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Louisiana Draws the Line on ADS-B Billing

What if a technology designed to save lives quietly became a tool to collect money? Louisiana has just taken a stand—and the rest of the aviation world should be paying attention. For years, ADS-B has been promoted as one of the biggest advances in aviation safety. It allows aircraft to broadcast their precise position, altitude, speed, and direction, giving pilots and air traffic controllers far better situational awareness. It is a safety tool—not a luxury. Now, there is some encouraging news from the United States. Louisiana has officially become the third U.S. state to ban the use of ADS-B flight data for billing aircraft owners. The move follows similar legislation in North Dakota and Montana. The concern is simple: ADS-B was introduced to improve safety, but in some places the same data has started being used to generate landing or airport fees. Many pilots and aviation organizations, including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), have argued that this creates the w...
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The Changing Phases of Human Nature #1

We all know people change around us.

Someone who is a friend today may turn into an enemy tomorrow, or the other way around.

I too have seen people change. Someone who claims something today may change their stand tomorrow.

Recently, I went through a series of episodes that highlighted the changing verdicts of people. 



Episode 1

Around 4 months back, a content writer named Himala joined where I work. On the very first day, she expressed her anger that tea was not served in our department.

I said, it is the way it is, and if someone wants to have tea during office hours, then they can purchase their own.

By the end of the day, she was so angry that she wanted to talk with the HR department or with the Head of our department.

She was reasoning as to how a person survives for a full 8 hours without tea at the office. She also expressed that it is nearly impossible for her to stay in this situation and that she is a die-hard caffeine addict.

For the next 2 - 3 days she was quite dissatisfied with this situation. Quite possibly the HR department too had turned down her resentment.

Episode 2

Miss Himala happened to be on the same route that I take between office and home daily. 

In the first week of joining, she asked me if I could drop her from Chandigarh University till phase 6 Mohali. 

She reasoned that since her house is in sector 20 Chandigarh, it takes nearly 200 rupees to commute one side to the office. 

Considering her situation. I obliged, I was taking the same route and I had no issue, as of now. 

I thought the place was new to her and since it is her first month here, quite possibly she will make her own arrangements to commute in the coming weeks.

But then one month passed and our routine continued. She was quite thankful to me that she was able to save nearly 150 daily for the pickup I was giving.

However this moral gesture soon turned into an obligation or sort of compulsion as in the coming weeks, she used to push me to leave from office just because she had to go, even though I had some other plans.

On a few occasions, she complained to me that because of me she reached home late as I did not give her this ride on time. 

This was quite weird but I still continued with our routine, just letting it go, without saying anything.

Episode 3

Interestingly Miss Himala was sitting just a desk away from me at the office and there were only two of us in the beginning.

One day in the second week of her joining, she was again muttering on the desire to have tea, I said let's ask the peon to bring tea for us.

I lent out the money for the two of us and asked Sohan Ji to bring two cups of tea from the shop downstairs.

In the next few days, two more people joined our gang of tea addicts. So now we were bringing 4 cups of tea. 

We also decided that we would split the expenses and that payment would be done in rotation.

Meaning first I give money then the next day the other and so on. This means my turn to give money to bring tea will come after 4 days.

Meaning I spend 60 rupees one time and for the rest of the week I enjoy tea for free, almost sort of, haha.

Episode 4

Miss Himala decided to walk out of our tea gang a few days later.

In my personal observations, Miss Himala used to be quite annoyed the day she had to spend 60 rupees to bring tea for all.

She tried to make excuses to avoid having tea the day it was her turn to pay. When that did not turn out to be effective she said that she was not in the mood to have tea and others could have.

The first time it happened it was okay, and no one noticed, The next time too she did the same thing.

So Miss Himala who was so annoyed on the first day of her joining that tea is not being served at this place, has decided to quit tea just because she had to pay for others for the tea. 

She was not able to digest the fact that 60 rupees to have tea for 4 or 5 days was too much for her.

This was a clear change of stand from a person. This happened just within a time span of 2 months at the most.

Episode 5

I was obliged to give her a free ride for almost 15 km daily without any expectations or desire.

On the first few occasions, she thanked me by paying for my tea. Good, the favor was well accepted.

But when she decided to walk out from the tea group just because she could not spare 60 rupees a week, then I thought myself to be a fool to be giving her a free ride daily.

Even though I did not like it, I had to bluntly say to her that she should make her own arrangements now to commute to and from the office and home.

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