Not every complaint is a sign of hatred. Sometimes it's constructive dissent, they like the product but dislike some aspect of it, so they voice that. In the case of games, of course they buy the sequel, they want to know if their voice was heard. If it wasn't, they repeat their complaint; if it was, they complain about some other aspect they think could be improved.

This isn't a bad thing, either. Companies can improve their products and services by listening to the dissenting comments of their customers; but that only works if the people you call trolls actually voice their opinions.

I thought I'd never see you write those words. You are completely correct, of course..

The reason for the crushing of liberty is the cash cow. Profit first, politics later.

Only one thing I disagree with - bandwidth costs. The FDR [apparently] records at about 6kB/s (I'm trying to find a source to back that up), so that's 6kB/s per aircraft in satellite data costs. There can be up to 11,000 aircraft flying at any one time, so that totals 66MB/s of bandwidth required globally. I don't believe lack of bandwidth is a factor.

Bandwidth is apparently between 5 and 7 USD per MB, so about 4c per second. In comparison, and A320 consumes about 665 gallons of fuel per hour, equating to about 29c per second. It's not an insignificant increase in cost. Along with that, the cost of equipment, certification, etc is why we haven't seen it yet, though I believe there are working groups.

There is also the issue that it will always be possible for the flight crew to pull the breaker on the transmitter, much like they can pull the breaker on the CVR (and probably the FDR), so that doesn't solve the issue when it comes to a malicious agent.

You've pretty much described the CVR and FDR - both record on a relatively short (30 minute) loop and tend to be accessed only after an accident. They don't pull them every flight and use them to make a Christmas party blooper reel.

Christ where did you get those "facts"?

1. He already was a pilot. Where does 30% come from?
2. How did he break up with Maria W one day before the crash - he was already back with his long term on-off girlfriend. Who the hell is Sabine?
3. What the hell is social terrorism?

Not really. The control panel signals that the door can be opened. The cabin crew would be familiar with the visual and audible cues, and in that situation would be highly unlikely to miss them.

Chemical rocket engines dump heat into the exhaust gases but in a vacuum radiators have to be huge and heavy to get rid of significant amounts of heat from something like a nuclear reactor.

You could use a nuclear lightbulb style gas core reactor and either ablation or pure photon drive.

You are assuming we have to pander to pilots preferences. Just TELL them, "you will be videoed or alternatively you can choose another profession".

And some percentage of them will, which makes the available pool of pilots at a given price smaller, resulting in either lower quality or higher prices or both.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "alter orbital structure and energy levels"?

I mean part of the electrostatic attraction between atomic nucleus and orbiting electrons should be countered by expansion of space between them, which in turn affects stable electron orbits. In fact all forces should get weaker with distance faster in an expanding space than in flat space.

Electromagnetic force is mediated by virtual photons, who's wavelength gets longer as space expands, thus sapping electromagnetism of some of its native strength and somewhat altering the lowest-energy point of all structures held together by it.

I was a little confused when I saw that wording in the story, and now that I'm hearing this wording is the important part, I'm getting a little concerned. Are we not all citizens? Have we been divided into citizens and ruling class, now?

We've always been divided into serfs and lords. Human spirit simply doesn't have the strength to resist using power to get more. The lords, blinded by the seeming invincibility of their position and the system which grants it then end up draining that very system to the point of collapse and revolution, and the cycle repeats.

Whether it can be broken is anyone's guess. Democracy has slowed and complicated the gravitational collapse of current system somewhat, but it couldn't alter the end result, since all manifestations of power in our societies are not under democratic control, and are thus free to join biggest existing masses of power and make them even bigger.

I'm all for popularizing science among all citizens, but I'd rather we word that as "science for the masses" or something.

That very desire should already answer your question. As our masters keep telling us: if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.

I was replying, specifically, to

In the context of that, well, being "rich" is all about the numbers. Literally just numbers. So I'd say it was pretty much on point.

Do we enjoy a better quality of life than most of the world? Sure. I never claimed otherwise. In fact, I actually said:

That's an admission that we're doing better in the "who has the better toys" race, which is what you seem to think matters. But no, it actually is the numbers that matter. Why? Why is the the numbers and not quality of life? Because, until we actually own things, banks can decide they simply don't want us to have their property any longer and take it away. But that's really secondary to the problem you're (and rightly so) trying to address: our ability, at an individual level, to actually do something to improve the quality of life for the rest of the world. When 25% of the population has less than $10 after debts have been accounted for, they simply can not afford to affect change in the global economy. When you factor in that even average and slightly above average (so now we're looking at 60-75% of the population) earners are living paycheck to paycheck and often have less than $100 after debts, well, they can't do anything about it either.

You've got a nation of people who might give enough of a shit to want to do something to improve quality of life on a global scale, but who simply don't have the means. Sure, they could donate their time, but, well, first they'd have to be able to afford the time off work; and that's assuming the organization they were working with was willing to fly them to whichever country they'd be working in, and back, which is typically not the case; so they'd have to be able to afford the time off work *and* plane (or boat) tickets *and* room and board *and* food for the time they were abroad affecting real change. Which, again, comes down to numbers.

But you go right on ahead and say it's ignorant and cheap to look at it from that perspective. Just assume that all of us greedy fucks over here are just sitting on our hands; after all, if we really wanted to change things, surely we could, right?

This reminds me of the piece of shit rust bucket I used to drive. I had a bumper sticker that read "Yes. I'm Compensating."

BT's one bill website won't allow you to download the bill (a zip file) unless you use IE. All it has is a list of all your bills, but for some reason they use some fucked up JavaScript to start the download via a link, rather than using the actual href. Idiots.

Am I reporting harassment? Because that's that "Be Nice, Think Twice" was referring to.

I pointed out where we were in agreement: that people have their own definitions of harassment and that the definitions can vary daily, hourly, or even more frequently. Was I terse? Yes because, most of the time (like 10AM in a Friday), I have better things to do than write novels to argue with ACs on Slashdot. Which brings us around to:

Or, I had just spent 15 minutes writing and revising the linked post only 4 minutes before writing the one you replied to and, well, I'll refer you to my prior statement regarding having better things to do.

Rather than attacking me (anonymously), why don't you try discussing what I'm actually saying? Is it that, while you disagree with my message, you can't seem to come up with any counterarguments? Are personal attacks really the best you've got? If so, perhaps you should reconsider your position. That always seems to work for me when I can't find any arguments against positions I disagree with; and it's not flip-flopping to change your position based on previously unconsidered information or viewpoints, it's growth. I've been doing it my whole life and I think everyone should try it, it's some good stuff.