The article mentions that at the time they were looking at the 737 replacement in the early 2000s they didn't think they could scale up the production to the volume needed for the 737's market. I think this fits the general theme of the article - they probably could if they started work now, but they had to make the decision on replacing the 737 or creating the 737 Max whilst guessing on the future years down the line.
Can I just say thank you, I love your site! Despite being a regular runner it's much more convenient than trying to remember what I like to wear for a particular forecast.
There is a view held by some that they actually decrease safety by providing somewhere for undesirables to loiter, or a means of escape after committing crime, or simply attract more foot traffic to an area than a cul-de-sac therfore increasing the chance of opportunistic crime.
I suspect this is a situation where the benefits of the shortcuts to society may be greater than the possible downsides to the nearby homeowners, but more power lies with the local residents, or developers who want to sell homes. It would be interesting to know if there is any research on whether there is any effect on crime from this sort of development.
But if the user with the higher karma is the only one interested in that thread they could easily just ignore the posts they disagree with so they never get endorsed. It leads to the same outcome, yet they appear to have done nothing wrong.
I also seem to remember that one of the last things Clarkson said was how much he liked the the Leaf.
More generally, a 100 mile range would be fine for me 80% of the time, but the other 20% I need longer range without a 12 hour stopover. Electric cars are just not quite there yet for my needs, and I suspect a lot of other people too.
It's not perfect, but it does allow me to have a memorable password for everyday use that is improved by the two factor authentication, and a more secure but unmemorable one for use by applications. (Admittedly I could achieve the same by using a password safe compatible with my phone.)
More practically, I suspect the problem is the amount of time and energy taken to prove and certify a new way of doing things. Flight data recorders are standardised across most of the world and I suspect agreeing and certifing the number/location/design is more difficult than actually changing the hardware.
Modern British universities have always required you to 'read' a particular subject. The major change after WWII was to make them available to more people by changing the funding model rather than the educational system they provided.
The move to vocational courses for things outside the obvious (such as medicine) is a more recent phenonemon, in part bought on by large numbers of people going to university as it is the 'done thing' rather than by a desire to be educated, and in part by a return to a funding system requiring the students to pay for the education and wanting something tangible at the end of it (a job).
I've no figures to back it up, but my initial thought is that the simple cost of the OS isn't the deciding factor. For a PC people expect the Windows name, to see Windows on it, and for all their Windows software to work. That leaves using Linux as an unseen cost to the supplier. For a phone most people probably don't see an OS (with the probable exception of Apple), and don't have legacy software. They just see a phone they want that does shiny things. Therefore the OS chosen might not have such a hidden cost making the fact that Android is free a bigger advantage.
The blackberry facebook app attempts this, but it's not actually that useful. Variations in spellings of names confuse it, the 'type' of number (work, mobile etc.) can cause duplicates and a lot of my friends no longer store any useful contact details on facebook due to privacy concerns.
Some of these might be implementation issues, but I still don't think that even working perfectly it would be a killer feature for a phone.
In this post however he seems to be comparing mobile-optimised HTML5 video against desktop standard Flash video. My netbook won't play HD native video but it will play optimised Flash - does this mean Flash is great on my netbook and native video must suck? Both of these are unfair comparisons. (Though I accept your point that users couldn't care less :)