America learned that it was unjustifiable only in the very, very most extreme cases in the 1940s.

If your commander orders you to put a bunch of people into a room and fill it with cyanide gas and you do it ... you might be held accountable for that years later, maybe. (i.e. only if your side loses the war, and you're one the folk they can track down and extradite.)

But if your orders don't involve killing innocent, unarmed, non-threatening people in cold blood -- America expects you to do what you're told. And really, even if your orders do involve killing innocent, unarmed, non-threatening people in cold blood -- you're expected to do what you're told too.

If your military commander orders you to do something, and you don't do it -- bad things happen to you. Now, there is a small chance that years down the road the courts will vindicate you if you decided not to murder a bunch of people -- but if all you did was protect somebody's right to privacy? Yeah, you're going down.

I do agree, the mindset has issues, but our military commanders expect their orders to be carried out, and dissent is only tolerated in the most extreme cases (cases that should never happen, as such orders should not be given.) But if the order is to tap some phones or sniff some networks ... if you refuse to do it, well, you'll get fired and they'll get somebody who does. And you won't be vindicated in the courts, you'll just be blacklisted to some degree in trying to find new work.

By that rationale, a metaball is a deadly weapon as well.

No, there is no official definition of "drone". The FAA uses different terms -- they don't call them drones. The media calls them drones (often incorrectly), but the FAA has more specific terms that they use.

Here's one for you.

I imagine they happen with some regularity at places where R/C and manned aircraft share the airspace -- for example, at Torrey Pines before R/C use was banned (not sure what the current status is.) Of course, nobody was arrested in those incidents and I don't even know that there were any injuries -- but there were some collisions.

You don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about.

The maximum weight for an ultralight in the US is 254 lbs.

As for commercial use, that depends on the use, not so much the plane. If you're getting paid to fly Cub (at around 1000 lbs) -- that's commercial and requires a commercial license. If you're just flying it for fun, no -- but you will need a private or sport pilot license for it.

There is no such rule for R/C planes.

FAA advisory circular 91 57 suggests that, but it's not a rule -- that's why it's called "advisory".

The AMA rules (not law, but we can call them rules) say stay under 400 feet if you're close to an airport, unless you coordinate with the airport.

Most powered R/C flights are indeed under 400 feet, but glider pilots break that ceiling with every good flight.

A slow stick is very easy to break. It's relatively easy to fix as well, but it's far from "almost unbreakable".

A much more durable plane would be a foam flying wing like a Zagi -- motor in the back, foam everywhere else. That's much more likely to survive a hard crash than a slow stick.

As far as the FAA getting on people's case, it usually doesn't matter if it's a R/C plane or drone at all -- what matters is if the use is recreational or commercial.

Citation required.

Show me where the FAA regulations specifically mention AMA rules and give them the weight of law. (And no, Advisory circular 91 57 isn't it.)

Most single engine planes are under 5k lbs.

In general an ultralight has to be under 254 lbs and there's some other limitations. And then you don't need a license to fly them, but they're still subject to many of the FAA regulations -- in particular about where they can fly.

Ducted fans are horribly inefficient for anything that is to hover. Using ducted fans would decrease the performance and/or increase the cost by a large margin.

They work better for high speed airplanes, but even then an exposed prop is more efficient.

Well, they also literally break their penis off in the queen if they're lucky :)

But that isn't really true.

A standard "line of sight" controlled R/C plane is an "unmanned aerial vehicle", but isn't explicitly banned from flying over crowded areas. Not by the FAA, anyways -- Manhattan might have regulations of their own, and it might be a controlled airspace which would complicate things -- but wouldn't automatically and completely ban use of such aircraft.

The "FAA Advisory Circular 91 57" basically says not to do so, but it's advisory -- it doesn't amount to a forbidding of such an action. The AMA regulations largely mirror what the circular says -- but it's just rules for a hobby association, and the only thing you lose by not adhering to them is you risk your membership and your insurance through the group (if you're a member, of course.)

This quadcopter may or may not have been an actual drone -- I don't know if it was autonomously controlled or not. Maybe it was just a standard R/C model flown in a crowded location, and just happened to have a camera on it? I'd expect a little more ... precision from something that was flying itself. What seems more likely is that the pilot wasn't very experienced and lost track of the orientation of the craft. If so, he should have never tried to fly in such crowded conditions, at least until he got the hang of the quadcopter and maybe not even then.

Eh?

Politicians have never stopped teachers from teaching the metric system in this country, and schools have taught the metric system for decades starting at a young age.

But it's often taught in the context of science and while the students do learn enough about it to use it "in the real world" -- the US still doesn't use it for everyday things, and so they don't get practice using it and don't truly grow comfortable using it (unless they go into science) and as adults they still know the metric system but are more comfortable with the Imperial system and so don't really support laws to move more things to the metric system, and so things stay the same.

But certainly, it's not politicians "not letting teachers teach". And remember, today's politicians were yesterday's students.

Actually, I've already ditched Gnome. I liked Gnome 2, but so many of the features I liked and actually used were removed for Gnome 3 that I finally bit the bullet and just switched to XFCE. I miss some of the features of Gnome 2, but not Gnome 3.

And if I hadn't, removing middle button paste and not even making it an option would have run me off even faster. At least I spent some time trying to like Gnome 3 before giving up.

Seriously, they can have my middle mouse button paste when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.