big seat. IIRC, USAir had no inflight entertainment on a Phoenix to JFK trip.

I would bet that there is money involved in this somewhere. Just as every other regulatory agency, they need money to operate. Further, they continually need to justify their existence. Technology can't be uninvented. Picture this: A small group of UAV companies need to make money and keep making money without the fear of Joe-schmo and his home-built UAV cutting in on their territory. The formal companies get together and hire a few lobbyists to convince the FAA that the home-built UAV is dangerous and needs to be regulated in the form of expensive annual certifications. The companies that could afford the lobbyists can also easily afford the annual license fees. The little guy can't so he's forced to go away. The FAA is happy to have the additional revenue and probably some baksheesh from the lobbyists so they go along with it.

I'm wondering at what point are the consumers going to rebel against all of this. The whole luggage debacle has to be included in this discussion too. First, the airlines decided to start charging for checked baggage. The customers responded by not just switching to carry-ons but finding the biggest carry-on possible and getting one for each of their kids too. Trouble is that overhead storage can't accommodate one of these for every passenger so now the extras have to get checked at the door and they don't get charged for this either. The result is more pissed off customers and departure delays. The real question is why this had to happen in the first place. Was it the additional cost of fuel? Unlikely because fuel costs are directly related to weight and the planes know how much they weigh. Is it then the higher cost of fuel? Maybe but if domestic production of oil has been increasing over the past ten plus years and is now surpassing imports to the point of producers wanting to export, why are the fuel costs still as high as they were ten years ago? Or is it labor costs which never go down?

Which leads us to the seating arrangements. Adding 10 more seats puts another roughly $5000 revenue per flight assuming that the flight is fully booked. Would you be willing to pay an extra $33.33 for one inch of legroom? If people aren't willing to spend $25 to check a bag, $33.33 must make people apoplectic. What would you be willing to give up to bring those costs down and the comfort level up?

If it's taught in the style of Connections, I'm all for it. I absolutely loathed traditional history teaching methods until I saw that series.
If it's revisionist, then screw that noise.

The coffee world is already deep in bed with the organic, fare-trade, square-deal, jump-through-hoops, still-tastes-the-same movement(s). GMO coffee will make these folks lose their excrement in old testament fashion. Should be amusing to watch.

What if such cyber attacks are a form of misdirection or rather click-bait? Here's the scenario: launch a cyber attack on a bank but you're really not interested in any data you might get or rather the attack makes the target think that you're after data. The target then tells its customers to change their passwords. It's only then that the attacker gets what their after i.e. account holders' NEW passwords.

IMHO, this isn't the same as residential electricity because you either have it or you don't. Okay, sure there are the few residential exceptions that might need three-phase or something like that. The watts used for one device will work just fine for another device. Most houses have a 200 amp service and that's all most people are ever going to need. That 200-amp service has been the same 200-amp service for 50 years. And if I use 10,000 watts all day, that doesn't mean my neighbors won't be able to run their fridge.

My point is that eventually, a few people will want to get full-blown 4k video through their connection to multiple TVs in their house and that's going to take major infrastructure upgrades. Most people aren't going to need all that so do you think they'd be willing to subsidize a few high-bandwidth users? Do you expect the ISPs to just eat the cost of keeping up with bandwidth demand? One thing is for sure, government regulation rarely precisely targets the entity in private sector it's intended to. Take a look at your utility bills and see how many regulatory fees are being passed on to you even when you don't use the service.

All frozen...

I understand the user community's desire to have all content be treated the same. But let's assume for a moment that tomorrow, net neutrality is passed and ISPs are no longer able to charge some customers (provider or consumer) more for priority routing/transmission. What incentive do they have to continue to invest in the infrastructure when they have a near-monopoly over the end-users? Consider television distribution. Pretty much everyone has a choice between one cable provider and two satellite providers whose feature set is virtually identical these days. Those companies have little incentive to do things that end-users want e.g. a la carte channel lineups. Maybe eventually it will happen but it might take years and the possible threat from internet content distribution to get them to do anything. So back to the ISPs. End users have a choice between their local cable company and their local phone company. Net neutrality takes away a potential revenue stream. Why then would they continue to either invest in upgrading their technology or continue to keep everyone's rates low or both? Why wouldn't they jack up the prices of the service level necessary to serve up Netflix or whatever for everyone regardless of whether or not the customer uses those types of services?

And every annoying "Name a word without the letter F. Bet you can't" post.

Please turn out the lights. Oh, wait...

Pretty much every comment on this story is troll-worthy flamebait. Shouldn't the story itself be modded down accordingly?

Why don't we capture this supposed ozone-depleting chemical and spray it all over urban centers that are now showing rising levels of ozone?

Consumption be done about it? Of cough, of cough.
It's not the cough that carries you off. It's the coffin they carry you off in.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.