The question becomes, how much data will it be able to gather on the water? and does it know what to do with it? Will it know how deep the water is? does it know that 1" of water is fine up to a certain speed? does it know that it can ford 1' carefully, but that 2' is too much? does it know how fast the water is moving? and does it know that the same 1' moving with enough force is now too much to ford, but that 3" of water at that speed is safe?
I'm not saying humans always get this right either, I'm just pointing out that it's not as black and white as it initially seems. I'm honestly not worried about self driving cars making decisions in black and white situations, I'm worried about the grey, and unfortunately, driving has a LOT of grey.
I'm curious. have they ever driven in a blizzard? or at night in the rain where the lane markings have been re-done? There are many situations I can think of that are incredibly difficult for a human driver, and probably even harder to program in to a computer. Those are the situations I'm more concerned about. Jaywalking is an easy enough situation to handle, not person approaching, brake or swerve. I'm more worried about vague situations that require more interpretive work to determine exactly where you should be driving in the first place.
On a highway there are no traffic lights or stop signs, and there are nicely marked lanes and shoulders. Just stay between the lines at a constant speed and hit the brakes if something appears in front.
And what do you do when the lane markings are completely obscured by snow and ice and you can't tell the roadway from the shoulder or the shoulder from the ditch? I can (and frequently do) drive on that, can the automated car? what does it do when there's snow that looks like a white line at an angle across the lane? when a porcupine walks across the road, does it know when it's appropriate to swerve, and when it's better to run over it? would it make the same decision if it was a child rather than a porcupine?
I think self driving cars are the future. But I'm not convinced that the current level of technology is capable of dealing with enough of these relatively common situations. In time, sure, but I can't say how much time...
I highly doubt "other things being equal". Of the reported collisions, the vast majority are low speed minor collisions with no injuries and minor damage. parking lots have among the most collisions of anywhere in any city. Self driving cars can likely all but eliminate those sorts of issues, places where people get in trouble for not knowing the size of their car or paying enough attention to what's going on around them. Unfortunately, if the self driving car still has collisions, but they tend to be high speed mistakes (say it can't tell black ice from dry pavement, or mistakes a snow drift for a lane marking, or that sort of thing) it could easily have half the collisions, with twice the death toll. Not acceptable.
Of course the biggest problem now is the lack of any information on how driverless cars handle various situations. Without that information it is impossible to make a proper argument either for, or against, the technology.
Eventually I'm sure we'll have driverless cars. but as little as I trust the average driver, I simply don't trust any current computer system to be able to handle all possible situations as well as an average driver can.
The problem is that a computer only reacts to things it has been programmed to deal with, humans can be creative. So while that may make the vehicle better MOST of the time, it doesn't make it better ALL of the time. There are undoubtedly situations that the programmers didn't think of. Additionally, I have yet to see any reports whatsoever about how well a driverless car handles inclement weather. I can drive in situations where I can't see the road surface at all, or worse yet, where the visible road lines are the ones that have already been removed and the new lines are invisible due to the glare of lights on wet road. I can interpolate where the road SHOULD be, and drive accordingly. How are driverless cars at doing that? Unfortunately where I live, a significant portion of the year falls in to those two categories. It is stressful driving for a human, but is it even possible for an automated system?
To drive perfectly, a car would need a technology that we simply haven't invented yet. True AI.
Of course I think there may be an even worse situation in our future. I honestly believe self driving cars will become standard in the future. I also know that almost no law is ever repealed. So I forsee a future where the cars drive themselves without human interaction, but where it is still illegal to talk on a cell phone, eat, drink, or read a book while the car does the driving.
Li-ion batteries suck. But they suck ever so slightly less than NiMh batteries, which suck ever so slightly less than NiCd batteries... which makes Li-ion the best of the common technologies available right now.
Battery technology has been improving constantly. That said, it is nowhere near what people want it to be for our increasingly battery dependant lifestyles.
You mean the "limited time" part? or the part about encouraging innovation? Hate to say it... that part is long gone.
The only part you guys still seem to have is the bit allowing everyone to run around shooting each other... Not exactly the thing that makes tourists want to visit...
Unfortunately I get to stare at a whiteout blizzard instead... Too bad, last year had a wonderful night watching the northern lights with my wife from our hot tub (best way to do so!)
many of the new bulbs you would notice if one LED failed, because they don't have many to start with. modern LED bulbs tend to use very few, high power LEDs and a diffuser cover.
That said, I've been relatively happy with my current LED bulbs, Philips 800 lumen dimmable 12.5W 2700k. good light colour, and they've lasted so far for a couple of years in enclosed fixtures on a dimmer (though the "dimmable" part is a bit of a fiction, they're still the best dimmable, non-incandescent bulb I've found)
I have tried, repeatedly to find decent LED fixtures for my house. I have wall sconces and ceiling lights I would be happy to replace with LED fixtures. Unfortunately I just can't find any that fit my decor. The only ones available at my local big box renovation stores are LED versions of pot lights, beyond that there are VERY few available anywhere in the world, and none that I have found that aren't extremely ugly.
Lighting a wall sconce or ceiling light with a bulb providing a 360 degree radiation pattern is a huge waste. but until I can find another option, I'm stuck with it.
Pray tell, which bulb type is designed for wall sconce applications where light is only needed coming out one side of the bulb?
There isn't a standard for this, so they all use "A" bulbs. this means that we waste a lot of energy lighting up places that don't need light. But manufacturers can't fill that niche with even more efficient bulbs, because the certification says the light needs to be wasted?
The current bulb types are built around what an incandescent bulb could do. technology has improved, the standards haven't. We need to work around this. As long as the manufacturer is up front about the light emission pattern of the bulb, we should test to the manufacturer's claims, not an arbitrary number.
My wall sconces all take "A Lamps" they also only need to put out light through half their surface. Unfortunately things like this force me to use bulbs that waste energy by directing light in useless directions.
I'd love to find an LED bulb that only puts out light through one side and fits in a normal wall sconce. would almost double the efficiency of these fixtures. But despite being more efficient, it would never pass certification, so who would want to make it?
How about requiring that it meets whatever number the manufacturer advertises, instead of forcing a number on them?
If I have a pot light in my ceiling, I probably need less than 100 degrees, however if I have a table lamp I need as high as I can get. It's all about application, and as long as the bulbs are marketed accordingly, there's no problem with it.
Test to the stated rating, don't force me to use lights that waste energy in directions they aren't needed.
There is no such thing as a dimmable LED or CFL bulb, don't believe what the manufacturers tell you, they don't exist.
I have tried a huge variety, and none of them dim down as well as old fashioned incandescent bulbs. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it happening. So far the best I have found has been the philips 12.5w 2700K dimmables, they will dim down to about 20-30% visible brightness before cutoff, many others won't go below about 50-80%. They also put out a nice colour of light. I will probably buy more of them, not because they're great, but because they're the best I've found so far.
They don't care about orientation, but the point was heat, and when talking about bulbs mounted upside down, you're usually talking about enclosures like pot lights or such where heat that rises can't escape. CFLs and LEDs don't generate nearly as much heat as incandescents, but they're a lot more sensitive to what heat there is.
If only my company would figure out that this is a joke! They frequently send us emails to notify us that the network is down and not to call support because they are aware of it... Great idea guys, but if I could get to my email I wouldn't be calling support!
I see various posts on here talking about how nobody used those features, or how this is normal EOL, or even berating Nintendo for doing this. But this is not an issue specific to the Wii, Nintendo, or even to consoles in general. This is the future of cloud based computing combined with locked down devices.
As long as we allow the manufacturers of devices (whether it be a gaming console, a tablet, a phone, or even a desktop PC) to control what software we run and what services we connect to, we do not own the device. The manufacturer does, and they can (and have repeatedly proven they will) remove features at their whim.
Unfortunately people haven't learned from the many, many examples in the past, and they keep lining up to thrown money at companies who are actively hostile toward their user base. Until that stops, nothing will change.
If you want ANY feature on a device, you better be sure that you have enough control of the device, and of the service supporting it, that the manufacturer can't remove it, because if they can, they will. It's only a question of when.
I have one of those from about 60 or 70 years ago... a Birks "Eternamatic" I really like it, unfortunately it's taken to not telling time too accurately any more (gains about 20mins to an hour and a half a day) so I've stopped wearing it.
That has never stopped them before. Apple is very good at taking existing products, removing features and usability, putting their own spin on them, doubling the price, and selling millions of them to people who think that Apple makes the only one and refuse evidence to the contrary.
Before the iPod there were cheaper, and more functional music players. Before the iPhone there were cheaper, and more functional cell phones.
I predict this will be the same. There will be all sorts of smart watches on the market first, and that will do more than the Apple version, but Apple will still come in and sell millions of their version to their blind followers.
Either that, or people will just not buy in to the smart watch thing at all... I'm still sort of split on this one, I think I'm waiting for a "killer app" for it.
If they find something before visiting me, they don't need to use my computer to share it with me, and if they are looking it up on my computer to share with me, it's easier if I'm sitting there to watch it instead of them sharing it, them logging off, me logging on, and retrieving it. I'm sorry, there's just no way to make it easier to share something with me from my own computer, in my house, then for me to sit down beside you and look at it with you. Plus, if you're a guest in my house, why would you be using my computer unattended? what am I doing at that point? what kind of a host am I if I'm not paying attention to my guests?
And if your phone can't have printer drivers, can't view flash, and can't run a browser with a desktop user agent string... you need a better phone. (I can do all 3 from mine)
And you know what? those kids who carry only a smartphone, they often don't have any use for anything more. hard for us old guys to understand, but they can do everything from that phone, and don't use a "real computer" for anything.
Then please explain how you recommend that someone obtain the money to buy a laptop, especially someone not yet old enough to work. Also explain how someone should carry the laptop everywhere, especially since December 2012 when companies stopped making the 10" laptops that were designed for this use case.
Very few kids do not have computing devices these days. In fact the "tween" market is huge as these people tend to have more disposable income than older people.
I thought online social networks and their ubiquitous "share" widgets made that easy: a link to "something" would appear in your e-mail, your Facebook account, or whatever, and it would be shown to you that way.
If you want to show me something, and you are in my house, it's far easier to show it to me then to log in to a social media provider on my computer, share it with me, get off my computer, let me log in, and go see it.
How would you react to "Would you put LibreOffice on there for me? I have a Word document to print."
If my computer is at all useful, it already has an office suite on it. they can use the existing one.
I haven't flown in years. Doesn't the self-serve kiosk charge a convenience fee?
Not any of the ones I've used in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, or France (Can't speak for other countries). You walk up, scan your passport or driver's license, and it pulls up your pre-booked flight info, you click on your name, the number of bags you want to check, and it prints your boarding pass. It is far easier than navigating the disaster that is what most corporations think their websites should look like.
I suppose you could reply that by virtue of his asking to use your computer that he has proven he DOES have a use for his own device, and therefore should have one...
Of course that may be not the "friendliest" answer...
I personally think that if you can't trust your friends as much as you would trust your wife, kids, or roommate on the network, then you need new friends.
Personally It's never been an issue. My friends generally do bring their own devices. and while they do share the same network as I do, I figure that if my devices can't handle hostile traffic on the network, they obviously weren't set up properly to start with. The rare time that they have asked to use my computer for something, I'm sitting right beside them anyway, because it would never be something more complicated than simply grab some page and print it, or showing me something which is hard to do if I'm not present. I'd probably be able to stop them before they got as far as installing software on my system. (not that any of them are likely to figure out how to install anything on my computer as it doesn't run windows, and they all do).
As for the boarding pass example... that's what the self serve kiosk at the airport is for. It's a whole lot faster and easier than navigating the airline website anyway.
Actually it isn't. the cost of fuel is mostly linear by weight, except that the plane also weighs something, as does the crew, and those costs should fairly be evenly divided among the seats on the plane. Additionally the salaries of the flight crew, the ground crew, the booking agents. Not to mention ramp fees, ATC fees, office rent, hanger space, in flight meals, etc.
I actually think charge by weight is a good thing, and that done properly it should withstand a discrimination suit. However to do it properly they'd have to look closer at what percentage to the ticket price is actually weight related, and adjust only that portion. The tickets should be ticket_price = fixed_price + (weight x variable_cost) Ignoring the fixed costs would likely open them up to a discrimination lawsuit (of course in the country they are operating in that seems less of a risk than in some other parts of the world...)
Insurance companies definitely "discriminate" in this way, they charge more for people with previous medical conditions, they charge more for smokers. Car insurance companies charge males more, and young people more. It's all acceptable because they can prove that those demographics are a higher risk. Same should be true here. The harder part would be to figure out how much extra they can charge. They probably wouldn't get away with charging a 200lb person double what they charge a 100lb person because it's obvious that despite the increased fuel costs it won't work out to double the cost to the airline. However they probably could charge them a percentage more that works out to the price difference in fuel.
Honestly, this is much more fair then what insurance companies routinely do to drivers. A heavier person ALWAYS uses more fuel to transport than a lighter person, whereas any specific young male only sometimes is less safe on the road then any specific older female.
Unfortunately many common DNS packages do not include rate limiting options. I wouldn't blame this on the admins running those machines as much as on the package maintainers who don't seem to think that's an important feature.
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The question becomes, how much data will it be able to gather on the water? and does it know what to do with it? Will it know how deep the water is? does it know that 1" of water is fine up to a certain speed? does it know that it can ford 1' carefully, but that 2' is too much? does it know how fast the water is moving? and does it know that the same 1' moving with enough force is now too much to ford, but that 3" of water at that speed is safe?
I'm not saying humans always get this right either, I'm just pointing out that it's not as black and white as it initially seems. I'm honestly not worried about self driving cars making decisions in black and white situations, I'm worried about the grey, and unfortunately, driving has a LOT of grey.
I'm curious. have they ever driven in a blizzard? or at night in the rain where the lane markings have been re-done? There are many situations I can think of that are incredibly difficult for a human driver, and probably even harder to program in to a computer. Those are the situations I'm more concerned about. Jaywalking is an easy enough situation to handle, not person approaching, brake or swerve. I'm more worried about vague situations that require more interpretive work to determine exactly where you should be driving in the first place.
On a highway there are no traffic lights or stop signs, and there are nicely marked lanes and shoulders. Just stay between the lines at a constant speed and hit the brakes if something appears in front.
And what do you do when the lane markings are completely obscured by snow and ice and you can't tell the roadway from the shoulder or the shoulder from the ditch? I can (and frequently do) drive on that, can the automated car? what does it do when there's snow that looks like a white line at an angle across the lane? when a porcupine walks across the road, does it know when it's appropriate to swerve, and when it's better to run over it? would it make the same decision if it was a child rather than a porcupine?
I think self driving cars are the future. But I'm not convinced that the current level of technology is capable of dealing with enough of these relatively common situations. In time, sure, but I can't say how much time...
I highly doubt "other things being equal". Of the reported collisions, the vast majority are low speed minor collisions with no injuries and minor damage. parking lots have among the most collisions of anywhere in any city. Self driving cars can likely all but eliminate those sorts of issues, places where people get in trouble for not knowing the size of their car or paying enough attention to what's going on around them.
Unfortunately, if the self driving car still has collisions, but they tend to be high speed mistakes (say it can't tell black ice from dry pavement, or mistakes a snow drift for a lane marking, or that sort of thing) it could easily have half the collisions, with twice the death toll. Not acceptable.
Of course the biggest problem now is the lack of any information on how driverless cars handle various situations. Without that information it is impossible to make a proper argument either for, or against, the technology.
Eventually I'm sure we'll have driverless cars. but as little as I trust the average driver, I simply don't trust any current computer system to be able to handle all possible situations as well as an average driver can.
The problem is that a computer only reacts to things it has been programmed to deal with, humans can be creative. So while that may make the vehicle better MOST of the time, it doesn't make it better ALL of the time. There are undoubtedly situations that the programmers didn't think of. Additionally, I have yet to see any reports whatsoever about how well a driverless car handles inclement weather. I can drive in situations where I can't see the road surface at all, or worse yet, where the visible road lines are the ones that have already been removed and the new lines are invisible due to the glare of lights on wet road. I can interpolate where the road SHOULD be, and drive accordingly. How are driverless cars at doing that? Unfortunately where I live, a significant portion of the year falls in to those two categories. It is stressful driving for a human, but is it even possible for an automated system?
To drive perfectly, a car would need a technology that we simply haven't invented yet. True AI.
Of course I think there may be an even worse situation in our future. I honestly believe self driving cars will become standard in the future. I also know that almost no law is ever repealed. So I forsee a future where the cars drive themselves without human interaction, but where it is still illegal to talk on a cell phone, eat, drink, or read a book while the car does the driving.
Li-ion batteries suck. But they suck ever so slightly less than NiMh batteries, which suck ever so slightly less than NiCd batteries... which makes Li-ion the best of the common technologies available right now.
Battery technology has been improving constantly. That said, it is nowhere near what people want it to be for our increasingly battery dependant lifestyles.
You mean the "limited time" part? or the part about encouraging innovation?
Hate to say it... that part is long gone.
The only part you guys still seem to have is the bit allowing everyone to run around shooting each other... Not exactly the thing that makes tourists want to visit...
Unfortunately I get to stare at a whiteout blizzard instead... Too bad, last year had a wonderful night watching the northern lights with my wife from our hot tub (best way to do so!)
many of the new bulbs you would notice if one LED failed, because they don't have many to start with. modern LED bulbs tend to use very few, high power LEDs and a diffuser cover.
That said, I've been relatively happy with my current LED bulbs, Philips 800 lumen dimmable 12.5W 2700k. good light colour, and they've lasted so far for a couple of years in enclosed fixtures on a dimmer (though the "dimmable" part is a bit of a fiction, they're still the best dimmable, non-incandescent bulb I've found)
I have tried, repeatedly to find decent LED fixtures for my house. I have wall sconces and ceiling lights I would be happy to replace with LED fixtures. Unfortunately I just can't find any that fit my decor. The only ones available at my local big box renovation stores are LED versions of pot lights, beyond that there are VERY few available anywhere in the world, and none that I have found that aren't extremely ugly.
Lighting a wall sconce or ceiling light with a bulb providing a 360 degree radiation pattern is a huge waste. but until I can find another option, I'm stuck with it.
Pray tell, which bulb type is designed for wall sconce applications where light is only needed coming out one side of the bulb?
There isn't a standard for this, so they all use "A" bulbs. this means that we waste a lot of energy lighting up places that don't need light. But manufacturers can't fill that niche with even more efficient bulbs, because the certification says the light needs to be wasted?
The current bulb types are built around what an incandescent bulb could do. technology has improved, the standards haven't. We need to work around this. As long as the manufacturer is up front about the light emission pattern of the bulb, we should test to the manufacturer's claims, not an arbitrary number.
My wall sconces all take "A Lamps" they also only need to put out light through half their surface. Unfortunately things like this force me to use bulbs that waste energy by directing light in useless directions.
I'd love to find an LED bulb that only puts out light through one side and fits in a normal wall sconce. would almost double the efficiency of these fixtures. But despite being more efficient, it would never pass certification, so who would want to make it?
How about requiring that it meets whatever number the manufacturer advertises, instead of forcing a number on them?
If I have a pot light in my ceiling, I probably need less than 100 degrees, however if I have a table lamp I need as high as I can get. It's all about application, and as long as the bulbs are marketed accordingly, there's no problem with it.
Test to the stated rating, don't force me to use lights that waste energy in directions they aren't needed.
There is no such thing as a dimmable LED or CFL bulb, don't believe what the manufacturers tell you, they don't exist.
I have tried a huge variety, and none of them dim down as well as old fashioned incandescent bulbs. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it happening. So far the best I have found has been the philips 12.5w 2700K dimmables, they will dim down to about 20-30% visible brightness before cutoff, many others won't go below about 50-80%. They also put out a nice colour of light. I will probably buy more of them, not because they're great, but because they're the best I've found so far.
They don't care about orientation, but the point was heat, and when talking about bulbs mounted upside down, you're usually talking about enclosures like pot lights or such where heat that rises can't escape. CFLs and LEDs don't generate nearly as much heat as incandescents, but they're a lot more sensitive to what heat there is.
If only my company would figure out that this is a joke! They frequently send us emails to notify us that the network is down and not to call support because they are aware of it... Great idea guys, but if I could get to my email I wouldn't be calling support!
I see various posts on here talking about how nobody used those features, or how this is normal EOL, or even berating Nintendo for doing this. But this is not an issue specific to the Wii, Nintendo, or even to consoles in general. This is the future of cloud based computing combined with locked down devices.
As long as we allow the manufacturers of devices (whether it be a gaming console, a tablet, a phone, or even a desktop PC) to control what software we run and what services we connect to, we do not own the device. The manufacturer does, and they can (and have repeatedly proven they will) remove features at their whim.
Unfortunately people haven't learned from the many, many examples in the past, and they keep lining up to thrown money at companies who are actively hostile toward their user base. Until that stops, nothing will change.
If you want ANY feature on a device, you better be sure that you have enough control of the device, and of the service supporting it, that the manufacturer can't remove it, because if they can, they will. It's only a question of when.
I have one of those from about 60 or 70 years ago... a Birks "Eternamatic" I really like it, unfortunately it's taken to not telling time too accurately any more (gains about 20mins to an hour and a half a day) so I've stopped wearing it.
That has never stopped them before. Apple is very good at taking existing products, removing features and usability, putting their own spin on them, doubling the price, and selling millions of them to people who think that Apple makes the only one and refuse evidence to the contrary.
Before the iPod there were cheaper, and more functional music players.
Before the iPhone there were cheaper, and more functional cell phones.
I predict this will be the same. There will be all sorts of smart watches on the market first, and that will do more than the Apple version, but Apple will still come in and sell millions of their version to their blind followers.
Either that, or people will just not buy in to the smart watch thing at all... I'm still sort of split on this one, I think I'm waiting for a "killer app" for it.
If they find something before visiting me, they don't need to use my computer to share it with me, and if they are looking it up on my computer to share with me, it's easier if I'm sitting there to watch it instead of them sharing it, them logging off, me logging on, and retrieving it. I'm sorry, there's just no way to make it easier to share something with me from my own computer, in my house, then for me to sit down beside you and look at it with you. Plus, if you're a guest in my house, why would you be using my computer unattended? what am I doing at that point? what kind of a host am I if I'm not paying attention to my guests?
And if your phone can't have printer drivers, can't view flash, and can't run a browser with a desktop user agent string... you need a better phone. (I can do all 3 from mine)
And you know what? those kids who carry only a smartphone, they often don't have any use for anything more. hard for us old guys to understand, but they can do everything from that phone, and don't use a "real computer" for anything.
Then please explain how you recommend that someone obtain the money to buy a laptop, especially someone not yet old enough to work. Also explain how someone should carry the laptop everywhere, especially since December 2012 when companies stopped making the 10" laptops that were designed for this use case.
Very few kids do not have computing devices these days. In fact the "tween" market is huge as these people tend to have more disposable income than older people.
I thought online social networks and their ubiquitous "share" widgets made that easy: a link to "something" would appear in your e-mail, your Facebook account, or whatever, and it would be shown to you that way.
If you want to show me something, and you are in my house, it's far easier to show it to me then to log in to a social media provider on my computer, share it with me, get off my computer, let me log in, and go see it.
How would you react to "Would you put LibreOffice on there for me? I have a Word document to print."
If my computer is at all useful, it already has an office suite on it. they can use the existing one.
I haven't flown in years. Doesn't the self-serve kiosk charge a convenience fee?
Not any of the ones I've used in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, or France (Can't speak for other countries). You walk up, scan your passport or driver's license, and it pulls up your pre-booked flight info, you click on your name, the number of bags you want to check, and it prints your boarding pass. It is far easier than navigating the disaster that is what most corporations think their websites should look like.
I suppose you could reply that by virtue of his asking to use your computer that he has proven he DOES have a use for his own device, and therefore should have one...
Of course that may be not the "friendliest" answer...
I personally think that if you can't trust your friends as much as you would trust your wife, kids, or roommate on the network, then you need new friends.
Personally It's never been an issue. My friends generally do bring their own devices. and while they do share the same network as I do, I figure that if my devices can't handle hostile traffic on the network, they obviously weren't set up properly to start with. The rare time that they have asked to use my computer for something, I'm sitting right beside them anyway, because it would never be something more complicated than simply grab some page and print it, or showing me something which is hard to do if I'm not present. I'd probably be able to stop them before they got as far as installing software on my system. (not that any of them are likely to figure out how to install anything on my computer as it doesn't run windows, and they all do).
As for the boarding pass example... that's what the self serve kiosk at the airport is for. It's a whole lot faster and easier than navigating the airline website anyway.
Actually it isn't. the cost of fuel is mostly linear by weight, except that the plane also weighs something, as does the crew, and those costs should fairly be evenly divided among the seats on the plane. Additionally the salaries of the flight crew, the ground crew, the booking agents. Not to mention ramp fees, ATC fees, office rent, hanger space, in flight meals, etc.
I actually think charge by weight is a good thing, and that done properly it should withstand a discrimination suit. However to do it properly they'd have to look closer at what percentage to the ticket price is actually weight related, and adjust only that portion. The tickets should be ticket_price = fixed_price + (weight x variable_cost) Ignoring the fixed costs would likely open them up to a discrimination lawsuit (of course in the country they are operating in that seems less of a risk than in some other parts of the world...)
Insurance companies definitely "discriminate" in this way, they charge more for people with previous medical conditions, they charge more for smokers. Car insurance companies charge males more, and young people more. It's all acceptable because they can prove that those demographics are a higher risk. Same should be true here. The harder part would be to figure out how much extra they can charge. They probably wouldn't get away with charging a 200lb person double what they charge a 100lb person because it's obvious that despite the increased fuel costs it won't work out to double the cost to the airline. However they probably could charge them a percentage more that works out to the price difference in fuel.
Honestly, this is much more fair then what insurance companies routinely do to drivers. A heavier person ALWAYS uses more fuel to transport than a lighter person, whereas any specific young male only sometimes is less safe on the road then any specific older female.
Unfortunately many common DNS packages do not include rate limiting options. I wouldn't blame this on the admins running those machines as much as on the package maintainers who don't seem to think that's an important feature.