This isn't new and is how it has always been. If 15 years ago you attempted to use your RC for aerial photography, the FAA would consider that a violation. The rest of your examples are also no new.

What does LoS mean when the primary pilot has taken the aircraft to an altitude not discernible by the naked eye? Or when the primary pilot has taken the aircraft beyond LoS?

The FAA DID make that very recommendation. The clarification here is that they are not permitting FPV flight, and are restricting "view of the user" to their natural vision (corrected, if necessary). FPV is the new tech advancement that irresponsible pilots are using to fly in an unsafe manner.

The problem the FAA is currently faced with is that hobbyists aren't flying within a field, AMA or otherwise, but rather exceeding 400 ft, flying over populated areas and highways, and flying into controlled airspace. The only new restriction that the FAA is proposing is removing FPV flying from the domain of "model aircraft", which limits the pilots ability to perform these unsafe activities.

Ars Technica just published an article demonstrating the activities that irresponsible people (the author) do with this technology: link

You don't need an even number of rotors to cancel torque about the yaw axis if you run the rotors at asymmetric rates; tricopters are common in the hobbyist community.

In 2013, an Alitalia pilot identified a quad on the landing path to JFK International: link. There's already reason for concern.

I doubt it is just "a few idiots". The access to these devices has increased to the point where many people can now gain access to them, particularly those who don't give much thought to their actions. Ars Technica got their hands on a DJI Phantom and IMMEDIATELY flew above 400 ft, over other people's property, over crowded areas, over highways, and in dangerous areas (near power lines, etc): link.

The FAA agrees with you and you still retain the ability to fly the craft as a hobbyist, but you must do so below 400 ft and within line of sight (not using FPV). You must not operate the craft for money, nor as a part of a business.

The problem is that when people take their quad out to a park and fly it using FPV, they often go above 400 ft, fly over other people's property, fly over crowded areas, fly over highways, and fly in dangerous areas (near power lines, etc). This isn't a "few bad apples" either, this is the glut of FPV users.

Ars Technica got their hands on a DJI Phantom and IMMEDIATELY did the things I mentioned and wrote about it: link

Some emboldened quad users have been more than willing to put others at risk and fly their aircraft in the landing path of airports. In 2013 an Alitalia pilot identified a quad in the flight path at JFK International Airport, coming within 200 ft of the airplane on it's descent: link

It sounds like you may accounting a little differently than what occurred at my institution. The 40% was taken for administration and overhead; all faculty and student pay, hardware and software, and any other research materials all came out of the remaining 60%. Part of why the ARL balked was because THEY were the administrators and approval had to go through THEM, not the university. There's no reason the university should have taken so much for "administration" they weren't providing.

That's very misleading. After the 1986 Challenger explosion, one of the intended goals of the shuttle, to deploy and maintain spy satellites and equipment, was considered too risky. As a consequence many of these missions were shifted to other launch platforms such as the Delta rocket family. I'd argue that all of these should be considered mission failures, from the shuttle's perspective.

I worked on a military funded research project and the Army Research Labs contract administrators balked at the 40% (!!!) mandatory overhead costs. They felt it was exorbitant as they had their own people who oversaw nearly every aspect of the contract. The only thing the university had to provide was a space for us to work.

I don't believe this approach reverses privilege at all. In fact it sends negative messages out that girls are more valuable than boys, and that girls couldn't compete without assistance.

If sexual parity is reached, there's no advantage to Sally refusing to work as hard as Susie; Sally will get the axe at the next performance review while Susie will get a raise.

I believe it goes beyond appearances. During the sexual revolution the en masse influx of women to the workforce put a depression upon wages (primarily entry level positions) as employers now had significantly more applicants. Women born after 1978 now are the majority of students of college campuses, attain higher levels of education than their male counterparts, and are likely to earn more over the course of their lifetime than men born during the same time. Unfortunately for companies like Google, they're not flocking to computer science degrees. Google and others don't have a candidate pool as large as they want to drive down the large costs of paying employees, so they're working on increasing H1-B visas and bringing in additional applicants that wouldn't otherwise choose the field (e.g. women).

I agree that women should feel that computer science and related fields are potential careers, but Google's approach only serves to help underprivileged girls at the expense of underprivileged boys. Children of privileged families already have the capability of sending their children to these programming classes, but children of underprivileged families may not be able to afford these classes. The opportunities that Google are being offered on a sexual discriminative basis, with the qualifications being completely out of control of the child.

Typically when we describe people who aren't granted equal opportunities in life we use terms like "disadvantaged" and "underprivileged". For those who were granted these opportunities we call them "privileged". What Google is doing is creating an environment where interested boys from a less wealthy background are deprived the same opportunities that a girl in their situation would be. I wouldn't call this "equality" and Google certainly shouldn't be praised for this sex-based discrimination.