It wasn't just a freaking seat, it was the entire bathroom, and they had to make large injection molding dies to create the new bathroom. The seat was just one of the parts that went into the new bathroom and the project cost was spread over x number of pieces of deliverable parts. Any time you deal with injection molding or just about any significant manufacturing process there are large upfront costs that lead to VERY expensive parts if you don't produce a lot of something (heck, even business cards get stupid expensive if you order less than a few boxes at once, which is why I have a few thousand business cards I'll never use as it's WAY cheaper to order me 10x more than I need then it is to even occasionally need an additional batch run). The alternative to the new bathrooms was scrapping the airframe and designing a new one, and if you haven't been paying attention lately to the way Air Force procurement is done that would have resulted in a LOT more cost than some $640 toilet seats. Btw thanks to those new bathrooms the P-3C Orion is one of a handful of aircraft to serve over 50 years bringing the cost per flight hour down quite a bit over building new replacements =)

We are all responsible for our own actions.

Certainly. But that doesn't mean our actions cannot be influenced by others, especially when those influences are subtle or act on the subconscious.

No need for 'regulation' or 'protection' of classes of people of any age.

Were you replying to someone else? I wasn't calling for state action or regulation.

Modern advertising and PR learned quite a bit from the propaganda on both sides during WW2. It chooses music and images to elicit specific emotions such as feeling that something is missing in your life, or you're too fat, or that with this product people will like you. Have you noticed the recent uptick in television advertisements featuring veterans that have absolutely nothing to do with veterans?

"Oh thank God! She made it home in one piece, and her dog missed her so much. Now go buy whatever-the-fuck dogfood we're selling or you don't support our troops!"

Sure, there's no gun to your head. But the industry wouldn't spend billions of dollars doing it if it didn't increase sales. And every year they research new techniques to tug on your heartstrings or make you feel inadequate, and then they show you the product that will fill that void. Your mind is being programmed at every opportunity, and I believe you should have to opt in to it only if you want.

It made an operating profit, lifetime net profit of 500M on a cost of 128M obviously more than making up for any interest charges. If more units had been operated the program cost of 1300M could have been easily recouped assuming there were a half dozen more economical routes (likely).

Drag isn't THAT huge, at 150km/h a Tesla S (cd.24 and frontal area of 2.676m^2) needs only 37.2HP to overcome drag, even a big old F150 only needs 61.2HP (cd .36 and frontal area of 31.5 ft^2), heck a Kia Sedona minivan is only 40.6HP (.32 and 23.5 ft^2)!

Nah, if you make it G550/BBJ/ACJ sized (basically small 737) it can operate out of any of the likely target airports while still operating with a fixed wing configuration.

As a more liberty-minded individual, I don't want anyone restricting me in that manner, be they governments, corporations, "market forces" or whatever, and I understand that regulations are necessary to insure freedom in the market (a truly free market is as free as any anarchy, which is to say, not free at all -- laws and regulations are what protect the freedom of individuals).

Hell, VMware just released vsphere 6 a few months ago and it requires flash, it will be under support until 2020/2022 .

Yeah, it would be physically impossible for NYC to survive if it wasn't for skilled truck drivers bringing in loads of food every day via big rigs, there's not enough rail capacity to haul it all in and obviously no room to add more.

Wait, you can buy a six figure truck, but $300 is too much to spend to have appropriate mapping?!? That's a complete BS excuse. Heck, I imagine one fine for having a truck on a route that doesn't allow them is enough to pay for the unit. Also I bet the fuel price search could save more in a month than the unit costs.

The request for right turn optimized routes seems reasonable, but the truck route seems stupid to me. If you're operating a large truck you should be using truck optimized commercial software, not freaking Google Maps. There are all sorts of things like bridge height, earlier lane alignment alerts (it takes a LOT longer to get an opening big enough for a big rig), hazmat restrictions, etc that the commercial packages take into account that google maps is unlikely to ever add so giving a truck route option seems like it would give drivers a false sense that google maps is an acceptable alternative to what they should really be using.

As opposed to a manned unmanned aerial vehicle?

Ok, then manslaughter or negligent homicide depending on the jurisdiction. You're still putting peoples lives is serious danger through your stupidity and if you're in the least bit intelligent and paying attention to your surroundings doing it knowingly.

You've mellowed but you think someone should forfeit 10 years of their life for essentially being an immature teenaged brat? That's roughly the amount of time you can expect to spend in prison for murder in Finland.

Well, it IS attempted homicide to call in a high pressure situation where even Canadian police officers will be armed and filled with adrenalin. You have to remember that we have situations like Tamir Rice where a 12 year old boy was fatally shot because someone called in a report of someone with a gun in a park and the dispatcher failed to pass on the fact that the called believed it might be a toy.