Minor things that bother you

[mgk920]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

[1995hoo]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36 to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

38, not 37. Three-quarters of the states have to ratify a proposed amendment, which is 37.5 with 50 states, so you have to round up to 38 because if 37 states ratified, you wouldn't have reached the 75% threshold.

[mgk920]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36 to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

38, not 37. Three-quarters of the states have to ratify a proposed amendment, which is 37.5 with 50 states, so you have to round up to 38 because if 37 states ratified, you wouldn't have reached the 75% threshold.

In 1933, there were 48 states in the USA.  Thus 36 were needed to ratify a Constitution Amendment.

Mike

[hotdogPi]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36 to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

38, not 37. Three-quarters of the states have to ratify a proposed amendment, which is 37.5 with 50 states, so you have to round up to 38 because if 37 states ratified, you wouldn't have reached the 75% threshold.

In 1933, there were 48 states in the USA.  Thus 36 were needed to ratify a Constitution Amendment.

Mike

1995hoo was talking about your claim of 37 for the present day. That should be 38. 36 for 1933 is accurate but not what he was correcting you for.

[1995hoo]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36 to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

38, not 37. Three-quarters of the states have to ratify a proposed amendment, which is 37.5 with 50 states, so you have to round up to 38 because if 37 states ratified, you wouldn't have reached the 75% threshold.

In 1933, there were 48 states in the USA.  Thus 36 were needed to ratify a Constitution Amendment.

Mike

1995hoo was talking about your claim of 37 for the present day. That should be 38. 36 for 1933 is accurate but not what he was correcting you for.

Thank you. You are, of course, correct on both fronts. I thought my use of boldface to highlight the salient part of mgk920's comment was sufficient to make it clear what I was saying, but I guess not.

[mgk920]

An mot comment was regarding why the day that repeal was ratified is not a bar holiday....



Mike

[kkt]

Pi Day should be on April 31st in any part of the globe that writes the day before the month. (31/4)

Why not tomorrow? 22/7 = 3.14. (It's wrong for all of the places after that, though.)

It actually is celebrated on 22/7 in Europe. It's not just your idea.

Well then I wish everyone in Europe a Happy Pi Day! (60th Post)

[tchafe1978]

Why isn't December 5th a major annual bar holiday, specially here in Wisconsin?  On 1933-12-05, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the USA's Constitution, repealing Prohibition (Amendment 18).  Nowadays, you need the assent of 37 states to ratify a Constitution Amendment, but there were only 48 states in 1933, not 50.

Mike

Wisconsinites hardly need another reason to celebrate with alcohol, and I say this as someone who loves a good beer.

[LilianaUwU]

Referring to household pets as "furbabies". I mean, I don't call kids "skin dogs".

[zachary_amaryllis]

Referring to household pets as "furbabies". I mean, I don't call kids "skin dogs".

When I was kid, I was a 'yard ape', right after being a 'rug rat'. Apparently there's stages.

[1995hoo]

People on a plane who recline the seat but then sit leaning way the heck forward, almost like they're taking a dump with the newspaper spread on the floor. (Like, say, the guy in front of me right now.) Don't recline the seat if you're not going to lean back in the seat.

[Scott5114]

They should put a second recline handle on the back of an airplane seat, so the passenger behind the seat can force the seat forward if they're leaning back too far.

[formulanone]

People on a plane who recline the seat but then sit leaning way the heck forward, almost like they're taking a dump with the newspaper spread on the floor. (Like, say, the guy in front of me right now.) Don't recline the seat if you're not going to lean back in the seat.

They should put a second recline handle on the back of an airplane seat, so the passenger behind the seat can force the seat forward if they're leaning back too far.

You pay for a seat that reclines, that's how it goes. All you can reasonably do is recline yours to make up the space.

The seats in the back row of a plane usually do not recline, or it is very limited in seatback pitch. I avoid them, if at all possible.

I have also had numerous seats whereby the seat reclined back with the lightest of pressure, almost immediately after pushing it forward. There's nothing you can do about it.

If you want a seat back that doesn't recline into your space, then you have to choose one in the exit row; those seats just in front of any exit row(s) do not recline. The choice pick is the last (or only) exit row, they usually recline back and prohibit the row in front from reclining. The exit row almost always costs more money, but sometimes you can luck out on a lightly-sold flight whereby nobody wanted to pay extra...usually a flight attendant wants at least one warm body sitting there in an emergency.

[J N Winkler]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

Ideally a regulator would step in to enforce minimum seat pitch, but I have not seen any with an appetite to tell airlines how to run their business to that degree.  There are even nightmarish proposals for two-level stacked seats that would essentially make it impossible to do anything but look at a screen right in front of your nose.

[Scott5114]

And people wonder why we choose to drive...

[1995hoo]

And people wonder why we choose to drive...

Which I would love to have been able to do, except it's just too damn far to be viable for a business trip and I would never be able to get reimbursed for the mileage (which would easily be more than double the airfare).

[formulanone]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably  recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

[hbelkins]

When I was kid, I was a 'yard ape', right after being a 'rug rat'. Apparently there's stages.

"Yard ape," at least in these parts, was always considered a racial slur. I was very surprised to hear it in general use later in my life.

[webny99]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably  recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

Certainly agreed on the second part! And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

[Scott5114]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably  recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

Certainly agreed on the second part! And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

If I was on a long flight, especially if I didn't have a window seat, I'd probably want to be getting some work done on my laptop. And if someone was reclining their seat into my face, that'd make that hard-to-impossible.

[webny99]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably  recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

Certainly agreed on the second part! And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

If I was on a long flight, especially if I didn't have a window seat, I'd probably want to be getting some work done on my laptop. And if someone was reclining their seat into my face, that'd make that hard-to-impossible.

It might depend on the airline, but on most I've been on, the seats don't recline enough to significantly interfere with anything you might want do on your tray table, including use your laptop. (It's proving a challenge to find information on how much airplane seats actually recline, but I'd be surprised if many are more than 6-8 inches at most.)

[formulanone]

The Knee Defender controversy has established that neither the person reclining a seat nor the person sitting behind him or her has an absolute right to the wedge of space through which the seatback moves when it reclines.  The airlines are essentially using ambiguity to sell it twice.

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably  recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

Certainly agreed on the second part! And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

If I was on a long flight, especially if I didn't have a window seat, I'd probably want to be getting some work done on my laptop. And if someone was reclining their seat into my face, that'd make that hard-to-impossible.

It might depend on the airline, but on most I've been on, the seats don't recline enough to significantly interfere with anything you might want do on your tray table, including use your laptop. (It's proving a challenge to find information on how much airplane seats actually recline, but I'd be surprised if many are more than 6-8 inches at most.)

Most main-cabin airline seats recline no more than 2-4 inches. It just seems like a lot more, especially in a cramped section of the plane (or a regional jet). The extra knee room promises are also all over the map...you might get a measly 2 inches of extra space with one layout and a 8-10" more in an exit row. It's more for some first/business class seats and of course, the rare opportunities for so-called "lay flat" seating. The airlines rarely give out precise information because some airlines have a lot of different configurations, and they like to shroud as many things in mystery as possible.

Spirit Airlines does not have reclining seats. Many seats on Frontier Airlines' aircraft also do not recline. Since both airlines are set to merge...make what you will of that.

Some recent aircraft interiors or interior retrofits include a seat cushion which slides forward as you recline, which is sort of a penalty for reclining, but sometimes almost unnoticeable. The tray table may also tend to shift with seatback movement, or just avoid placing your laptop where it could get pinched my a recess between the tray its seatback cavity. Sometimes your lap really is the best place for a laptop computer, because the seat pitch intrusion is reduced the lower you go.

People who use the back of your seat headrest as a grab handle when getting in and out of a seat, or walking across an aisle, is a much more annoying habit. Push back on your seat or use the armrest. There's no reason to push on the forward-facing seatback, other that extricating yourself from an accident.

[J N Winkler]

There's honestly so few of those in use it's pretty much a non-issue. Any sort of enforcement is based on the whims and temperament of the flight crew. If my seat back did not noticeably recline on a long flight, I would just ask for a new seat.

One is far more likely to be situated near folks with an outsized body mass index. Or happens to be very tall. Or traveling with too many items.

Supposedly the Knee Defender has been on the market since 2003, but I can't remember seeing one in use even before the August 2014 incident mentioned in the Wikipedia article, which I think is by far the most extensively publicized air-rage episode involving it.

Though I have great sympathy for people who don't like seatbacks reclined into their faces, I don't think the Knee Defender is or ever was a solution.  Using it is confrontational, since it means you impair the next-row passenger's use of the seat in a way that is very obvious to that passenger.  Many airlines ban it outright, so using it instantly puts you out of compliance with the conditions of carriage and gives the airline legal cover to eject you from the plane.  Disobeying a flight attendant who tells you to stop using it can also be interference with a member of flight crew, which is a federal felony with the possibility of prison time and heavy fines.

The August 2014 incident involved a man using the Knee Defender and a woman in the seat in front of him, on a Newark-Denver flight that had to make an unplanned stop in Chicago to throw both of them off.  I don't think either was ever charged.  The woman has steadfastly refused to engage with the press in any way and I'm not sure she has ever been named, but the man has given multiple interviews in which he has admitted that the situation escalated to a drink being poured on his laptop.  I'm not sure he realized it at the time, but attaching one's own name and face to such an imbroglio not only is a humiliation in its own right, but also locks in lasting reputational damage.

If I was on a long flight, especially if I didn't have a window seat, I'd probably want to be getting some work done on my laptop. And if someone was reclining their seat into my face, that'd make that hard-to-impossible.

Personally, I just read a book.  Business travelers who try to work on planes have to stay alert for orders to put the tray up, try to avoid having liquid spilled on the electronics when drinks are served, etc.  Plus you almost have to use a ultraportable to deal with today's seat pitches.

And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

How tall are you?  I think the guy in the August 2014 mess was at least a six-footer.

[webny99]

And maybe I'm strange but I don't really care if the person in front of me reclines their seat. The difference it makes to your leg room is minimal, and the upper part of the seat doesn't really matter. It's just air space and there's no reason to care about that unless you're claustrophobic.

How tall are you?  I think the guy in the August 2014 mess was at least a six-footer.

Just a hair under 6' 3". But I'm also not one to engage in a lot of activity of any sort while seated on a plane. It helps that most of my air travel to date has been personal (to visit family etc.), not for business. I vastly prefer window seats, so most of the time I'm either looking out the window if possible, or resting.

Also, I've found that the space and comfort level can vary a lot from plane to plane and airline to airline. Smaller planes have less head space in both the seat and aisle, for example, and I've found that Delta is quite a bit more spacious than United.

[US 89]

Delta's seats are also far more comfortable than United's. Last time I flew United I likened it to sitting in an old style church pew.