Does "every kid" use an out-of-line-of-sight FPV RC plane to fly at street level through traffic, buzz a hospital's active helipad, and make people on public streets duck while the pilot is making video that he uses to show off the stuff he sells? Interesting.

Have you actually seen these FPV "foamies?" We're talking about things that are carrying a camera, a brushless gimbal, flight controller with associated daughter components, one or more heavy/dense lithium batteries, a prop spinning at high RPMs (frequently made from very sharp carbon fiber), and ... the whole thing can weigh several pounds, with some of them easily flying at well over 50mph (some well over 100mph).

Care to get "bonked" by one of those?

But the FAA's policies make specific reference to model aircraft, and repeatedly get into things like "guided" and "sustained" flight. Meaning, the reason an RC drone isn't a rock is that you're actually sending it, under control, through a sustained flight in the air. The FAA's authority begins an inch off the ground, not 100' or 10,000' - which is why they're still in charge of safety when a 747 is 1' off the runway, or 1,000' off the runway.

A hospital helipad is a 24x7 controlled bit of air space. And more to the point, the pilot in question is all about goggles-on FPV flight. He's seeing where he's going by watching through a small nose camera and a relatively low-res RF video downlink. The guy we're talking about ("Trappy" Pirker) makes a big deal about how he flies FPV out of line of sight. Flying that way, he's got absolutely no situational awareness (say, a medivac helicopter coming in from above or from the side, out of his FPV cam's forward view).

The number of slashdotters that bleat about "teh evil corporations that break teh law!"

What's appalling isn't that, but the ones who bleat about the evil corporations breaking the law when the evil corporations are NOT breaking the law.

True enough. Note that Tim Cook is NOT the owner of Apple. The stockholders are the owners. As long as most of the stockholders agree with Cook, he's fine. As soon as they don't, he's history.

I expect that the stockholders will agree with him as long as the stock increases in value and/or provides dividends better than the competition. As soon as what he wants starts costing them serious money, he's gone.

There's pretty much nothing about Bitcoin that requires it's inventor to be an economic expert. In fact, given the beliefs of the general Bitcoin community, being an expert would be something of a handicap.

No, he didn't. The FAA fined him for operating recklessly, and he followed the usual administrative procedure to challenge that fine.

That's not to say that some law suits aren't appropriate in this area - if for no other reason than that the FAA is ignoring legal mandates from Congress to get this area sensibly on the books in short order. The Obama administration, and their people running the agency in question (which is part of the executive branch) is, just as they're doing by randomly and unilaterally modifying and ignoring hard dates and requirements in the ACA, are just blowing off the law on this matter. That, in and of itself, has no bearing on the case in question, but it's causing this to be dragged out for no reason, as hundreds of millions in new economic activity is sitting on the sidelines holding its breath. Thanks, administration. We can tell what your priorities are.

His videos show eye-level flights along public streets dodging cars. He shows himself flying directly over an active hospital heliport. He shows people having to duck low-level passes in public spaces.

He is the worst possible example of someone doing business in this area.

No. This was specifically because he was being reckless. His videos showing him flying at street level through traffic, buzzing the hospital heliport, etc.

The reason the FAA became aware of his asshattery is that he uses his jerky stunt flying to promote his business (he sells multirotor hardware, among other things). He's an attention whore, and puts together his videos with a deliberately provocative tone, and it caught up with him. The issue of commercial vs. hobby was incidental, and the administrative judge's ruling didn't speak to that directly anyway.

Regardless, this isn't even a "final" ruling. For now, he's had his fine dropped. Heavy, onerous regulations are coming for RC/FPV operators, and it will be ugly (licensing, air worthiness certificates, medical exams, etc).

Buzzing a crowd isn't OK either way. Regardless of the state of the FAA's pending new regs, plenty of local laws against reckless endangerment can be brought to bear, and this sort of ruling is going to pour gas on the fire of a thousand local jurisdictions throwing together a patchwork nightmare of laws against Evil Drones. This ruling is actually a bad thing.

Bad joke! Bad!

Seriously, arial font occurred to me just as I hit "submit", but I admit I wouldn't have come up with something as clever as you did....

arial

Aerial.

Once again, don't try to write words you've only heard, not seen in print.

And special caveat, don't use "The Little Mermaid" as a guide to how to spell "aerial"....

Meh, the courts are for those edge cases.

Yep.

Do note that the court ruling we're discussing settles the current edge case quite nicely.

Which is why, apparently, the legislature is trying to move the edge. Once that happens, the courts will have to settle exactly where the NEW edge is.

Which will make some people unhappy, probably resulting in new legislation, thereby producing a new edge, which will produce new court cases, ad infinitum.

No. I respect those who dress according to their beliefs (through religion, morality, whatever). If you're not comfortable with showing it, whether it's accidentally or on purpose, then don't. Full stop.

I don't care whether it's wearing a skirt & no panties or not wearing a headscarf, stop complaining when people look at what you reveal, thats just being hypocrical. Assume yourself.

On the other end of the spectrum I also uphold the rights of those who want to dress differently -- not being forced to wear a burqua or headscarf or pants or long skirts or whatever.

It seems to me that you want to force your dress codes on everyone else through some sens of "this is right", because somone other than the wearer doesn't like it. When you get down to it, you use the same reasonning as the mullahs.

I know women who are very tightly buttened up & show nothing more than face, neck & hands. I also know women who are comfortable on nude beaches. I respect all of these women & all those between thes two extremes who dress according to what they are comfortable with.

Those I have little respect for are the hypocritical people who dress so that people will look at them then complain that they are looked at.

Oh but it's special because they're girls? That's sexist bullshit.

Now crawl back into your hole coward.

That's utterly different from selective enforcement.